Karen V. Beaman received her Ph.D in sociolinguistics at Queen Mary, University of London and is currently a postdoctoral researcher at Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen. Her research interests concern language variation, coherence and change, with particular focus on how factors of identity, mobility and social networks drive or inhibit change.

Isabelle Buchstaller is professor of English Linguistics at the University of Duisburg-Essen. Her research interests include language variation and change across time. She is the author of Quotatives: New trends and sociolinguistic implications (2014) and has co-edited four volumes, most recently, panel research in language variation and change (with Suzanne Evans Wagner).