Brings the study of writing to the heart of sociolinguistic inquiryThis book puts writing at the centre of sociolinguistic inquiry drawing on a range of academic fields including New Literacy Studies, semiotics, genre studies, stylistics and new rhetoric. The key question the book explores is- what do we mean by 'writing' in the 21 century?Using examples from across a range of contexts the book argues that writing, involving both old and new technologies, is a pervasive and complex communicative feature of contemporary life.The book is organised around the following areas: The multimodal nature of writing The verbal dimension to writing. Writing as everyday practice. Writing as a differentiated semiotic and social resource. Writing as the inscription of identity A range of analytic tools for analysing writing as text and practice are illustrated including genre, register, discourse and metaphor, as well as notions which emphasise the mobile potential of writing such as genre chains, networks, literacy brokers and text trajectories. This book seeks to redress the neglect of writing in the field of sociolinguistics by introducing readers to the nature and consequences of what it means to do writing in a globalised world.