Publisher's Synopsis
Sociolinguistics is the study of the relationship between language and society, of language variation, and of attitudes about language. Today, most linguists agree that the knowledge speakers have of the language or languages they speak is knowledge of something quite abstract. It is knowledge of rules and principles and of the ways of saying and doing things with sounds, words, and sentences, rather than just knowledge of specific sounds, words, and sentences. It is knowing what is in the language and what is not; it is knowing the possibilities the language offers and what is impossible. This knowledge explains how it is; we can understand sentences we have not heard before and reject others as being ungrammatical, in the sense of not being possible in the language. This 1st volume of Encyclopaedia of Language Change: Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics provides comprehensive accounts of some of the most central and most rapidly developing areas of research in linguistics. It provides a solid, up-to- date appreciation of the interdisciplinary nature of the field. It covers foundation issues, recent advances and current debates, presenting familiar or classic data in new ways and supplementing the familiar with examples from a wide range of languages and social settings. It clearly explains the patterns and systems that underlie language variation in use, as well as the ways in which alternations between different language varieties index personal style, social power and national identity. This volume is intended to provide students and researchers a wide-ranging coverage of most of the topics dealt with in the sociology of language.
