ABSTRACT
The Interlude links Section II with its focus on language users to Section III which focuses on the uses of language. The concepts of identity and indexicality are discussed with examples, and the ways in which sociolinguists investigate the construction of social identity are reviewed with reference to Sections I and II of the book. The way a linguistic variable is expressed may be interpreted in different ways by different people, and speakers may also be conscious of the “identity work” that their own linguistic practices achieve. The concept of an “indexical field” is discussed to illustrate the associations of particular linguistic features with specific social categories such as age, gender, and ethnicity, or degree of education and intelligence.
