Book Review: Folklinguistics and Social Meaning in Australian English

empirical, usage-based sociolinguistic anchoring without other baggage. This is why in my own work (e.g., Fabricius 2018) I have resorted to using the term “modern RP.” This term is at least a nod to a sociolinguistic generational continuity, which means that while the accent-in-use has evolved and broadened over time, it has not fundamentally disappeared, in the sense that previous forms of the accent are still mutually intelligible with present-day forms. These sociolinguistic issues will not be pertinent for all readers of Lindsey’s book (as it has a strong second-language teaching interest, and a pedagogical approach is necessarily different), but they may well be relevant to readers of this journal with an interest in sociolinguistic approaches to accents such as modern RP/SSBE.