In: Weigand, Edda (ed.) 2009. Dialogue Analysis XI. Proceedings of the IADA 11th Conference on ‚Dialogue Analysis and Rhetoric’, University of Münster, March 26-30, 2007. Volume 2/08, pp. 363-378. 363 Speech Style and Metarepresentations: Acts of Social Class (Dis)affiliation 1 Irene Theodoropoulou King‟s σollege δondon Style as a pivotal construction in sociolinguistic variation has been dealt with, inter alia (Labov 2006, Bell 1984, 2001), as a means of constructing social meaning (Coupland 2001; Eckert 2000, 2001). ρgainst the backdrop of „speaker-design approaches‟ on style (Schilling-Estes 2002:388-94), this paper sets out to explore the negotiation of the social meaning of Northern Suburban (henceforth NS) Athenian social class on behalf of three native NS female interactants. More specifically, the analytical focus is on their stylistic resources (Coupland 2007) and the ways they employ them, in order to (dis)affiliate themselves from the practical activities and metarepresentations (Rampton 2006) relevant to NS social class the way they are evident in Greek popular literature. The basic claim made and illustrated through stylistic and ideological data analysis is that the participants‟ otherwise strategic style use and negotiation of NS social class is constrained by their unconscious influence by popular culture. 1. Style in ‘speaker design approaches’ The „style as speaker design approach‟ is grounded on the belief that style shifting is not a reactive phenomenon, which was the point of departure in previous approaches (Labov 2006, Bell 1984). Rather, style variation is the core of the active shape and reshape of speaker identity. Identity has a two-dimensional meaning here: the first is the personal one, and it is for the speaker „to pick out as a particular person‟, while the second dimension is the interpersonal, which states that a speaker is „recognized as a part of some larger entity‟ (Le Page & Tabouret- Keller 1985:2). According to the speaker design approach, these two dimensions are in a symbiotic relationship, i.e., on the one hand, the individual speaker‟s style 1 The findings reported here stem from my θhD research project titledκ „ ‘Indexicalities of Modern Greek Speech Style: A Comparative Sociolinguistic Study on Athenian Suburban Class Identities’, which is funded by the Foundation for Education and European Culture (IPEP), the Greek State Scholarships Foundation (IKY) and the Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation. Their support as well as the guidance of my supervisors, Alexandra Georgakopoulou and Devyani Sharma, are acknowledged and highly appreciated. Any errors remaining are my own.