Style
Language Variation and Identity

This 2007 book explains the concept of style in speech and examines ways of studying accents and dialects.

Nikolas Coupland (Author)

9780521853033, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 9 August 2007

224 pages, 7 b/w illus. 4 tables
21.6 x 14 x 1.6 cm, 0.43 kg

'Coupland's Style is a bold and stimulating work, a programmatic review of work in sociolinguistics taking the reader from Labov's original work on variation in Harlem to the contemporary resource and contextualisation approaches Coupland advocates for the future. … written in an engaging style … I fully recommend this compelling study which has opened my eyes to a number of new angles on linguistic problems and encouraged me to read further in the domain.' Cercles

Style refers to ways of speaking - how speakers use the resource of language variation to make meaning in social encounters. This 2007 book develops a coherent theoretical approach to style in sociolinguistics, illustrated with copious examples. It explains how speakers project different social identities and create different social relationships through their style choices, and how speech-style and social context inter-relate. Style therefore refers to the wide range of strategic actions and performances that speakers engage in, to construct themselves and their social lives. Coupland draws on and integrates a wide variety of contemporary sociolinguistic research as well as his own extensive research in this field. The emphasis is on how social meanings are made locally, in specific relationships, genres, groups and cultures, and on studying language variation as part of the analysis of spoken discourse.

1. Introduction
2. Style and meaning in sociolinguistic structure
3. Style for audiences
4. Sociolinguistic resources for styling
5. Styling social identities
6. High performance and identity stylisation
7. Coda: style and social reality.

Subject Areas: Sociology [JHB], Communication studies [GTC], Sociolinguistics [CFB], Linguistics [CF]