A sociolinguistic perspective on sociophonetic research

Abstract

The four papers in this issue of the journal are jointly focused on two distinct themes: sociophonetics-the study of speakers and listeners' sensitivity to the social context in which language is produced and perceived-and exemplar theory, as a way of explaining this behavior. In these comments, I will try to relate the findings in the first area to the field of sociolinguistics, and then relate the discussion of exemplar theory to recent studies of change in progress. © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.