Table of Contents

Introduction Robert Bayley and Ceil Lucas; Part I. Theories: 1. Variation and phonological theory Gregory R. Guy; 2. Variation and syntactic theory Lisa Green; 3. The psycholinguistic unity of inherent variability: old Occam whips out his razor Ralph W. Fasold and Dennis R. Preston; 4. The study of variation in historical perspective Kirk Hazen; 5. Style in dialogue: Bakhtin and sociolinguistic theory Allan Bell; 6. Variation and historical linguistics Michael Montgomery; 7. Second language acquisition: a variationist perspective Robert Bayley; 8. Variation and modality Ceil Lucas; Part II. Methods: 9. Fieldwork Natalie Schilling-Estes; 10. Quantitative analysis Sali A. Tagliamonte; 11. Sociophonetics Erik R. Thomas; Part III. Applications: 12. Sociolinguistic variation and education Carolyn Temple Adger and Donna Christian; 13. Lessons learned from the Ebonics controversy: implications for language assessment Anna F. Vaughn-Cooke; 14. Variation and versatility in the classroom: contrastive analysis revisited Angela E. Rickford and John R. Rickford; 15. Social-political influences on research practices: examining language acquisition by African American children Ida J. Stockman; 16. Sociolinguistic variation and the law Ronald R. Butters; 17. Attitudes towards variation and ear-witness testimony John Baugh; Afterword Roger W. Shuy.

Promotional Information

An overview of the key areas within the study of language variation and language change.

About the Author

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.