ABSTRACT
In the last fifteen years there has been a movement within sociolinguistic theory to connect the processes of oral and written discourse with general social processes at the level of political economy and history. Some examples of this trend are found in the work of Fairclough (1989, 1992), Gee (1990, 1992), and in the appearance of a new journal titled Discourse & Society (and this brief listing is only intended as illustrative). While earlier theoretical and empirical work in sociolinguistics considered relationships between language and society (hence the origin of the term ‘sociolinguistics’ itself), the newer approaches, in what might be called discourse studies, are characterised by a focus on the influence upon local social action of general social and cultural processes, especially as they involve social class, ideology, and the distribution of power in society. Earlier sociolinguistics did not focus so directly upon issues of power and ideology, especially concerning the reproduction of class position in modern societies.
