Describing and Modeling Variation in Grammar Book

Required reading for schoolwork.

Maybe if I were more well-versed in linguistics, I would have found it more interesting because it would have seemed less abstract. Still...very dull reading, despite potentially interesting subject matter. I got excited whenever Wetzel introduced a specific example (for instance: keigo between a married couple nowadays probably indicates that they are having a conflict) but such examples were few and far between. Spent a lot of time looking at intellectuals and self-help books/classes on keigo...wished there had been more about keigo in pop culture and other non-metapragmatic situations involving keigo. Apparently the self-help industry is a big one in Japan (vs. the US) but even so it felt like a lot of the book's discussion was removed from most Japanese people's interactions with keigo.