This volume addresses the ‘unity problem’ within sociolinguistics. Building from Guy & Hinskens’ (2016) work in Lingua, contributors seek to ‘broaden the… methodological repertoire… and theoretical understanding’ of linguistic coherence (2). They fill a scholarly gap by focusing on covariation between groups of linguistic variables and the social-indexical meanings they hold within language communities. Contributions are organized into five parts: ‘Theoretical perspectives’ (Part 1), ‘Methodological advances’ (Part 2), ‘Social dimensions’ (Part 3), ‘Perceptual approaches’ (Part 4), and ‘Standard language ideologies’ (Part 5).
In Part 1, Devyani Sharma (chapter 1) advocates for an approach to covariation based on the degree of routinisation, rather than an assumption that lectal coherence is either entirely structural or entirely agentive. Meredith Tamminga & Lacey Wade (chapter 2) demonstrate that different pictures of coherence can be achieved by approaching the same linguistic variables at different social and temporal scales. Both chapters constitute a timely reminder of the importance of defining ethnographic and methodological context in coherence research, and all further chapters can be read with them in mind. Gregory R. Guy, Livia Oushiro, & Ronald Beline Mendes (chapter 3) analyze data from two corpuses of Brazilian Portuguese speech to show a broad degree of covariation at the regional level.
In Part 2, James A. Walker, Michol F. Hoffman, & Miriam Meyerhoff (chapter 4) and Karen V. Beaman & Konstantin Sering (chapter 5) test analytical models. Chapter 4 compares Principal Components Analysis, Constrained Correspondence Analysis, and Factor Analysis, concluding that CCC is the most appropriate method for modeling coherence patterns. In a diachronic study of Swabian German, Beaman & Sering make a case for PCA. They make innovative use of the concept of ‘functional richness’ (borrowed from biology) to illustrate relationships between dialect diversity and lectal coherence. Students seeking a crash course on multivariate analysis will find both chapters useful.
Part 3 brings understudied social dimensions of coherence to the forefront, not least of which is cognitive ability as a function of age (Aria Adli in chapter 10). Danny Erker (chapter 8) gives a strong argument for the importance of social salience in determining lectal coherence, and Evan Hazenberg (chapter 9) calls back to Sharma's work on scales, highlighting coherent sublects such as those emerging in communities of queer speakers.
Parts 4 and 5 deal with perception and standard language ideologies. Anne-Sophie Ghyselen & Stefan Grondelaers (chapter 11), Hans Bennis & Frans Hinskens (chapter 12), and Juan-Andrés Villena-Ponsoda, Matilde Vida-Castro, & Álvaro Molina-García (chapter 13) look at perceptions of (in)coherence in diverse standard varieties of Flemish, Dutch, and Spanish respectively. Finally, Massimo Cerruti & Alessandro Vietti (chapter 14), Philip C. Vergeiner, Dominik Wallner, & Lars Bülow (chapter 15), and Heike Wiese, Antje Sauermann, & Yannic Bracke (chapter 16) investigate coherence in light of synchronic and diachronic variation in standard Italian(s), Bavarian, and Namibian German.
Rather than attempt to definitively answer the question of coherence, Beaman & Guy bring together a range of incisive theoretical, methodological, and empirical insights on the topic that will be of interest to scholars of variation and change. The volume is a strong base for continuing research on lectal coherence at a range of scales. That said, the vast majority of contributions focus on Indo-European languages; this field would benefit from work on other languages.
