Studying Language introduces key ideas and current critical debates about how English functions within its social and cultural contexts, and provides practical examples and guidance on how to approach further work in these topics. It introduces the core topics of language study: language variation, pragmatics, stylistics, critical discourse analysis, language and gender, and language and education. Each chapter includes case studies providing worked analysis of sample texts, suggestions for further project work and research and an annotated further reading section.

List of Figures and Tables p. viii
Series Preface p. ix
Acknowledgements p. xi
Introduction p. 1
Variation and Change in English p. 3
Introduction p. 3
Language, dialect, accent and variety p. 4
Language p. 4
The Ebonics debate p. 6
Dialect, accent and variety p. 7
Standards of English p. 8
What is standard English? p. 8
A brief history of the standardisation of English in England p. 10
A brief history of the standardisation of English in the United States p. 16
Studies in variation and change p. 22
Linguistic variation p. 22
Social variation p. 24
Variation and social networks p. 27
Studying variation in English p. 30
Selecting a topic for research p. 30
Project design and sampling p. 32
Methods of data collection p. 34
Sound and video recording equipment p. 41
Transcribing data p. 42
Analysing data p. 44
Writing your report p. 46
Sample projects p. 47
Further reading p. 49
Pragmatics and Discourse p. 50
Introduction p. 50
Language, meaning and communication p. 51
Language in context p. 52
Language as action p. 56
Speech act theory p. 56
The cooperative principle p. 59
Discourse analysis p. 63
The structure of talk p. 64
Conversation analysis p. 66
Turn-taking p. 68
Adjacency pairs p. 68
Presupposition p. 73
Politeness p. 75
Context p. 77
Language, action and interaction p. 80
Grammar and interaction p. 82
Studying speech p. 86
Selecting a topic for research p. 86
Choosing and collecting data p. 88
Conventions of transcription p. 90
Analysing data p. 91
Sample projects p. 92
Further reading p. 93
Stylistics p. 94
Introduction p. 94
What is stylistics? p. 95
Units of language and grammar p. 97
Stylistic methods and categories of analysis p. 101
Cohesion p. 101
Deixis and fictional worlds p. 113
Similes and metaphors p. 116
Narrative p. 118
Representing speech and thought p. 123
Dialogue in drama p. 126
Studying stylistics p. 129
Selecting a topic for study p. 129
Choosing and collecting data p. 131
Analysing data p. 133
Sample projects p. 135
Further reading p. 135
Critical Discourse Analysis p. 137
Introduction p. 137
Language, society and ideology p. 138
Language, linguistics and ideology p. 139
Words and meaning p. 140
Language and reality p. 143
Language as discourse p. 144
Critical linguistics p. 145
Transitivity p. 147
Modality p. 151
A framework for critical discourse analysis p. 153
Schema theory and members' resources p. 157
CDA, written discourse analysis and stylistics p. 162
Studying CDA p. 164
Selecting a topic for study p. 165
Choosing and collecting data p. 165
Analysing data p. 166
Sample projects p. 168
Further reading p. 168
Bibliography p. 169
Index p. 177