Introduction

Summary

The Introduction describes citizen sociolinguistics as an offshoot of the broader category of citizen science and exemplifies types of expertise that everyday people bring to the study of language in context. Instead of looking to experts in the field of linguistics for definitive diagnoses of language issues, I lay out the perspective that these institutionally centered voices are just one of many different interesting and personally invested views on language. In this way, I illustrate citizen sociolinguistics as a means to explore social norms, not a statement of top-down language standards to be adhered to in all cases, or a studied expertise that provides a definitive description of language works. The Introduction concludes with an overview of the chapters to come.