Style-shifting is a term in sociolinguistics

Sociolinguistics

Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used, and the effects of language use on society...

 referring to alternation between styles of speech included in a linguistic repertoire of an individual speaker. As noted by Eckert and Rickford, in sociolinguistic literature terms style and register sometimes have been used interchangeably. Also, various connotations of style are a subject of study in stylistics

Stylistics (linguistics)

Stylistics is the study and interpretation of texts from a linguistic perspective. As a discipline it links literary criticism and linguistics, but has no autonomous domain of its own...

.

Style-shifting is a manifestation of intraspeaker (within-speaker) variation, in contrast with interspeaker (between-speakers) variation. It is a voluntary act which an individual effects in order to respond to or initiate changes in sociolinguistic situation (e.g., interlocutor-related, setting-related, topic-related).

William Labov

William Labov

William Labov born December 4, 1927) is an American linguist, widely regarded as the founder of the discipline of variationist sociolinguistics. He has been described as "an enormously original and influential figure who has created much of the methodology" of sociolinguistics...

, while conducting sociolinguistic interviews, designated two types of spoken style, casual and formal, and three types of reading style (a reading passage, a word list, and a minimal pair

Minimal pair

In phonology, minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language, which differ in only one phonological element, such as a phone, phoneme, toneme or chroneme and have distinct meanings...

 list). Analysing style-shifting Labov postulated that "styles can be arranged along a single dimension, measured by the amount of attention paid to speech" (1972, as quoted in), casual style requiring the least amount of conscious self-monitoring. Such style-shifting is often referred to as responsive (produced in response to normative pressures).

In recent developments of stylistic variation analysis scholars such as Allan Bell

Allan Bell (sociolinguist)

Allan Bell has worked as an independent sociolinguistic researcher in New Zealand and has written extensively on New Zealand English, language style, and media language. He is a founding co-editor of the international quarterly Journal of Sociolinguistics and is known for his theory of audience...

, Barbara Johnstone, Natalie Schilling-Estes have been focusing on initiative dimension of style-shifting, which occurs when speakers proactively choose among various linguistic resources (e.g. dialectal, archaic or vernacular

Vernacular

A vernacular is the native language or native dialect of a specific population, as opposed to a language of wider communication that is not native to the population, such as a national language or lingua franca.- Etymology :The term is not a recent one...

 forms) in order to present themselves in a specific way. In initiative style-shifting speakers actively engage in social practices to construct social meaning.

See also

• audience design
  Audience design
  Audience design is a sociolinguistic model outlined by Allan Bell in 1984 which proposes that linguistic style-shifting occurs primarily in response to a speaker's audience...
  
  
• code-switching
  Code-switching
  In linguistics, code-switching is the concurrent use of more than one language, or language variety, in conversation. Multilinguals—people who speak more than one language—sometimes use elements of multiple languages in conversing with each other...
  
  
• Register (linguistics)
  Register (linguistics)
  In linguistics, a register is a variety of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting. For example, when speaking in a formal setting an English speaker may be more likely to adhere more closely to prescribed grammar, pronounce words ending in -ing with a velar nasal...
  
  
• Sociolinguistics#Traditional sociolinguistic interview
• Style (manner of address)
  Style (manner of address)
  A style of office, or honorific, is a legal, official, or recognized title. A style, by tradition or law, precedes a reference to a person who holds a post or political office, and is sometimes used to refer to the office itself. An honorific can also be awarded to an individual in a personal...
  
  
• Stylistics
  Stylistics (linguistics)
  Stylistics is the study and interpretation of texts from a linguistic perspective. As a discipline it links literary criticism and linguistics, but has no autonomous domain of its own...
  
  
• Allan Bell
  Allan Bell
  The Honourable Allan Robert Bell MHK is a Manx politician, who is the current Chief Minister of the Isle of Man, having been elected to that position on October 11, 2011. He was formerly the Minister for Economic Development of the Isle of Man Government and is Member of the House of Keys for...
  
  
• William Labov
  William Labov
  William Labov born December 4, 1927) is an American linguist, widely regarded as the founder of the discipline of variationist sociolinguistics. He has been described as "an enormously original and influential figure who has created much of the methodology" of sociolinguistics...
  
  

Further reading

• Bell, A. (2001) Back in style: Reworking audience design. In P.Eckert and J. Rickford (eds.), Style and Sociolinguistic Variation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Johnstone, B. (1999) Uses of southern-sounding speech by contemporary Texas women. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 4 (3), 505-22.
• Labov, W. (1972) Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
• Schilling-Estes, N. (1998) Self-conscious speech in Ocracoke English. Language in Sosciety, 27(1), 53-83.