Outline of the chapter

In this chapter language change through time is introduced as a major dimension of linguistic variation. First, it lays the theoretical and methodological foundations of studying language change from a sociolinguistic point of view, discussing the question of what the transmission of a language from one generation to the next and the incremental change it undergoes in the process imply for our notion of what a language is. Age-grading, the fact that coexisting speakers of different generations use language differently, is explained, and the construct of ‘apparent time’ is introduced as a technique of investigating language change while compensating for the paucity of recorded speech data from former times. To illustrate phonological adjustments in the course of dialect levelling, standardization and other alterations, surveys of several speech communities are adduced, and the influence on language change of gender and age is examined. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of demographic change, a so far largely unexplored factor of language change that is of potential interest for future research.