Cover -- Copyright -- Contents -- Figures -- Tables -- Preface and acknowledgements -- Terminology and notation conventions -- Phonetic notation -- Part I: Questions and method -- Chapter 1 Questions about language andvariation, and where we got them -- Chapter 2 The linguistic variable -- Chapter 3 Discovering and describing patterns of variation and change -- Part II: Variation and social relationships -- Introduction to Part II -- Chapter 4 Social patterns I: interspeaker variation -- Chapter 5 Social patterns II: intraspeaker variation -- Chapter 6 Meaning and social patterns -- Chapter 7 Acquisition of variation -- Part III: Variation, change, and linguistic structure -- Introduction to Part III -- Chapter 8 Structural patterns I: phonology and morphology -- Chapter 9 Structural patterns II: syntax, lexical variables, and suprasegmentals -- Part IV: Conclusions -- Chapter 10 The life and times of linguistic changes -- References -- Index.