Ralph Penny, Variation and change in Spanish. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp xiii, 284. Hb $59.95.

Extract

This book consists of seven chapters; its main aim is “to apply certain theoretical insights into linguistic variation and change to the Spanish speaking world” (p. ix). The first three chapters are devoted to explaining fundamental concepts related to variation and change; the following three, to presenting the broad patterns displayed by geographical and social variation in Spanish; and the last, to the history of the standardization process of Spanish. From the beginning, Penny makes clear that he is not claiming to advance variationist theory, but he hopes that the data presented in the book will test and support such theoretical approach to language, which I understand he refers to in the sense of the quantitative paradigm. Similar disclaimers are made throughout the book regarding the unequal attention paid to the correlation between linguistic and sociological features of Spanish-speaking communities, given the paucity of data available.