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Concept
Sociolect
Summary
In sociolinguistics, a sociolect is a form of language (non-standard dialect, restricted register) or a set of lexical items used by a socioeconomic class, profession, an age group, or other social group.
Sociolects involve both passive acquisition of particular communicative practices through association with a local community, as well as active learning and choice among speech or writing forms to demonstrate identification with particular groups. The term sociolect might refer to socially-restricted dialects, but it is sometimes also treated as equivalent with the concept of register, or used as a synonym for jargon and slang.
Individuals who study sociolects are called sociolinguists. Sociolinguists study language variation. Sociolinguists define a sociolect by examining the social distribution of specific linguistic terms. For example, a sociolinguist would examine the use of the second person pronoun "you" within a given population. If one distinct social group used 'yous' as the plural form of the pronoun then this could indicate the existence of a sociolect. A sociolect is distinct from a regional dialect (regiolect) because social class rather than geographical subdivision substantiates the unique linguistic features.
A sociolect, defined by Peter Trudgill, a leading sociolinguist and philosopher, is "a variety or lect which is thought of as being related to its speakers' social background rather than geographical background." This idea of a sociolect began with the commencement of dialectology, the study of different dialects in relation to society, which has been established in countries such as England for many years, but only recently has the field garnered more attention. However, as opposed to a dialect, the basic concept of a sociolect is that a person speaks in accordance with their social group whether it is with regard to one's ethnicity, age, gender, etc. As William Labov once said, "the sociolinguistic view . . . is that we are programmed to learn to speak in ways that fit the general pattern of our communities.
Official source
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