³ ~soclab03.03 º UP: <[LINK]> ³

³ Speech communities determined by º NEXT: open ³

³extralinguistic factors º <[LINK] - ³

Labov has skirted the problem of delimiting the outermost

natural boundaries of community by determining them on the basis

of non-linguistic criteria. Although this method grants a certain

social salience to Labov's categories of analysis, he does not

reflect on the communicative factors that have influenced the

societal boundaries he presupposes or the societal factors that

caused them to be assigned their particular social meanings. But

once these domains have been assumed to be clearly delimited

objects he can take random samples and look for clusters of

variable features within them, perhaps comparing them with other

such domains. {<[LINK]> goto <socgum00> or its daughter that holds

Gumperz's critique}

Generally, the outside boundaries of his objects of study

are those of a particular city, neighborhood, or ethnic group.

Within such domains, subsets are correlated to groups which have

been recognized as such independently of their linguistic

features, such as neighborhoods within the same city,

floorworkers of a particular department store or street gangs.

It is not until this point that empirical method and testable

linguistic theories are introduced. It is perhaps for this

reason that Hymes assigns Labov's work to the category of

"socially realistic" linguistics rather than his favored

category, "socially constituted" linguistics.

<[LINK] -Labov>