Sound change

Abstract While the fields of phonetics, phonology, and sociolinguistics have all contributed to the study of sound change, different research traditions have often sought explanations for different aspects of sound change, or even differed with respect to the very definition of the term Garrett, 2015; Hall-Lew, Honeybone, and Kirby, 2021c). For example, phonetic and phonological work may focus on which changes are possible and likely, while sociophonetic work might focus on which factors influence the trajectory of change. Hall-Lew’s chapter critiques the binary contrast between changes “from above” and “from below,” and then focuses on those aspects of sound change research that could more fruitfully engage with sociolinguistic questions, methodologies, and theory, with particular attention to how theories of ideology Kroskrity, 2016), embodiment (, and their overlap Bourdieu, 1977a) can bridge phonetic and phonological accounts of sound change actuation with sociolinguistic accounts of sound change propagation.