Sociolinguistic Variation: Theories, Methods,

Why does human language vary from one person, or one group, to another? In what ways does it vary? How do linguists go about studying variation in, say, the sound system or the sentence structure of a particular language? Why is the study of language variation important outside the academic world, in say education, the law, employment or housing? This book provides an overview of these questions, bringing together a team of experts to survey key areas within the study of language variation and language change. Covering both the range of methods used to research variation in language, and the applications of such research to a variety of social contexts, it is essential reading for advanced students and researchers in sociolinguistics, communication, linguistic anthropology and applied linguistics.

Robert Bayley is Professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of California, Davis Ceil Lucas is Professor in the Department of Linguistics at Gallaudet University

List of figures	p. ix
List of tables	p. x
Acknowledgments	p. xii
Notes on editors and contributors	p. xiii
Introduction	p. 1
Theories
Variation and phonological theory	p. 5
Syntactic variation	p. 24
The psycholinguistic unity of inherent variability: old Occam whips out his razor	p. 45
The study of variation in historical perspective	p. 70
Style in dialogue: Bakhtin and sociolinguistic theory	p. 90
Variation and historical linguistics	p. 110
Second language acquisition: a variationist perspective	p. 133
Variation and modality	p. 145
Methods
Sociolinguistic fieldwork	p. 165
Quantitative analysis	p. 190
Sociophonetics	p. 215
Applications
Sociolinguistic variation and education	p. 237
Lessons learned from the Ebonics controversy: implications for language assessment	p. 254
Variation, versatility, and Contrastive Analysis in the classroom	p. 276
Social-political influences on research practices: examining language acquisition by African American children	p. 297
Sociolinguistic variation and the law	p. 318
Attitudes toward variation and ear-witness testimony	p. 338
Afterword: Walt Wolfram and the study of sociolinguistic variation	p. 349
References	p. 354
Index	p. 393
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

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Sociolinguistic Variation: Theories, Methods, and Applications

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