Frontmatter -- Contents -- Figures -- Tables -- Acknowledgements -- Foreword: Towards a sociolinguistic history of the English language -- 1 Sociolinguistics: an overview -- 2 Language change and sociolinguistic processes in the past -- 3 Standardisation -- 4 Codification and ideology -- 5 Contact and shift as agents of change -- 6 Linguistic contact and new dialect formation -- 7 Some final thoughts -- References -- Index