'The Handbook of Language Variation and Change', 2nd Edition J. K. Chambers and Natalie Schilling (eds.) (2013) Malden/Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Pp. 616. ISBN: 978-0-470-65994-6

Abstract

The Handbook of Language Variation and Change (2nd edition) J. K. Chambers and Natalie Schilling (eds) (2013) Malden and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Pp. 616. ISBN 978-0-470-65994-6In order to get an impression of variationist sociolinguistics, The Handbook of Language Variation and Change is an excellent guide. The Handbook provides even a seasoned scholar with inspiration and expertise and constitutes, in short, a useful tool for anyone with an interest in sociolinguistics. In this review, I will first take a glance at the differences between the first and second editions, and then I will browse through the contents of the Handbook.The first edition of the Handbook was published in 2002, so now - more than a decade later - is the right time to have it updated. Of the 29 chapters of the first edition, 19 are still included in the second edition, although revised and upgraded so profoundly that two of them have got new titles and three have gained an additional author. There are also seven entirely new chapters, and to keep the book manageable, ten of the original chapters of the first edition have been leftout altogether. And yet, the second edition contains a total of 26 chapters and 616 pages and thereby is most adequate as a handbook for students, teachers, researchers and other scholars. There are, in total, thirty authors from six nations, all leading researchers in their fields, who give the reader a comprehensive and inspiring tour around the fascinating world of sociolinguistics.The second edition contains a total of eight subject areas instead of the five of the first edition, each including three or four chapters (Part VIII constitutes an exception in containing only one chapter). The main difference between the editions is that the subdivision within the subject areas has been simplified. However, the division into individual topics has not changed much.Part I, Data Collection, presents different perspectives on data collection: it contains chapters on fieldwork (by Crawford Feagin), data handling (by Tyler Kendall) and historical written documents (by Edgar W. Schneider). Part II, Evaluation, offers a short tour of some basic issues on working with the data through chapters on quantitative research (by Robert Bayley), sociophonetics (by Erik R. Thomas), comparative sociolinguistics (by Sali A. Tagliamonte) and folk linguistics (by Dennis R. Preston). These two parts which in the first edition were subsections of a part titled 'Methodologies' give a very nice overview to anyone contemplating initiating a sociolinguistic research project. For instance, in Chapter 2, 'Data in the Study of Variation and Change', Tyler Kendall explains in detail how decisions on processing data affect the results of the research project and possible further use of the data. This is very useful for students executing their first projects and considering their choices and decisions, and it may also serve as a checklist for more experienced researchers.The third part of the present edition, titled 'Linguistic Structure', contains chapters on syntactic theory (by Ralph W. Fasold), chain shifts (by Matthew J. Gordon) and discourse variation (by Ronald Macaulay). To cite but one example, Chapter 8 by Ralph F. Fasold ('Variation and Syntactic Theory') lucidly presents the use of the Minimalist Program in variation analysis as well as the benefits and drawbacks of it with respect to other syntactic theories.Parts IV-VI of the second edition originally constituted subsections of a part titled 'Social Factors'. In the second edition, Part IV, Language and Time, includes four chapters presenting the methodologies of sociolinguistic research in real and apparent time (by Patricia Cukor-Avila and Guy Bailey), basic information on researching variation in child language (by Julie Roberts) and adolescent language (by Sam Kirkham and Emma Moore), and some patterns of variation and change (by J. …