We have analyzed many variables in Cantonese but not in other languages: classifier specialization, tone mergers, vowel splits and mergers, motion event expression, and (L > R), as well as (VOT) and (PRODROP). As little sociolinguistic work on any variety of this globally large language exists, these studies serve as useful models to expand variationist studies to languages that vary in many ways from the North American, Indo-European languages of focus to date. We show that classifiers are developing a specific semantic contrast (for number-marking) in Heritage Cantonese, amplifying a homeland trend; that three tone mergers that were reported to be completed are only partial, in both homeland and heritage varieties; that some vowel mergers and splits may be attributed to influence from English, but that changes in the constraints governing motion event expression cannot be attributed to simplification or English-contact effects. We report on covariation among the variables, showing that it is not the case that the same speakers lead change in each. Thus, it is not easy to claim that language proficiency or patterns of use are responsible for the variation. Rather, internal change and identity-marking motivations for change must be considered.

As scholars and activists seek to define and promote greater corporate political responsibility (CPR), they will benefit from understanding practitioner perspectives and how executives are responding to rising scrutiny of their political influences, reputational risk and pressure from employees, customers and investors to get involved in civic, political, and societal issues. This chapter draws on firsthand conversations with practitioners, including executives in government affairs; sustainability; senior leadership; and diversity, equity and inclusion, during the launch of a university-based CPR initiative. I summarize practitioner motivations, interests, barriers and challenges related to engaging in conversations about CPR, as well as committing or acting to improve CPR. Following the summary, I present implications for further research and several possible paths forward, including leveraging practitioners’ value on accountability, sustaining external calls for transparency, strengthening awareness of systems, and reframing CPR as part of a larger dialogue around society’s “social contract.”

Language contact studies and historical linguistics, i.e. the study of language change, are subfields of linguistics that have long been recognized as being mutually relevant. This chapter explores this relationship along two dimensions: first, with regard to the fields of study themselves, and second, and perhaps more importantly, with regard to those aspects of language contact and of influence external to a given linguistic system that are particularly relevant to understanding the basic subject matter of historical linguistics, i.e. what happens to languages as they pass through time. In terms of the fields of study, an overview of the historiography of the distinction between internally motivated and externally motivated change is offered. This survey is followed by a discussion of several case studies, in which language contact serves as an actuator of change as well as some in which it is an inhibitor of change. Finally, the interaction of language contact with another key issue in historical linguistics, namely language genealogy, is discussed, along with a consideration of the naturalness and pervasiveness of language contact.