Variationist Sociolinguistics

Acknowledgments x
Foreword xii
Series Editor's Preface xiii
Preface xiv
List of Figures xvii
List of Tables xx
1 Sociolinguistics as Language Variation and Change 1
Sociolinguistics 1
The Linguistic Variable 3
Linguistic Change 8
The Principle of Accountability 9
Circumscribing the Variable Context 10
Evolution of the Linguistic Variable 15
The Importance of Accountability 19
Language Variation and Change and Linguistic Theory 21
Exercises 22
2 Social Patterns 25
Social Class 25
Sex (or Gender) 32
Style and Register 34
Mobility in Space and Mobility in Class 35
Social Network, Communities of Practice 36
Ethnicity and Culture 38
The Mass Media 41
Age 43
Types of Change 56
Principles of Linguistic Change 62
Summary 65
Exercises 66
3 Linguistic Patterns 71
Sound Change 74
Morphological Change 76
Syntactic Change 80
Semantic Change 84
Grammaticalization 87
Lexical Effects 91
Exemplar Theory 94
Exercises 97
4 Data and Method 100
The Speech Community 100
Corpus Building 101
Creating Sociolinguistic Corpora 102
The Individual and the Group 108
Constructing an LVC Study 110
Research Ethics 115
The Gold - Your Data 116
The Real World 117
5 Quantitative Analysis 120
The Quantitative Paradigm 120
Distributional Analysis 121
Statistical Modeling 121
The Three Lines of Evidence 122
The Case Study - Variable (that) 124
Goldvarb Logistic Regression 126
Challenging the Variable Rule Program 129
Drawbacks to the Variable Rule Program 137
New Toolkits for Variationist Sociolinguistics 138
Summary 156
Exercises 157
6 Comparative Sociolinguistics 162
Comparison 162
The Comparative Method 163
Comparison in Origins 165
Comparison in Language Contact 166
Standards for Comparison 167
Variable (did) 168
Exercises 173
7 Phonological Variables 177
Variable (t,d) 179
Variable (ing) 187
Tips for Studying Phonological Variables 195
Exercises 203
8 Morpho-Syntactic Variables 206
Verbal (s) 207
Adverb (ly) 217
Modal (have to) 228
Studying Morpho-Syntactic Variables 235
Exercises 241
9 Discourse/Pragmatic Features 247
Quotative (be like) 247
General Extenders 258
Studying the Discourse/Pragmatic Variable 269
Exercises 277
10 Tense/Aspect Variables 279
Grammaticalization and Tense/Aspect Variables 280
Future (going to) 281
Perfect (have) 296
Studying Tense/Aspect Variables 308
Exercises 311
11 Other Variables 314
Variable (come) 315
Variable (Intensifi ers) 320
Language and the Internet 336
Studying Unusual Variables 342
Exercises 345
12 Sociolinguistic Explanations 349
What Are the Constraints on Change? 349
How Does Language Change? 350
How Is a Change Embedded in Social and Linguistic Systems?350
Evaluation of a Change 351
Statistical Modeling 353
Traditional Explanations 354
The Principle of Interaction 355
Appendix A: Corpora Cited 358
Appendix B: Time Periods in the History of English 359
References 360
Subject Index 392
Index of Linguistic Variables 400