The Cambridge Handbook of Sociolinguistics

The most comprehensive overview available, this Handbook is an essential guide to sociolinguistics today.

Rajend Mesthrie (Edited by)

9781108456081, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 12 April 2018

544 pages, 9 b/w illus. 13 tables
24.5 x 17 x 3 cm, 0.98 kg

'Mesthrie has succeeded in assembling an impressive list of contributors who are leading scholars in their respective subfields. Many chapters are written by authors who have themselves either edited handbooks or other survey volumes on their topic (Duranti on linguistic anthropology, Singler and Kouwenberg on Pidgins and Creoles, Tollefson on language policy and planning) or who have authored introductory monographs (Bayley and Lucas on sign languages, Blommaert on discourse and pragmatics, Coupland on style, Eades on sociolinguistics and the law, Fought on ethnicity, Muysken on code-switching, Schneider on World Englishes).' Philipp Sebastian Angermeyer, Journal of Sociolinguistics

The most comprehensive overview available, this Handbook is an essential guide to sociolinguistics today. Reflecting the breadth of research in the field, it surveys a range of topics and approaches in the study of language variation and use in society. As well as linguistic perspectives, the handbook includes insights from anthropology, social psychology, the study of discourse and power, conversation analysis, theories of style and styling, language contact and applied sociolinguistics. Language practices seem to have reached new levels since the communications revolution of the late twentieth century. At the same time face-to-face communication is still the main force of language identity, even if social and peer networks of the traditional face-to-face nature are facing stiff competition of the Facebook-to-Facebook sort. The most authoritative guide to the state of the field, this handbook shows that sociolinguistics provides us with the best tools for understanding our unfolding evolution as social beings.

Introduction: the sociolinguistic enterprise Rajend Mesthrie
Part I. Foundations of Sociolinguistics: 1. Power, social differentiation and language John Baugh
2. Linguistic anthropology Alessandro Duranti
3. Social psychology and language Peter Robinson and Abigail Locke
4. Orality and literacy in sociolinguistics Lowry Hemphill
5. Sign languages Ceil Lucas and Bob Bayley
Part II. Interaction, Style and Discourse: 6. Conversation and interaction Cynthia Gordon
7. Pragmatics and discourse Jan Blommaert
8. Style Nikolas Coupland
Part III. Social and Regional Dialectology: 9. Language, class and status Gregory Guy
10. Language and region Bill Kretzschmar
11. Language and place Barbara Johnstone
12. Language, gender, sexuality Natalie Schilling
13. Language and ethnicity Carmen Fought
Part IV. Multilingualism and Language Contact: 14. Multilingualism and multiculturalism Ana Deumert
15. Pidgins, creoles and other contact varieties John Singler and Silvia Kouwenberg
16. Code switching Pieter Muysken
17. Language maintenance, shift and endangerment Nicholas Ostler
18. Colonisation, globalisation and world Englishes Edgar Schneider
Part V. Applied Sociolinguistics: 19. Language planning and policy James Tollefson
20. Language and the law Diana Eades
21. Language and the media Susan McKay
22. Language and education Christopher Stroud and Kathleen Heugh.

Subject Areas: Sociolinguistics [CFB]