The Potential of Poetry in Sociolinguistics

ABSTRACT Research in the field of sociolinguistics has taken a relational and artistic turn, as scholars have developed creative means of showing research findings. Drawing on relational ethics, we explore the capacity of art to reach beyond the indexical. Both in research practice and in the representation of research outcomes, the arts offer imaginative domains which are rich seams of potential. We suggest sociolinguistic ethnographic poetry is equipped with the means to evoke the rhythm and rhyme – the music – of social life. Poetry is able to open up sociolinguistics and imagine new ways of working and new ways of saying. We engage with others in this Dialogue to signal the need for innovative, engaged responses to fundamentally ethical questions of relations with, and representation of, others.