While the field of variationist sociolinguistics has advanced rapidly since Labov (1966), it remains the case that a socially informed theory of language change continues to be influenced by only very few languages, typically English and a handful other dominant European languages. This article considers recent work on the emergence of new speakers in (severely) endangered or minority language communities, and what they might have to offer variationist theory. Although definitions can vary, it has become convention to describe new speakers as individuals ‘with little or no home or community exposure to a minority language but who instead acquire it through immersion or bilingual education programs, revitalization projects or as adult language learners’ (O'Rourke, Pujolar, & Ramallo, 2015: 1). There is now a wealth of literature available on new speakers in typologically dissimilar language contexts, though, so far, very little work has adopted the variationist paradigm. This article will argue that new speakers can figure prominently in variationist models of diffusion and change, taking the classic sociolinguistic factor of social networks as an example. The article ends by proposing a manifesto of potential research trajectories, based on current gaps in the literature.

中文翻译：

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新演讲者：变异主义社会语言学的挑战与机遇

自拉波夫（1966）以来，变异主义社会语言学领域迅速发展，但仍然存在这样一种情况，即语言变化的社会知情理论继续受到极少数语言的影响，这些语言通常是英语和少数其他占主导地位的欧洲语言。本文考虑了在（严重）濒临灭绝或少数民族语言社区中出现新演讲者的最新工作，以及他们可能需要提供的差异论理论。尽管定义可能会有所不同，但将新演讲者描述为``很少或根本没有家庭或社区接触少数民族语言，而是通过沉浸式或双语教育计划，振兴项目或作为成人语言学习者来获得新演讲者的惯例''（O 'Rourke，Pujolar和Ramallo，2015年：1）。现在，在类型不同的语言环境中，新演讲者可以找到大量文献，尽管到目前为止，很少有著作采用变异论范式。本文将论证，以社交网络的经典社会语言因素为例，新演讲者可以在传播和变化的变异主义模型中扮演重要角色。本文最后根据文献中的空白提出了潜在的研究轨迹宣言。