Sociolinguistics has been developed since 1970 in the community of French-speaking researchers as an alternative approach to general linguistics to study the linguistic phenomena. Some issues are centrally sociolinguistics: multilingualism and language variation, language contact, norms, social practices, discrimination, language teaching, language innovations ... The discipline today is a very dynamic set research and education in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Its specialists have developed its methods and concepts and worked his epistemological position. It is characterized among other things by field research and systematic attention to the social demand when languages - their practices, representations, their effects on the social practices of all kinds, and vice versa - are involved. This book introduction to sociolinguistics is to support and illustration study and dissemination practices of French in the world.
