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.