ABSTRACT
In this volume we have analysed linguistic changes at the aggregate level and, by doing so, provided information on language change to serve as a baseline for future work. We have therefore concentrated on processes of supralocalization and regional dialect levelling in the language community at large, or in Labov’s (2007) terms, the diffusion of linguistic change as opposed to its generational transmission within a speech community (see further Labov 2010: 305-366). Lesley Milroy (2007) makes a similar distinction between two kinds of change: those that diffuse over larger territories and are thus available ‘off the shelf’, as opposed to those that take place within a localized close-knit network and are acquired from ‘under the counter’. Unlike off-the-shelf processes, under-the-counter changes require daily exposure and participation. Supralocal processes are discussed and illustrated, for example, by Britain (2010) and localized, under-the-counter changes by Eckert (2000), showing that both kinds of change can be part of the speakers’ identity work.
