Sociolinguistics of Writing

Theresa Lillis is Professor in English Language and Applied Linguistics at The Open University, UK. Her research interests are in academic and professional writing, particularly the politics of access, location and participation. Recent publications include Academic writing in a global context, with Mary Jane Curry (Routledge 2010) and articles in journals such as TESOL Quarterly, Written Communication, the International Journal of Applied Linguistics and the Journal of Advanced Composition.

Lillis has provided a useful overview of writing from a sociolinguistic perspective. She challenges the status quo in sociolinguistics by clearly and succinctly arguing for the study of writing as a central focus in the field. The author’s lucid, engaging text provides a welcome perspective on writing as a dynamic, multimodal, social practice occurring everyday in not only traditional but also emergent domains.

• List of Figures; List of Tables; Acknowledgements; CHAPTER 1 WRITING IN SOCIOLINGUISTICS; Introduction; Spoken language as the object of the sociolinguistic gaze; Key principles in sociolinguistics, The importance of the social, The empirical study of naturally occurring language, Everyday language as worthy of study, Variety as a core dimension to language; The position(ing) of writing in sociolinguistics, Standardisation and codification, Speech and writing in binary opposition, The acceptable site for ‘closet prescriptivism’?; Legitimising writing as an object of sociolinguistic inquiry, The ethnographic pull in sociolinguistics; Background and aims of this book; Overview of the book; CHAPTER 2THE QUESTION OF MODE; Introduction; What’s in a mode?, Writing as inscription, Writing as verbal, Writing as material , Writing as technologies, Writing as visual, Writing as spatial, Writing and other modal dimensions; Modes in practice: an example from geosemiotics; Conclusion; CHAPTER 3 WRITING AS VERBAL; Introduction; Approaches to text analysis: content, form, function, Content analysis, Form/functional analysis, Layering function on to form, Collapsing the form/function dichotomy, Elevating form over function; Traditions of written text analysis, Critical discourse analysis, Rhetoric and new rhetoric, Stylistics, Contrastive rhetorics, Typification and genre; Conclusion; CHAPTER 4 WRITING AS EVERYDAY PRACTICE; Introduction; What counts as literacy? What counts as writing?, Writing as ordinary; A social practice perspective, Theoretical and empirical tools for exploring writing as social practice; Who are writers? The current growth in writing activity; Using old and new writing technologies: an example of popular political activity; Writing as differentially evaluated resource: the case of formal schooling; A note on the challenges of description, The question of literacy, The question of language; Conclusion; CHAPTER 5: RESOURCES, NETWORKS AND TRAJECTORIES; Introduction; Resources for writing: use and re-use ;Communities, networks and the clustering of resources; Communities- speech, discourse and practice, Identifying clusters of resources, Networks and brokers; The portability and mobility of writing, Centring institutions, text trajectories and the question of uptake, Seeking asylum (Blommert 2005), Writing for publication (Lillis and Curry 2010 ), Medical certification processes in 19C England (Berkenkotter et al 2011); Conclusion; Chapter 6 IDENTITY, INSCRIPTION AND VOICE; Introduction; Why focus on identity; Writing and identity work, The social structuring of opportunities for writing , Habitus and writing practices, Resources for writing inscribed with particular identities, An example of a centripetal resource: essayist literacy; Regulation and agency, Strongly regulated spaces, Weakly regulated spaces, Ownership and becoming: the material resources for identity work in writing; Conclusion; CHAPTER 7 THEORISING WRITING-READING-TEXTS: DOMAINS AND FRAMES ; Introduction; Conceptualising what writers do: approaches to writers-readers-texts, Poetic-aesthetic, Transactional, Process-expressionist, Socio-cognitive, Social semiotic, Socio- discursive, Social practice, Participatory culture; Evaluation, domains and frames, Domains and frames; Shifting the frame: the aesthetics of routine writing, Student writing, Workplace writing; Conclusion; CHAPTER 8: CONCLUSIONS ; Introduction; A summary of key points in this book; The question of function; The question of value and evaluation, The question of boundaries; Future research; References; Index 1. Introduction: exploring writing; 2. Written texts - a question of mode?; 3. Inside written texts; 4. Writing as situated practice (1): Identity and performance; 5. Writing as situated practice (2): Participation, networks and resources; 6. What writing does for sociolinguistics; 7. Researching written texts and practices.