Sociolinguistics is a branch of linguistics dealing with the relationship between Language and Society. It deals with the effect of Language on society and the effect of society on Language, both. The language is the communication tool and the society is the communities of people; the place is very important because the language style of people reflect the place they belong to. Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any and all aspects of language, including cultural, expectations, context, and the effects of language use on society. The aim of sociolinguistic investigation is to achieve a further progress in the knowledge of nature and the operation of human language by the study of language in its social context. Sociolinguistics is an interdisciplinary science which is concerned with relationships between language and society. It studies how language varieties differ between groups separated by certain social variables, e.g., ethnicity, religion, status, gender, level of education, age, etc. Many Linguists defined Sociolinguistics; some definitions are mentioned below:
We can define sociolinguistics as the study of language in relation to society. (Hudson)
Sociolinguistics is that part of linguistics which is concerned with language as a social and cultural phenomenon. (Peter Trudgill)
Sociolinguistics is any study of language in relation to society. (Peter Matthew)
Sociolinguistics is concerned with investigating the relationship between language and society with the goal of a better understanding of the structure of language, and how language functions in communication. (Ronald Wardaugh)
Sociolinguistics has its roots in dialectology, historical linguistics, and language contact with considerable influence from sociology and psychology. This is why it has evolved into an exceptionally broad field.” Sociolinguistics is a new discipline of Linguistics; it developed in the last 30 years. Sociolinguistics gives a meaning by combining two words “socio” and “linguistics.” There are many Linguists who contributed in explaining the origin of sociolinguistics.
Also Read: A Complete Guide to Functionalism in Linguistics
Contribution of Linguists in Sociolinguistics
- Noam Chomsky studied about the linguistic competence. The grammatical use of language by an idealized speaker. His view lacked in social and structural view of language.
- William Labov is called the Father of Sociolinguistics. He studied sociolinguistics as an independent subject.
- Camron studied the Variation in Language. He said that all Languages are equally important, no language is superior or inferior to the other language.
- Halliday gave 3 functions of Language, known as Meta-functions (Ideational, Inter-Personal, Textual).
Scope of Sociolinguistics
Sociolinguistics tells about the usage of language. It tells about the socio-economic situation of a person. In Sociolinguistics language is studied on three levels: structural, social and functional.
- Structural: Studies the use of vocabulary, pronunciation, tense, sentence order.
- Functional: Studies the functions of language.
- Social: Studies the use of langue and parole.
Sociolinguistics is further divided into 2 approaches, Micro and Macro.
Micro Sociolinguistics
Micro-sociolinguistics refers to the research with a linguistic lean focusing on dialect and stylistic/register variation. It is focused upon the description-analysis of languages. (Individual level/small groups) Micro sociolinguistics explores the ways in which society influences a speaker’s idiolect – meaning the specific language of a person – and how people communicate with one another in line with different social variables/factors and how language varies with social attributes such as class, sex, and age.
Macro Sociolinguistics
This approach emphasizes on Society. It focuses more on society as a whole in relation to language that is the study of language related to how the society treats the language. Macro Sociolinguistics looks at issues as to why immigrants keep their native language in some contexts and not in others, or how social identity can affect language. It focuses on the study of language. (Large-scale – group behavior). It studies what societies do with their languages, such as: attitudes that account for the functional distribution of speech forms in society, language shift, maintenance, and replacement, the delimitation and interaction of speech communities.
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