The impact of Labov's contribution to general linguistic theory

The paper first discusses the influence of Labov on certain recent Chomskyan developments, starting from an identification of two radically different readings of the relationship between Labovian variationist sociolinguistics and the dominant theoretical paradigm of the latter half of the 20th century which is Chomskyan theoretical linguistics, i.e. as either a supplement or an alternative. Variation at the level of closely related languages, at the level of the language community, and at the level of the individual, have all been treated by Chomskyans under various headings, thus giving evidence that empirical results stemming from variationist sociolinguistics cannot be ignored. However, the treatment has not led to an integration of variation into Chomskyan theory, nor could it. In the final section we outline what a Labovian materialist alternative to Chomskyan idealism could be. We argue that this calls for a broader definition of sociolinguistics than just variationism and poses demands for both internal integration, viz. of linguistic disciplines, and external integration of the language sciences with evolutionary psychology, anthropology and social history.