This Introduction provides a framework of the key issues surrounding the non-standard orthographic representation of non-standard language varieties. Orthographic choices and their interpretation are framed as metalinguistic, socially conditioned phenomena which shed light on people's attitudes towards both specific language varieties and social identities and on the relationship between linguistic form and the social world in general. From this perspective, the introduction addresses the following specific topics: 1) the selective nature of orthographic choice; 2) the relational and contrastive meaning of orthographic conventions; 3) the interplay of sameness and difference in the use of orthography to make claims on linguistic and cultural identity; 4) orthography and representational control: writing the self vs. representing others and 5) orthographic esthetics: the role of the visual in the interpretation of the oral.