ABSTRACT
This chapter reflects on the practice of sociolinguistics. It argues that if sociolinguistics is to move forward, or indeed to realize fully its current objectives, it will need to shift its views 'about how certain verbal activities stand in relation to other human activities', a move whose consequences for sociolinguistic methodology and theory may well prove quite radical. Roy Harris's project of 'demythologizing' linguistics consists essentially in making explicit the hidden assumptions which underlie linguists' models, showing that they are historical constructs and subjecting them to critical scrutiny. There are other approaches to the study of language in society which surely have some claim to the title 'sociolinguistics'. In the quantitative paradigm, statistical correlations are used to relate frequency scores on linguistic variables to nonlinguistic features both demographicand contextual. The campaign against sexism in language is one instance of a type of metalinguistic practice which we might call 'verbal hygiene'.
