Mechanisms of change in urban dialects: the role of class, social network and gender

This paper begins by noting that the dominance of social class as a speaker variable and interpretative category has led to unsatisfactory interpretations of linguistic variability, and it goes on to investigate the use of the variables social class, social network , and gender . Evidence and arguments are produced to suggest that gender difference is often prior to social class in accounting for sociolinguistic variation. Next, the complex relationship between social class and social network is examined. Finally, the article presents data from the authors’own research to demonstrate how all three variables may be implicated in a complex way in an account of language variation and change. The authors conclude that sociolinguistics needs to develop more sophistication in dealing with these variables.