The Handbook of Language Variation and Change (Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics) - Hardcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

J. K. Chambers is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Toronto. He is the author of Sociolinguistic Theory: Language Variation and its Social Significance (1995), and co--author, with Peter Trudgill, of Dialectology (second edition, 1998), as well as other books and scores of articles. He also works extensively as a forensic consultant and maintains a parallel vocation in jazz criticism which has included writing a prizewinning biography Milestones: The Music and Times of Miles Davis (1998). Peter Trudgill is Chair of English Linguistics at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. He is author of Sociolinguistics: An Introduction to Language and Society (1996) and Dialects of England (second edition, Blackwell 1999), and co--editor, with Laurie Bauer, of Language Myths (1999). He is editor of Blackwella s Language in Society series. Natalie Schilling--Estes is Assistant Professor of Linguistics at Georgetown University. She is co--author of Hoi Toide on the Outer Banks: The Story of the Ocracoke Brogue (1997) and American English (Blackwell 1998), both with Walt Wolfram.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

The Handbook of Language Variation and Change, written by a distinguished international roster of contributors, reflects the vitality and growth of the discipline in its multifaceted pursuits. It is a convenient, hand-held repository of the essential knowledge about the study of language variation and change.

The book begins with an examination of the methodologies employed by linguists working in linguistic variation and change, and then addresses the levels of linguistic structure that have been the main foci of work in the field. The volume presents views of linguistic variation in the diverse contexts that give it meaning and significance, across generations, social strata, and domains of interaction. It further covers variation through geographical space, and language and dialect contact from a variationist perspective, while also considering the implications that research in different types of societies may have for work in the field.

Each section begins with an introduction by the editors which sets out the boundaries of the field and places each of the chapters in perspective. This Handbook allows the next generation of academics to perpetuate all of these fields of study and explore them with the kind of depth unimaginable to their predecessors.