The Sociolinguistics of Language

A companion to the author's "Sociolinguistics of Society", this textbook examines the influence of social interaction on language use, and discusses a variety of facts about language from the commonplace to the exotic. Questions not normally asked about everyday phenomena are raised, and little-known facts about language use in social contexts are explored. For example, how does one decide when it is appropriate to address someone by their first name? Why do West Indians in service occupations sometimes seem rude to their customers? Why do men in Western societies use more local dialect forms and lower status speech forms than do women? Can it be that the often despised languages called pidgin offer important clues to the inborn human capacity for language?