Biography
Born in Rutherford, New Jersey, he studied at Harvard (1948) and worked as an industrial chemist (1949–61) before turning to linguistics. For his MA thesis (1963) he completed a study of change in the dialect of Martha's Vineyard, which was presented before the Linguistic Society of America. Labov took his PhD (1964) at Columbia University studying under Uriel Weinreich. He taught at Columbia (1964–70) before becoming a professor of linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania (1971), and then became director of the university's Linguistics Laboratory (1977).
He has been married to fellow sociolinguist Gillian Sankoff since 1993. Prior to his marriage to Sankoff, he was married to sociologist Teresa Gnasso Labov.
Read more about this topic: William Labov
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“The best part of a writer’s biography is not the record of his adventures but the story of his style.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“The death of Irving, which at any other time would have attracted universal attention, having occurred while these things were transpiring, went almost unobserved. I shall have to read of it in the biography of authors.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.”
—Rebecca West [Cicily Isabel Fairfield] (1892–1983)