The eighteen papers in this volume were originally presented at the 6th International Conference on Language Variation in Europe held at the University of Freiburg in 2011. The researchers deal with theoretical, methodological, and empirical issues in the study of language variation and change. This edited volume is challenging and will be of interest to specialists who study nonstandard European language varieties.
In addition to the introduction, there are eighteen chapters covering different languages such as Belarusian, British English (including English and Scottish Englishes), Catalan, Dutch, Gaelic, Gallo-Italic, (varieties of) German, Greek, Italian, Occitan, Rhaeto-Romance, Russian, Scottish English, Swedish, and Turkish. These papers deal with language variation at the phonetic, phonological, syntactic, morphological, and morphosyntactic levels. In addition, code-switching, language ideologies, and language attitudes are studied.
Nine chapters in this volume deal with phonetic or phonological variation. For example, Matthias Katerbow studies children's acquisition of the standard dialect in the Rhine-Moselle dialect area in Germany, and finds that children use more standard features when they play the roles of a salesperson and a buyer, while they use more regional features when talking with their peers. The other eight chapters study English dialects, German dialects, or Russian dialects.
Syntactic variation is studied in three chapters. Sjef Barbiers gives an overview of the study of syntactic variation, provides an analysis of syntactic doubling and proposes a language variation model based on Minimalism. David Håkansson makes a sociolinguistic study of the word order change in subordinate clauses in Swedish. Antonia Rothmayr studies variable word order in Continental West Germanic verb clusters and explains different surface serializations in Alemannic dialects.
In addition, morphological variation is explored in two chapters. Dal Negro studies variation in gender agreement on cardinal numbers ‘two’ and ‘three’, higher numerals, nonattributive numerals, and definite articles in Romance and Upper German varieties. Leonie Cornips & Aafke Hulk investigate the relationship between the acquisition of two Dutch definite determiners de and het by bilingual children from minority communities.
Dimitra Melissapopoulou, Charalambos Themistocleous, Stavroula Tsiplakou, & Simeon Tsolakidis analyse morphosyntactic variation in present perfect structures in Cypriot Greek, which is due to language contact with Standard Greek.
Marianthi Georgalidou, Hasan Kaili, & Aytac Celtek use Conversation Analysis to study the functions of code-switching in the Greek-Turkish bilingual Muslim community of Rhodes. Jillian R. Cavanaugh explores language ideology and language attitudes in the process of language shift, socioeconomic transformations, and the politicization of language.
In sum, the contributors have carried out extensive research on language variation at various levels by using different methods, such as sociolinguistic variationist techniques and conversation analysis. This volume is a useful reference point for researchers and graduate students interested in phonetics, phonology, syntax, morphology, and sociolinguistics.
