Directions in Sociolinguistics is a now classic collection of pioneering essays by leading sociolinguists. It is published here for the first time in paperback and incorporates an extensive new bibliography. The book proceeds from the assumption that we may learn from language as interactional behaviour, illustrating both advances in theoretical insights and changes in research interests. Taking a speaker's communicative competence as a social as well as grammatical fact, this volume is an invaluable compendium of articles by some of the most eminent researchers in Sociolinguistics, and in the sociology and anthropology of language.