DURING THE PAST FEW YEARS INTEREST IN SOCIOLINGUISTICS, THE SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF THE RELATION OF LINGUISTIC FORMS AND SOCIAL MEANING, HAS GREATLY ACCELERATED. IN CONTRAST TO THE FIELD OF PSYCHOLINGUISTICS, MANY OF THE MAIN FIGURES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIOLINGUISTICS ARE LINGUISTS WHO HAVE FOUND THAT SOCIAL FEATURES ARE CONTINUALLY CENTRAL TO LINGUISTIC DESCRIPTIONS. A SECOND DIFFERENCE LIES IN THE DIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENTISTS (ANTHROPOLOGISTS, SOCIOLOGISTS, SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGISTS, PSYCHOTHERAPISTS) WORKING ON SUBJECTS IN THE GENERAL AREA OF SOCIOLINGUISTICS. THE AUTHOR PRESENTS IN THIS PAPER A CONCISE INTRODUCTION TO CURRENT TOPICS IN SOCIOLINGUISTICS. HER PRESENTATION IS NOT HIGHLY TECHNICAL AND IS DIRECTED TO THOSE SOCIAL SCIENTISTS WITH A GENERAL INTEREST IN THIS FIELD. MAJOR CHAPTERS ARE--(1) SOCIOLINGUISTIC RELES (ALTERNATION, SEQUENCE, CO-OCCURRENCE), (2) SPEECH VARIABLES (CHANNEL, PARALINGUISTIC FEATURES, LINGUISTIC FEATURES, SPEECH ACTS, TOPIC, AND MESSAGE, UNITS, RECORDING), (3) LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY (FUNDAMENTALS OF COMMUNICATION, COMMUNICATIVE FREQUENCY, COHESIVENESS AND LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY, IDENTITY MARKING, ATTITUDES TOWARDS SPEECH DIVERSITY, RULES FOR DIVERSITY), AND (4) SWITCHING (PERSONNEL, SITUATION, FUNCTIONS OF INTERACTION, RULES FOR SWITCHING). A 14-PAGE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF REFERENCES IS APPENDED. (JD)