Contents

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents v
3. Figures vii
4. Tables viii
5. Acknowledgements ix
6. Foreword: Towards a sociolinguistic history of the English language x
7. 1 Sociolinguistics: an overview 1
8. 2 Language change and sociolinguistic processes in the past 17
9. 3 Standardisation 43
10. 4 Codification and ideology 78
11. 5 Contact and shift as agents of change 109
12. 6 Linguistic contact and new dialect formation 154
13. 7 Some final thoughts 196
14. References 199
15. Index 213