Dick Smakman is a Lecturer in Sociolinguistics and Language Acquisition at Leiden University, the Netherlands.

• PART 1: INTRODUCING SOCIOLINGUISTICS 1. Early Sociolinguistics The birth of a field 2. Sociolinguistics today The modern study of language in a social space 3. The good language Language norms and ideology 4. Language variation The various shapes of language 5. The language of culture Practices and belief systems as sociolinguistic variables PART 2: UNDERSTANDING SOCIOLINGUISTICS 6. Speaker fate and choices The individual in a sociolinguistic space 7. The language of a lifetime Age and time as sociolinguistic factors 8. Being a woman or a man Gender as a sociolinguistic variable 9. The people's language Folk Linguistics & Perceptual Dialectology 10. What say you? Attitudes about language 11. Second Language Sociolinguistics Linguistic choices by learners 12. The more equal language Language and status across the globe PART 3: PROCESSING SOCIOLINGUISTICS <13. Ready, set, research Steps towards a sociolinguistic research project 14. Crunching numbers Introducing statistics 15. The sounds of language Introducing Phonetics from a Sociolinguistic point of view 16. Write it down Introducing the sociolinguistic research report PART 4: DOING SOCIOLINGUISTICS 17. Language out there Investigating naturally occurring language 18. Speak to me Investigating elicited language 19. While you were speaking Investigating ongoing communication 20. Don't get me started Investigating attitudes and perceptions

Combining fascinating details and insights drawn from languages and societies around the world, this book provides a truly global introduction to sociolinguistics as a field of study.