The Oxford handbook of sociolinguistics ed. by Robert Bayley, Richard Cameron, Ceil Lucas (review)

The editors of the Oxford handbook of sociolinguistics are mindful of other encyclopedias devoted to sociolinguistic inquiry. They describe four factors that distinguish this volume from other comprehensive surveys of the field: new methodological developments, global inclusion of previously neglected speech communities, greater emphasis on bilingual and multilingual circumstances, and insights from innovative sign language research. Despite these new directions, the editors are keenly aware of classical studies in sociolinguistics, and their introduction begins with references to iconic research by William Labov, Dell Hymes, and John Gumperz, among others.

The first section is titled ‘Disciplinary perspectives’, and it begins after a brief account of the organization of this handbook, chapter by chapter, under the heading ‘The study of language and society’. The editors outline the volume, which is substantial, consisting of nearly nine hundred pages, with laconic depictions of the entire text. These opening remarks are quite useful, and will allow the specialist to pinpoint alternative approaches to sociolinguistics—broadly defined—that may be of primary interest to different readers.

‘Variationist sociolinguistics’ is the first chapter of the book, and it provides an account that begins with Labov’s groundbreaking study on Martha’s Vineyard, and then moves on to describe an array of foundational sociolinguistic studies centered largely on research in the United States. The remaining sections of the chapter explore the case of null pronoun variation in Spanish, and the extension of the variationist paradigm within and beyond the United States. Readers who are familiar with the field will recognize references to some iconic sociolinguistic analyses, and the novice will be provided with a succinct depiction of some of the major global applications of variationist sociolinguistics that have helped to define the field.

‘Linguistic anthropology’ (Ch. 2) opens with a quotation from Michael Silverstein that affirms the intricate connections between language and culture. Indeed, the first sentence asks, ‘Can we ever understand language without understanding the culture?’ (31). As with the opening chapter, the authors describe major pioneering studies by Hymes and Gumperz before turning to ‘language beyond linguistic form’. The chapter then explores a variety of relevant research that builds toward consideration of how linguistic anthropology will be encompassed within the future of sociolinguistic research.

Devoted to ways in which sociology is related to the study of language, Ch. 3, ‘Doers and makers: The interwoven stories of sociology and the study of language’, includes many references to classical sociological and philosophical figures, such as Jürgen Habermas, David Émile Durkheim, Immanuel Kant, and John Stuart Mill; I was struck, however, by the absence of any references to Joshua Fishman’s formulation of ‘the sociology of language’ or Erving Goffman’s influential analyses of ‘talk’. Readers who are unfamiliar with early connections between sociology and studies of language will nevertheless find this chapter to be highly informative.

‘Critical discourse analysis’ (Ch. 4) contains several useful diagrams showing interconnections with highly complex topics related to the entire sociolinguistic enterprise, while conversation analysis (CA) is described in Ch. 5, including references to foundational formulations by Harvey Sacks, as well as the procedures and methods that are distinctive to CA research. The remaining chapters in this section explore language socialization, psycholinguistics, and interdisciplinary approaches; each of these three concluding chapters accounts for ways in which sociolinguistic inquiries overlap and intersect by drawing upon insights, methods, and analyses from diverse research practices.

Part 2, ‘Methodologies and approaches’, consists of Chs. 9–14, and the authors of each chapter devote concentrated attention to alternative sociolinguistic methods, including studies of communities and individuals in Ch. 9, and experimental methods to study the intelligibility of closely related language varieties in Ch. 10. Quantitative analysis is emphasized in Ch. 11, while qualitative methods utilized in multilingual circumstances are presented in Ch. 12. The remaining two chapters in Part 2 concentrate on longitudinal studies and methods for studying sign language respectively.

Each chapter in this section contains a wealth...