After a discussion of problems and methods of analysis for the study of language in its social context (focusing, among other things, on the isolation of contextual styles), L. presents a detailed study of the social differentiation of variables in the speech of New York City, and of the social evaluation of New York City speech (including a section on self-evaluation and linguistic security, and on general attitudes towards the speech of New York City). Explicit attention is paid to the structure of the vowel system.