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