American sociolinguistics: Theorists and theory groups . By Stephen O. Murray Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1998. Pp. x, 339. $29.95.

Abstract

This is a revised version of Theory Groups and the Study of Language in North America (1994), the post-World-War-II history of the emergence of sociolinguistics in North America that was described in Language in Society as “a heady combination of detailed scholarship, mordant wit, and sustained narrative designed to persuade even the skeptical reader that these myriad, often simultaneously emergent, ways of thinking about language are indeed interrelated. . . . This is an outspoken, engaging, rollicking, occasionally aggravating adventure in the history of these sciences as related to their practice. . . not to be missed by anyone who cares about the intellectual underpinnings of the study of language in society,” in Language as providing “the closest approximation” to how sociolinguists came together and developed the field, and in Lingua as providing “the most comprehensive overviews of the various and varied approaches to [American] linguistic research.” American Sociolinguistics examines both theory groups (such as the ethnography of speaking and ethnoscience), and sociolinguistic scholars (such as William Labov, Einar Haugen, and Erving Goffman) whose widely-known and often-emulated work was not pursued by organized groups.

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