J. K. Chambers

This collection consists of 15 articles by an international group of linguists and 7 essays by the editors, tackling a broad range of issues and representing some of the most authoritative work in English dialect grammar. Individual chapters cover the full international range of English dialects, from the centre of Sydney to the shores of Newfoundland, and from the Scottish borders to the Appalachian Mountains. Soundly based on empirical research, they are rich in data of great interest in itself, but no article is merely descriptive. The editors have selected papers for their value in contributing to the reader's broader understanding of the theoretical issues concerning dialectology as a whole. As a result, dialectology is presented as a major scholarly discipline drawing creatively on such areas as linguistics, sociology, psychology, history, geography and even philosophy. These and other themes are explored in a wide-ranging Introduction by the editors, which sets the individual pieces and the subject in context for the reader.

The revised edition of Sociolinguistic Theory presents a critical synthesis of sociolinguistics, centering on the study of language variation and change. A revised introduction to sociolinguistic theory by one of the top scholars in the field Provides a critical synthesis of sociolinguistics that centres on the study of language variation and change, now incorporating the latest developments in the field Shows how empirical explorations have made sociolinguistics the most stimulating field in the contemporary study of language Discusses the linguistic variable and its significance, crucial social variables such as social stratification, sex, and age, and the cultural significance of linguistic variation