Language variation and language documentation can be studied together.

What is it about?

How language documentation and description and sociolinguistic studies of language variation and change fit together. Is it possible to absorb the methods and theoretical assumptions of variationist sociolinguistics into the task of language documentation? Or are the two enterprises so different that they can't be reconciled? Thoughts based on many years of experience as a variationist sociolinguist, expanding into language documentation with a project focused on a language of Vanuatu.

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Why is it important?

There's growing interest in extending sociolinguistic research beyond the study of standardised, European languages. This reflects on some of the challenges associated with adapting the methods of variationist sociolinguistics in the context of non-standardised and under-documented languages.