Miriam Meyerhoff is professor of sociolinguistics at Victoria University of Wellington, School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies. Her research deals with language variation and change in its broadest perspective and she has a long-standing interest in the ways social ideologies affect language use and perceptions of language users. She is interested in ideologies of gender and language and sits on a number of journal editorial boards, co-editing major reference works in the fields of language, gender and sexuality and pidgins and creoles.