Introducciónla variación lingüística como propósito de estudio

Abstract

After 50 years of research on linguistic variation, professor Juan Andrés Villena Ponsoda officially retires from working life. His contribution to the development of variationist sociolinguistics is internationally renowned. Over all these years he has focused mainly on sociophonetic variation from empirical and theoretical perspectives. Juan Andrés Villena Ponsoda is considered one of the most influential researchers in Hispanic sociolinguistics over the last decades. He is, indeed, responsible for introducing social network analysis in social dialectology in Spain. This special issue is a well‐deserved tribute to professor Juan Andrés Villena Ponsoda. It gathers a collection of unpublished papers contributed by a group of colleagues who have maintained academic links with him. However, as humanity is one of Juan’s most outstanding virtues, those links go beyond professional issues and can be also found in the personal sphere. For this reason, beyond the academic value that could be claimed to this special issue, our main purpose is to celebrate the joy of knowing Juan and learning from his generous wisdom.