Sociolinguistics: Method and Interpretation presents a thorough and practical description of current sociolinguistic methodology while recognizing that methodological decisions can never be separated from questions of theory.

• Presents a thorough and practical description of current sociolinguistic methodology.
• Considers a range of issues including speaker selection, data collection, social considerations, phonological and syntactical variation, style-shifting and code-switching.
• Recognizes that methodological decisions can never be separated from questions of theory.
• Stresses the need for the entire research process from the initial design of the project to the interpretation of results to be grounded in theoretically defensible positions.
• Shows how the research paradigm established by a few influential pioneers has been fruitfully expanded by exciting new trends.

Lesley Milroy is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Michigan. She is the author of numerous books and articles, including Authority in Language (third edition, 1999) and Language and Social Networks (second edition, Blackwell 1987).

Matthew Gordon is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Missouri–Columbia. He is the author of Small-Town Values, Big-City Vowels: A Study of the Northern Cities Shift in Michigan (2001).