Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Register

by Biber, Douglas; Finegan, Edward

• ISBN13: 9780195083644
• ISBN10: 0195083644
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1994-01-13
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This collection brings together several perspectives on language varieties defined according to their contexts of use--what are variously called registers, sublanguages, or genres. The volume highlights the importance of these central linguistic phenomena; it includes empirical analyses and linguistic descriptions, as well as explanations for existing patterns of variation and proposals for theoretical frameworks. The book treats languages in obsolescence and in their youth; it examines registers from languages from around the globe; and it offers several of the most complete studies of registers and register variation published to date, adopting both synchronic and diachronic perspectives.

Table of Contents

Contributors	xi
Introduction: Situating Register in Sociolinguistics	3	(12)
Part I General Issues
Dialect, Register, and Genre: Working Assumptions About Conventionalization	15	(16)
Charles A. Ferguson
An Analytical Framework for Register Studies	31	(28)
Douglas Biber
Part II Individual Registers
On the Creation and Expansion of Registers: Sports Reporting in Tok Pisin	59	(23)
Suzanne Romaine
Shared Thinking and the Register of Coaching	82	(24)
Shirley Brice Heath
Juliet Langman
Stories That Step into the Future	106	(30)
Elinor Ochs
Me Tarzan, You Jane: Linguistic Simplification in ``Personal Ads'' Register	136	(21)
Paul Bruthiaux
Part III Register Variation
A Corpus-Based Analysis of Register Variation in Korean	157	(25)
Yong-Jin Kim
Douglas Biber
Linguistic Correlates of the Transition to Literacy in Somali: Language Adaptation in Six Press Registers	182	(35)
Douglas Biber
Mohamed Hared
Stylistic Variation in a Language Restricted to Private-Sphere Use	217	(18)
Nancy C. Dorian
Part IV Registers, Social Dialects, and Sociolinguistic Theory
Addressee- and Topic-Influenced Style Shift: A Quantitative Sociolinguistic Study	235	(42)
John R. Rickford
Faye McNair-Knox
Situational Variation in Children's Language Revisited	277	(17)
Courtney B. Cazden
Diglossia as a Special Case of Register Variation	294	(21)
Alan Hudson
Register and Social Dialect Variation: An Integrated Approach	315	(36)
Edward Finegan
Douglas Biber
Part V A Survey of Empirical Register Studies
Register: A Review of Empirical Research	351
Dwight Atkinson
Douglas Biber