The importance, yet complexity, of the place of language in society has made sociolinguistics a study of prime importance for social scientists in many disciplines. It is a field whose boundaries still await definition, but a number of distinct sociolinguistic themes have already been studied in depth, much methodological and theoretical groundwork has been done and much valuable descriptive material accumulated.
This book presents a selection of articles covering the main areas of contemporary sociolinguistics. It pays particular attention to the concepts of multilingualism, language standardization, dialectical and stylistics variation, and the acquisition of what Hymes and others have called ‘communicative competence’.
J.B. Pride is Professor in the English Department at the Victoria University In Wellington, New Zealand. Janet Holmes is a Lecturer in the same department.
