Abstract This commentary responds to the papers in the special issue ‘Accomplishing identity in bilingual interaction’ and particularly to the use of Bucholtz and Hall's (2004a, 2004b, 2005) framework for the linguistic analysis of identities in interaction. The commentary focuses on the relationship between theory and empirical work, with attention to the role of ethnographic context in the analysis of both microlevel interaction and macrolevel sociopolitical and sociohistorical processes, the place of language ideologies in the interactional construction of bilingual identities, and the necessity to ground theoretical claims in rigorous empirical analysis.