Peter Stockwell's accessible textbook for beginners provides an expansive overview of the field of sociolinguistics. It is divided into four sections, each of which includes twelve short units of about 2–4 pages each. In the first section, “Introduction,” Stockwell familiarizes the reader with major sociolinguistic concepts and essential terminology in a concise, straightforward style. The content is divided into the following units: a sociolinguistic toolkit; accent and dialect; register and style; ethnicity and multilingualism; variation and change; standardization; gender; pidgins and creoles; new, national, and international Englishes; politeness and accommodation; conversation; and, finally, applying sociolinguistics. In the second section, “Development,” the key concepts described in the introduction are expanded upon through more detailed examples. In the third section, “Exploration,” data are incorporated into the units to demonstrate ways in which hypotheses based on the key concepts can be examined. In the fourth section, “Extension,” excerpts from research studies conducted by sociolinguists are presented, followed by questions for further discussion.

The textbook is designed to be used in two ways. First, the reader may follow the text in the traditional way and read each section in order; this way would provide a holistic view of the field and allow the reader to become familiar with a variety of concepts before applying them to data and further readings. This might appeal to readers working through the book on their own. Alternatively, the reader may also follow the text “horizontally,” since the book is designed so that each unit in a section corresponds to a unit in each of the other three sections. For example, in the “Introduction” the first unit is “A sociolinguistic toolkit,” in which the reader is introduced to data collection methods and some of the common social and linguistic variables investigated in the field. The reader may then advance to the corresponding unit in “Development,” called “Undertaking a sociolinguistic study,” which contains advice on finding a topic, creating a solid research design, and writing up the results. The corresponding unit in “Exploration,,” titled “Collecting and exploring data,” has a review of transcription conventions for different types of investigations, and then a discussion of statistics and correlations in linguistic data. Lastly, the corresponding unit in “Extension” includes an excerpt from “Early Standard English: Linguistic confidence and insecurity” by Andrew Hamer (reprinted from Proceedings of the English Association North, Vol. 9, Liverpool University English Department, 1993). Following the short reading, Stockwell reviews the main issues that relate to sociolinguistic research design and includes suggestions for further research inspired by the reading.

The scope of the topics covered, the accessible introduction to fundamental concepts, and the supplemental readings that elucidate the application of these concepts to current work in sociolinguistics all make this textbook a fine general introduction to the field. The flexible design makes this not only an interesting book for students to read cover-to-cover, but a useful resource for instructors who want to manage how they introduce topics in sociolinguistics in accordance with the goals of their classes.