LANGUAGE: CONTEXTS AND CONSEQUENCES

This book aims to synthesize research from a number of related disciplines, including social psychology, communication science, sociolinguistics and discourse analysis. It begins with an examination of theoretical issues, and proceeds to a consideration of actual contexts where language and social forces interact. These contexts bear on matters such as ethnolinguistic identity, bilingualism, health and ageing.

Table of Contents:
Part 1 Language in context: the "language builds upon context" approach; the "language reflects context" approach - Brown and Fraser's taxonomy, perceived structure of social situations, intergroup relations; a model of speech as a reflection of situational representations; the "languge determines context" approach; further complexities and directions. Part 2 Language attitudes: the matched-guise technique (MGT); the empirical avalanche which followed - standard versus nonstandard speaker evaluations, the role of context, other intervening and mediating variables; theoretical developments; future developments - the MGT from a discursive perspective, language attitudes and linguistic action. Part 3 Accommodating language: basic concepts and strategies - convergence and divergence, some important distinctions; accommodative motives and consequences - convergence and integration, caveats, divergence and intergroup processes; further distinctions - psychological versus linguistic accommodation, cognitive organization and identity maintenance functions; discourse attuning; future rapprochements. Part 4 Language, ethnicity and intergroup communication: the salience and language; approaches and problems; ethnolinguistic identity; strategies of language change - individual mobility and group assimilation, psycholinguistic distinctiveness; intergroup communication "breakdown"; models of "breakdown" - the stereotype process framework. Part 5 Bilingualism and the survival of languages: the field and its importance; influential frameworks - Gardner's model, Clement's model; the intergroup model (IGM) - ethnolinguistic vitality, the IGM revised; the IGM revisited; the very survival of languages; integrating models of language survival. Part 6 Language, ageing and health: intergenerational differences - beliefs about talk, over and underaccommodation, other features of discursive style, telling age; towards a lifespan communicative framework; language, health and social support; a language perspective on health and social support. Part 7 Epilogue: future priorities - the status of miscommunication, units of analysis, epistemological dilemmas.