Contents: Markus Bieswanger: New approaches to the analysis of linguistic Variability ¿ Andrew Wilson: Embracing Bayes Factors for key item analysis in corpus linguistics ¿ Martin Schweinberger: A sociolinguistic analysis of the discourse marker LIKE in Northern Irish English. A look behind the scenes of quantitative reasoning ¿ Lillian Kaviti: The evolution of urban hybrid languages in Kenya: The case of Sheng and Engsh ¿ Melanie Burmeister: Variability in death notices from Scotland, Wales and the Republic of Ireland: A comparative perspective ¿ Florian Dolberg: Subject to change: Decay and mutation of linguistic memory ¿ Judith Rossow: New contexts and new concepts: The use of German «alt» ¿ Jana Kiesendahl: Apologies and excuses in academic e-mail communication: Differentiation and characterization from a pragmatic perspective ¿ Caroline Schilling: Assessing texting behaviour and language use in SMS communication: A survey on age differences.

The fourth volume in the series Language Competence and Language Awareness in Europe features contributions from various philologies in the young but rapidly growing research area of linguistic variability. It focuses on sociolinguistic studies of language use as social practice and variability of authentic language use.

The fourth volume in the series Language Competence and Language Awareness in Europe features contributions from various philologies in the young but rapidly growing research area of linguistic variability. The book grew out of a nucleus of papers presented at a North German Linguistics Workshop organised by the chair of English Linguistics, and developed into a collection of doctoral and post-doctoral research papers on variability in different domains of language use, variability as conceptual cum linguistic variability, and variability as studied in the mainstream research framework of corpus linguistics. It is the integrative presentation of thematic breadth and pluralistic research methodologies that inspired the title New Approaches to the Study of Linguistic Variability. The volume focuses on sociolinguistic studies of language use as social practice and variability of authentic language use.

Markus Bieswanger is professor of English Linguistics at the University of Bayreuth (Germany). Amei Koll-Stobbe holds the chair in English Linguistics at the University of Greifswald (Germany).