Linguistic Variation: Confronting Fact and Theory

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.

Rena Torres Cacoullos is Professor of Linguistics and Spanish at Penn State University.

Nathalie Dion is Research Coordinator of the University of Ottawa Sociolinguistics Laboratory.

André Lapierre is Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at the University of Ottawa.