In this chapter we discuss the results of the experimental component to the study, which is designed to examine the degree to which the probabilistic contrasts uncovered in the corpus analysis are also discernible in language users’ introspective preferences. These experiments were designed to corroborate and interrogate the scope of the patterns observed in our corpus models.

This chapter begins with a general discussion of potential data types in variationist linguistics. Next, we present the two main data sources we use in the study: the International Corpus of English (ICE) and the Global Corpus of Web-Based English (GloWbE). The former comprises a set of parallel, balanced corpora representative of language usage across a wide range of standard national varieties. Each ICE corpus contains 500 texts of 2000 words each, sampled from twelve spoken and written genres/registers, totaling approx. 1 million words. GloWbE contains data collected from 1.8 million English language websites – both blogs and general web pages – from twenty different countries (approx. 1.8 billion words in all). Discussion of the corpora is followed by a detailed description of the data collection, identification, and annotation procedures for our three alternations. Here we carefully define the variable context for each alternation, and outline the methods for coding various linguistic constraints that are included in our analyses.

In this chapter we summarize the study’s key findings, and contribute to theory-building by discussing these findings against the backdrop of the various frameworks to which the book is relevant, including (Labovian) variationist sociolinguistics but also World Englishes, dialect typology and dialectometry, general usage, and experience-based linguistics.

This chapter introduces the aims and structure of the book, familiarizes the reader with key concepts (variants and variables, probabilistic grammars, comparative sociolinguistics, regional variation, indigenization, etc.) and the various subfields of linguistics that are relevant, and sketches the design of the study.

This chapter interrogates corpus data to analyze the three alternations subject to study in this book one by one using a battery of state-of-the-art analysis techniques in addition to customary descriptive statistics, Conditional Random Forest (CRF) modeling and mixed-effects logistic regression analysis. The goal of the chapter is to uncover qualitative generalizations: for example, we see that while effect directions of constraints on variation are generally stable across varieties of English, effects strengths can be significantly different.

This chapter is inspired by work in comparative sociolinguistics and quantitative dialectometry. We use a corpus-based method (Variation-Based Distance and Similarity Modeling – VADIS for short) to quantify the similarity between, and coherence across, the varieties of English under study as a function of the correspondence of the ways in which language users choose between different ways of saying the same thing. Key findings include the result that probabilistic grammars are remarkably stable across varieties but that coherence across alternations is not perfect.

This chapter surveys the literature on variation in general and on grammatical variables (a.k.a. "alternations'') in particular. Next, we review well-known grammatical variables/alternations in English as well as previous comparative investigations of grammatical alternations in English. Last but not least, we discuss in detail previous variationist work on the three alternations subject to study in this book: the genitive alternation, the dative alternation, and the particle placement alternation.

This chapter includes a succinct review of World Englishes and dialect typology literature, with a focus on the main theoretical paradigms within this sphere (e.g. the Three Circles model and the Dynamic Model). We then introduce the nine regional varieties of English under study in the book: British English, Canadian English, Irish English, New Zealand English, Hong Kong English, Indian English, Jamaican English, Philippine English, and Singapore English. The discussion includes a brief summary of relevant aspects of these varieties’ sociohistories as well as their linguistic profiles.

Chapter 7 analyzes misinformation and conspiracy theories as contemporary examples of fake news. These include the “death panels” controversy, the Obama “birther” conspiracy, Pizzagate, QAnon, and Covid-19–related myths and conspiracies. Not all conspiracy theories originate from the American right, although this chapter documents how the highest profile ones are embraced by right-wing media and the Republican Party. These conspiracies rise to prominence after being indulged by Republican officials, right-wing media outlets, and in social media. Social media increasingly serve as prime disseminators of reactionary conspiracies. I also examine how traditional “agenda setting” news media have held the line against these conspiracies, with consumption of these venues associated with increased rejection of the conspiracies. In contrast, social media consumption – in general and particularly for Republican Americans – is regularly associated with embrace of conspiracies. This rising culture of conspiratorialism has reached crisis levels with movements like QAnon, and with the Covid-19 pandemic and the failure of millions of Americans to take the crisis seriously or think about it in factual ways. In an era when traditional media gatekeepers are being pushed aside in favor of social media venues, people curate their own information and construct echo chambers, allowing conspiracy theories free reign.