This book provides comprehensive information on all aspects of sociolinguistics. It includes 285 articles, of which 80 are short biographical entries. Fifty of the biographies and 42 other articles are entirely new, while the remaining entries are revised and updated from the "Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics." The book provides access to important concepts in adjacent disciplines (e.g., role theory or social class from sociology). It also gives an account of methods and approaches taken by scholars in different branches of the discipline and a sense of sociolinguistics as a profession by reference to its key journals, societies, and conferences and by including brief portraits of its leading practitioners. The book's 10 sections include articles on the following: (1)"Foundations of Society and Language"; (2) "Language and Interaction"; (3) "Language Variation: Style, Situation, Function"; (4) "Language Variation and Change: Dialects and Social Groups"; (5) "Language Contact"; (6) "Language, Power and Inequality"; (7) "Language Planning, Policy, Practice"; (8) "Language and Education"; (9) "Methods in Sociolinguistics"; and (10) "The Profession." Includes: Alphabetical List of Articles; List of Contributors; Name Index; and Subject Index. (SM)