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Labov's views on the nature of the speech community rest

upon four precepts.

-- A speech community is constituted by a set of variable

features unique to it. <[LINK]>

-- Production of speech by any particular member of the speech

community might include only a partial subset of all the

features available to the community. <[LINK]>

-- Speech communities reside within independently measureable

social communities. <[LINK]>

-- Although production within a community is variable,

comprehension is normalized for all individual members of a

community. <[LINK]>

In many ways, Labov idealizes the community, or at least

sets it as a fixed point around which his models and data can be

interpreted unambiguously. If one believes in the same standards

of community as Labov, and if one believes that every member of a

particular community shares the same relatively homogeneous and

complete system of comprehension, then his leaps from correlation

to cause can be made with confidence.