Books like Sociolinguistics by Richard A. Hudson

Language and Power is about how language works to maintain and change power relations in contemporary society, and how understanding these processes can enable people to resist and change them. Substantial changes in social life have taken place in the decade since the original publication, which have changed the nature of unequal power relations, and therefore the agenda for the critical study of language. In this second edition, Norman Fairclough brings the discussion completely up-to-date with the inclusion of a new chapter covering the 'globalisation' of power relations and the development of the internet in relation to language and power.

"From its beginnings in the 1960s, sociolinguistics developed several different subfields with distinct methods and interests: the variationist tradition established by Labov, the anthropological tradition of Hymes, interactional sociolinguistics as developed by Gumperz, and the sociology of language represented by the work of Fishman. All of these areas have seen a great deal of growth in recent decades, and recent studies have led to a more broadly inclusive view of sociolinguistics. Hence there is a need for a handbook that will survey the main areas of the field, point out the lacunae in our existing knowledge base, and provide directions for future research. The Oxford Handbook of Sociolinguistics will differ from existing work in four major respects. First, it will emphasize new methodological developments, particularly the convergence of linguistic anthropology and variationist sociolinguistics. Second, it will include chapters on sociolinguistic developments in areas of the world that have been relatively neglected in the major journals. Third, its chapters are written by contributors who have worked in a range of languages and whose work addresses sociolinguistic issues in bi- and multilingual contexts, i.e. the contexts in which a majority of the world's population lives. Finally, it will include substantial material on the rapidly growing study of sign language sociolinguistics."--pub. desc.

Sociolinguistic Theory presents a critical synthesis of sociolinguistics, centering on the study of language variation and change. Since the inception of sociolinguistics more than three decades ago, the correlation of dependent linguistic variables with independent social variables has provided the theoretical core of the discipline. Chambers reviews the essential findings of Henrietta Cedegren, William Labov, Lesley Milroy and James Milroy, David Sankoff, Gillian Sankoff, Peter Trudgill, Walt Wolfram, and many others, and puts them into context both with the work of the numerous linguists who have followed their lead and with their intellectual forbears from Wilhelm von Humboldt and Louis Gauchat to Edward Sapir. The book opens with a discussion of the linguistic variable and its historical methodological and theoretical significance. Three central chapters are organized around the crucial social variables of social stratification, sex, and age. The final chapter considers the social and cultural purposes of linguistic variation.

Gerard Van Herk’s textbook introduces students to sociolinguistics with engaging prose, covering region, status, gender, time, attitudes, interaction, style, multilingualism, culture, ethnicity, language contact, and education.