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Writing Language‐based Trade Books: Making Linguistics Accessible to Lay Audiences
Author(s) -
Reaser Jeffrey,
Myrick Caroline
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
language and linguistics compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.619
H-Index - 44
ISSN - 1749-818X
DOI - 10.1111/lnc3.12135
Subject(s) - audience measurement , conversation , publishing , linguistics , order (exchange) , academic writing , sociology , media studies , computer science , political science , literature , art , pedagogy , philosophy , finance , law , economics
New publishing models and increased interest in “popular science” books have converged to make it increasingly viable for linguists to write language‐based trade books focusing on regional and social speech varieties. In order for such books to reach a broad audience, authors must make writing choices that are quite dissimilar from those made when writing for academic peers. In this article, we examine a number of recent sociolinguistic trade books and consider the effects of the authors' choices on the effectiveness in engaging and conveying technical information to non‐academic audiences. From our investigation of issues of audience, prose, images, citations, etc., emerge some guidelines that might help others be more successful in appealing to a popular readership. Though we offer no prescriptions, we hope that our investigation begins a conversation of best practices for engaging the public in linguistic investigations of regional and social speech varieties via trade books. In doing so, we also examine issues related to research ethics and the value in the academy of trade books specifically and linguistic gratuity projects in general.