Afterword: Where are we now?

Labov recapitulates his view of linguistics when he entered the field in 1961, and what he hoped to achieve. He acknowledges Meyerhoff's stress on the convergence of methods and Coupland's view of the vernacular as an ‘overdetermined’ concept which is simultaneously undervalued. The value of new methods for the study of variation has been tested by their application to other cultures (Gal), to African American Vernacular English (Rickford), and to indigenous and endangered languages (Stanford). Thomas indicates how the Atlas of North American English builds on traditional methods of American dialect geography. Johnstone's account of Labov's approach to narrative links sociolinguistic work to broader areas in the humanities. Cornips and Gregersen see Labov's contribution to general linguistic theory as a joint enterprise in which intuitions and observations form a harmonious database.