The contributions to the volume examine in detail diverse aspects of second language education, ranging from a focus on the basic contributions of linguistic theory and research to our understanding of second language learning and teaching on the one hand, to a series of reviews of innovative language education practices in selected regions of the world on the other.

In many parts of the world, it is common for a child to grow up speaking a local language at home, another in the market place, adding another to her repertoire as a lingua franca, and then adding a language of wider communication such as English or French if she continues her formal schooling.
The contributions to the volume examine in some detail diverse aspects of second language education, ranging from a focus on the basic contributions of linguistic theory and research to our understanding of second language learning and teaching on the one hand, to a series of reviews of innovative language education practices in selected regions of the world on the other.
For the purposes of this volume, second language education has been defined operationally to encompass education which occurs in those settings and situations in which a dominant language is offered as a second language (e.g., ESL in England or the United States whether as a subject of study or a vehicle through which other material is studied), as well as those cases in which an official, but not necessarily dominant, language is mandated (e.g., French or English in certain parts of the Middle East or the Mahgreb). The contributions also focus mainly, albeit not exclusively, on second language education for school-aged learners.

This book is a compendium of thirty-six articles by participants in the development of the field of sociolinguistics. Edited by Christina Bratt Paulston and G. Richard Tucker, themselves important contributors to the discipline, the volume provides an insider's perspective on the issues, both practical and theoretical, which motivated individuals and institutions to turn to a view of language as inextricably connected to society and culture. This volume will be of interest not only to sociolinguists, but to sociologists, social psychologists, anthropological linguists, and others interested in applied linguistics. Moving a bit farther afield, it will also be of interest to historians of science for its breadth of coverage of the development of an increasingly important academic discipline and for the important data it provides regarding the academic research milieu, the zeitgeist, which spawned sociolinguistics as an area of inquiry.