Introduction 17
ist sociolinguistics. In order to reach a better understanding of the pattern-
ing of (th) the authors proceeded with a varbrul multivariate analysis into
which linguistic, social and cognitive factor groups were included. In this
chapter Clark and Trousdale resort to notions such as multiple inheritance,
schematicity and full and partial sanction to explain how the linguistic vari-
able in question can have a range of different social meanings within the
same community.
It will be clear from these summaries that the contributions we have
brought together in this volume are excellent illustrations of the two do-
mains we identified above. The chapters in the first two sections are pri-
marily concerned with variation of meaning (both lexical meaning and
constructional meaning) and the third section is devoted to the meaning of
variation, i.e. to the cognitive reality of meaningful variation in the minds
of the language users. While the studies combined in this volume far from
exhaust the domain, they do illustrate the potentialities of Cognitive Soci-
olinguistics: by joining forces in search of methodological refinement and
descriptive expansion, Cognitive Linguistics and sociolinguistics may con-
verge on a common goal – a detailed examination of variationist phenome-
na with the inclusion of semantic and cognitive factors.
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