Variación semántica y significado social: hacia una sociolingüística cognitiva de la Tercera Ola

Two key elements reveal a step change in Sociolinguistics towards a more flexible perspective: the study of semantic variation and the inclusion of microsociological variables. This article is a theoretical proposal to combine the two perspectives that are responsible for this change: respectively, Cognitive Sociolinguistics and the Third Wave of Variation Studies. The theoretical connections between the two are located and the program for a Third Wave Cognitive Sociolinguistics is exposed. Combining objectives, methods and tools, this paper emphasizes the need to investigate how semantic variation creates social meaning. Unlike cognitive sociolinguistic works so far, the proposal defendes a “more sociolinguistic” perspective, both in data collection and in the interpretation of the meaning of variation for speakers as social agents, as in the Third Wave