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>