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Part of
Lifespan Acquisition and Language Change: Historical sociolinguistic perspectives
Edited by Israel Sanz-Sánchez
[Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics 14] 2024
► pp. 2–42

Chapter 1
Language acquisition across the lifespan in historical sociolinguistics

ORCID logo | West Chester University

The study of language variation and change has long been rooted in the effects of acquisition at different points of the lifespan, but the potential for language acquisition theory and data to inform sociohistorical approaches to language diachrony has not always been recognized. In this introductory chapter, the application of an acquisitionally informed lens to the research on language variation and change is justified on theoretical, methodological, and heuristic grounds. Following an overview of the existing research on the role of age in the acquisition of variation and the emergence of sociolinguistic norms, the chapter summarizes previous applications of acquisition theory in historical sociolinguistics. This panoramic review is then used to articulate the potential for a lifelong view of language acquisition to serve as a powerful instrument in the historical sociolinguist’s toolkit. Ultimately, the goal is to supplement other methodologies to produce more thorough explanations of language change by centering a language developmental perspective in the praxis of historical sociolinguistics.

Keywords: age, children, adolescents, adults, language acquisition, language variation, language change, historical sociolinguistics, language contact, dialect contact
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.What is language acquisition? The lifelong development of variation
  • 3.The effects of age on the acquisition of language variation: A summary
  • 4.Language acquisition across the lifespan and language change: Previous approaches
    • 4.1Early approaches
    • 4.2Generative and usage-based approaches
    • 4.3Variationist sociolinguistic approaches
    • 4.4Contact-based approaches: Dialect contact, language contact, pidginization and creolization
  • 5.Language acquisition across the lifespan and historical sociolinguistics: Previous approaches
  • 6.Towards an acquisitionally informed historical sociolinguistics
  • 7.Structure of the volume
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 4 April 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ahs.14.01san
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