Customer Reviews

Sociolinguistics: A Reader (Modern Linguistics)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm using this in an undergraduate communications class, "language and society." Or sociolinguistics, as it's better known. I guess the university was worried that name would scare students off. While I admit to being a word nerd (and I work as an editor), the topic of linguistics isn't for the faint of heart. It's an interesting but intense subject.

This book is a collection of essays about various topics in linguistics, and like most readers, some of the essays are short, some long, some easy reads, and others quite dense. I gave it an average of three stars because 1) I find the material tough going; 2) some of the material is dated; and 3) the essays often make references to other scholars or papers that I'm unfamiliar with. This sometimes makes it more difficult to follow the essay that I'm reading because I'm not familiar with the background material being referenced. It is difficult from the point of view of a student to rate the quality of the essays, other than whether I understand them or not -- hence my middle-of-the-road rating of three stars.

The book is divided into 8 parts: Sociolinguistics, Origins, Definitions and Approaches; Methods for Studying Language in Society; Variationist Linguistics; Stylistic Variation; Language, Attitudes and Social Stereotypes; Multilingualism; Interactional Sociolinguistics; and Language and Culture. There are 37 chapters from a variety of scholars.

The bottom line is that this book is not a textbook nor is it an easy read. Most probably, you won't be looking at this review unless you are a student of linguistics and using the book in a classroom format. Don't worry, though, most of the essays are around 10 pages in length so it's not impossible to get through the material. However, I would not recommend this book as the only book to read on linguistics. It does not have a glossary, and you will need some knowledge of the subject before you tackle any of these essays.

A collection of classics from the most important theorists from various fields of linguistics. A delight.