The six chapters in this volume deal with: perspectives on social psychology and language; channels and their analysis; language and interpersonal framework; language and social categories; language in social relations; and language used in applied contexts. The contributions differ from more familiar studies of language in use as they have as phenomenon of interest the conceptions of language itself; a greater 'scientific' concern to generate, test and articulate models and theories; different conceptions of data, and its collection and analysis; less interest in other languages than English.