This volume provides an extensive overview of the field of language and social psychology (LSP), introducing key theories and applications to a variety of discursive data. The chapters are representative of a range of approaches to LSP and will be of interest to social psychologists, communication scholars, discourse analysts, linguists, rhetoricians, and others. The book is divided into four sections, the first focusing on intercultural and intergroup communication, the second on institutional discourse, the third on gender and sexuality, and the fourth on rhetoric and political discourse.

One theme that emerges across several chapters is the centrality of communication accommodation theory (CAT) in LSP research. Chapter 5, “Accommodation and institutional talk: Communicative dimensions of police-civilian interactions” (by Howard Giles et al.), provides an overview of CAT and applies the theory to cross-cultural survey research on perceived police accommodation and attitudes toward law enforcement. CAT also features prominently in chapter 1, “Language, ethnicity and intergroup relations” (Richard Y. Bourhis et al.), where it is used in conjunction with ethnolinguistic vitality and the interactive acculturation model to explain language use and outcomes in intergroup communication. CAT also plays a role in chapters on health communication (4, “Language, discourse, and communication about health and illness: Intergroup relations, role, and emotional support”) and on gender and language (7, “Gender and communication in context”). These chapters show the robustness of CAT as a social psychological account of language and communication and its applicability to a variety of contexts.

Not surprisingly, many of the chapters take a quantitative approach to language analysis, focusing on quantitative coding of discourse and measures of language use and perceptions to determine the influence of these variables on a variety of dependent variables. However, qualitative and critical approaches to LSP are represented as well. In chapter 6, Jonathan Potter & Alexa Hepburn describe discursive psychology as an alternative approach to the study of social psychology and apply its methodology to discourse on a child protection hotline, showing how attitudes, perceptions, and emotional states are inscribed in discourse. Similarly, chapter 9, “Contemporary racist discourse: Taboos against racism and racist accusations” (Martha Augoustinos & Danielle Every) uses discursive psychology to reveal how racist ideologies are evident in social contexts that proscribe explicit expression of racism. In other chapters, Sue Wilkinson & Celia Kitzinger describe feminist research on gender and sexuality in conversation analysis, and Peter Bull takes a more language-based approach to traditional concerns in persuasion and political communication.

In sum, this volume collects high-quality chapters on some the most important topics in LSP, written by the biggest names in the field. Each chapter addresses theory but also maintains an applied focus. Planning a graduate seminar on LSP as this book arrived, I found it to be an invaluable resource, with chapters accessible to graduate students with little or no prior coursework in social psychology. It is well suited as a primary or supplemental text in courses on LSP, language and social interaction or identity, and various courses in communication or discourse studies.