For many of its research community, the study of sociolinguistics is quintessentially about understanding the use and variability of language in its natural social context, a context which is about as far removed as possible from what goes on in a laboratory setting. However, with the social‐indexical properties of speech and language now prominent in a great deal of theoretical debate around speech production, processing, and acquisition, many sociolinguists are now equally at home carrying out research in the laboratory as well as in the field, thereby opening up a rich seam of empirical sociolinguistic research and discovery.