Sociolinguistics Books

"Code-switching," or the alternation of languages by bilinguals, has attracted an enormous amount of attention from researchers. However, most research has focused on spoken language, and the resultant theoretical frameworks have been based on spoken...

This book uniquely explores the shifting structures of power and unexpected points of intersection - entanglements - at the nexus of North and South as a lens through which to examine the impact of global and local circuits of people, practices and ideas...

With unique and powerful data from within a big city prison, this book clarifies the role that conversational analysis can have within a Critical Discourse Analysis perspective. In a detailed linguistic analysis of the language use of prison officers and...

Sociolinguists and lawyers will find insight and relevance in this account of the language of the courtroom, as exemplified in the criminal trial of O.J. Simpson. The trial is examined as the site of linguistic power and persuasion, focusing on the role...

This collection offers a distinctly Asian voice for English language education and addresses some of the unique needs of Asian learners in EFL contexts. Teachers and researchers from nine Asian countries present some of the most current and innovative...

Language and Politics in Post-Soviet Russia critically examines the uses of language in post-Soviet media and political texts. Drawing on theories from a range of fields, including critical discourse studies, metaphor analysis, media studies, as well as...

This book explores both theoretical and practical issues of language use in a migration context, using a mixed-method approach. The unique interview data on which the analysis is based (and therefore the lens through which these issues are viewed) stem...

A collection of studies offering an up-to-date analysis of official policies to promote Catalan in a democratic framework in each of the main Spanish regions where it is spoken: Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic Islands.

In Praise of Spoken Soul: The Story of Black English"Spoken Soul brilliantly fills a huge gap. . . . a delightfully readable introduction to the elegant interweave between the language and its culture." -Ralph W. Fasold, Georgetown...

This book explores the ways in which professional groups develop specific interactional procedures for conducting and representing their activities, all of which contribute to a distinctive collaborative identity. It highlights the drawbacks as well as...

The authors address one of the most significant aspects of social life in our times: that of cultural identities and identifications, and of the ways we construct them through our speech and the narrative of ourselves and others. They combine a...

Multilingual Livingpresents speakers' own accounts of the challenges and advantages of living in several languages at individual, family and societal levels. Individuals note profound differences in their sense of themselves, their relationships and...

Identity Trouble assembles contributions from a variety of discourse fields to discuss the pressures on traditional understandings of identity. The focus is on failures and uncertainties in people's construction of their identities when faced change and...

This book addresses the perennial question of how to promote Africa's indigenous languages as medium of instruction in educational systems. Breaking with the traditional approach to the continent's language question by focusing on the often overlooked...

This edited collection presents cutting edge research on the process of identity construction in professional and institutional contexts, from corporate workplaces, to courtrooms, classrooms, and academia. The chapters consider how interactants do...

Leading scholars in the field examine the role played by the English language in contemporary Japanese society. Their various chapters cover the nature, status, and function of English in Japan, focusing on the ways in which globalization is influencing...

This is the first edited collection to examine politeness in a wide range of diverse cultures. Most essays draw on empirical data from a wide variety of languages, including some key-languages in politeness research, such as English, and Japanese, as...

Gender is a hotly debated topic in the field of education. The role that language plays in educational contexts especially in the classroom has long been acknowledged. Innovatively combining approaches in the analysis of classroom discourse,this book...

In a context of globalization, developing approaches to writing that take account of the differences between local and global contexts, between centre and periphery, between us and them is a real and pressing challenge. A critical cosmopolitan approach...

Linguists usually discuss language or dialects in terms of groups of speakers. Believing that patterns can be seen more clearly in the group than the individual, researchers often present group scores with no indication of the variation within the group...

The first book to highlight the most pressing sociology-of-language themes of our times. All of which have to do with the twin issues of power and identity. Important evidence and illustrations bearing upon these matters are provided and supplemented by...

Women, Men and Everyday Talk brings together a selection of some of the author's key papers on language and gender, and provides an overview of the development of language and gender studies over the last 30 years, with particular emphasis on...

Trust is foundational to people's lives in contemporary societies, a fact sharply highlighted by recent practices associated with the financial markets, international security, science and technology, marketing and public relations, and even more...

This edited book is the first collection of research-based papers on cultures of learning, a concept which has been developed by the editors over 20 years. It assembles research with a considerable international range with a team of experts (working in...

The founding father of 'social capital', Pierre Bourdieu, said that treating the church as an economic enterprise would lead to uproar, disbelief and the laughter of the bishops. Yet, in the last couple of decades, policymakers and social scientists have...

This book explores the Linguistic Landscapes of ten French and Italian Mediterranean coastal cities, analysing the ways in which the public space is managed by different individuals and groups for a range of purposes. Engaging with scholarship on border...

An unprecedented glimpse into the multidimensional learning processes that take place when novice professionals develop the necessary communication skills for effective task accomplishment. This analysis of authentic patient consultations by pharmacy...

Shamans attract controversy and fascination well beyond their numbers. Personal experiences with them are based here on extensive fieldwork in several areas of Siberia and the Far East, including Khanty, Sakha, Tuvan, and Buriat regions. Balzer outlines...

A first in multimodal/multisemiotic discourse studies, this collection of original articles by international scholars focuses primarily on texts from non-English speaking contexts. The illuminating insights enhance our understanding of how language and...

Speech Rate, Pause, and Sociolinguistic Variation examines the confluence of psycholinguistic factors and social factors in linguistic variation through corpus-based analyses of speech rate and silent pause in US English. In particular, based on a large...

Providing an innovative approach to the written displays of minority languages in public space this volume explores minority language situations through the lens of linguistic landscape research. Based on very tangible data it explores the "same old...

This collection focuses on Chinese learners with original data sets using innovative research methods. It investigates Chinese learners' learning and language skills, perceptions and particularly the processes of reciprocal intercultural adaptations in a...

An exciting new collection by world-leading researchers in L2 learning addressing: Why do conceptions of 'learning' vary so much in L2 learning research? Is there a conceptualisation of 'learning' to which members of different schools of SLA can...

By examining market-driven practices in a range of individual contexts this interdisciplinary collection offers an in-depth examination of the relationship between languages and market processes.

This volume deals with challenges to the maintenance of minority (or community) languages in this era of globalization and increasing transnational movements of people. The contributors, experts in language policy, language maintenance and...

Drawing on diverse cultural perspectives, Shi-xu critiques ethnocentrism in discourse studies in terms of its intellectual and cultural consequences. Further, he outlines a culturally pluralist stance that advocates the construction of theory and use of...