Abstract
<jats:p>One of the empirical approaches to understanding the processes and mechanisms that drive language change has been the introduction of the apparent time study, or, the observation that active changes proceeding in real time can be observed synchronically by comparing patterns of language production between younger and older generations of the same speech community. Part and parcel of descriptions of apparent time changes has been the classification of such changes as being either ‘from above’ or ‘from below’, and yet the criteria used to define these terms has varied over the years and across studies. This chapter offers a survey of that variation, and argues that the distinction itself has limited utility in understanding how changes are related to society and social meaning. The chapter concludes with the recommendation that we attend particularly to the point made by Labov, that the difference is really “a matter of degree.”</jats:p>