An Introduction to Sociolinguistics

Citation

Wardhaugh, R., & Fuller, J. M. (2021). An Introduction to Sociolinguistics (8th ed.). Wiley-Blackwell.

Chapter Summary

The book has thirteen chapters in four parts. Chapter 1 is an introduction; Part I (Languages, Communities, and Contexts), Part II (Theory and Methods), Part III (Multilingual Matters) and Part IV (Sociolinguistics and Social Justice) follow, and the book ends with a glossary of about twenty pages and an index. Each chapter in the printed contents opens with key topics and closes with a chapter summary, exercises, further reading and references. The text runs to about 400 pages before the glossary; Chapter 5, on variation and change, is the longest at about 45 pages including its apparatus.

Chapter 1: Introduction

The opening chapter defines "language" broadly to include spoken, written and signed modes and uses "language user" in place of "speaker". It argues that sociolinguistics studies how societal norms are intertwined with language use, and it questions generalisations as well as making them, using a stereotype about nicknames as an example. Its sections cover knowledge of language (competence and performance), variation (variants and the linguistic variable), identities, language and culture (including the Whorfian hypothesis and correlations) and the interdisciplinary legacy of the field. It ends with a chapter summary, essay and discussion exercises, and further reading.

Part I, Languages, Communities, and Contexts: Chapters 2–4

Chapter 2, "Languages, Dialects, and Varieties", asks what counts as a language, takes up mutual intelligibility and social identity, standardisation, regional and social dialects including Kiezdeutsch and African American Vernacular English, and the social meanings of linguistic forms. Chapter 3, "Defining Groups", compares speech communities, communities of practice, social networks and social identities, and examines language ideologies and attitudes. Chapter 4, "Language in Context: Pragmatics", covers speech acts, implicature, politeness, pronouns and naming.

Part II, Theory and Methods: Chapters 5–7

Chapter 5, "Language Variation and Change", introduces linguistic variables, data collection and quantitative analysis, then follows variationist work through its first, second and third waves, with studies from Norwich, Detroit, Glasgow and Martha's Vineyard. Chapter 6, "Ethnographic Approaches in Sociolinguistics", covers participant observation, the ethnography of communication and the SPEAKING device, ethnomethodology, critical and (socio)linguistic ethnography, and digital ethnographies. Chapter 7, "Discourse Analysis", covers conversation analysis, interactional sociolinguistics, critical discourse analysis and corpus linguistics.

Part III, Multilingual Matters: Chapters 8–10

Chapter 8, "Languages in Contact: Multilingual Societies and Multilingual Discourse", treats multilingualism in society, linguistic landscapes, language maintenance and shift, diglossia, codeswitching and multilingual identities. Chapter 9, "Contact Varieties: Structural Consequences of Social Factors", covers the structure of codeswitching, loanwords, convergence, mixed languages, lingua francas, and pidgins and creoles. Chapter 10, "Language, the Nation, and Beyond", examines language and nationalism, migration, globalisation and the digital world.

Part IV, Sociolinguistics and Social Justice: Chapters 11–13

Chapter 11, "Language, Gender, and Sexuality", covers sexist language, the deficit, dominance and difference approaches, and the construction of gender and sexuality identities and discourses. Chapter 12, "Sociolinguistics and Education", covers social dialects, multilingual education and world-wide English in education. Chapter 13, "Language Policy and Planning", introduces types of language planning and case studies from Turkey, the Soviet Union, France, Kenya, India, Canada, Belgium, Papua New Guinea and Singapore, then feminist language planning and endangered languages.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–4

• Language user and variation: the Introduction's term for anyone who communicates in any mode, and the variants and linguistic variables on which later chapters rest.
• Speech community, community of practice, social network: three ways of defining the groups that sociolinguists study (Chapter 3).
• Language ideologies and attitudes: beliefs about language, measured in part through matched guises (Chapter 3).
• Politeness, face and address: the pragmatics of Chapter 4.

Chapters 5–7

• Three waves of variation studies: from correlating variables with social class to social networks to style, stance and identity.
• Ethnography of communication and ethnomethodology.
• Conversation analysis and critical discourse analysis.

Chapters 8–13

• Diglossia, codeswitching, language maintenance and shift.
• Pidgins, creoles and contact varieties.
• Language planning and policy, together with gender, sexuality and education as areas of social justice.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Organised by topic and by method. Part II separates variationist, ethnographic and discourse-analytic research, so a student can see how each method answers sociolinguistic questions.
• Contemporary scope. The publisher lists new and updated coverage of AAVE, multilingual societies and discourse, gender and sexuality, ideologies and attitudes, and the social meanings of forms; the contents include digital ethnographies, linguistic landscapes, superdiversity and the digital world.
• Examples across many places. The contents name cases from Germany, the Netherlands, the United States, Kenya, India, Canada, Belgium, Papua New Guinea, Singapore and elsewhere.
• Built-in study aids. Each chapter lists key topics, summarises itself and ends with exercises and further reading; the Chapter 1 exercises ask students to defend a prescriptively "incorrect" construction, to discuss politically correct terms and Covid-era expressions, and to analyse a joke about what British sayings really mean. The publisher adds a companion website with a searchable glossary, a review guide, additional exercises and links.

Limitations

• Level. The publisher recommends the book for upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses, so it is not pitched as a first reading in linguistics.
• Wide scope. Thirteen chapters span dialects, methods, multilingualism, gender, education and policy, and each of Part II's three methods gets a single chapter, so a student planning research in one of them needs a specialist text; the further-reading lists point onward.
• A critical orientation. The publisher says the book helps students develop a critical perspective on language in society, and Part IV is framed around social justice; a course that wants a purely descriptive survey should weigh this.

Where It Fits in the Course

This is the broad, up-to-date survey for a full sociolinguistics course. Holmes and Wilson's An Introduction to Sociolinguistics and Trudgill's Sociolinguistics: An Introduction to Language and Society are described as beginner-friendly introductions that assume no previous linguistics, the latter short and readable; either works as a gentler first read before Wardhaugh and Fuller.

For further depth, Chambers's Sociolinguistic Theory gives a critical synthesis of variationist sociolinguistics, Eckert's Meaning and Linguistic Variation traces the shift to the third wave that Chapter 5 summarises, and Li Wei's The Bilingualism Reader is a research reader that extends Chapters 8 and 9.

How to Use This Book

The publisher recommends the book for upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses, and an introductory linguistics course will help; the Introduction also defines its own key terms.

A practical plan:

• Core: Chapter 1, Chapters 2–3 for the vocabulary of varieties and groups, and Chapter 5 for the central research tradition.
• By interest: read Chapters 6–7 for qualitative methods, Chapters 8–10 for multilingualism and contact, and Chapters 11–13 for the applied and policy topics.
• Reading order: the authors say in Chapter 1 that there is considerable moving back and forth with cross-referencing within and among the four topics, so readers can follow their interests.
• Practice: use the exercises and the companion website's review guide, and read a chapter's further-reading list when choosing a topic for a project.