With dialects constantly changing and mobility increasing in recent years, it has become difficult to distinguish between such local accents as one from London or Reading, Bonn or Cologne. This book's authoritative contributors cover all aspects of recent dialect change, in particular, dialect convergence and divergence. Each commissioned chapter, based on original research, provides an overview of a particular issue and presents case studies to illustrate points raised.

This volume presents an interactional perspective on linguistic variability that takes into account the construction of social identities through the formation of social communicative styles. It shows that style is a useful category in bridging the gap between single parameter variation and social identity. Social positioning, i.e., finding one's place in society, is one of its motivating forces.

Various aspects of the expression of stylistic features are focused on, from language choice and linguistic variation in a narrow sense to practices of social categorization, pragmatics...