The Handbook of Language Variation and Change

The Handbook of Language Variation and Change

Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics This outstanding multi-volume series covers all the major subdisciplines within linguistics today and, when complete, will offer a comprehensive survey of linguistics as a whole. Already published: The Handbook of Child Language Edited by Paul Fletcher and Brian MacWhinney The Handbook of Phonological Theory Edited by John Goldsmith The Handbook of Contemporary Semantic Theory Edited by Shalom Lappin The Handbook of Sociolinguistics Edited by Florian Coulmas The Handbook of Phonetic Sciences Edited by William Hardcastle and John Laver The Handbook of Morphology Edited by Andrew Spencer and Arnold Zwicky The Handbook of Japanese Linguistics Edited by Natsuko Tsujimura The Handbook of Linguistics Edited by Mark Aronoff and Janie Rees-Miller The Handbook of Contemporary Syntactic Theory Edited by Mark Baltin and Chris Collins The Handbook of Discourse Analysis Edited by Deborah Schiffrin, Deborah Tannen, and Heidi E. Hamilton The Handbook of Language Variation and Change Edited by J. K. Chambers, Peter Trudgill, and Natalie Schilling-Estes

The Handbook of Language Variation and Change Edited by J. K. Chambers, Peter Trudgill, and Natalie Schilling-Estes

Copyright Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2002 First published 2002 2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1 Blackwell Publishers Inc. 350 Main Street Malden, Massachusetts 02148 USA Blackwell Publishers Ltd 108 Cowley Road Oxford OX4 1JF UK All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The handbook of language variation and change / edited by J. K. Chambers, Peter Trudgill, and Natalie Schilling-Estes. p. cm. (Blackwell handbooks in linguistics) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0 631 21803 3 (alk. paper) 1. Language and languages Variation. 2. Linguistic change. 3. Sociolinguistics. I. Chambers, J. K. II. Trudgill, Peter. III. Schilling- Estes, Natalie. IV. Series. P120.V37 H365 2001 417.7 dc21 2001037548 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Typeset in 10/12pt Palatino by Graphicraft Ltd, Hong Kong Printed in Great Britain by T.J. International Padstow, Cornwall This book is printed on acid-free paper.

For William Labov whose work is referred to in every chapter and whose ideas imbue every page

HH

Contents List of Contributors x Introduction 1 Studying Language Variation: An Informal Epistemology 3 J. K. Chambers Part I Methodologies 15 Field Methods 17 Introduction 17 Natalie Schilling-Estes 1 Entering the Community: Fieldwork 20 Crawford Feagin 2 Language with an Attitude 40 Dennis R. Preston 3 Investigating Variation and Change in Written Documents 67 Edgar W. Schneider 4 Inferring Variation and Change from Public Corpora 97 Laurie Bauer Evaluation Introduction 115 J. K. Chambers 5 The Quantitative Paradigm 117 Robert Bayley 6 Implicational Scales 142 John R. Rickford

viii Contents 7 Instrumental Phonetics Erik R. Thomas 168 Part II Linguistic Structure 201 Introduction 203 Natalie Schilling-Estes 8 Variation and Phonological Theory 206 Arto Anttila 9 Investigating Chain Shifts and Mergers 244 Matthew J. Gordon 10 Variation and Syntactic Theory 267 Alison Henry 11 Discourse Variation 283 Ronald Macaulay Part III Social Factors 307 Time 309 Introduction 309 Natalie Schilling-Estes 12 Real and Apparent Time 312 Guy Bailey 13 Child Language Variation 333 Julie Roberts 14 Patterns of Variation including Change 349 J. K. Chambers Social Differentiation 373 Introduction 373 Peter Trudgill 15 Investigating Stylistic Variation 375 Natalie Schilling-Estes 16 Social Class 402 Sharon Ash 17 Sex and Gender in Variationist Research 423 Jenny Cheshire 18 Ethnicity 444 Carmen Fought

Contents ix Domains 473 Introduction 473 Peter Trudgill 19 Language and Identity 475 Norma Mendoza-Denton 20 The Family 500 Kirk Hazen 21 Communities of Practice 526 Miriam Meyerhoff 22 Social Networks 549 Lesley Milroy 23 The Speech Community 573 Peter L. Patrick Part IV Contact 599 Introduction 601 Peter Trudgill 24 Space and Spatial Diffusion 603 David Britain 25 Linguistic Outcomes of Language Contact 638 Gillian Sankoff 26 Koineization and Accommodation 669 Paul Kerswill Part V Language and Societies 703 Introduction 705 J. K. Chambers 27 Linguistic and Social Typology 707 Peter Trudgill 28 Comparative Sociolinguistics 729 Sali Tagliamonte 29 Language Death and Dying 764 Walt Wolfram Index 788

Contributors Arto Anttila Boston University, USA/National University of Singapore anttila@bu.edu Sharon Ash University of Pennsylvania, USA ash@babel.ling.upenn.edu Guy Bailey University of Texas at San Antonio, USA gbailey@utsa.edu Laurie Bauer Victoria University of Wellington, NZ laurie.bauer@vuw.ac.nz Robert Bayley University of Texas at San Antonio, USA rbayley@lonestar.utsa.edu David Britain Essex University, England dbritain@essex.ac.uk J. K. Chambers University of Toronto, Canada jack.chambers@utoronto.ca Jenny Cheshire Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London, England j.l.cheshire@qmw.ac.uk

Contributors xi Crawford Feagin University of Zurich, Switzerland feagin@erols.com Carmen Fought Pitzer College, USA carmen fought@pitzer.edu Matthew J. Gordon University of Missouri at Columbia, USA gordonmj@missouri.edu Kirk Hazen West Virginia University, USA khazen2@wvu.edu Alison Henry Queen s University, Belfast, Northern Ireland AM.Henry@ulst.ac.uk Paul Kerswill Reading University, England p.e.kerswill@reading.ac.uk Ronald Macaulay Pitzer College, USA rmacaulay@compuserve.com Norma Mendoza-Denton University of Arizona, USA nmd@u.arizona.edu Miriam Meyerhoff University of Edinburgh, Scotland miriam.meyerhoff@ed.ac.uk Lesley Milroy University of Michigan, USA amilroy@umich.edu Peter L. Patrick Essex University, England patrickp@essex.ac.uk Dennis R. Preston Michigan State University, USA preston@pilot.msu.edu

xii Contributors John R. Rickford Stanford University, USA rickford@csli.stanford.edu Julie Roberts University of Vermont, USA jroberts@polyglot.uvm.edu Gillian Sankoff University of Pennsylvania, USA gillian@central.cis.upenn.edu Natalie Schilling-Estes Georgetown University, USA ns3@georgetown.edu Edgar W. Schneider University of Regensburg, Germany edgar.schneider@sprachlit.uni-regensburg.de Sali Tagliamonte University of Toronto, Canada, and University of York, England sali.tagliamonte@utoronto.ca Erik R. Thomas North Carolina State University, USA ethomas@social.chass.ncsu.edu Peter Trudgill University of Fribourg, Switzerland peter.trudgill@unifr.ch Walt Wolfram North Carolina State University, USA wolfram@social.chass.ncsu.edu