Concept
Colloquialism
Related concepts (7)
Vernacular
A vernacular or vernacular language is in contrast with a "standard language". It refers to the language or dialect that is spoken by people who are inhabiting a particular country or region. The vernacular is typically the native language, normally spoken informally rather than written, and seen as of lower status than more codified forms. It may vary from more prestigious speech varieties in different ways, in that the vernacular can be a distinct stylistic register, a regional dialect, a sociolect, or an independent language.
Register (sociolinguistics)
In sociolinguistics, a register is a variety of language used for a particular purpose or particular communicative situation. For example, when speaking officially or in a public setting, an English speaker may be more likely to follow prescriptive norms for formal usage than in a casual setting, for example, by pronouncing words ending in -ing with a velar nasal instead of an alveolar nasal (e.g., walking rather than walkin'), choosing words that are considered more "formal" (such as father vs. dad or child vs.
Nonstandard dialect
A nonstandard dialect or vernacular dialect is a dialect or language variety that has not historically benefited from the institutional support or sanction that a standard dialect has. Like any dialect, a nonstandard dialect has an internally coherent system of grammar. It may be associated with a particular set of vocabulary, and spoken using a variety of accents, styles, and registers. As American linguist John McWhorter describes about a number of dialects spoken in the American South in earlier U.S.
Variety (linguistics)
In sociolinguistics, a variety, also called an isolect or lect, is a specific form of a language or language cluster. This may include languages, dialects, registers, styles, or other forms of language, as well as a standard variety. The use of the word "variety" to refer to the different forms avoids the use of the term language, which many people associate only with the standard language, and the term dialect, which is often associated with non-standard varieties thought of as less prestigious or "correct" than the standard.
Linguistic prescription
Linguistic prescription, or prescriptive grammar, is the establishment of rules defining preferred usage of language. These rules may address such linguistic aspects as spelling, pronunciation, vocabulary, syntax, and semantics. Sometimes informed by linguistic purism, such normative practices often suggest that some usages are incorrect, inconsistent, illogical, lack communicative effect, or are of low aesthetic value, even in cases where such usage is more common than the prescribed usage.
Slang
A Slang is a vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in verbal conversation but avoided in formal writing. It also sometimes refers to the language generally exclusive to the members of particular in-groups in order to establish group identity, exclude outsiders, or both. The word itself came about in the 18th century and has been defined in multiple ways since its conception. In its earliest attested use (1756), the word slang referred to the vocabulary of "low" or "disreputable" people.
Cant (language)
A cant is the jargon or language of a group, often employed to exclude or mislead people outside the group. It may also be called a cryptolect, argot, pseudo-language, anti-language or secret language. Each term differs slightly in meaning; their uses are inconsistent. Richard Rorty defines cant by saying that "'Cant,' in the sense in which Samuel Johnson exclaims, "Clear your mind of cant," means, in other words, something like that which "people usually say without thinking, the standard thing to say, what one normally says.