ABSTRACT
This introduction provides an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book pays tribute to and builds on Jenny Cheshire’s influential body of research in the quantitative analysis of socio-grammatical variation, which began with her doctoral research in Reading in the 1970s. It showcases variationist work that carefully conceptualises the social meaning of grammatical variation. The book examines the interaction between social and linguistic factors that condition syntactic variation in different linguistic varieties. It also showcases critical research that bridges paradigms in their attempt to explain the systematicity of observed grammatical variation. The book reports on contexts where multiethnic contact plays a significant role. It judiciously combines qualitative and quantitative approaches to bring new findings to bear on discourse-pragmatic variation. The book explains the strategic use of utterance-final tags by adolescents to stimulate listener involvement and guide interpretation of tagged and non-tagged story materials.
