This book is an excellent introduction to the field of sociolinguistics. It encompasses the entire spectrum of sociolinguistics, including such topics as the Whorfian Hypothesis, politeness, and language planning, in addition to the usual standard topics of language variation and pidgins and creoles. It also covers a wide range of languages and issues, going far beyond the usual North American and British topics. Included are a 25 page bibliography as well as specific suggestions for further reading at the end of each chapter. The writing is usual quite clear and certainly less wordy than Hudson's introductory sociolinguistics text. Interspersed throughout the book, at the end of each minor chapter section, are "Discussion" questions. These questions are intended to get the reader to give some more thought to the issues being discussed. The questions vary greatly in difficulty, from those that any undergraduate linguistics student should be able to answer through a little introspection, to quite a few that could be dissertation topics in themselves. Occasionally, Wardhaugh suggests where the reader could get further information necessary to answer these questions, but frequent lack of such clear advice may leave readers (and instructors) frustrated. Nevertheless, this is a fine text.

I compared and contrasted W.'s book with the sociolinguistic introductions by Holmes and Romaine. While Holmes includes more examples and Romaine has a strongly argued section on language and gender W. touches on several points which are only mentioned in passing (or not at all) in the other books. A whole section is devoted to "language and culture", one of the most fascinating fields in sociolinguistics (which, for some reason, is hardly mentioned in the other books). The chapters on "ethnography of speaking" and "language planing" are also well researched and very readable.