Linguistic variation, loosely defined as the wholesale processes whereby patterns of language structures exhibit divergent distributions within and across languages, has traditionally been the object of research of at least two branches of linguistics: variationist sociolinguistics and linguistic typology. In spite of their similar research agendas, the two approaches have only rarely converged in the description and interpretation of variation. While a number of studies attempting to address at least aspects of this relationship have appeared in recent years, a principled discussion on how the two disciplines may interact has not yet been carried out in a programmatic way. This volume aims to fill this gap and offers a cross-disciplinary venue for discussing the bridging between sociolinguistic and typological research from various angles, with the ultimate goal of laying out the methodological and conceptual foundations of an integrated research agenda for the study of linguistic variation.

Linguistic variation, loosely defined as the wholesale processes whereby patterns of language structures exhibit divergent distributions within and across languages, has traditionally been the object of research of at least two branches of linguistics: variationist sociolinguistics and linguistic typology. In spite of their similar research agendas, the two approaches have only rarely converged in the description and interpretation of variation. While a number of studies attempting to address at least aspects of this relationship have appeared in recent years, a principled discussion on how the two disciplines may interact has not yet been carried out in a programmatic way. This volume aims to fill this gap and offers a cross-disciplinary venue for discussing the bridging between sociolinguistic and typological research from various angles, with the ultimate goal of laying out the methodological and conceptual foundations of an integrated research agenda for the study of linguistic variation.

This ambitious handbook takes advantage of recent advances in the study of the history of English to rethink the understanding of the field.

This volume is one of the first detailed expositions of the history of different varieties of English. It explores language variation and varieties of English from an historical perspective, covering theoretical topics such as diffusion and supraregionalization as well as concrete descriptions of the internal and external historical developments of more than a dozen varieties of English.

Drawing on examples from a wide range of languages and social settings, The Routledge Handbook of Sociolinguistics Around the World was originally the first single-volume collection surveying the current research trends in international sociolinguistics. This new edition has been comprehensively updated and significantly expanded, and now includes more than 50 chapters written by leading authorities and a brand-new substantial introduction by John Edwards. Coverage has been expanded regionally and there is a critical focus on Indigenous languages. This handbook remains a key tool to help widen the perspective on sociolinguistics to readers interested in the field. Divided into sections covering the Americas, Asia, Australasia, Africa, and Europe, the book provides readers with a solid, up-to-date appreciation of the interdisciplinary nature of the field of sociolinguistics in each area. It clearly explains the patterns and systematicity that underlie language variation in use, along with the ways in which alternations between different language varieties mark personal style, social power, and national identity. The Routledge Handbook of Sociolinguistics Around the World is the ideal resource for all students in undergraduate sociolinguistics courses and for researchers involved in the study of language, society, and power.

This volume connects the latest research on language acquisition across the lifespan with the explanation of language change in specific sociohistorical settings. This conversation benefits from recent advances in two areas: on the one hand, the study of how learners of various ages and in various sociolinguistic contexts acquire language variation; on the other, historical sociolinguistics as the field that focuses on the study of historical patterns of language variation and change. The overarching rationale for this interdisciplinary dialogue is that all forms of language change start and spread as the result of individual acts of acquisition throughout the speakers’ lives. The thirteen chapters in this book are authored by an international group of both established and emerging scholars. They encompass theoretical overviews of specific research areas within the broader realm of the acquisition of language variation, as well as case studies applying these theoretical advances to the exploration of language change in a wide range of sociohistorical contexts in the Americas, Oceania, and Asia. This volume will be of interest to students and researchers in the area of language acquisition, language variation and language change, especially those working on interdisciplinary and crosslinguistic connections among these areas.

Since the recent creation of a large-scale corpus of Italian Sign Language (LIS), a new research branch has been established to study the sociolinguistic variation characterizing this language in various linguistic domains. However, for nominal modification, the role of language-internal variation remains uncertain. This volume represents the first attempt to investigate sign order variability in this domain, examining what shapes the syntactic structure of LIS nominal expressions. In particular, three empirical studies are presented and discussed: the first two are corpus studies investigating the distribution and duration of nominal modifiers, while the third deals with the syntactic behavior of cardinal numerals, an unexplored area. In this enterprise, three different theoretical dimensions of inquiry are innovatively combined: linguistic typology, generative linguistics, and sociolinguistics. The research setup involves both quantitative and qualitative data. This mixed approach starts from corpus data to present the phenomenon, examine linguistic facts on a large scale, and draw questions from these, and then looks at elicited and judgment-based data to provide valid insights and refine the analysis. Crucially, the combination of different methods contributes to a better understanding of the mechanisms driving nominal modification in LIS and its internal variation.

This volume reveals new insights on the faculty of language. By proposing a new approach in the analysis and description of Italian Sign Language (LIS), that can be extended also to other sign languages, this book also enlightens some aspects of spoken languages, which were often overlooked in the past and only recently have been brought to the fore and described. First, the study of face-to-face communication leads to a revision of the traditional dichotomy between linguistic and enacted, to develop a new approach to embodied language (Kendon, 2004). Second, all structures of language take on a sociolinguistic and pragmatic meaning, as proposed by cognitive semantics, which considers it impossible to trace a separation between purely linguistic and extralinguistic knowledge. Finally, if speech from the point of view of its materiality is variable, fragile, and non-segmentable (i.e. not systematically discrete), also signs are not always segmentable into discrete, invariable and meaningless units. This then calls into question some of the properties traditionally associated with human languages in general, notably that of ‘duality of patterning’. These are only some of the main issues you will find in this volume that has no parallel both in sign and in spoken languages linguistic research.

"This book focuses on some features shared by 'Old' and 'New' varieties of English. 'Old' refers here to varieties of English spoken in Britain only, i.e. English English (EngE) and/or British English (BrE). They represent the longest-established varieties of English and are part of the hardcore of the L1 or the 'Inner Circle' of Englishes. 'New' varieties, in this context, are ones that have arisen in colonial or postcolonial contexts (the 'Outer Circle') and also comprise historically L2 varieties, such as Irish English, that have evolved as a result of language shift. This chapter examines three syntactic features that show similar developments in both New and Old varieties: the use of some modal auxiliaries, especially WILL/SHALL, some 'extended' uses of the progressive, and finally, combinations of these two, especially WILL/SHALL + be V-ing. All three display convergent developments that suggest a leading role for the New Englishes rather than the Old varieties"--

In what ways can dialectologists and language typologists profit from each others' work when looking across the fence? This is the guiding question of this volume, which involves follow-up questions such as: How can dialectologists profit from adopting the large body of insights in and hypotheses on language variation and language universals familiar from work in language typology, notably functional typology? Vice versa, what can typologists learn from the study of non-standard varieties? What are possible contributions of dialectology to areal typologies and the study of grammaticalization? What are important theoretical and methodological implications of this new type of collaboration in the study of language variation? The 18 contributors, among them many distinguished dialectologists, sociolinguists and typologists, address these and other novel questions on the basis of analyses of the morphology and syntax of a broad range of dialects (Germanic, Romance, Balto-Slavic, Indo-Aryan).