Language in Society

Written by the world-renowned pioneer in the field of modern sociolinguistics, this volume examines the cognitive and cultural factors responsible for linguistic change, tracing the life history of these developments, from triggering events to driving forces and endpoints. • Explores the major insights obtained by combining sociolinguistics with the results of dialect geography on a large scale • Examines the cognitive and cultural influences responsible for linguistic change • Demonstrates under what conditions dialects diverge from one another • Establishes an essential distinction between transmission within the community and diffusion across communities • Completes Labov's seminal Principles of Linguistic Change trilogy.

Talk in Action examines the language, identity, and interaction of social institutions, introducing students to the research methodology of Conversation Analysis. • Features a unique focus on real-world applications of CA by examining four institutional domains: calls to emergency numbers, doctor-patient interaction, courtroom trials, and mass communication, • Provides a theoretical and methodological overview of the roots of CA, reviewing the main developments and findings of research on talk and social institutions conducted over the past 25 years • Showcases the significance of this subject to everyday events, making it ideal for students coming to the field for the first time • Written by two leading figures in the field of Conversation Analysis

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.

Quotatives considers the phenomenon "quotation" from a wealth of perspectives. It consolidates findings from different strands of research, combining formal and functional approaches for the definition of reported discourse and situating the phenomenon in a broader typological and sociolinguistic perspective. • Provides an interface between sociolinguistic research and other linguistic disciplines, in particular discourse analysis, typology, construction grammar but also more formal approaches • Incorporates innovative methodology that draws on discourse analytic, typological and sociolinguistic approaches • Investigates the system both in its diachronic development as well as via cross-variety comparisons • Presents careful definition of the envelope of variation and considers alternative definitions of the phenomenon "quotation" • Empirical findings are reported from distribution and perception data, which allows comparing and contrasting perception and reality