SOCIOLINGUISTICS'

DECALOGUE
Sergio Andrés Rodríguez Gómez
 1. Sociolinguistics
"Sociolinguistics is an attempt to find correlations between
social structure and linguistic structure and to observe any
changes that occur" (Gumperz, 1971).

"The sociolinguist's aim is to move towards a theory which

provides a motivated account of the way language is used
in a community, and the choices people make when they
use language" (Holmes, 1996).

"Sociolinguistics, whatever it is, is about asking important

questions concerning the relatioship of language to society"
(Wardhaugh, s.f.).
2. Language
"It is a system for human communication,
either spoken, written, or visual. Consist of the
use of words in a structured way, used by a
particular community mediated by mutual
inteligibility" (Tarazona, 2021).
"A language is a dialect with an army and
a navy" (Van Herk, s.f.).
3. Dialect
Is a variety of a language which is associated
with a particular region, and or social class.

Any variety of a language characterized by

sistematic differences in pronunciation,
grammar and vocabulary from other
varieties of the same language.
 4. Slang
It refers to words that are either new to the
language, or old words or phrases with new
meanings. "Slang is usually associated with
younger speakers – in fact, a good indicator
that a slang term is finished is when middle-
aged university professors like me start
using it" (Van Herk, s.f,).
5. Accent
An accent is a certain form of a language
spoken by a subgroup of speakers of that
language which is defined by phonological
features.

It regards only pronunciation.

6. Language
variation
This term refers to systematic differences between that
exist between language. In other words, differencies
describable by rules. Furthermore, languages contain
many levels of internal variation, related to such variables
as age, region, socioeconomic status, group
identification, and others. These various dimensions of
variation are systematic in the same way as the variation
between different languages is.
7. Speech
community
A Speech community is a group of people
speaking a common dialect. The group may
be defined in terms of extralinguistic factors,
such as age, region, socioeconomic status,
group identification.

"People with similar academic backgrounds or

similar random interests that use common
language (technical or private) that only them
understand in context" (Tarazona, 2021).
8. 'Neutral' accent
does not exist
Given the high amount of social and linguistic factors that
influence people's accent; it is way too idealistic to think of
a neutral accent.
 9. Regional and rural
dialects are not wrong

All variations of language are coherent and

valid forms of languages, taking into account
people contexts and social factors. What
actually matters is that users of these
variations can efectively communicate among
them.
10. Language might be
influenced by four
social aspects: gender,
culture, speech
community diferences,
socio-economic
differences.