William Labov
William Labov
William "Bill" Labovis an American linguist, widely regarded as the founder of the discipline of variationist sociolinguistics. He has been described as "an enormously original and influential figure who has created much of the methodology" of sociolinguistics. He is employed as a professor in the linguistics department of the University of Pennsylvania, and pursues research in sociolinguistics, language change, and dialectology. He semi-retired at the end of spring 2014...
William Labov quotes about
successful practice years
I have resisted the term sociolinguistics for many years, since it implies that there can be a successful linguistic theory or practice which is not social.
strong children writing
An important aspect of the current situation is the strong social reaction against suggestions that the home language of African American children be used in the first steps of learning to read and write.
african-american inheritance half
It appears that the present-day form of African American English is not the inheritance of the period of slavery, but the creation of the second half of the 20th century.