ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 defines the meaning and goals of sociolinguistics and introduces some basic concepts, including style, dialect, variety or code, linguistic or verbal repertoire, and speech function. The chapter also introduces some useful scales or dimensions of sociolinguistic analysis: a social distance scale concerned with participant relationships; a status scale concerned with participant relationships; a formality scale relating to the setting or type of interaction; and two functional scales relating to the purposes or topic of interaction. The chapter ends with some guidelines for using the book.
