社会语言学是研究语言与社会多方面关系的学科，它从社会科学的不同角度，诸如社会学、人类学、民族学、心理学、地理学和历史学等去考察语言。自20世纪60年代发端以来，社会语言学已经逐渐发展成为语言学研究中的一门重要学科，引发众多学者的关注和探究。
　　“牛津社会语言学丛书”由国际社会语言学研究的两位领军人物——英国卡迪夫大学语言与交际研究中心的教授Nicolas Coupland和Adam Jaworski（现在中国香港大学英语学院任教）——担任主编。丛书自2004年由牛津大学出版社陆续出版以来，推出了一系列社会语言学研究的专著，可以说是汇集了这一学科研究的新成果，代表了当今国际社会语言学研究的高水平。
　　《牛津社会语言学丛书》从中精选出九种，引进出版。所选的这些专著内容广泛，又较贴近我国学者研究的需求，涵盖了当今社会语言学的许多重要课题，如语言变体与语言变化、语言权力与文化认同、语言多元化与语言边缘化、语言与族裔、语言与立场（界位）、语言与新媒体、语用学与礼貌、语言与法律以及社会语言学视角下的话语研究等等。其中既有理论研究，又有方法创新；既有框架分析建构，又有实地考察报告；既体现本学科的前沿和纵深，又展现跨学科的交叉和互补。
　　相信《牛津社会语言学丛书》的引进出版能为从事社会语言学研究的读者带来新的启示，进一步推动我国语言学研究的发展。

　　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.