社會語言學是研究語言與社會多方面關(guān)系的學科，它從社會科學的不同角度，諸如社會學、人類學、民族學、心理學、地理學和歷史學等去考察語言。自20世紀60年代發(fā)端以來，社會語言學已經(jīng)逐漸發(fā)展成為語言學研究中的一門重要學科，引發(fā)眾多學者的關(guān)注和探究。
“牛津社會語言學叢書”由國際社會語言學研究的兩位領(lǐng)軍人物——英國卡迪夫大學語言與交際研究中心的教授Nicolas Coupland和Adam Jaworski（現(xiàn)在中國香港大學英語學院任教）——擔任主編。叢書自2004年由牛津大學出版社陸續(xù)出版以來，推出了一系列社會語言學研究的專著，可以說是匯集了這一學科研究的新成果，代表了當今國際社會語言學研究的高水平。
《牛津社會語言學叢書》從中精選出九種，引進出版。所選的這些專著內(nèi)容廣泛，又較貼近我國學者研究的需求，涵蓋了當今社會語言學的許多重要課題，如語言變體與語言變化、語言權(quán)力與文化認同、語言多元化與語言邊緣化、語言與族裔、語言與立場（界位）、語言與新媒體、語用學與禮貌、語言與法律以及社會語言學視角下的話語研究等等。其中既有理論研究，又有方法創(chuàng)新；既有框架分析建構(gòu)，又有實地考察報告；既體現(xiàn)本學科的前沿和縱深，又展現(xiàn)跨學科的交叉和互補。
相信《牛津社會語言學叢書》的引進出版能為從事社會語言學研究的讀者帶來新的啟示，進一步推動我國語言學研究的發(fā)展。
Politeness is a topic on which people have very different opinions （and \"people，\" in this case， includes linguistic scholars and researchers）. According to one view， politeness is a superficial and dispensable adornment of human language， rather like icing on a cake. For others， including myself， it is a deeper phenomenon， something that human communicators would find it hard to do without. Many children leaming their native language soon discover the importance of saying things like please and thank you， which are insisted on by their parents in the process of socialization-becoming \"paid-up\" members of human society. This renunds us that politeness is a social phenomenon-and yet a social phenomenon largely manifested through the use of language.
Hence politeness has to be studied in terms of the relationship between language use and social behavior. This area of linguistic study is typically called pragmatics. However， pragmatics-the study of language use and its meaning to speakers and hearers-can readily be seen in terms of two interfaces： the one between pragmatics and linguistic form （known as pragmalinguistics） and the other between pragmatics and society （known as sociopragmatics）， It is virtually impossible for any book to cover all aspects of politeness， and therefore I have oriented this book more toward pragmalinguistics， an area that has been somewhat neglected of late， while not ignoring sociopragmatics This means taking a fairly detailed close-up view of the way a language is used for politeness， rather than the big-picture view of how politeness relates to social behavior and society in general. Another major limitation of this book is that its focus will be mainly on one language： English. Although the emphasis will be on polite forms of language and how they are used， it is important not to ignore impolite linguistic behavior-the topic that will be dealt with in Chapter 8， and which has recently become a popular area of research. At the same time， I naturally devote most of my attention in other chapters to politeness， rather than impoliteness， as some degree of politeness is generally considered the unmarked form of behavior.
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