William Labov

William Labov ( ; (December 4, 1927 – December 17, 2024) was an American linguist. He was seen as the founder of sociolinguistics.E.g., in the opening chapter of The Handbook of Language Variation and Change (ed. Chambers et al., Blackwell 2002), J.K. Chambers writes that "variationist sociolinguistics had its effective beginnings only in 1963, the year in which William Labov presented the first sociolinguistic research report"; the dedication page of the Handbook says that Labov's "ideas imbue every page". He was called "one of the most influential linguists of the 20th and 21st centuries".

Labov was a professor in the linguistics department of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He retired in 2015.

Labov died on December 17, 2024 at his home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from problems caused by Parkinson's disease at the age of 97.

References

Other websites
 William Labov's home page
 Journal of English Linguistics interview 
 NPR story "American Accent Undergoing Great Vowel Shift"
 Sociolinguistics: an interview with William Labov  ReVEL, vol. 5, n. 9, 2007.

Category:1927 births
Category:2024 deaths
Category:American linguists
Category:Academics from New Jersey
Category:Academics from Pennsylvania
Category:Writers from New Jersey
Category:Writers from Philadelphia
Category:People from Rutherford, New Jersey
Category:Deaths from Parkinson's disease