Glossary (Sociolinguistics): A

What is an academic domain?

Academic Domains What is an academic domain?

Recognized and institutionalized educational field or area of study. E.g., History, Mathematics, Literature, etc.

Why study domains of knowledge? Learning varies with context and subject matter. Research findings attest to the existence of domain-specific abilities rather

than general abilities.

What Do Academic Domains Have in Common? Practical Needs Common Dimensions of Domains

Modes of Encryption Typical Tasks Underlying Processes Instructional Issues

What is an accent?What is accommodation theory?What is acquired intelligibility?What is acquisition planning?What is an acrolect?What is an act sequence?What is an activity?What is an activity summary statement?What is an adaptation networkWhat is additive bilingualism?What is an address?What is an adoption?What is anthropological linguistics?What are application goals?What is applied linguistics?What is an area ?What is an areal classification?What is a real linguistics?

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What is an a real type?What is assessment?What is an attitude?

Glossary (Sociolinguistics): B

What is a basilect?What is bidialectalism?What is bilingual(ism)?What is biliteracy?What is borrowing?What is a boundary?What are boundary functions?

Glossary (Sociolinguistics): C

What are calibration sentences?What is a calibration subject?What is a calque?What is a census?What are channels of communication?What is a chi-square?What is a class dialect?What is a cloze test?What is a cluster?What is a code?What are code markers?What is code mixing?What is code switching?What is a code variation?What is codification?What is a cognate?What is a coin?What is a communication network?What is a communicative act?What is communicative competence?What is a communicative event?What are communicative innovations?What is a communicative repertoire?What is a communicative situation?What is a community?What is the comparative method?

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What are components of communication?What is compound bilingualism?What is content validity?What is a contour map?What are contrastive questions?What is convergence?What is a convergence area?What is a conversational analysis?What is coordinate bilingualism?What is corpus planning?What is a creole?What is a creole continuum?What is creolistics?What is creolization?What is cultivation?What is cultural knowledge?What are cultural themes?What is a culture?What is culture change?What is a customized goal?

Glossary (Sociolinguistics): D

What is decreolization?What is a demographic profile?What is a demography?What is density?What are descriptive questions?What are developmental factors?What is a dialect?What is a dialect boundary?What is a dialect chain?What is dialect distance?What is a dialect network?What is a dialect survey?What is a dialectological approach?What is dialectology?What is dialectometry?What is dialinguistics?What is a diamorph?What is a diaphone?

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What is a diasystem?What is a diatype?What is diglossia?What is a dimension of appraisal?What is dinomia?What is direct measurement?What is divergence?What is documentation?What is a domain?

Glossary (Sociolinguistics): E

What is education planning?What is an elaborated code?What is elaboration?What is the elaboration of terminology?What is endoglossic?What is endonormative?What is an environment?What is ethnicity?What is an ethnographic interview?What is ethnography?What is the ethnography of communication?What is an ethnolinguistic community?What is ethnolinguistics?What is ethnomethodology?What is ethnosemantics?What is exogamy?What is exoglossic?What is exonormative?What is external multilingualism?

Glossary (Sociolinguistics): F

What is a family?What is a first language (L1)?What is a focal area?What is a focal object?What is a foreign language ?What is the Foreign Service Institute (FSI)?What is formal education?What are frames of interpretation?

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What is a functionally literate?

Glossary (Sociolinguistics): G

What are generalized goals and strategies?What is a geographic environment?What is a geographical dialect?What is geographical dialectology?What is geolinguistics?What is glottochronology?What is a goal?What is graphization?What is graphology?

Glossary (Sociolinguistics): H

What is a high language?What is a histogram?What is a historical dialect?What is a hometown panel?What is a hometown tape?What is honorifics?

Glossary (Sociolinguistics): I

What is an ideolect?What is an illocutionary act?What is an implementation phase?What is implicature?What is an independent variable?What is an indirect measurement?What is an infrastructure?What is inherent intelligibility?What is an initial reference tape?What is an instrument?What is instrumental motivation?What is integrative motivation?What is intelligibility?What is interaction analysis?What are interaction skills?What is interactional sociolinguistics?What is intergroup communication?

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What is internal multilingualism?What is internal reliability?What is an interview?What is intragroup communication?What is an isogloss?What is an isoglottic line?What is an isolect?What is an isolex?What is an isomorph?What is an isophone?What is an isopleth?What is an isoseme?

Glossary (Sociolinguistics): K

What is a key?What are key factors?What is kinesics?

Glossary (Sociolinguistics): L

What is an L1?What is an L2?What is a language?What is language allocation?What are language attitudes?What is language attrition?What is language change?What is language choice?What is language contact?What is language correction?What is language death?What is language decline?What is language development?What is language diffusion?What is language dominance?What are language functions?What is language image?What is language in education?What is language loss?What is language loyalty?What is language maintenance?

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What is a Language Mapping System?What is a language of wider communication (LWC)?What is language planning?What are language planning elements?What are language planning issues?What is a language policy?What is language posture?What is language preservation?What is language replacement?What is language restoration (revival)?What is language shift?What is language shift reversal?What is language spread?What is language survey?What is language treatment?What is language use?What is language vitality?What is a lead of society?What is leaky diglossia?What is a lect?What is a level?What is a lexical similarity?What is a lexicon?What is lexicostatistics?What is a lexifier?What is a Likert scale?What is a lingua franca?What is a linguistic atlas?What is a linguistic environment?What is linguistic knowledge?What is a linguistic market?What is literacy?What is a literate?What is a loan?What is a loan blend?What is a loan shift?What is a loan translation?What is a loan word?What is a local dialect?What is a long-term plan?

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Glossary (Sociolinguistics): M

What is macrolinguistics?What is macrosociolinguistics?What is a marker?What is a matched guise?What is a mean?What is a median?What is a medium?What is a mesolect?What is metaphorical code switching?What is microsociolinguistics?What is a minimum goal?What is a minority language?What is modality?What is a mode ?What is modernization?What is a monolingual?What are mother tongue speakers of L2?What is motivation?What is a multilingual society?What is multilingual(ism)?What is multiplexity?What is mutual intelligibility?

Glossary (Sociolinguistics): N

What is a national language?What is nationalism?What is nationism?What are negative factors?What is network strength?What is non-areal linguistics?What is non-convergence?What is nonformal education?What is nonreciprocal intelligibility?What is nonverbal communication?What is a norm?

Glossary (Sociolinguistics): O

What is an objective?

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What is observation?What is the observer's paradox?What is an occupational dialect?What is optimization?What is orthography planning?What are outcomes?What is an overall purpose?What is an overlapping speech community?

Glossary (Sociolinguistics): P

What is pandialectal?What is panlectal?What is paralectal?What is paralinguistics?What is participant observation?What are patterns of communication?What is a pidgin?What is pidginization?What is plurilingualism?What is polylectal?What is a population?What are positive factors?What is a post-creole continuum?What is pragmalinguistics?What is a preliterate?What is a preparation phase?What is a product goal?What is proficiency?What is proxemics?

Glossary (Sociolinguistics): Q

What are qualitative studies?What are quantitative studies?What is a questionnaire?

Glossary (Sociolinguistics): R

What is a random sample?What is a rationale statement?What is a recorded text test (RTT)?

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What is a reference dialect?What is a reference tape?What is a regional accent?What is a regional dialect?What is a regional language?What is a register?What is regraphization?What is relexification?What is a relic area?What is renovation?What is repair?What is a repertoire?What is reported proficiency evaluation (RPE)?What is a research question ?What is restandardization?What is a restricted code?What is reversing language shift?What are rituals?What are routines?

Glossary (Sociolinguistics): S

What is a sample?What is a scatterplot?What is a second language (L2)?What is the second language oral proficiency evaluation (SLOPE)?What is a self-evaluation questionnaire?What is a self-report?What is semilingualism?What is a semi-literate?What is a sentence repetition test (SRT)?What is a short-term plan?What is a situation?What is situational code switching?What is situational meaning?What is a social accent?What is a social dialect?What is social dialectology?What are social markers?What is a social network?What is social order?

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What is social psychology?What is a social role?What is a social scale?What is socialization?What is societal multilingualism?What is a sociolect?What is a sociolinguistic interview?What is a sociolinguistic survey?What is a sociolinguistic variable?What is sociolinguistics?What is the sociology of language?What is sociopragmatics?What is SPAR?What is spareness?What is a speech act?What is a speech community?What is stable bilingualism?What is a standard dialect?What is a standard language?What is standardization?What is status?What is status planning?What is a stereotype?What is a strategic plan?What is a strategy?What is stratification?What is structural dialectology?What are structural questions?What is a style?What is style-shifting?What is stylistics?What is subtractive bilingualism?What are summary paragraphs?What is a survey?

Glossary (Sociolinguistics): T

What are taboos?What is test - retest reliability?What are test sentences?What is a threshold of adequacy?

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What is a transaction count?What is a transition area?What is turn-taking?

Glossary (Sociolinguistics): U

What is an ultimate goal?What is uniplexity?

Glossary (Sociolinguistics): V

What is validity?What is a variable?What are variable rules?What is variation analysis?What is a variety?What is verbal play?What is a vernacular?

Glossary (Sociolinguistics): W

What is WORDSURV?What is worldview?

Sociolinguistics BasicsLanguage is basic to social interactions, affecting them and being affected by them.Connie Eble of the University of North Carolina explains how the field of sociolinguistics analyzes the many ways in which language and society intersect. Read Summary.

Sociolinguistics is the study of how language serves and is shaped by the social nature of human beings. In its

broadest conception, sociolinguistics analyzes the many and diverse ways in which language and society entwine.

This vast field of inquiry requires and combines insights from a number of disciplines, including linguistics, sociology,

psychology and anthropology.

Sociolinguistics examines the interplay of language and society, with language as the starting point. Variation is the

key concept, applied to language itself and to its use. The basic premise of sociolinguistics is that language is

variable and changing.  As a result, language is not homogeneous — not for the individual user and not within or

among groups of speakers who use the same language.

By studying written records, sociolinguists also examine how language and society have interacted in the past. For

example, they have tabulated the frequency of the singular pronoun thou and its replacement you in dated hand-

written or printed documents and correlated changes in frequency with changes in class structure in 16 th  and

17th  century England. This is historical sociolinguistics: the study of relationship between changes in society and

changes in language over a period of time.

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What is dialect?

Sociolinguists also study dialect — any regional, social or ethnic variety of a language. By that definition, the English

taught in school as correct and used in non-personal writing is only one dialect of contemporary American English.

Usually called Standard American English or Edited American English, it is the dialect used in this essay.

Scholars are currently using a sociolinguistic perspective to answer some intriguing questions about language in the

United States, including these:

Which speakers in urban areas of the North are changing the pronunciation of vowels in a systematic way?

For instance, some speakers in Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit and Chicago pronounce bat so that it sounds

like bet andbet so that it sounds like but. Linguists call these patterned alterations the Northern Cities Vowel

Shift.

Which features of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) grammar are used by middle-class white

teen-agers who admire contemporary African-American music, entertainment and clothing? For instance,

white adolescents might speak approvingly of the style of a peer by saying she money or he be jammin’ —

sentence structures associated with African Americans.

Which stereotypical local pronunciations are exaggerated to show local allegiance? Such language behavior

has been pointed out recently for Pittsburgh, New Orleans and the barrier islands off North Carolina known

as the Outer Banks. At the end of the 20th century, connections between the isolated Outer Banks and the

greater world increased. This changed the local seafood industry and made the Outer Banks a destination

for a growing number of tourists. Using the typical way that the natives pronounce the vowel in the

words high and tide, these North Carolinians are called Hoi Toiders. They continue to use this distinctive

vowel even though in other ways their dialect is becoming more like other American dialects.

What will be the linguistic impact of the impending loss of monolingual French speakers in the Acadian, or

Cajun, region of southern Louisiana? What are the traces of French in Cajun Vernacular English, the dialect

of monolingual speakers of English who consider themselves Cajun? Will these French features be

sustained?

What slang terms do students use to show affiliation with subgroups of their peers and to distinguish

themselves from their parents’ generation? In 2002, for example, university students in North Carolina

described things that were great, pleasing or favorable as cool, hype, money, phat, tight or sweet — but

definitely not swell.

Variation in language is not helter-skelter. It is systematic. For instance, a speaker may sometimes

pronounce the word mind to sound just like minethrough a process called consonant cluster reduction.

Pronunciation of the final –nd consonant cluster as –n tends to occur before consonants; i.e., the speaker’s

choice of saying mine instead of mind is conditioned by a feature of the language itself (whether or not a

consonant sound follows the word).For instance, a speaker is likely to say “I wouldn’t mind owning a BMW”

(with both n and d pronounced before o), but “I wouldn’t mine borrowing your BMW” (with nd reduced to n

before b).

Variation also correlates with social factors outside of language. For example, Appalachian working-class

speakers reduce consonant clusters more often than northern Anglo-American working class speakers and

working-class African Americans, regardless of their region, reduce consonant clusters more frequently than

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do other working-class speakers. Thus, the occurrence of final consonant cluster reduction is conditioned

internally by its position in the speech stream and externally by the social factors of socioeconomic class

and ethnicity.

Another example of an internal linguistic variable is the pronunciation of the words spelled pen,

ten and Ben so that they sound as if they were spelled pin, tin and bin.  This variable correlates with being

Southern, regardless of age, gender, socio-economic class or ethnicity. However, among Southerners, the

pronunciation of ask as if it were spelled ax correlates with ethnicity, because the pronunciation is used most

often (but not exclusively) by African Americans.

Another pronunciation variant that correlates with a social category is heard in New Orleans. In working-

class neighborhoods, words spelled with oi are often pronounced as if spelled er. For these speakers, then,

the word point rhymes with weren’t. Age is another social variable. In North Carolina, elderly speakers often

pronounce duke, stupid and newspaper with a y-sound before the vowel.Instead of the common

pronunciations dook, stoopid, and nooz for these words, they say dyuke, styupid, and nyuz. (This is basically

the difference all English speakers make between the words food and feud; feud has a y-sound before the

vowel.) Speakers born after World War II seldom use this pronunciation.

The examples above have all concerned pronunciation, but language also varies in vocabulary, grammar and use.

Vocabulary sometimes varies by region

Vocabulary sometimes varies by region. The expression lost bread to refer to French toast is a translation of

French pain perdu, part of the vocabulary of southern Louisiana. Other vocabulary is not regional but rather is old-

fashioned, such asfrock for ‘a woman’s dress’ or tarry for ‘wait.’ Some vocabulary may vary by degree of formality, as

in the choice among the words barf, upchuck, vomit and regurgitate.

Grammatical constructions also vary. In the Midland region of the United States, speakers use a construction called

positive anymore, as in “Anymore you see round bales of hay in the fields.” In other regions, speakers would say,

“Nowadays you see round bales of hay in the field.” A grammatical variation associated with AAVE omits the verb be,

as in “The teacher in the classroom.” Another variation that is widespread in spoken American English is the double

negative, as in “We don’t want no more construction on this road.” Such sentences are not Standard American

English.  

Putting It in Context

Considerations other than grammatical correctness often govern speaker choices. For example, Sign this paper is a

grammatically correct imperative sentence. However, a student approaching a teacher to obtain permission to drop a

course, for reasons having nothing to do with grammar,will probably avoid the imperative — expressing the request

instead as a statement or a question, such as I need to get your signature on this paper or Will you please sign this

drop form?

Some social factors are attributes of the speaker — for example, age, gender, socio-economic class, ethnicity and

educational level. Many studies have shown that these factors commonly correlate both with variation within the

language itself (such as the pronunciation of final consonant clusters) and with variation in the use of language (such

as the use of more or less formal vocabulary, depending on the audience). These findings match our everyday

experience; most people are well aware that men and women use the language differently, that poor people often

speak differently from rich people, and that educated people use language differently from uneducated people.

People adjust the way they talk to their social situation

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It is common knowledge that people also adjust the way they talk to their social situation. Socio-situational variation,

sometimes called register, depends on the subject matter, the occasion and the relationship between participants —

in addition to the previously mentioned attributes of region, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, age and gender. Here are

some examples.

Constraints on subject matter vary from culture to culture. In American English, it is fine to ask a child or a medical

patient, “Have you had a bowel movement today?”  However, the same question to an acquaintance might be coarse.

Even a good friend would find it at the least peculiar. American English speakers must approach other subjects with

care. They wouldn’t dare ask, for example, “Are you too fat for one plane seat?” “What’s your take-home pay?” “Are

you sure you’re only 50?” “Do you have a personal relationship with Christ?”

Any of these questions posed at a cocktail party might draw a prompt “None of your business” — or something less

polite. However, in other situations, between other participants, those same questions might be appropriate. A public-

health official encouraging Americans to lose weight might well ask a general audience, “Are you too fat to fit in one

plane seat?” A financial planner speaking to a client certainly should ask, “What is your take-home pay?”

Contact

 Contact is an important concept in sociolinguistics — social contact and language contact. Language change

spreads through networks of people who talk with one another.  Tight-knit groupsthat keep to themselves tend not to

promote change.  Networks whose members also belong to other networks tend to promote change. People can live

next door to one another and not participate in the same network. In the segregated South, blacks and whites often

lived on the same piece of land; blacks worked in the homes of whites. The physical distance was minimal, but the

great social distance led to different varieties of American English.

Contact between languages brings about variation and change. Situations of language contact are usually socially

complex, making them of interest to sociolinguists. When speakers of different languages come together, the results

are determined in large part by the economic and political power of the speakers of each language. In the United

States, English became the popular language from coast to coast, largely replacing colonial French and Spanish and

the languages of Native Americans. In the Caribbean and perhaps in British North America where slavery was

practiced, Africans learned the English of their masters as best they could, creating a language for immediate and

limited communication called a pidgin. When Africans forgot or were forbidden to use their African languages to

communicate with one another, they developed their English pidgin into their native tongue. A language that develops

from a pidgin into a native language is called acreole. African American Vernacular English may have developed this

way.

Bilingualism is another response to language contact. In the United States, large numbers of non-English speaking

immigrants arrived in the late 19th  and early 20th century. Typically, their children were bilingual and their

grandchildren were monolingual speakers of English. When the two languages are not kept separate in function,

speakers can intersperse phrases from one into the other, which is called code switching. Speakers may also

develop a dialect of one language that is heavily influenced by features of the other language, such as the

contemporary American dialect Chicano English.

Sociolinguists: Subjects and Leaders

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Sociolinguists study many other issues, among them the values that hearers place on variations in language, the

regulation of linguistic behavior, language standardization, and educational and governmental policies concerning

language.

The term sociolinguistics is associated with William Labov and his quantitative methodology. Around the world, many

linguists study the intersection of language and social factors from other perspectives. The most prominent is M. A. K.

Halliday, whose approach is called systemic-functionalist linguistics. Some other prominent sociolinguists are Guy

Bailey, John Baugh, Jack Chambers, Penelope Eckert, Lesley Milroy, John Rickford, Suzanne Romaine, Roger Shuy,

Deborah Tannen, Peter Trudgill, and Walt Wolfram.

To help us understand what sociolinguistics is all about, Connie Eble suggests we begin by reviewing some of

the many questions sociolinguists try to answer through observation and experimentation. These questions include:

1. Which features of language behavior are people conscious of using? Which are below the level of their

conscious awareness?

2. To what extent do individuals and groups use language to define themselves or to set themselves apart?

3. What factors cause individuals or groups to change their language in order to sound either similar to or

different from others?

4. In what observable ways do individuals and groups change the features of their language and the ways in

which they use language?

5. What factors inhibit or promote the extinction, rise or maintenance of local varieties of languages?

6. What factors cause listeners to perceive one type of language as higher in status than another?

7. Do men and women, boys and girls use language differently?

8. Do adults change their language and the way they use it as they grow older?

9. How does education affect the features of language that people use?

10. How do social networks affect language?

11. What type of speaker and what type of group initiate linguistic change?

12.

13. What social mechanisms help a new feature of language take hold and spread?

14. What features of language do people vary according to their social situation?

15. What attitudes do people have towards regional dialects and foreign accents?

16. What happens when people wish or need to interact with people who speak another language?

17. What factors support or inhibit bilingualism?

18. In what ways is linguistic behavior subject to control? By whom?

19. How do social conflicts and tensions, such as racism, affect language?

20. How do radio, television, films and popular entertainment affect language?

21. How does discourse (connected stretches of speech or writing) differ from one group to another?

An important feature of sociolinguistics is its commitment to observing and reporting on language, rather than

prescribing how to use it. This style of language study is known as descriptivism .  Read Dr. Eble's Essay

Suggested Reading/Additional Resources

Chaika, Elaine. (1994). Language: The Social Mirror. 3rd ed. Boston: Heinle & Heinle.

Coulmas, Florian, ed. (1997). The Handbook of Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Blackwell.

Macaulay, Ronald K. S. (1994). The Social Art: Language and Its Uses. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Trudgill, Peter. (1995). Sociolinguistics: An Introduction to Language and Society. London: Penguin Books.

Wardhaugh, Ronald. (2002). An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. 4th ed. Cambridge: Blackwell.

Wolfram, Walt and Natalie Schilling-Estes. (1998). American English. Oxford: Blackwell.

An Intro to Sociolinguistics,  a primer from the University of Oregon. 

1-Language and languages The s1-Language and languages 

The study of language is an activity very different from the learning or the study of languages.The former, which is the study of language, is the work of a linguist who wants to discover the particular characteristics of human language in general   The linguist does this through the study of human language in all its various manifestations.    As to the second activity, it is the work of the future language performer who studies pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary manifestations of a specific language or specific languages. The linguist talks about the language whereas the language performer talks languages.tudy of language is an activity very different from the learning or the study of languages.The former, which is the study of language, is the work of a linguist who wants to discover the particular characteristics of human language in general   The linguist does this through the study of human language in all its various manifestations.    As to the second activity, it is the work of the future language performer who studies pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary manifestations of a specific language or specific languages. The linguist talks about the language whereas the language performer talks languages.2-language and dialectWhen two speakers do not understand one another, they speak different languages. For example Pulaar, German, English, Kiswahili…are different languages because the speakers of these languages do not understand one another.On the contrary, if the speakers can understand one another; for example if there are mutually intelligible, they are said to speak the same language, but different dialects.To put it in different terms one calls dialects the different kind of forms of the same language people of different geographical, sociological background or in different context.Dialects and language do not represent clear-cut concepts in the sense that while it is possible to talk about Thiès Wolof and Dakar Wolof, it is linguistically difficult to say where people stop speaking Thiès Wolof and where they start speaking Dakar Wolof.The linguistic features of those dialects change only gradually from Thiès Wolof to Dakar Wolof.If we consider the administrative boundary criteria between both areas, then this will be social rather than linguistic criteria. Therefore, there is no clear break between two neighbouring or closed dialects.

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Because of all, this political and cultural factor seems to be more important in the use of dialects and language than linguistic criterion; for example linguistic similarity, mutual intelligibility, etc.Two very important factors are autonomy, heteronomy.Autonomy: different languages such are DIOLA, Dutch, English, etc are autonomous because each is an independent standardized variety of language that alive of its own. Heteronomy: dialects of English or DIOLA are heteronymous with respect to Standard English or Wolof in spite of the fact that they may be unlike each other or some may be like dialects of different languages. However, the point here is that all the speakers of these dialects regard English, DIOLA, and not other languages as standard languages. They have a certain belief, for example, they speak, write and read newspapers in English or Wolof.

1. standard languageOne calls standard language, a codified form of a language accepted by and serving as a model to a largest speech community. The main features of a standard language are codification and language loyalty.Codification: For example, grammar and pronunciation rules are explicitly stated on standard grammars and dictionaries.Language loyalty: it is the attitude that lends prestige to a language and lead people to defend its purity against corruption and pronunciation or foreign loans.  To talk the example of English language, Standard English is the variety spoken by educated people and used in news broadcast and other official situations.Standard English and non Standard English differences have nothing to do with formal colloquial forms; or they do not refer to concepts as “good” and “bad” English. Standard English historically develops from the dialects used around London that were modified through years by the scholars at the universities, by the writers at public schools.This form, eventually, came to diverse forms, and then was regarded as a model. Standard is called a superposed variety or an imposed variety. It is because it was imposed from above over other regional dialects and to the foreign learners. Standard is taught in the English schools. One accent only occurs together with Standard English that is to say a British English known as RP.4- Dialect and SociolectThe speakers of one language can be classified in various ways linguistically. That is to say, for example we can distinguish people speaking common dialect, people whose dialect has common features, people with common code or words/norms…Speakers of one language can also be distinguished socially; that is to say we can distinguish people who share the same education, people with the same income,

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people with the similar occupation, living in the same area, people limited in kingship group, etc.  Language shows variability according to geographical space (dialectal variability), or the social space (sociolectal variability). Therefore, one speaks of regional or geographical dialect and of social dialect; both sociolectal and dialectal varieties merge into one another into the following diagram.Within this space can be plotted the idiolect repertoire or the total number of the linguistic forms regularly employed in the cause of socially significance interaction of any individual of any group with care to isolate sociologically.The point of intersection is the short of norm.Appropriateness is the correct use of language in appropriate context.Grammaticalness is the correct use of grammar of a given language, even though it is not appropriate. We have three distinct of dialects: geographical variety, sociological variety and historical variety. 

1. Dialect and Accent.Usually the term dialect refers to differences between kind of language that has differences of vocabulary, grammar as well as pronunciation. The term accent refers to the differences of pronunciation exclusively; e.g. two forms of Wolof: soldier’s variety and the musicians Wolof are two different dialects if people recognise that they differ grammatically, phonologically, as well as lexically.If the difference is, only a phonological one they will be called accents.

1. Dialect and Idiolect.Although the members of a speech community may have extremely attitude of a language, actual individual language behaviour is variable. The speech of each individual is somewhat different from the other individual. For example, some individual may accept some forms of the other. Speech has been part of their common language but does not include them in his own usage. The language of each individual is unique and peculiar to himself; they call it idiolect.As to dialects, they are peculiar to the group. Purposes, they maybe reason for studying idiolect or individual speeches at one time in one style. However, dialect are of more interest because is of very much a social phenomenon.

1. Lingua francas: pidgins, creoles and argots.A lingua franca is any language used as a medium or means of communication among people who have any other language in common. For example DIOLA speakers and Sereres speakers can communicate in Wolof,; in such case Wolof is a lingua franca.

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 Pidgin is a word originates from the English word business. The non-English created it. It was used in china in the sense of business. Nowadays, pidgin denotes a language that is used as a mean of communication among people who have other languages in common. However, the language should be a resultant of another language but reduced as contrasted with the latter.Three conditions must meet in order to obtain a true pidgin.

A. The language must arise from another one called based.B. The grammatical and vocabulary features of the resultant language must be sharply

reduced.C. The resultant language must be native to none of those who use it.

Creole is a term comes from the Spanish“criollo” that means native. A language originates from a pidgin. They have established it as a first language in some speech community.In most instances, creoles that have come as first language in particular countries continue to exist along aside the language that has originally pidginized. The standard language usually is a language of education and administration.The creoles, not having stabilised based of written tradition and likely the subject to the influence of the subject and tends to change more rapidly over time. Argot and jargon = slang.They are often used interchangeably with pidgins. Linguistic analysis prefers to restrict them to specific type of vocabulary without reference to grammatical vocabulary with which they refer. Argot and jargon have pejorative over times because they refer to criminals’ vocabulary.Slang but also Cant is used in the sense as argot and jargon. They also serve to set off a particular group from the society.Lingo is simply any particular way of talking. Sabir Petit Nègre kitchen kaffir are ways of denoting the French based pidgin spoken in  the northern cost of Africa or English based pidgin spoken in south Africa 8- Bi-Multi-dialectal/ lingual communities The members of any given community usually recognise the existence of dialects of a language by their behaviour and by the way, they talk about the language. Thus, the community can be called bi/multi-dialectal.Similarly, when the community uses more than one language, it is called bi/multilingual.The situation in these two types of community is called diglossia that is to say two or more languages are in regular used in a community. In such diglossic community, the tendency is to give to one of the dialects or languages a higher status or prestige to reserve it functions: Government, education, law, religion, literature, press, radio, television…

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Such prestige dialect is called Standard dialect. It represents the norm, the model. In some countries, it is regulated and codified by the institutions (the French academic in France). The language use in multilingual communities is regulated by means of lows that are published in the constitution. Some countries however are not explicit as the regulation of this use.9- Code switching / code shifting Dialect switching/dialect shifting Individual does not always show consistent use of one unitary idiolectal system. The latter is often varying on both sociological and geographical dimensions in response to individual social situation; that is to say, who he is in relation to which his hearer is. This phenomenon is called ‘dialled’ dialect/code switching or also dialect/code shifting. The speaker switches from one language to another that is to say from L1 to L2 or D1 to D2. In other words, he moves within a repertoire of forms made of elements from L1 to L2; D1 to D2…picking his language here and there.     10- Language planning The decisions about what language/dialect to use for what purposes in a particular community constitute a political matter and they depend upon the government. They may base on political or racial prejudice or a careful survey of the various functions that the different language and dialects actually fulfil on country. This is the task of language planning.

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