ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the threads and elements within the dimension of varieties. The social dimensions of the communicative repertoire differ from the physical/technological dimensions. The framework of multiplicity seeks to elaborate a way of understanding how selves draw on features from within the elements of varieties to create flexible and individualized communicative repertoires. The chapter argues that for the two social dimensions, all elements within each of these two dimensions are selected in any communicative act. It shows that discrete sociolinguistic labels such as gendered language or ethnic dialects do not constitute elements in the dimension of varieties. The most recognized of the elements under the label macro-geopolitical is what is often referred to as a national language. Nations with longer histories within an assumed unifying cultural frame such as Britain, France or Germany began the standardization process long before nations such as Australia and New Zealand were inhabited by speakers of English.
