37.791, Calls: Spoken Englishes — Journal in English Variation Studies - "Issue 1: A Tribute to William Labov’s Impact on English Phonetics and Phonology" (Jrnl)

Thu Feb 26 13:05:02 UTC 2026

LINGUIST List: Vol-37-791. Thu Feb 26 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.791, Calls: Spoken Englishes — Journal in English Variation Studies - "Issue 1: A Tribute to William Labov’s Impact on English Phonetics and Phonology" (Jrnl)

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Date: 25-Feb-2026
From: Christophe COUPÉ-JAMET [christophe.coupe at u-cergy.fr]
Subject: Spoken Englishes — Journal in English Variation Studies - "Issue 1: A Tribute to William Labov’s Impact on English Phonetics and Phonology" (Jrnl)

Journal: Spoken Englishes — Journal in English Variation Studies
Issue: Issue 1: A Tribute to William Labov’s Impact on English
Phonetics and Phonology
Call Deadline: 30-Apr-2026

Spoken Englishes – Journal in English Variation Studies will publish
its very 1st issue in 2027. It will be edited by Christophe
Coupé-Jamet (CY Cergy Paris Université, France), Quentin Dabouis
(Université Clermont-Auvergne, France), Pierre Fournier (Université
Sorbonne Paris Nord, France), Olivier Glain (Université Jean Monnet de
Saint-Étienne, France), Véronique Lacoste (Université Lumière Lyon 2,
France) & Anne Przewozny (Université Toulouse - Jean Jaurès, France),
on the topic of William Labov’s Impact on English Phonetics and
Phonology.
William Labov’s groundbreaking work (from 1966 onwards) revolutionized
the study of language variation and change. Labov is often regarded as
the founder of variationist sociolinguistics. He challenged
traditional linguistic theories by focusing on the social context of
language use, and by approaching language variation and change, not as
accidental elements, but as fundamental features of language. From its
seminal works on the importance of social forces in language change
and variation, initiated in New York City and Martha's Vineyard, to
the understanding of African American Vernacular English, or to the
development of the Atlas of North American English, Labov’s founding
studies in sociolinguistics, phonology, and phonetics, based on
rigorous empirical research, revealed how language varies
systematically across social groups and situations. He introduced the
sociolinguistic interview and quantitative analysis, which then became
standard in the field. The principles of language change and variation
that he defined, including their life cycle and the role of social
factors, have shaped our understanding of how languages change and
have spurred many subsequent studies. His work on sound changes
(Labov, Ash & Boberg 2006) in North American English varieties has
equally been impactful from the point of view of our understanding of
sound change and has led to different methods of data normalization.
Labov’s influence extends beyond the world of academia, impacting
education, policy, and public discourse on language diversity and
language discrimination. Labov's pioneering work, methods and theories
have inspired generations of linguists.
This very first issue of SPEN, meant to be a tribute to William Labov,
invites submissions on, but not limited to, the following topics:
 - Interaction between spoken language behaviour and social attributes
(age, gender, social class…);
 - Labov's Principles and the “three waves” of variation studies;
 - The relationship between sociolinguistics and phonology/phonetics;
 - Methods in sociolinguistic data collection (sociolinguistic
interview, corpus design, field recording techniques, speaker sampling
and selection…);
 - Ethical issues (informed consent, personal data collection,
anonymization, data management…);
 - Issues with discriminating between noise and variation in spoken
corpora (e.g. vowel normalization and statistical modelling);
 - Phonetic and/or phonological variation in synchrony and sound
change in diachrony from a Labovian perspective;
 - The concurrent rise in popularity of sociolinguistics and other
theoretical and methodological frameworks amongst linguists;
 - The evolution of sociolinguistics as a field;
 - The influence of sociolinguistics on linguistic theory;
 - The role of sociolinguistics in synchronic and diachronic studies;
 - The legacy of Labov’s work in contemporary phonological studies.
The list above consists of only a few suggestions and is by no means
exhaustive. Submissions dealing with other topics related to English
phonetics and phonology will also be considered. Submissions that do
not align with the present issue's scope will be duly considered, but
assigned to the Varia section.
References:
Baranowski, Maciej. 2007. Phonological variation and change in the
dialect of Charleston, South Carolina. Durham: Duke University Press
for the American Dialect Society.
Baranowski, Maciej. 2013. On the role of social factors in the loss of
phonemic distinctions. English Language and Linguistics 17(2),
271-295.
Baranowski, Maciej. 2013. Sociophonetics. In C. Richard & C. Lucas
(eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Sociolinguistics, 403-424. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Eckert, Penelope. 2008. Variation and the indexical field. Journal of
Sociolinguistics 12 (4), 453-476.
Eckert, Penelope. 2012. Three waves of variation studies: The
emergence of meaning in the study of variation. Annual Review of
Anthropology 41, 87-100.
Eckert, Penelope & William Labov. 2017. Phonetics, phonology and
social meaning. Journal of Sociolinguistics 21 (4), 467-496.
Labov, William. 1966. The social stratification of English in New York
City. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.
Labov, William. 1972. Sociolinguistic patterns. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press.
Labov, William. 1990. The intersection of sex and social class in the
course of linguistic change. Language Variation and Change 2 (2),
205-254.
Labov, William. 1994. Principles of linguistic change, volume 1:
Internal factors. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
Labov, William. 2001. Principles of linguistic change, volume 2:
Social factors. Oxford: Blackwell.
Labov, William. 2007. Transmission and diffusion. Language 83,
344-387.
Labov, William. 2010. Principles of linguistic change, volume 3:
Cognitive and cultural factors. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
Labov, William, Ash, Sharon & Charles Boberg. 2006. The atlas of North
American English: Phonetics, phonology and sound change. Berlin:
Mouton de Gruyter.
Turton, Danielle & Maciej Baranowski. 2021. The sociolinguistics of
/l/ in Manchester. Linguistics Vanguard 7 (1), pp. 20200074.
Submission Guidelines:
Submissions (abstract and papers) will be submitted to
christophe.coupe at u-cergy.fr. Submissions will be anonymously
peer-reviewed by a scientific committee composed of specialists in
their fields.
Abstracts:
Your abstract must be between 3,000 and 6,000 characters (including
spaces and references). Please include a title, and five to six
relevant keywords.
Papers:
While English is recommended, papers in French are also accepted.
There is no page limit; however, all papers should include an abstract
(between 3,000 and 6,000 characters) provided in both English and
French.
Deadlines:
 - February 2026: Call for papers
 - April 30 2026: Deadline for submitting abstracts (to
christophe.coupe at u-cergy.fr)
 - May 31 2026: Evaluation decisions notified to authors
 - October 31 2026: Deadline for submitting papers
 - November-December 2026: Proofreading of papers by the evaluation
committee
 - December 2026: Authors’ corrections
 - January 2027: Deadline for sending in final versions of papers
 - February 2027: Publication

Linguistic Field(s): Phonetics
                     Phonology
                     Sociolinguistics

Subject Language(s): English (eng)

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