Realities, Communities and Norms in Spoken English Varieties: New Perspectives

Building on a wide array of theoretical and methodological frameworks from cognitive phonology to corpus phonology and from sociophonetics to interphonology, the eight chapters of the book focus on the empirically-oriented description and modelling of spoken varieties of English, both native and non-native ones. The authors’ in-depth investigations range from the interplay of cognitive, social and cultural factors in phonological and phonetic variation and change (both at the dialectal and sociolectal levels, including the singing voice), to the investigation of lexical stress at the formal and empirical levels, as well as usages and norms. The book draws upon the central notions of indexicality, self-perception and perception of speakers’ linguistic environments and communities, representations of native and non-native English-speaking communities and their relationship to traditional standard varieties.