Introduction to Sociolinguistics
S ociolinguistics is the study of the relationship between language and society. They are interested in explaining why we speak differently in different social contexts, and they are concerned with identifying the social functions of language and the ways it is used to convey social meaning. Examining the way people use language in different social contexts provides a wealth of information about the way language works, as well as about the social relationships in a community, and the way people convey and construct aspects of their social identity through their language. Sociolinguistics is concerned with the relationship between language and the context in which it is used. While dialect implies lexical, grammatical and/or pronunciation differences, accent is restricted to pronunciation features alone. An accent affects only the phonological level of a linguistic variety. When we say that someone speaks with an accent (e.g. a forei...