Where It Begins -- Synchronicity and Sociolinguistics -- A Crescendo of Research -- Roots of Variationist Thinking -- Sociolinguistics in the Street -- Why Statistics in Your Head -- Sociolinguistics From the Heart -- Branching Out; Bursting at the Seams -- Why Do You Like Variation? -- Launching the Future -- Afterword -- Appendix A List of Interviews -- Appendix B VSLX Family Tree.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Online resource; title from PDF title page (John Wiley, viewed September 17, 2015).

Making Waves tells the human story of an academic field based on one-to-one interviews with 43 of the most famous scholars in Variationist Sociolinguistics. Explanations of concepts, ideas, good practice and sage advice come directly from the progenitors of the discipline. -An authentic, inside story about the origins of Sociolinguistics as Language Variation and Change, recording the context and spirit of sociolinguistics -Gives students access to the views on language variation of major sociolinguists such as Bill Labov and Peter Trudgill -Offers a human story of an academic field, and is written in the style of a novel, offering complete accessibility with minimal in-group terminology -Provides a timely audio archive of the reminiscences of the major Sociolinguists, including Labov, Fasold, Milroy, Trudgill, and Wolfram, with a companion website featuring 400 audio clips from the interviews. Visit the site at.