Questions of how to access and analyze actual language use are central to the study of language in its social context. 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. The result is a critical account that 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. Milroy and Gordon show how the research paradigm established by a few influential pioneers has been fruitfully expanded by new trends. Sociolinguistics considers issues of speaker selection and data collection; social dimensions of linguistic variation; syntactic and phonological variation; and style-shifting and code-switching. This book is a vital resource for helping readers design their research and evaluate the research of others.