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

Psychologists and linguists explore how people place other people socially by their accents and dialects in different parts of the world. After establishing a foundational framework, they look at language attitudes in the Americas, Western Europe, the Nordic countries, the Maghreb countries of North West Africa, southern Africa, South Asia, and Australia and New Zealand. A study also considers attitudes in China about the English language. Annotation c2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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.