Linguistics is a discipline with ever expanding boundaries and interests. Despite the narrow definition of linguistics which dominates academia, sub-fields continue to flourish and ways of doing linguistics continue to expand. As ways to do linguistics increase, and as approaches to linguistics accumulate over time, it becomes increasingly necessary for students of linguistics to have ways of understanding and comparing developments in linguistics.Sociolinguistic Metatheory is a book which explains foundational developments in linguistics by taking the past three decades of developments in sociolinguistics and relating them to contemporaneous developments in received linguistics. Sociolinguistic Metatheory takes the reader through the basic philosophical questions which drive linguistic research. It looks in detail at three models of sociolinguistics - Dell Hymes and the Ethnography of Communication, William Labov and Sociolinguistic Realism, and John Gumperz and Interactional Sociolinguistics - and focuses on such questions as: Where is language located? How is an utterance-based approach to linguistics different from a sentence-based approach? How do metatheoretical paradigm assumptions such as realism or relativism affect the development of linguistic theory? What interesting developments in linguistic theory and analysis have sociolinguistics provided?

Sociolinguistic Styles presents a new and in-depth, historically rooted overview of the phenomenon of style-shifting in sociolinguistic variation. Written by an internationally acclaimed expert in the field, the text explores why, where and when it occurs. Full examination of the complex phenomenon of style-shifting in sociolinguistics, focusing on its nature and social motivations, as well as on the mechanisms for its usage and its effects In-depth, up-to-date critical overview of the different theoretical approaches accounting for stylistic variation, exploring their historical roots not only in sociolinguistics and stylistics or semiotics but also in classical fields such as rhetoric and oratory Coverage of a wide range of related concepts and issues, from the oldest Greek ethos and pathos or Roman elocutio and pronuntiatio to the contemporary enregisterment, stylisation, stance, or crossing Written by an academic who has been instrumental in developing theory in this area of sociolinguistics

This is the first volume to focus on the role of media in processes of linguistic change, one of the most contested issues in contemporary sociolinguistics. Its 17 chapters and five section commentaries present cutting-edge research from variationist and interactional sociolinguistics, media linguistics, language ideology research, and minority language studies. The volume advances our understanding of linguistic change in a mediatized world in three ways. First, it introduces the notions of sociolinguistic change and mediatization to create a broader theoretical framing than the one offered by ‘the media’ and ‘language change’. Second, it takes the discussion beyond the notions of ‘influence’ and ‘effect’ and the binary distinction of ‘media’ vs. ‘community language’. Third, it examines the relation of sociolinguistic change and mediatization and from five complementary viewpoints: media influence on linguistic structure; media engagement in interaction; change in mass and new media language; language-ideological change; and the role of media for minority languages. Bringing these strands of sociolinguistic scholarship together, this volume examines their shared references and common lines of thinking.

Sociolinguistics is a dynamic field of research that explains the role and function of language in social life. This book offers the most substantial account available of the core contemporary ideas and arguments in sociolinguistics, with an emphasis on innovation and change. Bringing together original writing by more than twenty of the field's most influential international thinkers and researchers, this is an indispensable guide to the newest and most searching ideas about language in society. For researchers and advanced students it gives access to the field's most pressing issues and debates, as well as providing a platform for new initiatives in sociolinguistic research.

This sociolinguistic study offers a new theoretical framework for understanding the diffusion of language change within a community. Advanced statistical analysis methods are used in rigorously testing the supposed norm-enforcement effect of social networks. Revisions to the social network model are proposed, allowing the effects of various social factors operating simultaneously on the individual to be considered in evaluating the process of resistance to language change.

Historical Sociolinguistics: Language Change in Tudor and Stuart England is the seminal text in the field of historical sociolinguistics. Demonstrating the real-world application of sociolinguistic research methodologies, this book examines the social factors which promoted linguistic changes in English, laying the foundation for Modern Standard English. This revised edition of Nevalainen and Raumolin-Brunberg’s ground-breaking work: discusses the grammatical developments that shaped English in the early modern period; presents the sociolinguistic factors affecting linguistic change in Tudor and Stuart English, including gender, social status, and regional variation; showcases the authors’ research into personal letters from the people who were the driving force behind these changes; and demonstrates how historical linguists can make use of social and demographic history to analyse linguistic variation over an extended period of time. With brand new chapters on language change and the individual, and on newly developed sociolinguistic research methods, Historical Sociolinguistics is essential reading for all students and researchers in this area.

The empirical and descriptive strengths of sociolinguistics, developed over more than 40 years of research, have not been matched by an active engagement with theory. Yet, over this time, social theorising has taken important new turns, linked in many ways to linguistic and discursive concerns. Sociolinguistics and Social Theory is the first book to explore the interface between sociolinguistic analysis and modern social theory. The book sets out to reunite sociolinguistics with the concepts and perspectives of several of the most influential modern theorists of society and social action, including Bakhtin, Foucault, Habermas, Sacks, Goffman, Bourdieu and Giddens. In eleven newly commissioned chapters, leading sociolinguists reappraise the theoretical framing of their research, reaching out beyond conventional limits. The authors propose significant new orientations to key sociolinguistic themes, including- - social motivations for language variation and change - language, power and authority - language and ageing - language, race and class - language planning In substantial introductory and concluding chapters, the editors and invited discussants reassess the boundaries of sociolinguistic theory and the priorities of sociolinguistic methods. Sociolinguistics and Social Theory encourages students and researchers of sociolinguistics to be more reflexively aware and critical of the social bases of their analyses and invites a reasessment of the place sociolinguistics occupies in the social sciences generally.