Language itself is not racist or sexist, but the society may be. The use of words may indicate a society's attitude toward sex, bodily functions or religious beliefs, and they may also reflect racism or sexism in a society. These taboo words produce euphemisms, words or phrases that replace the expressions that are being avoided. Words or expressions referring to certain acts that are forbidden or frowned upon are considered taboo. Jargon refers to the unique vocabulary pertaining to a certain area, such as computers or medicine. Slang may also be used in speech, but is not often used in formal situations or writing. Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any or all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on language. Creoles are defined as pidgins that are adopted by a community as its native tongue.īesides dialects, speakers may use different styles or registers (such as contractions) depending on the context. No one learns a pidgin as a native language, but children do learn creoles as a first language. English is called the lingua franca of the whole world, while French used to be the lingua franca of diplomacy.Ī pidgin is a language of few lexical items and less complex grammatical rules based on another language. Syntactic differences include the double negative and the loss of and habitual use of the verb 'be.' He late means he is late now, but he be late means he is always late.Ī lingua franca is a major language used in an area where speakers of more than one language live that permits communication and commerce among them. Phonological differences include r and l deletion of words like poor (pa) and all (awe.) Consonant cluster simplification also occurs (passed pronounced like pass), as well as a loss of interdental fricatives. These differences are the same as the differences among many of the world's dialects. The subsequent decade has seen a great deal of activity. Sociolinguistics is the study of the connection between language and society and the way people use language in different social situations. These non-standard dialects are just as linguistically sophisticated as the standard dialect, and judgments to the inferiority of them are based on social or racist judgments.Īfrican-American English contains many regular differences of the standard dialect. The term sociolinguistics began to gain currency about ten years ago. A non-standard dialect is associated with covert prestige and is an ethnic or regional dialect of a language. Overt prestige refers to this dominant dialect. On the other hand, Mandarin and Cantonese are mutually unintelligible languages when spoken, yet the writing systems are the same.Ī dialect is considered standard if it is used by the upper class, political leaders, in literature and is taught in schools as the correct form of the language. Hindi and Urdu are considered mutually intelligible languages when spoken, yet the writing systems are different.

Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish are all considered separate languages because of regular differences in grammar and the countries in which they are spoken, yet Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes can all understand one another to a large extent.

Geographical regions are also considered when dialects become languages. studies should be conducted that will focus on Sociolinguistics. The dialects of a single language are mutually intelligible, but when the speakers can no longer understand each other, the dialects become languages. Kemp (2007), for example, reports that multilingual learners' learning strategies differ from those of monolingual students learning their first foreign language.Sociolinguistics refers to the way language is used in society. A dialect is a variety of language that is systematically different from other varieties of the same language. qualitative distinction seems to lie in the area of strategies. Herdina & Jessner (2000b:93) refer to this capacity as 'the multilingual art of balancing communicative requirements with language resources.' This wider ability associated with the acquisition of more than two languages has also been argued to distinguish multilinguals in qualitative terms. Thus, it is pointed out that not only do multilinguals have larger overall linguistic repertoires, but the range of the language situations in which multilinguals can participate, making appropriate language choices, is more extensive. 'Current research.begins by emphasizing the quantitative distinction between multilingualism and bilingualism and the greater complexity and diversity of the factors involved in acquisition and use where more than two languages are involved (Cenoz 2000 Hoffmann 2001a Herdina and Jessner 2002).

Sociolinguistics definition