Chapter 1. Linguistics and sociolinguistics

This section aims to be a guide to further and private study, as well as essay writing. In this first chapter, an overview of how to get more information on any topic is provided. We also survey the main textbooks in the field.

Reference books

Reference books and surveys are useful sources of information. There are three which are particularly useful. Asher, R. (ed.) (1994), The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 10 volumes (Pergamon) contains up to date entries on virtually any topic in linguistics. Newmeyer, F. J. (ed.) (1988), Linguistics: The Cambridge Survey, 4 volumes, esp. volume 4, Language: The Socio-Cultural Context (Cambridge) contains survey articles on areas of sociolinguistics, with references. The third is Ammon, U., Dittmar, N. and Mattheier, K. (vol. 1, 1987 and vol. 2, 1988), Sociolinguistics, An International Handbook of the Science of Language and Society. Your library reference section may also have specialist linguistics bibliographies on specific topics.

Resources online and journals

It is also useful to search university library catalogues. This is now possible using the copac and other similar access systems on the World Wide Web. copac is an online public access catalogue which gives the user access to the holdings of major UK university research libraries. There are some sites which now provide abstracts of articles in journals and these services may be available in your library.