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Twenty-five years ago, Labov's variationist framework was seen as a breakthrough for linguistics. Since then, however, sociolinguistics has been overly preoccupied with the problems involved in using the linguistic variable to analyze nonphonological variation. This has prevented any real progress being made in our understanding of syntactic variation. Analogies are drawn with the structuralists' preoccupation with emic concepts. The paper proposes a definition of'syntactic variation'and the linguistic variable'and considers the type of perspective needed for a coherent sociolinguistic theory. It also considers the analytical frameworks that are needed to advance our understanding of the role of syntactic and pragmatic variation in everyday communication.