Synopses & Reviews
People use different ways of speaking - styles - in different situations. This book explains the concept of style in speech and examines ways of studying accents and dialects. It explains, theoretically and with copious examples, how style in language creates social meanings, for example by changing the quality of social relationships or allowing speakers to project different identities. Drawing on a wide range of contemporary studies, the book emphasises the value of interpreting style as speech performance, using insights from anthropological linguistics and discourse analysis. In this account, 'style' is a focal concern for sociolinguistics, analysing how very different social meanings are made by drawing on the linguistic resources that accent and dialect variation provides. The emphasis is on how these meanings are made locally, in specific relationships, genres, groups and cultures.
Review
'This is a bold book that is ultimately trying to overturn a four-decade tradition of mainstream sociolinguistic research, much (though by no means all) of which has been shaped by the variationist paradigm. That said, the tone is admirably level-headed and remarkably undogmatic. It is also suitably reflexive. ... [Coupland] also shows, whilst class-based approaches to language variation were a product of their time - societal functionalism coupled with the economic Fordism of the postwar era - the explanatory power of the Labovian paradigm is well past its use-by date. What we need in its place are theoretical models that can help us to get to grips with the role of language variation and identity in relation to the late-modern, global age in which we now live. Style is a major step in that direction and - without wishing to overstate the point about 'authenticity' - is one of those texts that every serious sociolinguist really does need to read.' Sally Johnson, University of Leeds
Review
'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
Synopsis
Explains the concept of style in speech and examines ways of studying accents and dialects.
Synopsis
This book explains the concept of style in speech and examines ways of studying accents and dialects. It explains, theoretically and with copious examples, how style in language creates social meanings, for example by changing the quality of social relationships or allowing speakers to project different identities.
About the Author
Nikolas Coupland is Professor and Research Director of the Cardiff University Centre for Language and Communication Research. He is a founding co-editor of the Journal of Sociolinguistics.
Table of Contents
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.