���H��λ�о�:����Z�ԌWҕ��:sociolinguistic perspectives ���x

������ţ������Z�ԌW���������H��λ�о�������Z�ԌWҕ�ǡ�������his volume is a sociolinguistic exploration of one of the fundamental properties of communication: stancetaking. Stancetaking-taking up a position with Fespect to the form or the content of one's utterance-is central because speaker positionality is built into the act of communication. Although.some forms of speech and writing are more stance-saturated than others�� there is no such thing as a completely neutral position vis-et-yis one's lin8uistic productions�� because neutrality is itself a stance. To take a simple example�� when we choose a verb of saying to introduce speech rep- resented as another's�� our choices entail stances toward that speech�� from neutrality ��"said"�� to doubt ��"alleged"��; every choice js defined in contrast to other semantic options..By the same token�� speech cannot be affectively neutral; we can indeed convey a stance of affective neutrality�� but it will of necessity be read in relation to other possible emotional orientations we could have displayed.����Epistemic and affective stances are both socially situated and socially consequential�� as will be explored below. Speech is always produced and interpreted within a sociolinguistic matrix: that is�� speakers make sociolinguistically inflected choices and display orientations to the sociolinguistic meanings associated with forms of speech. Thus sociolinguistics has much to offer to the study of stancetaking.����The study of stance in the contemporary literature is wide-ranging and quite heterogeneous ��see Englebretson 2007���� and has a robust history in a number of analytic traditions�� ranging from corpus-linguistic treatments of authorial stance as connected to particular academic genres�� to critical discourse analyses of embedded stances in political�� cultural�� and persuasive texts�� to studies of stancecaking as an interactional and discursive phenomenon�� to the analysis of stance-saturated linguistic forms as they are used to reproduce ��or chaltenge�� social�� political�� and moral hierarchies in different cultural contexts. The aim of this volume is to map out the sociolinguistics of stance�� bringing together analyses that allow us to explore both what the study of stance has to offer sociolinguistic theory�� and to define the territory occupied by sociolinguistic approaches to stance as it overlaps with and is distinct from the territory occLrpied by other approaches. This introduction is therefore not intended to be an encyclopedic overview of' research on stance in all of the research traditions in which it has been used; nor is it intended to be an exhaustive review of research on stance in sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology. The goal is at once more modest and more focused: to identify dimensions of stance research that are particularly salient for sociolinguistics�� and to situate the sociolinguistic focus on stance in relation to related concepts and currents ot analysis within sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology. With respect to these existing analytical traditions�� I will argue that the concept of stance is a uniquely productive way of conceptualizing the processes of indexicalization that are the link between individual performance and social meaning.����Taken as a whole�� the lines of research discussed below are concemed with positionality: how speakers and writers are necessarily engaged in positioning themselves vis-a-vis their words and texts ��which are embedded in tustories oflinguistic and textual production���� their imerlocutors and audiences ��both actual and virtual/projected/ imagined���� and with respect to a context that they simultaneously respond to and con-struct linguistically. One of the primary goals of a sociolinguistic approach to stance is to explore how the taking up of particular kinds of stances is habitually and convention- ally associated with particular subject positions ��social roles and identities; notions of personhood���� and interpersonal and social relationstups Oncluding relations of power�� more broadly. Secondly�� a sociolinguistics of stance has a crucial role to play in theorizing the relationship between acts of stance'and the sociocultural field: in particular the role these acts play in social ��and sociolinguistic�� reproduction and change.����As an emergent property of interaction�� stance is not transparent in either the linguistic or the sociolinguistic�� but must be inferred from the empirical study of interactions in social and historical context. A particular linguistic stance ��or a set of stances taken over time�� may index multiple selves and social identrties; conversely�� it may index a single social identity�� a personal identity that endures over time ��referred to in Johnstone�� this volume�� as an ethos of self�� or a privileged�� "core" self ��McIntosh�� this volume��. Speaker stances are thus performances through which speakers may align or disalign themselves with and/or ironize stereotypical associations with particular linguistic forms; stances may thus express multiple or ambiguous meanings. This makes stance a crucial point of entry in analyses that focus on the complex ways in which speakers manage multiple identities ��or multiple aspects of identity��. The focus on process also foregrounds multiplicities in the audiences indexed by particular linguistic practices�� and on the social dynamics and consequences of audience reception�� uptake�� and interpretation.��������