ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on media and language change in various subfields of sociocultural linguistics: variationist and interactional sociolinguistics, media linguistics, linguistic anthropology, and minority language studies. It aims to examine some long-standing assumptions, including the two key notions, 'media' and 'language change,' which are often narrowly framed. The chapter argues that the need to develop a broader theoretical frame and discusses two alternative notions which have had considerable scholarly updates 'mediatization' and 'sociolinguistic change', It introduces the theoretical concepts, i.e., media and mediatization, language change, and sociolinguistic change. The chapter outlines four research approaches to media and language change: the influence of media language on language use in the community, audience practices with media language fragments, change of usage in mass media language, and metalinguistic discourse on linguistic innovation and change. It also introduces developments in these subfields and summarizes critical issues, and outlines future research directions.
