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Stylization is the knowing deployment of culturally familiar styles and identities that are marked as deviating from those predictably associated with the current speaking context. Dialect stylization involves performing non-current-first-person personas by phonological and related means, sometimes in play or parody. Although these processes may seem to be very local, it is arguably true that dialects are increasingly experienced in reflexive and mediated environments that breed stylization. One of these is light entertainment on radio; this article analyzes data from English-language national radio broadcasts in Wales. Welshness is self-consciously evoked in the data, partly through dialect performance, where the variables (ou) and (ei) are a rich semiotic resource, linked to nondialectal means of evoking Welsh cultural stances and practices. Although stylization is a form of strategic de-authentication, its ultimate relationship with authenticity is complex. As a facet of cultural performance, stylization can be part of a process of cultural reproduction, and I argue that this is the best interpretation of the present data. As a result, sociolinguistics may need to reconsider its assumptions about cultural authenticity.

The article begins by exploring briefly the role of the elderly in sociolinguistic theory and research. After an outline of the parameters of speech accommodation theory together with a new schematic model, it is argued that speech accommodation theory is a profitable framework for elucidating the sociolinguistic mechanics of, and the social psychological processes underlying, intergenerational encounters. A recent conceptual foray in this direction, which highlights young-to-elderly language strategies, is then overviewed with some illustrations. Contrastive data from a case study are then introduced, a discourse analysis of which allows us to conceptualize various elderly-to-young language strategies. This interpretive analysis suggests important avenues for extending speech accommodation theory itself. A revised, more sociolinguistically elaborated version of this framework is then presented which highlights strategies beyond those of convergence, maintenance, and divergence and leads to the conceptualization of over- and underaccommodation. Finally, and on the basis of the foregoing, a new model of intergenerational communication is proposed and Ryan et al.'s (1986) “communicative predicament” framework duly revised. (Accommodation theory, elderly, overaccommodation, case studies, discourse management, stereotypes, underaccommodation, interdisciplinary)

We report quantitative results from a large online survey of 5010 U.K. informants' reactions to 34 different accents of English, based on simple accent labels. Patterns of accent evaluation, in terms of adjudged levels of prestige, social attractiveness and some other variables, in many regards confirm broad findings from earlier research. Accent-types associated with 'standard' speech are, for example, strongly favoured in the prestige and attractiveness dimensions. Several urban U.K. vernaculars, but not all, are systematically downgraded. On the other hand, robust differences emerge which have not been strongly evidenced previously -particularly differences according to informant gender (with females regularly producing more favourable evaluations) and region (with informants often favouring their own and linked varieties). There are also some important effects by informant age, for example with younger informants attributing less prestige to 'standard' accents. We interpret the findings as indicating rather persistent U.K. language-ideologies around accent difference that are being reconstituted only gradually and in specific regards.

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Since its introduction by Malinowski in the 1920s, “phatic communion” has often been appealed to as a concept in sociolinguistics, semantics, stylistics, and communication, typically taken to designate a conventionalized and desemanticized discourse mode or “type.” But a negotiation perspective, following the conversation analysis tradition of research on greetings and troubles telling, fits the discursive realities better. Phaticity is a multidimensional potential for talk in many social settings, where speakers' relational goals supercede their commitment to factuality and instrumentality. We then analyze phatic processes in elderly people's responses to a scripted how are you? opening in interviews about their medical experiences. Discourse analyses of phatic communion can raise important issues for gerontological and medical research. (Phatic communion, small talk, greetings, elderly talk, medical talk, preference structure)

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