An accessible and entertaining textbook that introduces students to sociolinguistics in a real-world context, with issues they care about.

Rodney H. Jones is Professor of Sociolinguistics at the University of Reading, where he teaches Sociolinguistics and Language and Digital Media on both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. He has published widely in the areas of sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, computer mediated communication, and health communication. His other textbooks include Discourse Analysis, 2nd edition (Routledge, 2018), and Understanding Digital Literacies, 2nd edition, with Christoph Hafner (Routledge, 2021).

Introduction; 1. Imagining languages and their speakers; 2. Resources and repertories; 3. Language variation; 4. Modes and media of communication; 5. Code mixing, crossing and translanguaging; 6. Style and identity; 7. Language attitudes, mocking and appropriation; 8. language in the material world; 9. Mobility, contact and flows; Appendix. A sociolinguist's toolkit.