Introduction.

During the last two decades, sociologists and social psychologists have directed increasing attention to language and its use in social contexts. In fact, from a variety of subdisciplines including cognitive sociology, conversation analysis, discourse analysis, the ethnography of speaking and interpretive sociolinguistics, social scientists have produced a large corpus of work that addresses, in new ways, core problems in sociology and social psychology. To date, however, much of this work has appeared in relatively obscure specialty journals and edited volumes. The special issue of "Social Psychology Quarterly" (SPQ) was commissioned with several purposes—to introduce the data, analytic apparatuses and theoretical perspectives of scholars in the area of language and society to other readers of the journal, and to demonstrate ways in which these data, apparatuses and perspectives may inform the research of these other readers. These purposes are consistent with a recommendation that an ASA Committee on Publications review board proposed for SPQ in 1984 to encourage submission of theoretical manuscripts and those representing nontraditional methodological and substantive approaches within social psychology.