Department of Spanish and Portuguese

Quantitative Approaches to the Study of Sociolinguistic Phenomena across Spanish Varieties is a volume dedicated to the study of language variation using the tools of variationist sociolinguistics. The name of the volume underlines the methodological framework that reflects the techniques used by the authors of the investigations included. Quantitative sociolinguistics is a branch that considers as a central issue the quantification of linguistic and extralinguistic factors conditioning variation and change. It is a framework that focuses on the study of oral data from large samples that allow researchers to make generalizations about language patterns. In addition, this line of research has contributed to current theoretical frameworks to describe phonological and morphosyntactic phenomena cross-linguistically. This is an exciting project that is comprised of the work of my students who have taken S513 Introduction to Hispanic Linguistics and S612 Topics in Linguistic Variation and Language in Context at Indiana University, Bloomington in the last couple of years. This brand new collection of papers includes original research examining sociophonological variation as well as morphosyntactic variation in several dialects of Spanish. It is particularly thrilling for me to see the work of my students published because I have witnessed step by step the construction of their ideas that crystalize into an outstanding paper.