Introducing Sociolinguistics

by Andrea Deumert, William L. Leap, Anna Deumert, et al.

Book Overview

Sociolinguistics is one of the central branches of modern linguistics and deals with the place of language in human societies. This second edition of Introducing Sociolinguistics expertly synthesises the main approaches to the subject. The book covers areas such as multilingualism, code-choice, language variation, dialectology, interactional studies, gender, language contact, language and inequality, and language and power. At the same time it provides...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 074863844X
• ISBN13: 9780748638444
• Release Date: June 2009
• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• Length: 528 Pages

Customer Reviews

Found: A Comrpehensive Sociolinguistics Textbook

There are a number of sociolinguistics/language in society textbooks out there, but they are either too simple or not comprehensive enough or formatting in such a way to make them hard to read. Introducing Sociolinguistics by Mesthrie et al. fits the bill better than any other books I've seen or used for advanced undergraduate or beginning sociolinguistic courses. I like it because it covers an impressively wide range of topics and because it has an open format, with lots of maps and/or diagrams that make the text easy to follow. But it isn't just a a picture book. The book treats its subject in sufficient depth for the levels of students I've cited. I've just started to use it as a textbook myself.