William Labov ( ; born December 4, 1927) is an
American linguist, widely regarded as the founder of the discipline of variationist
sociolinguistics. He has been described as "an enormously original and influential figure who has created much of the methodology" of sociolinguistics. He is employed as a professor in the
linguistics department of the
University of Pennsylvania, and pursues research in sociolinguistics, language change, and
dialectology. He semi-retired at the end of spring 2014.