Style

Nikolas Coupland is Professor and Research Director of the Cardiff University Centre for Language and Communication Research. He is a founding co-editor of the Journal of Sociolinguistics.

• 1. Introduction; 2. Style and meaning in sociolinguistic structure; 3. Style for audiences; 4. Sociolinguistic resources for styling; 5. Styling social identities; 6. High performance and identity stylisation; 7. Coda: style and social reality.

'This is a bold book that is ultimately trying to overturn a four-decade tradition of mainstream sociolinguistic research, much (though by no means all) of which has been shaped by the variationist paradigm. That said, the tone is admirably level-headed and remarkably undogmatic. It is also suitably reflexive. … [Coupland] also shows, whilst class-based approaches to language variation were a product of their time - societal functionalism coupled with the economic Fordism of the postwar era - the explanatory power of the Labovian paradigm is well past its use-by date. What we need in its place are theoretical models that can help us to get to grips with the role of language variation and identity in relation to the late-modern, global age in which we now live. Style is a major step in that direction and - without wishing to overstate the point about 'authenticity' - is one of those texts that every serious sociolinguist really does need to read.' Sally Johnson, University of Leeds