1.

The study of language variations: sociolinguistics, its branches, and cognate

subjects.

1.1. The subject matter of sociolinguistics.

Sociolinguistics examines all aspects of the relationship between

language and society. Sociolinguistic research in multilingual
communities encompasses bilingual or diglossic communities, where
languages are used for distinct functions, code-switching, including
the reasons and grammatical constraints on switches, research on the
reasons for language shift and death, as well as on pidgin and creole
languages. Social dialectology or variationist sociolinguistics focuses
on linguistic variation in monolingual communities, exploring social
reasons for variation and change, and attitudes to different varieties of
the ‘same’ language. Variation in the way language is used to express
or ‘construct’ particular social identities in particular social contexts
has been a recent focus of research, and is especially evident in
studies of style. Pragmatic research overlaps with sociolinguistics in
the identification of social and cultural patterns for expressing
particular speech acts. Discourse analysis encompasses a range of
approaches, many of which have been adopted by sociolinguists
interested in exploring how individuals instantiate their social identities
or ideological positions and objectives linguistically. Finally, many
sociolinguists are concerned with the applications of sociolinguistic
research in areas such as language teaching and learning, language
policy development, and the use of language in legal contexts.

1.2. Dialectology and accentology.

Dialectology (from Greek διάλεκτος, dialektos, "talk, dialect"; and -λογία, -logia) is the scientific study of
linguistic dialect, a sub-field of sociolinguistics. It studies variations in language based primarily on
geographic distribution and their associated features. Dialectology treats such topics as divergence of
two local dialects from a common ancestor and synchronic variation.

: the study of accentuation in language : a system of accentuation in a particular language

1.3. Geolinguistics and the geographical distribution of languages.

Geolinguistics has been identified by some as being a branch of linguistics and by others as being an
offshoot of language geography which is further defined in terms of being a branch of human
geography. When seen as a branch of linguistics, geolinguistics may be viewed from more than one
linguistic perspective, something with research implications.

One academic tradition with regard to geolinguistics as a branch of linguistics gives open recognition to
the role map-making can play in linguistic research by seeing the terms dialect geography,[1] language
geography[1] and linguistic geography[1] as being synonymous with geolinguistics. This identification of
geolinguistics with linguistic map-making appears across a range of languages, including Chinese,[2]
French, Japanese,[3] Russian[4] and Spanish. In German, in addition to an identification of geolinguistics
with the terms Sprachgeographie (language geography) and Dialektgeographie (dialect geography), the
term Areallinguistik (area linguistics) appears as also being synonymous.

1.4. Areal linguistics and the notion of linguistic area.

In linguistics, areal features are elements shared by languages or dialects in a geographic area,
particularly when such features are not descended from a proto-language, or, common ancestor
language. That is, an areal feature is contrasted to genealogically determined similarity within the
same language family. Features may diffuse from one dominant language to neighbouring
languages 

2. Geographical identity and linguistic identity.

1. An individual or group's sense of attachment to the country, region, city, or village in which they live.

2. The key characteristics with which a particular country, region, city, or village is associated

Linguistic identity refers to a person’s identification as a speaker of one or more

languages. The linguistic identity is part and often an important part of our
identity. And this is especially true for multilingual individuals. It is influenced
by different factors and usually contains aspects such as linguistic expertise,
affiliation, and also familial inheritance [1].

There are different ways to explore what linguistic identity means to a person.
And in today’s article we are going to introduce an interesting approach — the
Language Portrait Silhouette. Language Portrait Silhouette (LPS) is a task,
where people use different colors, shapes and symbols on a drawn silhouette of
a body (Figure 1) to show their perceptions of their languages. This is combined
with the drawers’ own verbal explaining and commenting on their portrait.

In language portraits, languages are often represented through the use of

different colors and flags to show people’s expertise, attachment, affiliation and
“liking” of a language. For example, the “liking” of a language is commonly
expressed through the use of the drawer’s favorite color and the attachment
with a language is represented through the use of the flag of a country where
the language is spoken [2]. Languages are also aligned to concrete body parts
to show people’s perceptions of different languages. While the head or brain
often represent “knowing.”, hands, arms, and feet, being farther away from the
head and used for gesturing, often represent “not knowing.” [3] You can find
two examples of Language Portrait in Figure 2.

3. The problem of mutual intelligibility.

In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of
different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special
effort. It is sometimes used as an important criterion for distinguishing languages from dialects,
although sociolinguistic factors are often also used.

Intelligibility between languages can be asymmetric, with speakers of one understanding more of the
other than speakers of the other understanding the first. When it is relatively symmetric, it is
characterized as "mutual". It exists in differing degrees among many related or geographically proximate
languages of the world, often in the context of a dialect continuum.

Linguistic distance is the name for the concept of calculating a measurement for how different
languages are from one another. The higher the linguistic distance, the lower the mutual intelligibility.

4. Language change and variation.

small variations which occur in language and which are determined by external, social factors. These
variations can and do lead in time to language change. They contrast with variations in language which
are motivated by internal factors – structural features of a language – which can also lead to change,
especially when this internal variation occurs during first language acquisition. Language variation and
change is an important research paradigm today and there many books on the subject as well as a
journal with this term as their name.

4.1. Factors speeding up language change and variation.

4.2. Diachronic variation.

Diachronic linguistics is the study of a language through different periods in history.

Diachronic linguistics is one of the two main temporal dimensions of language study identified by Swiss
linguist Ferdinand de Saussure in his Course in General Linguistics (1916). The other is synchronic
linguistics.

The terms diachrony and synchrony refer, respectively, to an evolutionary phase of language and to a
language state. "In reality," says Théophile Obenga, "diachronic and synchronic linguistics interlock"
("Genetic Linguistic Connections of Ancient Egypt and the Rest of Africa," 1996).

4.3. Diatopic and diastratic variation of language.

4.3.1. Regional and social dialects.

As opposed to a national dialect, a regional dialect is spoken in one particular area of a country. In the
USA, regional dialects include Appalachian, New Jersey and Southern English, and in Britain, Cockney,
Liverpool English and 'Geordie' (Newcastle English). . . .

"In contrast to a regional dialect, a social dialect is a variety of a language spoken by a particular group
based on social characteristics other than geography."
4.3.2. Urban and rural dialects.

4.3.3. Folk dialectology. Attitude and stigma. Stereotypes.

4.3.4. Dialect chains / continua.

4.3.5. Dia Dialect?

Perhaps the easiest way to think of the difference between accents and dialects is to first understand
that accents are only a part of what makes up a dialect. An accent is simply how one pronounces words
—a style of pronunciation. A dialect includes not just pronunciations, but also one’s general vocabulary
and grammar.

As an example, someone from the United States may say, “Would you like some tea?”, while a person
from the UK might instead say, “Fancy a cuppa?” They’re both speaking English, and they’re both
expressing the exact same idea. But not only would the pronunciation (the accent) be different, the
choice of vocabulary and the grammar behind both sentences is clearly distinct.

Within any given language, both dialect and accent will vary—both largely a product of
geography/regionality. Someone in coastal northwestern France sounds quite different than someone
from Paris. A person from the Swabian region of Germany (Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg) will often
sound wildly different than another from Hamburg in the north. lect vs accent vs lect.

5. Variation in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar.

6. Pluricentric languages.

A pluricentric language or polycentric language is a language with several interacting codified standard
forms, often corresponding to different countries.[1][2][3] Examples include Chinese, English, French,
German, Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu), Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swahili and Tamil.[4] The
converse case is a monocentric language, which has only one formally standardized version. Examples
include Japanese and Russian.[5] In some cases, the different standards of a pluricentric language may
be elaborated until they become autonomous languages, as happened with Malaysian and Indonesian,
and with Hindi and Urdu.[5] The same process is under way in Serbo-Croatian

7. Standard, nonstandard, and vernacular language. Bidialectism and diglossia.