This article considers the theoretical and practical relationship between core linguistics and sociolinguistics in relation to the emergence of Principles and Parameters Theory. Parameters were introduced into core Chomskyan linguistics in an effort to account for variation between languages. However, as we argue – and as has long been known in sociolinguistics – languages (French, Italian etc.) are social rather than abstract products. In this sense, core linguistics may need to pay more attention than it has in the past to aspects of actual variation in order to understand the limits and range of parameters. Thus we argue that dialects of languages in themselves have parameters, and as such may be defined within parametric limits. Here we believe there is something of interest to sociolinguists, in terms both of structural definitions and of overall historical development. In general, then, while variation has always been central to sociolinguistics, it is now central, in one sense, to core linguistics; and here we have the opportunity to explore ways in which sociolinguistics and core linguistics may relate to each other in their interest in variation. (Parameters; variation; dialect; Belfast; Ireland)

This article proposes a comprehensive model of the SPEECH COMMUNITY in sociolinguistics that reworks Labov's model, which has been criticized as being restrictive. Fieldork in non-metropolitan Mexico demonstrates the utility of our model, which can be applied across both urban and non-urban domains. It is compatible with the Milroys' central mechanism for the description of individual speech usage and group cohesion or susceptibility to change in terms of the social network. Based on linguistic variable types, this model has a hierarchy of four nested fields (speech community configurations) into which each individual is placed, according to his/her demonstrated recognition of the social evaluation associated with the variables. At the most local configuration, speakers demonstrate no knowledge of generally stigmatized variables; in the second, speakers register an awareness of stigmatized variables; in the third, an awareness of stigmatized and regional variables; and in the fourth, speakers model standard variants over regional ones. This model classifies the kinds of sociolinguistic variables that are pertinent in this social setting and also provides a structured manner for dealing with dialect contact dynamics. (Speech community, social network, Spanish, Mexico, dialect, diffusion, variables.)

This article examines PERFORMANCE SPEECH in the historically isolated island community of Ocracoke, North Carolina. Over the past several decades islanders have come into increasingly frequent contact with tourists and new residents, who often comment on the island's “quaint” relic dialect. In response, some Ocracokers have developed performance phrases that highlight island features, particularly the pronunciation of/ay/ with a raised/backed nucleus, i.e. [Λ-1]. The analysis of/ay/ in the performance and non-performance speech of a representative Ocracoke speaker yields several important insights for the study of language in its social context. First, performance speech may display more regular patterning than has traditionally been assumed. Second, it lends insight into speaker perception of language features. Finally, the incorporation of performance speech into the variationist-based study of style-shifting offers support for the growing belief that style-shifting may be primarily proactive rather than reactive. (Keywords: Ocracoke, performance speech, style-shifting, stylistic variation, register, self-conscious speech.)

Focus group discussions are now widely used for gathering data, in social science as well as in commercial marketing and public opinion research. One appeal of focus groups is that in some ways they seem like everyday talk, but their effectiveness depends on a tension between the moderator's constraints and participants' interaction. The moderator introduces and defines topics, but participants can shift, close, and interpret them. The moderator elicits disagreement in a way specific to focus groups, but participants manage their disagreement. Thus we see not simple control by the moderator, but a complex collaborative project operating under the shared assumption that the purpose of the discussion is to display opinions to the moderator. These findings extend the analysis of conversation in institutional settings and contribute to a methodological critique of the reification of attitudes and opinions in some social science research. (Focus group techniques, conversation, discourse analysis, interaction, agreement, topic, laughter, environment.)