Principles of Linguistic Change, Vol. 2: Social Factors (Language in Society) - Softcover

Labov, William

Softcover

ISBN 10: 063117916X ISBN 13: 9780631179160

Publisher: Blackwell Publishers, 2001

Synopsis

This volume presents the long-anticipated results of several decades of inquiry into the social origins and social motivation of linguistic change.

• Written by one of the founders of modern sociolinguistics
• Features the first complete report on the Philadelphia project designed to establish the social location of the leaders of linguistic change
• Includes chapters on social class, neighborhood, ethnicity, gender, and social networks that delineate the leaders of linguistic change as women of the upper working class with a high density of interaction within their neighborhoods and a high proportion of weak ties outside of it

About this title

About the Author

The author is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the co-editor of Language Variation and Change and is author of Sociolinguistic Patterns (1972), Language in the Inner City (1972), and Principles of Linguistic Change, Volume 1: Internal Factors (Blackwell, 1994).

From the Back Cover

This volume presents the results of several decades of inquiry into the social origins and social motivation of linguistic change. It includes the first complete report on the Philadelphia project designed to establish the social location of the leaders of linguistic change. These findings are developed further on the basis of a broad range of sociolinguistic studies in the 1980s and 1990s, as well as the recently completed Atlas of North American English.

Successive chapters on social class, neighborhood, ethnicity, gender, and social networks delineate the leaders of linguistic change as women of the upper working class with a high density of interaction within their neighborhoods and a high proportion of weak ties outside of it. Detailed portraits of individual leaders show that the women who lead linguistic change are distinguished from others by their general pattern of deviation from established norms of conformity. Mathematical models are developed to account for the linear incrementation of change in progress, and the transmission of change across generations.

Successive chapters on social class, neighborhood, ethnicity, gender, and social networks delineate the leaders of linguistic change as women of the upper working class with a high density of interaction within their neighborhoods and a high proportion of weak ties outside of it. Detailed portraits of individual leaders show that the women who lead linguistic change are distinguished from others by their general pattern of deviation from established norms of conformity. Mathematical models are developed to account for the linear incrementation of change in progress, and the transmission of change across generations.

Edition details

• Publisher: Blackwell Publishers
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 063117916X
• ISBN 13: 9780631179160
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 592