Jack K. Chambers is Professor of sociolinguistics and dialectology in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Toronto. His research focuses on the social uses of language. His main areas of interest include: I. Sociolinguistics, and specifically the study of the social correlates of language variation; II. Dialectology, and specifically the study of regional patterns of language variation. Professor Chambers is presently working on a research project on the dialect topography of Canada. Professor Chambers authored Sociolinguistic Theory: Linguistic Variation and Its Social Significance (Basil Blackwell, 1995), co-authored Dialectology, with Pter Trudgill (1980; Cambridge, 1998), and edited and co-edited numerous volumes among which Dialects of English: Studies in Grammatical Variation (Longman, 1990).