A main proponent of the theory is sociolinguist Deborah Tannen, whose work, especially her 1990 book You Just Don't Understand, is often cited in the discussion of the theory and is considered to be the main reason for its popularisation.
Accents of English was reviewed by the sociolinguist KM Petyt in the December 1982 edition of the Journal of the IPA.
In recent developments of stylistic variation analysis scholars such as Allan Bell, Barbara Johnstone, Natalie Schilling-Estes have been focusing on initiative dimension of style-shifting, which occurs when speakers proactively choose among various linguistic resources (e.g. dialectal, archaic or vernacular forms) in order to present themselves in a specific way.
The vocabulary of children's games, including truce terms, is described by sociolinguist Peter Trudgill in Dialects of England as being particularly rich in regional variation insofar as they are not based on official or television culture.
The Valencian sociolinguist Rafael Ninyoles i Monllor coined the term linguistic conflict by the end of the 1960s for referring to certain diglossic situations, such as the Valencian one.