ABSTRACT

Linguistic Variation: Confronting Fact and Theory honors Shana Poplack in bringing together contributions from leading scholars in language variation and change. The book demonstrates how variationist methodology can be applied to the study of linguistic structures and processes. It introduces readers to variation theory, while also providing an overview of current debates on the linguistic, cognitive and sociocultural factors involved in linguistic patterning. With its coverage of a diverse range of language varieties and linguistic problems, this book offers new quantitative analyses of actual language production and processing from both top experts and emerging scholars, and presents students and practitioners with theoretical frameworks to meaningfully engage in accountable research practice.

chapter |4 pages

Introduction

Toward a Science of Grammar and a Critical Sociolinguistics

part B|74 pages

Identifying and Tracking Language Change

chapter 5|21 pages

The Continuing Story of Verbal –s

Revisiting the Northern Subject Rule as a Diagnostic of Historical Relationship

chapter 6|15 pages

Phonetic Variation across Centuries

On the Possible Reappearance of a Case of Stable Variation in Copenhagen Danish

part C|61 pages

Language Ideology, Prescription, and Community Norms

chapter 9|16 pages

Drifting Toward the Standard Language

A Panel Study of Number Concord in Brazilian Portuguese

chapter 10|13 pages

The Neglected Topic of Variation in Teacher Classroom Speech

Investigating je vais/je vas/m' as in Ontario French-Medium High Schools

chapter 11|15 pages

Words We Use

Linguistic Bias and Prejudice

chapter 12|15 pages

Active Retirees

The Persistence of Obsolescent Features

part D|73 pages

Evaluating the Effects of Language Contact on the Ground

chapter 13|16 pages

Going through (L) in L2

Anglophone Montrealers Revisited

chapter 14|15 pages

Variable Patterns in Spanish-English Acquisition from Birth

Subject Pronouns beyond the Age of Three

chapter 15|21 pages

Déjà Voodoo or New Trails Ahead?

Re-Evaluating the Mixing Typology Model

chapter 16|19 pages

Dialect-to-Standard Advergence

The Relevance of Compound Borrowing