The quantitative study of linguistic variables has been an integral part of sociolinguistic research since the mid twentieth century, but it was only recently that the use of attitudinal data as potential quantitative correlates of language variation has been advanced, thereby uniting the agentive focus of recent variationist scholarship with quantifiable attitudinal findings. Based on the fact that conation is one of the components of attitudes, this chapter demonstrates how variable analysis can profoundly enrich our knowledge of language attitudes. The key strengths of using variable analysis (e.g. high levels of statistical rigour) are discussed at length, as well as the potential limitations and complications (e.g. how to align ‘big’ attitudinal data with social constructivist frameworks). The chapter discusses practical issues of research design, such as the tasks by means of which phonetic, morphosyntactic, and lexical variables can be elicited. Analytical approaches that are suitable to the analysis of both variationist and attitudinal data are addressed, with an emphasis on mixed-effects linear regression modelling. To illustrate the key points pertaining to variable analysis as a means of investigating language attitudes, the chapter concludes with a case study of Catalan as spoken in southern France, in the region of Northern Catalonia.

The popularity of the Dictionary of Canadianisms happened as predicted in Canada's centennial year 1967, and, for a few years following, Gage Ltd's investment in the historical dictionary produced returns. However, rather than the promised revisions of the Dictionary of Canadianisms, a cheaper abridged version was produced in 1973, which ultimately failed to garner significant uptake. Other editions were either not produced or priced with discounts not large enough. Changes in focus in the wider field of linguistics, combined with the high price of the dictionary, combined to let the dictionary fall into relative oblivion just a decade after its much-celebrated publication. Douglas Leechman, one of the key contributors to the 1967 edition, moved on in 1968 to become the perhaps most important Canadian consultant for Robert Burchfield's Supplements to the Oxford English Dictionary, so he was unavailable for revising the Dictionary of Canadianisms. The Chomskyan and Labovian schools coming to the fore, the latter with its renewed focus on spoken non-standard language, helps explain the relatively sudden lack of attraction for academic linguists in the Canadian English dictionary work.