The Social Meanings of Language, Dialect and Accent: International Perspectives on Speech Styles

This volume represents a unique contribution to the area of language attitudes research with its focus on how languages, dialects and accents induce us to form social judgments about people who use these forms.
The essays attend to evaluations of speech styles across nations. No previous work has embraced this comparative perspective globally, but such a volume that situates language and attitude research in the 21st century is long overdue.
The content is culturally diverse and showcases the work of eminent scholars across the globe. Each chapter brings its own theoretical interpretation to this field of study, and the book provides the reader with a plethora of models that extend our understanding of language attitudes.
It is fitting that Cindy Gallois, who has incisively contributed to research on language attitudes over the past 30 years, provides an epilogue on the current state of language attitudes research.

Howard Giles is Professor of Communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is founding and current editor of the Journal of Language and Social Psychology and the co-founding and current co-editor of the Journal of Asian Pacific Communication. Giles is past president of The International Communication Association and the International Association of Language and Social Psychology. He is the editor of The Handbook of Intergroup Communication (2012).
Bernadette Watson is Senior Lecturer in psychology at The University of Queensland and completed her PhD under the supervision of Professor Cindy Gallois. She is a health psychologist who studies communication. Her research focuses on effective communication between health professionals and patients. She researches the influence of identity and intergroup processes both on patient-health professional communication and on communication in multi-disciplinary health teams.