Sociolinguistics and the Narrative Turn : : Researching language and society in contexts of change and transition / / Rada Tirvassen.

• Author: Tirvassen, Rada.
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden, , Boston : : BRILL,, 2019.
• Year of Publication: 2019
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Brill's Studies in Language, Cognition and Culture 19.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (xi, 209 pages).

Sociolinguistics and the Narrative Turn presents a fresh approach to sociolinguistics. Located within a qualitative paradigm, it proposes an alternative method for generating knowledge in the field. To start with, there is an argued critique of some of the guiding principles of traditional sociolinguistics which is driven by a trend of scholarship that draws on the meta-narrative of the researcher. In this traditional approach to sociolinguistics, the interpretation of the language phenomenon is not only decontextualised but also stripped of human experience. To illustrate his argument that a qualitative narrative approach to knowledge generation can offer different perspectives and can renew the theorisation of the relationship between language and society, the author has conducted a small-scale study consisting of seven participants.

Table of Contents

Introduction: My Narrative of Sociolinguistics as a Discipline -- A Critique of Traditional Sociolinguistics -- The Grand Narrative of the Researcher: a Case Study Approach of Macrosociolinguistic Research -- The ‘Grand Narrative’ behind Historical Sociolinguistics -- Social Categorisation and Sociolinguistics -- Narrative Research and Sociolinguistics -- The Narrative Turn: an Alternative Perspective for Scholarship in Sociolinguistics -- From Macrosociolinguistics to the Narratives of the Ordinary Citizen -- Language Shift and Language Death: the Narratives of the Ordinary Citizen -- Sociolinguistics and Social Categories: the Narratives of Ordinary Citizens -- Sociolinguistics and Qualitative Research.