PETER TRUDGILL
The principle of error correction A scientist who becomes aware of a widespread idea or social practice with important consequences that is invalidated by his own data is obligated to bring this error to the attention of the widest possible audience. The principle of the debt incurred An investigator who has linguistic data from members of a speech community has an obligation to make knowledge of that data available to the community, when it has need of it. The chapters contained in this book are all, to varying degrees, motivated by these principles, and are concerned with putting them into practice. It is our hope that the book will help to bring to the attention of those concerned the practical value of sociolinguistic research in all the disciplines dealt with here. We hope, too, that it will stimulate further research, and further applications.