Presents a study showing that New Zealanders have very different attitudes to variants that sociolinguists have lumped together in the past suggests that globalization with localization is an important principle for variationists to take into account. (Author/VWL)

Analyzes recordings made of Maori born in the 1860s to 1870s to examine whether there were effects of language contact and language shift in New Zealand historically and whether earlier forms of Maori New Zealand English were characterized by contact-induced adaptation processes. (Author/VWL)

Discusses the Asmara Declaration, a declaration about linguistic rights of African languages and their speakers drafted by African scholars and writers at a conference in Asmara, Eritrea. Suggests that there is a problem in the quality of much of the work committed to language rights. (Author/VWL)

Examines linguistic variation on an Internet Relay Chat channel with respect to the hypothesis, based on the model of Milroy and Milroy (1992) that standard variants tend to be associated with weak social network ties, while vernacular variants are associated with strong network ties. (Author/VWL)

Examines an area of sociolinguistic methodology that thus far has received relatively little theoretical attention: the composition and analysis of orthographic transcriptions of non-standard speech. Addresses the following aspects: linguistic/semiotic properties of orthographic transcription, and the different functions of orthographic writing…

By combining features of matched guise tests with sociolinguistic interviewing and oral performance, this study investigates the social meanings carried by non-standard orthographies. Participant evaluations of the personas showed that people connected orthography to social identities. Specifically, results found people uncritically and…

Illustrates substrate reinforcement in the development of three current dialects of Melanesian Pidgin. Evidence of earlier variability is presented and the sociolinguistic conditions that later led to greater stability are described. Grammatical features that differentiate the dialects are examined. For each feature, it is shown that at least two…

Focuses on day-to-day issues of running a Mi'kmaq school. Argues that Sociolinguistics must incorporate a real-world understanding of language. (Author/VWL)

Provides an interactional account of conflict negotiation strategies in Korean American discourse. With specific attention to the sociolinguistic phenomenon of codeswitching among Korean Americans, argues that speaking Korean at particular moments evokes ideologies of social hierarchy that serve to mitigate potential conflicts. (Author/VWL)

Suggests that variation in spelling, like other levels of language variety, reflects social practices in speech communities. While the social identities and stances encoded in such variation are not simple to interpret, they offer another mode of investigation of language in social space and practice. (Author/VWL)

Part of a large-scale study on variation in American Sign Language, this article examines variation in the form of the sign DEAF, which can be produced by moving the forefinger from ear to chin, from chin to ear, or by contacting the lower cheek. Multivariate analysis of more than 1600 tokens of DEAF extracted from sociolinguistic interviews shows…

Highlights modes of evidence in large corpus research that may be significant for Sociolinguistics. Suggests that corpus data can help Sociolinguistics engage with issues and variations in usage that are less abstract then phonetics, phonology, and grammar but more proximate to the socially vital issues of the 20th century. (Author/VWL)

Discusses the centuries-old dispute in Quebec about whether the French spoken there is good or bad. The issue has a stake in public discourse between socially-valued and socially-stigmatized varieties of language. (Author/VWL)

Concerns current transformation in the relationship between political and linguistic ideologies of la francophonie based on a sociolinguistic ethnographic study in a French-language minority school in Canada. (Author/VWL)

Focuses on three issues: social evaluations of speech deemed patronizing towards the elderly in a language other than English, such as, Dutch; stereotypes about the elderly as a social category; and the empirical possibility of a link between evaluations of so-called patronizing speech towards older people and stereotypes about the elderly held by…