Includes bibliographical references (p. [260]-276} and index.

1. Correlations 1.1. The Domain of Sociolinguistics. 1.2. The Variable as a Structural Unit. 1.3. Variation and the Tradition of Categoricity

2. Class, Network, and Mobility 2.1. Social Class and Sociolinguistic Sampling. 2.2. Indexing Social Class. 2.3. Class Markers. 2.4. The Effects of Mobility. 2.5. Homogenization. 2.6. Networks. 2.7. Linguistic Correlates of Network Integration. 2.8. Interaction of Network and other Independent Variables. 2.9. Individuations

3. Expressing Sex and Gender 3.1. The Interplay of Biology and Sociology. 3.2. Gender Patterns with Stable Variables. 3.3. Language, Gender, and Mobility in Two Communities. 3.4. Causes of Sex and Gender Differences. 3.5. Male and Female Speech Patterns in Other Societies. 3.6. Linguistic Evidence for Sex and Gender Differences

4. Accents in Time 4.1. Aging. 4.2. The Acquisition of Sociolects. 4.3. Family and Friends. 4.4. Declarations of Adolescence. 4.5. Young Adults in the Talk Market. 4.6. Changes in Progress

5. Adaptive Significance of Language Variation 5.1. The Babelian Hypothesis. 5.2. Global Counteradaptivity and Local Adaptivity. 5.3. Dialects in Lower Animals. 5.4. The Persistence of the Non-standard. 5.5. Traditional Theories of the Sources of Diversity. 5.6. A Sociolinguistic Theory of the Sources of Diversity. 5.7. Vernacular Roots. 5.8. Linguistic Variation and Social Identity.

"Sociolinguistic Theory presents a critical synthesis of sociolinguistics, centering on the study of language variation and change. Since the inception of sociolinguistics more than three decades ago, the correlation of dependent linguistic variables with independent social variables has provided the theoretical core of the discipline. Chambers reviews the essential findings of Henrietta Cedegren, William Labov, Lesley Milroy and James Milroy, David Sankoff, Gillian Sankoff, Peter Trudgill, Walt Wolfram, and many others, and puts them into context both with the work of the numerous linguists who have followed their lead and with their intellectual forbears from Wilhelm von Humboldt and Louis Gauchat to Edward Sapir. The book opens with a discussion of the linguistic variable and its historical methodological and theoretical significance. Three central chapters are organized around the crucial social variables of social stratification, sex, and age. The final chapter considers the social and cultural purposes of linguistic variation." (Book Cover)