The Routledge Handbook of Sociophonetics is the definitive guide to sociophonetics. Offering a practical and accessible survey of an unparalleled range of theoretical and methodological perspectives, this is the first handbook devoted to sociophonetic research and applications of sociophonetics within and beyond linguistics. It defines what sociophonetics is as a field and offers views of what sociophonetics might become. Split into three sections, this book: * examines the suprasegmental, segmental, and subsegmental units that sociophoneticians study; * reveals the ways that sociophoneticians create knowledge and solve problems across a range of theoretical and practical applications; * explores sociophonetic traditions around the world in spoken and signed languages; * includes case studies that demonstrate sociophonetic research in action, which will support and inspire readers to conduct their own projects. This handbook is an indispensable resource for researchers, undergraduate and graduate students in sociophonetics, as well as researchers and students in sociolinguistics, phonetics, phonology, language variation and change, cognitive linguistics, psycholinguistics, speech pathology, and language teaching-and indeed any area of study where phonetics and phonology interact with social factors and forces.