the apparent-time hypothesis is a methodological construct in sociolinguistics whereby language change is studied by comparing the speech of individuals of different ages. if language change is taking place, the apparent-time hypothesis assumes that older generations will represent an earlier form of the language and younger generations will represent a later form. thus by comparing younger and older speakers, the direction of language change can be detected. the apparent-time method allows change to be studied by synchronic analysis (i.e., by examining the state of the language at a particular point in time); this contrasts with real-time sociolinguistics, which compares data from two points in time to observe change directly.