Variationist Sociolinguistics

Sali A. Tagliamonte is a Professor in the Linguistics Department at the University of Toronto, Canada. She is author of Analysing Sociolinguistic Variation (2006), co-author of African American English in the Diaspora: Tense and Aspect (Wiley-Blackwell, 2001), and has published on African American varieties; British, Irish, and Canadian dialects; as well as child, teen, television, and Internet languages.

• Acknowledgments xForeword xiiSeries Editor’s Preface xiiiPreface xivList of Figures xviiList of Tables xx1 Sociolinguistics as Language Variation and Change 1Sociolinguistics 1The Linguistic Variable 3Linguistic Change 8The Principle of Accountability 9Circumscribing the Variable Context 10Evolution of the Linguistic Variable 15The Importance of Accountability 19Language Variation and Change and Linguistic Theory 21Exercises 222 Social Patterns 25Social Class 25Sex (or Gender) 32Style and Register 34Mobility in Space and Mobility in Class 35Social Network, Communities of Practice 36Ethnicity and Culture 38The Mass Media 41Age 43Types of Change 56Principles of Linguistic Change 62Summary 65Exercises 663 Linguistic Patterns 71Sound Change 74Morphological Change 76Syntactic Change 80Semantic Change 84Grammaticalization 87Lexical Effects 91Exemplar Theory 94Exercises 974 Data and Method 100The Speech Community 100Corpus Building 101Creating Sociolinguistic Corpora 102The Individual and the Group 108Constructing an LVC Study 110Research Ethics 115The Gold – Your Data 116The Real World 1175 Quantitative Analysis 120The Quantitative Paradigm 120Distributional Analysis 121Statistical Modeling 121The Three Lines of Evidence 122The Case Study – Variable (that) 124Goldvarb Logistic Regression 126Challenging the Variable Rule Program 129Drawbacks to the Variable Rule Program 137New Toolkits for Variationist Sociolinguistics 138Summary 156Exercises 1576 Comparative Sociolinguistics 162Comparison 162The Comparative Method 163Comparison in Origins 165Comparison in Language Contact 166Standards for Comparison 167Variable (did) 168Exercises 1737 Phonological Variables 177Variable (t,d) 179Variable (ing) 187Tips for Studying Phonological Variables 195Exercises 2038 Morpho-Syntactic Variables 206Verbal (s) 207Adverb (ly) 217Modal (have to) 228Studying Morpho-Syntactic Variables 235Exercises 2419 Discourse/Pragmatic Features 247Quotative (be like) 247General Extenders 258Studying the Discourse/Pragmatic Variable 269Exercises 27710 Tense/Aspect Variables 279Grammaticalization and Tense/Aspect Variables 280Future (going to) 281Perfect (have) 296Studying Tense/Aspect Variables 308Exercises 31111 Other Variables 314Variable (come) 315Variable (Intensifiers) 320Language and the Internet 336Studying Unusual Variables 342Exercises 34512 Sociolinguistic Explanations 349What Are the Constraints on Change? 349How Does Language Change? 350How Is a Change Embedded in Social and Linguistic Systems? 350Evaluation of a Change 351Statistical Modeling 353Traditional Explanations 354The Principle of Interaction 355Appendix A: Corpora Cited 358Appendix B: Time Periods in the History of English 359References 360Subject Index 392Index of Linguistic Variables 400

“The author's aims of introducing the field of LVC to learners, discussing its principle goals and achievements, and opening up discussion for advances in the field have been successfully achieved in this volume.”  (LINGUIST, 16 May 2012)Featured on CBC Radio One's Ontario Today (17th October), http://www.cbc.ca/ontariotoday/2011/10/17/tuesday-northern-and-southern-expressions/#socialcomments