ABSTRACT

In this chapter, we provide some ideas about projects you could do to explore the topics introduced in this book. The best way to find out about what language is and what it means is to go and see how the language around you is being used. In the chapters so far, you have read about some of the research that sociolinguists do. The important point to remember is that every language community, every text, every utterance can tell us something new. The way that you use language, the way that communication occurs with your friends or in your family is all valuable sociolinguistic data. But as you may have realised already, a lot of this data passes us by. We’re so accustomed to using language to do things that we don’t normally pay much attention to how we do this. We seem to know instinctively what works and what is appropriate, but think about how difficult it would be to explain these rules to someone new to the language situations that you know.