The Cambridge Handbook of Sociolinguistics

'Offers breadth, depth and up-to-date insight.' David Britain, University of Bern

'Mesthrie has succeeded in assembling an impressive list of contributors who are leading scholars in their respective subfields. Many chapters are written by authors who have themselves either edited handbooks or other survey volumes on their topic (Duranti on linguistic anthropology, Singler and Kouwenberg on Pidgins and Creoles, Tollefson on language policy and planning) or who have authored introductory monographs (Bayley and Lucas on sign languages, Blommaert on discourse and pragmatics, Coupland on style, Eades on sociolinguistics and the law, Fought on ethnicity, Muysken on code-switching, Schneider on World Englishes).' Philipp Sebastian Angermeyer, Journal of Sociolinguistics

Rajend Mesthrie is Professor of Linguistics in the Department of English at the University of Cape Town, holding an NRF research chair in the area of language, migration and social change. He served two terms as President of the Linguistics Society of Southern Africa. He has published widely in the fields of sociolinguistics, with special reference to language contact in South Africa. Amongst his publications are Introducing Sociolinguistics, 2nd edition (with Joan Swann, Ana Deumert and William Leap, 2009), Language in South Africa (Cambridge, 2002) and World Englishes (with Rakesh M. Bhatt, Cambridge, 2008).

Introduction: the sociolinguistic enterprise Rajend Mesthrie; Part I. Foundations of Sociolinguistics: 1. Power, social differentiation and language John Baugh; 2. Linguistic anthropology Alessandro Duranti; 3. Social psychology and language Peter Robinson and Abigail Locke; 4. Orality and literacy in sociolinguistics Lowry Hemphill; 5. Sign languages Ceil Lucas and Bob Bayley; Part II. Interaction, Style and Discourse: 6. Conversation and interaction Cynthia Gordon; 7. Pragmatics and discourse Jan Blommaert; 8. Style Nikolas Coupland; Part III. Social and Regional Dialectology: 9. Language, class and status Gregory Guy; 10. Language and region Bill Kretzschmar; 11. Language and place Barbara Johnstone; 12. Language, gender, sexuality Natalie Schilling; 13. Language and ethnicity Carmen Fought; Part IV. Multilingualism and Language Contact: 14. Multilingualism and multiculturalism Ana Deumert; 15. Pidgins, creoles and other contact varieties John Singler and Silvia Kouwenberg; 16. Code switching Pieter Muysken; 17. Language maintenance, shift and endangerment Nicholas Ostler; 18. Colonisation, globalisation and world Englishes Edgar Schneider; Part V. Applied Sociolinguistics: 19. Language planning and policy James Tollefson; 20. Language and the law Diana Eades; 21. Language and the media Susan McKay; 22. Language and education Christopher Stroud and Kathleen Heugh.