Written by the world-renowned pioneer in the field of modern sociolinguistics, this volume examines the cognitive and cultural factors responsible for linguistic change, tracing the life history of these developments, from triggering events to driving forces and endpoints.

This third and final volume of the Principles of Linguistic Change set examines the cognitive and cultural causes responsible for linguistic change, and traces the history of these developments, from triggering events to driving forces and endpoints.

Labov draws upon the newly completed Atlas of North American English to look more deeply into questions of linguistic change, focusing on the cognitive factors that determine the capacity of the linguistic system to transmit information, and exploring social influences in the development of large-scale cultural patterns. The third volume also deals with the diffusion of change across dialect boundaries, and across racial and ethnic groups. It establishes an essential distinction between transmission within the community, which is dependent on child language acquisition, and diffusion across communities, which is dependent on adult learning.

This final installment in the Principles of Linguistic Change series builds upon the foundations established by the groundbreaking first two volumes. Volume 1 investigates the internal factors that control change, examining the regularity of sound change and reviewing the evidence for functional explanations of linguistic change. Volume 2 follows by presenting the social factors governing linguistic change and proposed models for the transmission and incrementation of change. Written by the pioneering researcher of sociolinguistic inquiry, Principles of Linguistic Change is an essential resource for researchers, scholars and students in the field.