本书的主要读者是英语语言学专业的学生、语言研究者和语言教师，所以除了介绍一些社会语言学的基本概念以外，本书还运用社会语言学理论深入地讨论英语学习中的实际问题。全书共分10个章节，主要包括：语言的变化；语言变化空间与范围；语言与性别；英语世界里的英语变体；语言与语境；语言的文化变异；语言接触；语言的多重构型；语言与交际等。

语言是社会组合的工具。社会语言学对语言现象的一个基本认识是语言的变异性。本书着重研究语言与社会、语言与文化、语言与风格、语言与交际、语言与语境的关系；从社会语言学角度观察英语特点；帮助英语学习者了解在跨文化交际方面的知识，掌握英语技能，指导英语实践。

本书可作为英语专业本科生和研究生的教材，亦适用于英语学习者和英语爱好者，对英语教师和英语工作者也有较高的参考价值。

1 An Introduction to Sociolinguistics

 1.1 What is Sociolinguistics?

 1.2 History of Sociolinguistics in the West

 1.3 Language and Society

1.3.1 Language as Social Behavior

1.3.2 Language as a Communicative Means

1.3.3 Language as an Information System

 1.4 Sociolinguistics and English Learning

 1.5 Summary

2 Language Change

 2.1 Introduction

2.1.1 Linguistic Item

2.1.2 Variety

2.1.3 Linguistic Variable

2.1.4 Speech Community

2.1.5 Networks and Repertoires

 2.2 Forms of Language Change

2.2.1 Phonological Change

2.2.2 Morphological Changes

2.2.3 Lexical Semantic Change

2.2.4 Grammatical Change

 2.3 Nature of Change

2.3.1 Internal and External Change

2.3.2 Family Tree

2.3.3 Wave Diffusion

2.4 Factors of Change

2.4.1 Imitation of the Prestigious

2.4.2 Slang and Dialects

2.4.3 Simplification

2.4.4 Politeness

2.4.5 Stratum Terms

 2.5 General Conclusions

3 Language Variety Space

 3.1 Language and Dialect

3.1.1 Dialecte and Patois

3.1.2 Size and Prestige

3.1.3 Social and Political Factors

3.1.4 Dialect and Intelligibility

 3.2 Standard Languages

3.2.1 Standardization

3.2.2 Historicity and Vitality

3.2.3 Autonomy and Acceptance

3.2.4 Reduction and Mixture

 3.3 Pidgin and Creole

3.3.1 Lingua Francas

3.3.2 Pidgins

3.3.3 Creoles

3.3.4 Theories of Origin

 3.4 Language Loss and Revival

 3.5 General Conclusions

4 Language and Gender

 4.1 Male/Female Language

4.1.1 Male/Female Lexical Forms

4.1.2 Male/Female Language Differences

 4.2 Sexism in Languages

4.2.1 Marked and Unmarked Terms

4.2.2 Female Vocabulary

4.2.3 Sexist Language

 4.3 Sex Differences and Possible Reasons

4.3.1 Social Division of Labour

4.3.2 Social Prejudice

4.3.3 Power and Control

4.3.4 Role Relations

 4.4 Language Bias in English

 4.5 General Conclusion

5 Varieties in the English World

 5.1 English and Social Class

5.1.1 Class and Status

5.1.2 Social Class and Language Variation

5.1.3 Social Status and ' Prestige' Norms

 5.2 Black English in America

5.2.1 Characteristics of Black English

5.2.2 Three Views on Black English

 5.3 American English

5.3.1 History of American English

5.3.2 Characteristics of American English

5.3.3 American English and British English

 5.4 Good English and Bad English

 5.5 Summary

6 Language and Context

 6.1 Context Views

 6.2 Linguistic Context

6.2.1 Conceptual Meaning

6.2.2 Grammatical Meaning

6.2.3 Topic Meaning

6.2.4 Collocative Meaning

6.3 Non-linguistic Context

6.3.1 Cultural Meaning

6.3.2 Stylistic Meaning

6.3.3 Status Meaning

6.3.4 Temporal and Spatial Meaning

6.4 Style of English in Application

6.4.1 Style

6.4.2 English in Advertisements

6.4.3 Features in Political English

 6.5 Register

6.5.1 Context and Register

6.5.2 Features of Register

 6.6 Summary

7 Cultural Variety of Language

 7.1 Language and Culture

 7.2 Linguistic and Cultural Relativity

7.2.1 The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

7.2.2 Reaction to Linguistic and Cultural Relativity

 7.3 Address Forms and Culture

7.3.1 Kinship Term and Kinship System

7.3.2 Social Address

 7.4 Jargon, Taboo & Euphemism

7.4.1 Jargon

7.4.2 Taboo

7.4.3 Euphemism

8 Language Contact

 8.1 Diglossia

8.1.1 Definitions of Diglossia

8.1.2 Features of Diglossia

8.1.3 Extended Meanings of Diglossia

 8.2 Bilinguals & Bilingualism

8.2.1 Descriptive Analysis of Bilingualism

8.2.2 Bilingual Competence

 8.3 Code Choosing and Code Switching

8.3.1 Code Switching

8.3.2 Code-Mixing

8.3.3 Attitudes to Code Switching and Code Mixing

 8.4 Concluding Remarks

9 Configurations of Language

 9.1 Spoken and Written Language

 9.2 Differences and Similarities Between the Two Modalities

 9.3 Continua from Written to Spoken

 9.4 Variation Across Speech and Writing

 9.5 Literacy and Literacies

 9.6 General Conclusions

10 Communicative Use of Language

 10.1 Ethnography of Speaking

10.1.1 Descriptive Analysis of Speaking

10.1.2 The Norms Governing Speech

 10.2 Speech Acts and the Cooperative Principle

10.2.1 Properties of Speech Acts

10.2.2 Indirect Speech Acts

10.2.3 Conversational Maxims

 10.3 Conversational Structure and Strategies

10.3.1 Adjacency Pairs

10.3.2 Turn-taking

10.3.3 Openings, Topics and Closings

 10.4 Face and Politeness

10.4.1 The Face Theory

10.4.2 Politeness Principle

 10.5 Concluding Remarks

Bibliography