Researching Urban Youth Language and Identity

Rob Drummond is Reader in Linguistics at Manchester Metropolitan University and Head of Youth Language at the Manchester Centre for Youth Studies, UK.

“This collaborative piece of research raises awareness of the value of nonstandard language and informs policymakers and commentators, which will hopefully help mitigate social bias and inequality. It also has implications for future studies, both empirically and theoretically, by offering an elaborate account of conducting fieldwork as well as combining different research traditions. This book is especially helpful to those who will conduct school-based ethnography.” (Gloria Yan Dou, Language in Society, Vol. 49 (3), 2020)“Drummond’s writing will be accessible to a wide range of readers, including students and those with no background in sociolinguistic research. … Researching Urban Youth Language and Identity offers a thoughtful, reflective, and unusually honest account of doing fieldwork in a challenging context. It is engaging, highly readable, and will certainly be of use toanyone considering linguistic ethnography – of any type – in the future.” (Lucy Jones, Journal of Linguistics, June 14, 2019)

• Chapter 1: Introduction.Chapter 2: The research context.Chapter 3: Our roles and identities.Chapter 4: Methods.Chapter 5: A Year in the life of the PRU.Chapter 6: Manchester Youth Language.-Chapter 7: TH-stopping, ethnicity, and grime. Chapter 8: Giving back. Chapter 9: Final thoughts.