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The delicate constitution of identity in face-to-face accommodation: A response to Trudgill

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 March 2008

NIKOLAS COUPLAND
Affiliation:
Cardiff University, Centre for Language and Communication Research, Colum Drive CF10 3EU, Cardiff, Wales, UK, coupland@cardiff.ac.uk

Extract

In sociolinguistics, where identity tends to be our first explanatory resource, Peter Trudgill's claim that identity is “irrelevant” as a factor in his area of interest is particularly striking. There are at least three questions here. The first is Trudgill's direct concern: whether identity considerations impinged on the development of new national colonial varieties. The second is the underlying question of whether identity, in itself and in general, can stand as a motive for sociolinguistic action and change. The third is whether face-to-face linguistic accommodation, which Trudgill invokes as the core process through which new dialects come to be, can and does function in the absence of identity considerations.

Type
DISCUSSION
Copyright
© 2008 Cambridge University Press

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References

REFERENCES

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