Discovering English grammar and variation

This book is a basic English grammar, based on decades of teaching. It is organized around two core points: 1) the discovery of grammatical regularities, and 2) language variation. The first core point uses both a top-down approach, using a set of simple discovery procedures (heuristics), and a bottom-up approach, in which the learner is invited to notice similarities and differences and to build their own rules. The second core point is that language is not a monolith, but rather a variable system, in which the socio-economic situation in which the speakers interact affects their linguistic choices. Therefore it is necessary to consider these sociolinguistic factors for a deep understanding of grammar and its uses.