This book presents a general, yet detailed, spectrum of the latest research on language regard. The preface introduces the concepts adopted by the authors, who explain that the term language regard refers to ‘various methods and data types focused on nonlinguists’ beliefs, evaluative or not, conscious or unconscious, about language’ (xix). Moreover, the term itself conveys more meaning than the previously used ones (language attitudes or ideology), as it not only involves these ideas, but also reflects peoples’ beliefs and perceptions on the topic, as it also encompasses a range of methodologies.
In the introduction, by Dennis R. Preston, who coined the term language regard, the readers find ideas on what, why, how, and whether to investigate the field. Preston notes that technological tools and new experimental research techniques (borrowed from other fields) have made it possible to enrich the inquiries in the area. The book then is divided into three parts (sixteen chapters: Part 1, ‘Language regard: Varied methods’; Part 2, ‘Language regard and language variation’; and Part 3, ‘Language regard and language change’.
The six chapters in Part 1 present methodological details on how to research language regard. The authors introduce some definitions, such as geographic information system (GIS) (31), perceptual dialectology (62), emic and etic approaches (63, 64), sociolinguistic receptivity (81), as well as specific aspects of language.
Throughout Part 2, its five chapters lead us on a journey across language regard and variation, revealing interesting aspects from Cuban immigrants’ regard in Florida, US (ch. 8) such as historical information on Cuban migration to the US and the language varieties perceived by the Cuban community. In ch. 9, we gather data on the American Deaf community, more specifically about Black American Sign Language, which was developed during the segregation era in the US. The authors explain how language attitudes and ideologies cause an impact on that community's perceptions regarding language varieties. Ch. 10 brings a description of perceptual dialectology and embodied stereotypes based on assertions of people who ‘talk black’ or ‘talk white’. Ch. 11 covers the context of immigration and multilingual cross-cultural contact related to Southeast Asian language speakers. The study investigates the Hmong American communities to understand how language changes and represents an important description of language regard of lesser studied communities. Ch. 12 combines language regard with second language acquisition and sociolinguistic competence of non-native speakers, with a noteworthy methodological framework that describes research with non-native listeners who were studying in French-speaking Switzerland.
The third and last part of the book begins with a surprising study about ‘wedgies’ (a schoolyard mean prank) and its variables, followed by research on theory of attitudes and German regional languages. The last two chapters bring us fascinating information on why and how languages change and dialects are formed, as well as sharedness and variability in language regard among young Danes, focusing on the role of social pressures in linguistic variation and change and its relation to what is considered high- and low-status speech, as well as the influence of the speaker and the listener's gender on the chosen norm.
As a student and researcher of the applied linguistics field, more specifically language learning and teaching and teacher education, Language regard: Methods, variation and change functioned as a very interesting tool to introduce me to the language variation research field, offering extremely rich and detailed explanations on a number of terms and concepts.
