Acknowledgements

The present volume is a collaboration by an international team of dedicated scholars at various points of their respective careers, who have been working together since April 2021. As its editor, I am happy to share the results of this collaboration with our global academic community, and I would like to thank the people who have made this project possible.

I would first like to thank the authors for sharing their research and contributing to this volume. From the very beginning, they graciously accepted my invitation to be a part of this project, and have since remained committed to it by promptly responding to my requests for drafts and revisions, by being open to the peer reviewers’, the series editors’ and my feedback, and (most importantly) by respecting and embracing the overall goal of the volume to showcase research on the acquisition of linguistic variation and language change from a sociohistorical perspective. It has been my privilege as volume editor to be able to work with and learn from such a brilliant and collegial group of scholars.

I am also grateful to our expert reviewers, who have selflessly carved time out of their busy schedules to provide insightful comments on the chapters in this volume. They are, in last name alphabetical order, the following: Suzanne Aalberse (Universiteit van Amsterdam), Albert Backus (Tilburg University), Josh Brown (University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire), Joseph Clancy Clements (University of Indiana, Bloomington), Ailís Cournane (New York University), Melisa Dracos (Baylor University), Alexandra D’Arcy (University of Victoria), David Durian (The Pennsylvania State University), Kimberly Geeslin (University of Indiana, Bloomington), Jennifer Hendriks (The Australian National University), Samantha Litty (Europa-Universität Flensburg), Stephen Matthews (University of Hong Kong), María Irene Moyna (Texas A&M University), Randi Neteland (Høgskulen på Vestlandet), Carmel O’Shannessy (The Australian National University), Eliot Raynor (Princeton University), Pablo E. Requena (University of Texas at San Antonio), Yael Reshef (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Devyani Sharma (Queen Mary University of London), Naomi Shin (University of New Mexico), Eivind Torgersen (Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet), and Sarah Zahler (State University of New York at Albany). Their priceless feedback has greatly improved the overall quality of the volume.

I would also like to express my sincerest gratitude to the coeditors of the series Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics at John Benjamins, Terttu Nevalainen (Helsingin yliopisto) and Marijke van der Wal (Universiteit Leiden). Their expert guidance, attention to detail, responsiveness, suggestions, and patience throughout this project have been extremely helpful and have greatly enhanced the overall scholarly quality of the volume. I am also thankful to the editing team at John Benjamins, whose professional assistance has been critical as the volume neared the publishing stage.

Lastly, a particularly heartfelt ‘thank you’ goes to our dear colleague Kimberly (Kim) Geeslin (University of Indiana, Bloomington), who sadly passed away in January 2023. Kim was an internationally renowned scholar in the study of the second-language acquisition of variation, who inspired whole cohorts of students and colleagues and left an indelible impression in our field. Throughout my communication with her as the first author of one of the chapters in this volume, she was an example of expertise, dedication, professionalism, and passion for one’s scholarship. May she rest in peace.