ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the move from the traditional concept of community to the more flexible, transitory communities that characterise contemporary sociolinguistic conceptions. It then looks particularly at how virtual communities - as conceived by different internet researchers - fit into this new way of understanding how people come together and make connections. Recognition of the explanatory power of the speech community led, among other things, to the establishment of sociolinguistics as a legitimate field of enquiry. Social network theory offered more nuanced ways of understanding how relationships within and across communities shape language patterns. Contemporary conceptions of community - as the product of networked connections, and as flexible, shifting and interactively constructed - are confirmed and extended through consideration of social media alignments. However, online community is about what community has always been about - seeking people out, making connections and showing allegiances.
