There has been an outpouring of studies on the use of linguistic variables in the construction of styles and social identities (e.g., Bucholtz 1999; Eckert 2000; Schilling-Estes 2000; Coupland 2001). Particularly, studies such as Bucholtz (1999), Cutler (1999), and Coupland (2001) have demonstrated that speakers draw on existing linguistic resources that are already imbued with social meanings through their/ established/ indexical relation with a social group. When such linguistic features are used to perform another style or persona, their existing meanings are transformed. Although these studies have shown that the social meanings of linguistic forms are never fixed but open to re-interpretation and negotiation, sociolinguists have not explored much of what makes the appropriation of existing features by a new group seem possible. In other words, while our "participants" may presuppose the existing indexical relation when they re-use a linguistic feature as a stylistic resource, sociolinguists also tend to take the existing relation as given in our investigation of the social meanings of the linguistic feature. This paper argues that socially salient linguistic features accumulate meanings over time and in/from different contexts. By examining how the existing meaning of a linguistic feature is reproduced over time and in different contexts, this study proposes a socio-historical approach to a more nuanced understanding of the social meanings of sociolinguistic variation.

Using rhotacization, a locally salient sociolinguistic variable in Beijing Mandarin, as an example, I investigate how the indexical relation between the rhotacized variant and a naturalized social character of "smoothness" is produced and reproduced over time, by different users, and in different contexts. This study shows that the rhotacized variant lives a socially charged life in the local community. When a locally based group (i.e., Chinese business professionals working for foreign businesses) use it to construct a cosmopolitan style, they also enter into a dialogue with the socio-cultural history of rhotacization. The socio-cultural history of this variable informs our understanding of why a salient local feature is used to present a supra-local style.