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William Labov

WIlliams Hall 619
215-898-4912

Office Hours

Linguistics Laboratory3801 Walnut Street

Professor, Departments of Linguistics, University of Pennsylvania,

Office: Linguistics Laboratory 3550 Market St., #250, Philadelphia PA 19104,

Harvard College, B.A., 1948

Columbia University, M.A., 1963; Ph.D. 1964

Industrial chemist, Union Ink Co., Ridgefield, NJ, 1949-1960

Assistant Professor, Columbia University, 1964-1970

Associate Professor, Professor, University of Pennsylvania, 1971-

Director, Linguistics Laboratory, University of Pennsylvania, 1976-

Books and representative articles:

The Social Stratification of English in New York City.,1966

The Study of Non-Standard English., 1969

Sociolinguistic Patterns, 1972

Language in the Inner City, 1972

What is a Linguistic Fact? , 1975.

with David Fanshel, Therapeutic Discourse , 1976.

Principles of Linguistic Change. Volume 1: Internal Factors , 1994.

Principles of Linguistic Change. Volume 2: Social Factors. 2001.

Studies in Sociolinguistics by William Labov. 2001

Atlas of North American English: Phonology and Sound Change (in press)..

The social motivation of a sound change, 1963

with U. Weinreich & M. Herzog, Empirical foundations for a theory of language change,

1968.

Contraction, deletion and inherent variation of the English copula, 1969.

The logic of non-standard English, 1979.

Resolving the Neogrammarian controversy, 1981.

with W. Harris, Defacto Segregation of Black and White Vernaculars, 1986

Co-existent systems in African-American English, 1998

What is a reading error? 2005.

Research reports:

with P. Cohen, C. Robins, & J. Lewis, The Non-Standard English of Black and Puerto

Rican Speakers in New York City, 1968

with M. Yaeger & R. Steiner, A Quantitative Study of Sound Change in Progress, 1972

David H. Russell Award for Distinguished Research in English, 1966.

Guggenheim Fellow: 1970-71 and 1987-88.

Member, National Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1979-

Member, National Academy of Sciences, 1993-

Fellow, American Association for the Advance of Science, 1997-

President, Linguistic Society of America, 1979.

Honorary degrees:, U. of Uppsala, 1985; U. of Liège, 1990, U. of York 1998, U. of Edinburgh 2005

Sapir Professor, Linguistic Institute, New York, 1986.

Editor, Language Variation and Change, 1988-

Leonard Bloomfield LSA award for Principles of Linguistic Change, Vol. 1, 1996.

Courses Taught

spring 2005

ENGL 260.401 Narrative Analysis  

fall 2001

ENGL 260.401 Narrative Analysis  

spring 1999

fall 1994