Applying Sociolinguistics

Diana Boxer’s Applying Sociolinguistics: Domains and Face-to-Face Interaction is an up-to-date overview of discourse studies in oral interaction. Its focus is on encounters in the various spheres of life: family, educational, social, religious, and work, with an additional chapter on cross-cultural face-to-face interaction in these domains. Each chapter reviews current research in that specific domain, with particular attention to methodological issues. For example, in-depth explanations are offered to the reader on how the various approaches to studying face-to-face discourse (e.g. ethnographic, conversational analytic, interactional sociolinguistic) lend themselves to answering different research questions. Each chapter also culminates with an original analysis by the author of face-to-face interaction in that particular domain. Topics include: nagging in family interaction; bragging and boasting in workplace interaction; sarcasm in educational interaction; joking and teasing in social interaction; rite-of-passage discourse in religious interaction; and gatekeeping discourse in cross-cultural interaction.

Pentti Haddington, University of Oulu, Finland in Linguist List Vol-13-2999, 2002:
This book is well-written and accessible. It should interest linguists widely, but especially those who are interested in the intersection of language, sociology and culture, and especially those interested in applied linguistics and sociolinguistics. Since the book offers in each chapter an overview on previous studies in face-to-face interaction, but also a view to recent work by the author, it works
both as an introduction for scholars and students to the field of face-to-face interaction in applied linguistics / sociolinguistics and as way to acquaint oneself with the more recent work in the field.