This collection of twelve essays, some of which have been written specifically for this volume by well-known European and North-American sociolinguists, reflects an increasing recognition within the field that sociological and theoretical innocence can no longer be underwritten by it, and offers a multi-pronged and multi-methodological way to move towards a critical, reflexive, and theoretically responsible socio-linguistics. It explores, with courage and sensitivity, some very important areas in the enormous space between Bloomfieldian 'idiolect' and Chomskyan 'UG' in order to situate the human linguistic enterprise, and offers valuable insights into human linguisticality and sociality. These explorations expose the limits of correlationism, determinism, and positivistic reificationism, and offer new ways of doing sociolinguistics.Intended for both practicing and future sociolinguists, it is an ideal text-book for the times, particularly for graduate and advanced undergraduate students.
This collection of twelve essays, some of which have been written specifically for this volume by well-known European and North-American sociolinguists, reflects an increasing recognition within the field that sociological and theoretical ...
'Sociolinguistics and the Legal Process' is an introduction to language, law and society for advanced undergraduate and postgraudate students. Drawing on a wide range of topics, it explores what sociolinguistic research can tell us about how language works and doesn't work in the legal process.
'Sociolinguistics and the Legal Process' is an introduction to language, law and society for advanced undergraduate and postgraudate students.
This is a definitive introductory text to modern sociolinguistics that looks at the study of language and society through the concept of identity. It uses these sociolinguistic constructs of identity to tie together current concepts and methods in the field, offering a full overview of the discipline, both past and present. Deckert and Vickers adopt an interdisciplinary approach, introducing work from a variety of fields that examine sociolinguistic data, from linguistics to anthropology, sociology, psychology and education. The book moves from looking at language varieties and globalization to a close examination of language in social interaction, covering the concepts of ideology and power. Throughout, the authors offer keen insight into all of the topics, issues and methods that students of language and society will need to understand. The chapters contain a range of pedagogical features, including key terms, study questions, chapter summaries and further reading. This is an essential new text for all those studying contemporary sociolinguistics, suitable for undergraduates and postgraduates alike.
This is a definitive introductory text to modern sociolinguistics that looks at the study of language and society through the concept of identity.
This book aims to appraise sociolinguistic work devoted to the form and function of storytelling and to examine in detail the ways in which narrative constitutes a fundamental discursive resource across a range of contexts. The chapters presented here bring together some of the most recent work in the theory and practice of narrative analysis from a broad sociolinguistic perspective. They address some of the questions left implicit whenever stories are brought within the analytic frame of sociolinguistics: What exactly do we mean by 'story'?; what kind of social and contextual variations can determine the production and shape of situated stories, and what are the core elements of narrative as a discursive unit and interactional resource?; how is the relationship between narrative discourse and social context articulated in the construction of cultural identities? The data come both from institutional settings such as workplaces, courtrooms, schools, and the media, as well as from informal everyday settings.
This book aims to appraise sociolinguistic work devoted to the form and function of storytelling and to examine in detail the ways in which narrative constitutes a fundamental discursive resource across a range of contexts.
A Framework for Cognitive Sociolinguistics attempts to lay out the epistemological system for a cognitive sociolinguistics—the first book to do so in the English language. The intention of this volume is not to provide a simple catalog of sociolinguistic principles or of theoretical postulates of a cognitive nature, but rather it aims to build a verifiable metatheoretical basis for cognitive sociolinguistics. This book is articulated through a series of propositions, accompanied by annotations and commentaries that develop, qualify and exemplify these propositions. As for the research questions that would be central to a cognitive sociolinguistic endeavor, the following incomplete catalog could be enumerated: What do speakers know about their language? What do they know about communicative interaction? What do speakers know about sociolinguistic variation? Where does that knowledge reside and how is it configured? How does social reality influence the origin and processing of language? How does language use affect the configuration, evolution and variation of language? What do speakers know about their socio-communicative context? How do speakers perceive sociolinguistic reality? What are speakers’ attitudes and beliefs regarding linguistic variation? How does sociolinguistic perception influence speakers’ communicative behavior at all levels? How does language contribute to the construction of identity? Offering a fresh perspective on the frequently taught and studied topic of cognitive linguistics, A Framework for Cognitive Sociolinguistics can easily be incorporated into existing courses in the areas of both cognitive and sociocultural linguistics.
The intention of this volume is not to provide a simple catalog of sociolinguistic principles or of theoretical postulates of a cognitive nature, but rather it aims to build a verifiable metatheoretical basis for cognitive sociolinguistics.
This text presents a collection of papers by Takesi Sibata, one of the leading linguists in Japan. The book provides an introduction to Japanese sociolinguistics, and shows how it has developed largely independently from the Western tradition.
The series invites the attention of linguists, language teachers of all interests, sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, historians etc. to the development of the sociology of language.
This book deploys and develops the notion of voice in an investigation of China’s rapidly reshuffling society. The book is structured around two aspects of the voicing process in contemporary China: (1) stratification of voice, which addresses the stabilizing condition of voice; and (2) restratification of voice that draws attention to the dynamics of the system of which the order is reshuffling and not yet apparent. This structure allows us to unveil the hidden forces played out in the voice making process and to stratifying and re-stratifying process of contemporary Chinese society in which some people are making themselves heard whereas others are losing voice. Despite its importance and usefulness, voice has been under theorized in recent decades. The ambitions of this book therefore are to invest serious efforts in developing the notion and to position it in the center of the theoretical toolkits available to students and scholars within and outside sociolinguistics.
This book deploys and develops the notion of voice in an investigation of China’s rapidly reshuffling society.
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.
This sociolinguistic study offers a new theoretical framework for understanding the diffusion of language change within a community.
