Description
Book SynopsisThis book demonstrates the power and distinctiveness of the contribution that sociolinguistics can make to our understanding of everyday communicative practice under changing social conditions. It builds on the approaches developed by Gumperz and Hymes in the 1970s and 80s, and it not only affirms their continuing relevance in analyses of the micropolitics of everyday talk in urban settings, but also argues for their value in emergent efforts to chart the heavily securitised environments now developing around us. Drawing on 10 years of collaborative work and ranging across disciplinary, interdisciplinary and applied perspectives, the book begins with guiding principles and methodology, shifts to empirically driven arguments in urban sociolinguistics, and concludes with studies of (in)securitised communication addressed to challenges ahead.
Trade ReviewTheoretically sound and methodologically rigorous, this book offers vibrant ethnographic descriptions of how people respond to (and take issue with) the rapidly changing conditions of late capitalist societies in the linguistic minutiae of their daily lives. Covering a wide range of phenomena, Ben Rampton (and colleagues) reimagines the role of sociolinguistics today, demonstrating the field’s vitality to understand the relationship between language and society in a vertiginous world. * Rodrigo Borba, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil *
This book retools the apparatus of interactional sociolinguistics for the present age. Exploring a wealth of field sites and changing practices around social class, race, urban speech, and destabilised notions of citizenship, nativeness, security, and surveillance, Rampton’s latest work is indispensable for the study of language and interaction in 21st century social life.
* Devyani Sharma, Queen Mary University of London, UK *
A compelling panoramic collection. The chapters offer lucid insight into how everyday language practice refracts shifting political and social ecologies. A vital contribution to understanding the vexing complexities and tensions of contemporary society, the volume is also an inspirational record of the emergence of a powerful school of engaged sociolinguists. * Christopher Stroud, University of the Western Cape, South Africa and Stockholm University, Sweden *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements
Transcription Conventions
Chapter 1. Introduction: Linguistic Practice in Changing Conditions
Part 1: Sociolinguistic Frameworks Tuned to Social Change
Chapter 2. Interactional Sociolinguistics
Chapter 3. Linguistic Ethnography
Chapter 4. Sociolinguistic Citizenship
Part 2: Ethnicity, Race and Class in Micro-practices of Differentiation and Alignment
Chapter 5. Ethnicities without Guarantees
Chapter 6. Style Contrasts, Migration and Social Class
Chapter 7. From ‘Youth Language’ to Contemporary Urban Vernaculars
Chapter 8. Styling in a Language Learnt Later in Life
Part 3: Everyday (In)securitisation
Chapter 9. Sociolinguistics and Everyday (In)securitisation
Chapter 10. Crossing of a Different Kind
Chapter 11. Goffman and the Everyday Experience of Surveillance
Afterword: Jan Blommaert and the Uses of Sociolinguistics: Critical, Political, Personal
Bibliography
Index
