Introduction

This collection engages with key questions in panel study research by exploring more deeply the interrelationship between the individual and the community and the impact on language change across the lifespan.

The book is organized around four broad themes, each followed by a forward-looking commentary that ties together the key findings from the individual chapters.

Section 1: Style and Socio-Indexicality

The first section examines style and socio-indexicality with the goal of disentangling short-term style-shifting from long-term language change.

Section 2: Audience Design and Variation

The second section continues with a focus on style, examining audience design and socially meaningful variation in professional settings as an integral component of age- and role-appropriate behavior.

Section 3: Language/Dialect Contact and Social Identities

The third section considers different language/dialect contact scenarios and the impact on changing social identities and behavioural norms, which can fluctuate across the lifespan for different settings and life-stages and for different types of variables.

Section 4: Computational Modeling of Lifespan and Community Change

The final section explores a computational, agent-based model of lifespan and community change, targeting the practical challenges often encountered in panel research, such as data sparsity and the short duration of the human lifespan.

A postscript underscores the importance of considering style and setting as integral aspects of panel research rather than as afterthoughts and of leveraging computational modeling to expand our understanding of the interdependencies between lifespan and community change.

Target Audience

This book will appeal to scholars interested in language variation and change, sociolinguistics, historical linguistics, and computational linguistics.