Description:
Focusing on urban youth culture and language crossing, this foundational volume by Ben Rampton has played a pivotal role in the shaping of language and ethnic identity as a domain of study. A vital precursor to later developments in sociolinguistics such as linguistic ethnography and superdiversity, it includes detailed analyses of spontaneous speech data, and integrates the discussion of particular incidents with theories of discourse, code-switching, social movements, resistance and ritual. Now a Linguistics Classic and with a new preface which sets the work in its current context, this remains key reading for all those working in the areas of applied linguistics and sociolinguistics.
Review Quotes:
"The importance of this book for sociolinguistics cannot be overestimated."
C. Kramsch, 1998, Review, Language and Education
"Rampton's book Crossing put the sociolinguistic study of style, and of interethnic styling in particular, on a new footing. [...] The distinctiveness of Rampton's work lies in its ethnographic depth, theoretical openness and empirical specificity."
N. Coupland, 2007, Review, Style
"Ben Rampton has produced a very important study, not only on language and ethnicity among adolescents... but on a range of sociolinguistic topics."
J. Blommaert, 1998, Review, Journal of Sociolinguistics
"A research monograph which manages to be empirically thorough, methodologically rigorous, and of practical and theoretical interest."
M. Heller, 1997, Review, International Journal of Bilingualism