Scholars have explained working-class speakers’ continued use of stigmatised vernaculars as a response to their relative powerlessness in relation to the standard language market. Research has shown how, in the face of this powerlessness, working-class communities turn to group solidarity, and use of the vernacular is seen as part of this more general orientation. As a result, two competing social values—status and solidarity—have featured prominently in discussions around language and class. I expand these discussions using data from a linguistic ethnographic study of children's language in Teesside, England. I argue that meanings related to status and solidarity operate at multiple levels and cannot be taken for granted, and demonstrate that vernacular forms that lack status within the dominant sociolinguistic economy may be used to assert status within local interactional use. I further advance discussion of the ways local vernaculars might be intimately linked to classed subjectivities. (Social class, variation, solidarity, status, stance, indexicality, identity, interaction, ethnography)*

Early research on bilingualism and emotion suggests that bilingual speakers’ L1 may be preferred for emotional expression whereas L2 may be used for emotional detachment. The evidence comes primarily from surveys, interviews, and laboratory studies. Studies of bilingual codeswitching (CS) and emotion tend to focus on perception and recollection of experience rather than actual language data. This article uses data from domestic migrant-worker returnee narratives to explore the use of CS in storytelling. Domestic-worker returnees in Indonesia participated in sharing sessions in which they talked about the trauma they experienced while they worked overseas as domestic helpers. CS was widely used and, through a discourse analysis of selected excerpts, the article shows that CS is used for addressee specification and emotional alignment. The article concludes by considering how researchers may use the trauma narratives of repressed groups for social activism. (Codeswitching and emotion, domestic migrant workers, trauma narratives, Indonesia)*

The American performance artist Lady Gaga has earned great notoriety in the mainstream media through artistic and personal performance, as well as for her relationships both with her fandom and the media. In this article, I discuss the linguistic stance-taking moves that Lady Gaga uses in two different communicative media in order to construct an authentic celebrity persona. Through references to intimate relationships, inclusive plural pronouns, and demonstration of attention to fan conversations, Lady Gaga's Twitter posts create a stance of alignment with the ‘ordinary’ people in her fan base. Conversely, by using combative and corrective rhetorical strategies in interviews with journalists, she creates a stance of disalignment with mass media establishment. Together, these linguistic strategies allow Lady Gaga's claims to authenticity to be seen as morally credible. This work highlights the central role that language plays in constructing an authentic-seeming public persona. (Authenticity, stance, celebrity, Lady Gaga, media, interview, Twitter)*

This article takes an ethnographic approach to language standardisation. My research focuses on Romani language use in Prizren, Kosovo, which has a tradition of multilingualism. Moving away from approaches to standardisation that focus only on linguistic processes, I look more broadly at the social processes behind language standardisation. I explore discussions, debates, and attitudes towards me as a language learner to show how a Romani standard is being produced and legitimised in Prizren. Applying theories of purism and standardisation, I examine how certain speech practices are made inferior and how social hierarchies legitimise this. I relate this more broadly to the politics of Romani language and to theories of sociolinguistics and anthropological linguistics. (Romani, Kosovo, standardisation, purism, language ideology)*

Pro-independence parties won a narrow majority of parliamentary seats in the December 2017 elections in Catalonia. Should Catalonia at some point become independent from Spain, the respective status of Catalan and Spanish is a major issue about which there is significant divergence of opinion, not least within the independence movement in Catalonia. This article approaches the question of language officiality in a hypothetically independent Catalonia through the theoretical lens of linguistic authority, particularly the concepts of anonymity and authenticity. The data, an on-line discussion thread following an interview with a Catalan language activist, reveal a striking diversity of language ideological positions on both the nature of linguistic authority in Catalonia as things stand, as well as how such authority should be constructed and managed in the event of independence, particularly as regards questions of officiality. (Catalonia, linguistic authority, language ideologies, officiality)*