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.