🕮 Licenciatura en Enseñanza y Aprendizaje del Inglés en

Educación Secundaria, Sociolingüística, Definición de

sociolingüística
LICENCIATURA EN ENSEÑANZA Y APRENDIZAJE DEL INGLÉS EN EDUCACIÓN
SECUNDARIA
Estudiante normalista: Sánchez Flores Valeria Grado y Grupo: 3ro II Fecha de entrega: _16-mar.-21

Unidad: I II III # de tarea: 1.1.1 Evidencia de evaluación y aprendizaje: Definición de sociolingüística (10%)

What is sociolinguistic?

Sociolinguists study the relationship between language and society. They are interested in explaining why
we speak differently in different social contexts, and they are concerned with identifying the social functions
of language and the ways it is used to convey social meaning. Examining the way people use language in
different social contexts provides a wealth of information about the way language works, as well as about the
social relationships in a community, and the way people convey and construct aspects of their social identity
through their language. 1(Holmes, 2013)
i

Activity 1

Write five more definitions to know what sociolinguistic is. Remember to write references.

Sociolinguistics is defined as the study of language in relation to society whereas the sociology of language
is defined as the study ofsociety in relation to language. The goals of sociolinguistics and those of the
sociology of language are different . 2(Hudson, 1980)

Spolsky defines sociolinguistics as "the field that studies the relation between language and society, between
the uses of language and the social structures in which the users of language live" 3(Spolky, 1998)

Sociolinguistics takes language samples from sets of random population subjects and looks at variables that
include such things as pronunciation, word choice, and colloquialisms. The is data is then measured against
socio-economic indices such as education, income/wealth, occupation, ethnic heritage, age, and family dynamics
to better understand the relationship between language and society.

Thanks to its dual focus, sociolinguistics is considered a branch of both linguistics and sociology. However, the
broader study of the field may also encompass anthropological linguistics, dialectology, discourse analysis,
ethnography of speaking, geolinguistics, language contact studies, secular linguistics, the social psychology of
language, and the sociology of language. 4(Nordquist,2019)

Sociolinguistics is more frequently used to suggest a new interdisciplinary field – the comprehensive description
of the relations of language and society. This seems to me an unfortunate notion, foreshadowing a long series
of purely descriptive studies with little bearing on the central theoretical problems of linguistics or of sociology.
My own intention was to solve linguistic problems, bearing in mind that these are ultimately problems in the
analysis of social behaviour. 5(Labov,1966)
 🕮 Licenciatura en Enseñanza y Aprendizaje del Inglés en
Educación Secundaria, Sociolingüística, Definición de
sociolingüística

Everyone knows that language is variable, said Edward Sapir in 1925. However, throughout the history of
linguistics, linguists have tended to act as if it were not. Most theories have started from the assumption that
variability in language is unmanageable, or uninteresting, or both. Consequently, there has been a tendency to
shy away from the variable data that linguists inevitably encountered in order to begin the analysis at a somewhat
more homogeneous 'level' 6 (Chambers and Trudgill 1980).

ii
Holmes, J. (2013). An introduction to sociolinguistics. p.1. London: Routledge
1

2 Hudson (1980) Sociolinguistics, Unit 1, p.4. The English and Foreign Languages
3 Spolky (1998) Sociolinguistics by Bernard Spolsky. p.3. Oxford University
4 Nordquist R. (2019) ThoughCo. What si sociolinguistic
5 Labov W. (1966) The Social Stratification of English in New York City. Washington, D.C.:

Center for Applied Linguistics

6 Chambers and Trudgill (1980) Sociolinguistic variation and change. Edinburgh