In an article published in the journal Sociolinguistic Studies, Dr Michael Pearce considers how the technological advances associated with Web 2.0 allow people to interact in online ‘communities’ built around shared interests and concerns. Michael's article examines an online messageboard virtually located in North East England, and explores the ways in which participants’ beliefs about and attitudes towards sociolinguistic variation emerge through discourse. He focuses on a single ‘conversation’ about the sociolinguistic variable mam/mum, revealing the language ideologies which inform the sociolinguistic awareness of participants, and concludes by using the concept of ‘late modernity’ as an interpretive frame to help understand what is happening as people appropriate a global technology for local social action.
Pearce, M. 2015. Mam or mum? Sociolinguistic awareness and language-ideological debates online. Sociolinguistic Studies, 9 (1): 115-135.
