The Handbook of Language Variation and Change: (127 Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics)

Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations ix List of Contributors xiii Preface to the Second Edition xv Studying Language Variation: An Informal Epistemology 1 J.K. Chambers Part I Data Collection 17 1 Entering the Community: Fieldwork 19 Crawford Feagin 2 Data in the Study of Variation and Change 38 Tyler Kendall 3 Investigating Historical Variation and Change in Written Documents: New Perspectives 57 Edgar W. Schneider Part II Evaluation 83 4 The Quantitative Paradigm 85 Robert Bayley 5 Sociophonetics 108 Erik R. Thomas 6 Comparative Sociolinguistics 128 Sali A. Tagliamonte 7 Language with an Attitude 157 Dennis R. Preston Part III Linguistic Structure 183 8 Variation and Syntactic Theory 185 Ralph W. Fasold 9 Investigating Chain Shifts and Mergers 203 Matthew J. Gordon 10 Discourse Variation 220 Ronald Macaulay Part IV Language and Time 237 11 Real Time and Apparent Time 239 Patricia Cukor-Avila and Guy Bailey 12 Child Language Variation 263 Julie Roberts 13 Adolescence 277 Sam Kirkham and Emma Moore 14 Patterns of Variation including Change 297 J.K. Chambers Part V Social Differentiation 325 15 Investigating Stylistic Variation 327 Natalie Schilling 16 Social Class 350 Sharon Ash 17 Gender, Sex, Sexuality, and Sexual Identities 368 Robin Queen 18 Ethnicity 388 Carmen Fought Part VI Domains 407 19 Social Networks 409 Lesley Milroy and Carmen Llamas 20 Communities of Practice 428 Miriam Meyerhoff and Anna Strycharz 21 Constructing Identity 448 Scott F. Kiesling Part VII Contact 469 22 Space, Diffusion and Mobility 471 David Britain 23 Linguistic Outcomes of Bilingualism 501 Gillian Sankoff 24 Koineization 519 Paul Kerswill 25 Supraregionalisation and Dissociation 537 Raymond Hickey Part VIII Sociolinguists and Their Communities 555 26 Community Commitment and Responsibility 557 Walt Wolfram Postscript 577 Natalie Schilling and Jack Chambers Index 579

About the Author :
J.K. Chambers is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Toronto. He is the author of Sociolinguistic Theory: Linguistic Variation and its Social Significance, Revised Edition (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009) and Dialectology, Second Edition (with P. Trudgill, 1998), as well as numerous other books and scores of articles. He works extensively as a forensic consultant and maintains a parallel vocation in jazz criticism, including a volume on the bebop pianist Richard Twardzik (2008) and a prize-winning biography of Miles Davis, Milestones: The Music and Times of Miles Davis (1998). Natalie Schilling is Professor of Linguistics at Georgetown University. She is the author of American English: Dialects and Variation, Third Edition (with W. Wolfram, Wiley-Blackwell, 2016) and Sociolinguistic Fieldwork (2013). An expert in language variation and change in American English, she conducts workshops on sociolinguistics and forensic linguistics for an array of audiences within and beyond academia, and is a noted consultant in both these fields. Among her works for general audiences is English in America: A Linguistic History, an audio-video lecture series for The Great Courses (2016).

Review :
“This is an addition to the invaluable ‘Handbook’ series from Blackwell and will be an essential purchase for anyone wishing to inform themselves about language variation and change … Each chapter is an interesting read in its own right, and it really can be read from cover to cover … It's a real achievement to maintain this level of excellence in a collection.” British Association of Applied Linguistics "The Handbook of Language Variation and Change is a convenient, hand-held repository of the essential knowledge about the study of language variation and change. This Handbook allows the next generation of academics to perpetuate all of these fields of study and explore them with the kind of depth unimaginable to their predecessors." Folia Linguistica "The Handbook of Language Variation and Change is a long-awaited volume which aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the 'socio-linguistic enterprise ... in its multifaceted pursuits'. This is indeed a challenge, but one that the volume thoroughly meets: it is an authoritative guide, which provides an excellent contribution to the diverse field of variationist studies." Journal of Linguistics "Languages do not exist but in space and time. Their variability is what allows them to function as means of communication and social interaction. The present Handbook presents an up-to-date and in-depth account of how to study this aspect of language which is at the interface of historical linguistics, dialectology, and sociolinguistics. The editors and contributing authors are among the most prolific scholars in the field. Their collective effort shows us how the versatility of 'real' situated speech can be made an object of rigorous scientific investigation and what can be learned from it about language and society." Florian Coulmas, Gerhard Mercator University "At last we have an authoritative place to go to discover the impressive accomplishments of the research on linguistic variation and change over the past forty years and to get a glimpse of the future. The editors of this Handbook have put together an excellent survey of what variationists do, produced by an admirable combination of scholars who helped found the field along with linguists from the next generation. This is an excellent volume. Buy it!" Ralph Fasold, Georgetown University