Rajen Mesthrie (Ed.). The Cambridge Handbook of Sociolinguistics

Reviewed by Zaenal Arifin

Tulungagung, 30 November 2013

Rajen Mesthrie (Ed.). The Cambridge Handbook of Sociolinguistics

All stuffs about sociolinguistics are in. 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 wide 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, spoken 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 – in tandem with other brands of linguistics and the social and natural sciences – with the best tools for understanding our unfolding evolution as social beings.

Big book, with more than 500 pages. I, myself, have 3 points of the goodness of this book. First, recent book, 2011. Second, wide range of sociolinguistic topics discussion, simply complete. Third, Cambridge-published.

Contents

Part I  Foundations of sociolinguistics

2  Power, social diversity, and language

3  Linguistic anthropology: the study of language as a non-neutral medium 

4  The social psychology of language: a short history

5  Orality and literacy in sociolinguistics

6  Sign languages

Part II  Interaction, style, and discourse

7  Conversation and interaction

8  Pragmatics and discourse

9  The sociolinguistics of style

Part III  Social and regional dialectology

10  Language, social class, and status 

11  Language and region

12  Language and place

13  Language, gender, and sexuality

14  Language and ethnicity

Part IV  Multilingualism and language contact

15 Multilingualism

16 Pidgins and creoles

17 Code-switching

18 Language maintenance, shift, and endangerment

19 Colonization, globalization, and the sociolinguistics of World Englishes

Part V  Applied sociolinguistics

20 Language planning and language policy

21 Sociolinguistics and the law

22 Language and the media

23 Language in education

So, whatever you need about sociolinguistics, find it here.

Download the book here!