Scopes of Sociolinguistics

Carla SP

Sociolinguistics

The study of language in society

The study of the linguistic indicators of

culture and power

The study of language variation and

language change

Some Terms to Understand

2. Idiolect: Characteristic of an individual

speaker of a language.

3. Sociolect: Characteristic of a group of

speakers of a language.

Some Terms to Understand

4. Standardization: A process whereby a

variety of a particular language is taken up

and promoted as the ‘standard’ form.

e.g. suggesting its use in the classroom,

treating it as ‘good’ and ‘proper’, etc.

5. Codification: An extension of

standardization which becomes a prominent

feature of standard form. Ex: existence of

grammar books and dictionaries, etc.

Some Terms to Understand

6. Stigmatization: A process where non

standard forms of a language are treated

as ‘poor’, ‘incorrect’ varieties.

7. Language Loyalty: Speaker’s attitude

toward their own language (variety) in

order to preserve the variations in the

face of the standardized form.

Some Terms to Understand

8. Dialect: Characteristic patterns of words and

word order (lexico grammar) which are used

by a group of speakers; it refers just to the

form of the lexico grammar of the variation as

it could be written down.

Accent: Pattern of pronunciation used by a

group of speakers

Some Terms to Understand

9. Speech Communities: A group of people

sharing the same way of speaking, which is

defined by other non linguistic means:

nationality, age range, gender, town or city

population, political allegiance, etc.