本書內容涉及廣泛，包括∶討論學科的性質、范圍、研究方法；主要的術語；宏觀社會語言學和微觀社會語言學；語言與文化；語言與性別；社會語言學的應用等。
’’Should become the standard text in advanced undergraduate and introductory graduate courses.’’ Language (review of the first edition) Since it first appeared more than ten years ago. Ronald
Wardhaugh’’s An Introduction to Sociolinguistics has been an immensely popular choice of textbook for courses in sociolinguistics and the sociology of language. This third edition retains the
basic structure of the original, but incorporates a wealth of new material reflecting the progress of the field since the start of the 1990s. In particular. the coverage of pidgins and creoles.
code-switching, sociolinguistic variation, language change, discourse analysis and language and gender has been considerably revised and extended, with coverage of some 150 recent books or
papers.
