Languages & Linguistics
Sociolect vs Idiolect
Sociolect refers to the language variety associated with a particular social group, such as a community, region, or social class. Idiolect, on the other hand, pertains to an individual's unique linguistic style and usage. While sociolect reflects the shared linguistic features of a group, idiolect encompasses the distinct language patterns and expressions of an individual.
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7 Key excerpts on "Sociolect vs Idiolect"
eBook - PDFDiscovering Sociolinguistics
From Theory to Practice
- Dick Smakman(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Bloomsbury Academic(Publisher)
The term can be used generically to avoid unwanted distinctions between less codified and more codified lan-guages (‘dialects’ and ‘standard languages’ are all ‘varieties’, and so are, for instance, occupational varieties involving jargon). Some of the terms include the syllable ‘lect’, which refers to a set of linguis-tic phenomena that can be recognised as an entity. A ‘sociolect’ is a variety defined on the basis of social grounds and is associated with a group of people who share certain qualities. For instance, in a Tamil-speaking region in India there are two sociolects, namely Mudaliyar and Iyengar. Mudaliyar is spoken by a lower caste than Iyengar, as the latter caste is associated with scholarli-ness. This is a social (rather than a regional) difference between the groups. There are also internationally known sociolects, like so-called ‘Valley speak’, or ‘Valspeak’, as well as ‘Surfer talk’, which are typical of younger speakers in Southern California in the United States (Macías et al. 2018 ). ‘Hyperlect’ is a name sometimes used for a certain sociolect, namely posh speech (Honey 1985 ). Poshness refers to a sociolect that is characterised by distinctive word choices and ways to pronounce certain sounds and certain words. A ‘regiolect’, which often has a name, is defined on the basis of geographical criteria. Latgalian, as spoken in Eastern Latvia, is a regiolect. An individual’s unique language sys-tem, i.e., one’s personalised variety, is often referred to as an ‘idiolect’. The term ‘idiolect’ is closely related to the word ‘vernacular’, which refers to the language used for everyday communication, i.e., a spontaneous language that comes naturally. The latter term is often also used to refer to a group’s indigenous language, especially if that deviates from a wider language norm. ‘African American Vernacular English’, an urban vernacular from the United States, fits that particular meaning of the term.
eBook - PDFLanguages of the World
A Critical Introduction
- Prafull Dhondopant Kulkarni(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Society Publishing(Publisher)
It is also important to distinguish the sociolect from a regional dialect which is often restricted to spatial diversity as opposed to social class (University of Westminster, 2014). The principles are broadly the same although, in a dialect, the geographical location is more important than the social categorization of the individual (Ushioda and Dörnyei, 2017). Some societies are more stratified than others so it is not surprising that their development of sociolects also reflects the ways in which that society has been partitioned into segments. Figure 6.3: Sociolects and language variation. Source: Scribd This then begs the question as to the precise moment a dialect becomes a language of its own. Figure 6.3 demonstrates how sociolects can contribute to language variation and enrichment. The acceptance of diversity within a Languages of the World: A Critical Introduction 160 language can become a political and cultural question because of the potential that it has to divide up that society. Of course, the cultural relativism that is fashionable in modern social science does not allow the researchers to become too involved in the judgment of what particular approach or version is superior to the other. Rather they are interested in how the sociolect emerges, the people that use it and the ways in which that sociolect is used. Peter Trudgill defined a sociolect as “a variety or lect which is thought of as being related to its speakers’ social background rather than geographical background” (Castles and Friedmann, 2014; Just Landed, 2016). Some argue that the true origin of the sociolect is the birth of dialectology in which different dialects are studied with reference to their role in social society (Andresen and Carter, 2016). Although dialectology was mainly confined to England, the discipline soon spread to other parts of the world (University of Westminster, 2014).
eBook - PDF- Oscar Uribe-Villegas(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
In both cases, there are certain contributing sociolinguistic processes such as: (a) linguistic learning and unlearning, (b) linguistic drift (which was already mentioned by the first linguists) and (c) linguistic pressure and resistance. Thus, in reality, communication is achieved thanks to the interaction 26 Oscar Uribe-Villegas of various idiolects which, although diverse, contain groups of codes which have certain common features, with which they create a minimum uniform code (sociolect) which functions within a community (a homo-geneous speech community). And, although the sociolect is an abstraction, it has reality for the speakers who can distinguish between the different deviations which fall into it (idiosyncracies) and the others which are outside it (which are socially significant) and which, for this very reason, mark the fact that the speaker belongs to a different social group than that to which the listener belongs. Sociolinguistics has to identify the sociolects, study how they grow and how they function; it has to delimit social dialects and identify registers, as well as determining the linguistic competence achieved by the indi-vidual thanks to the appropriate use of these registers, and not only their use of phonology and grammar. In the establishing of categories that must be used in sociolinguistics, Fishman, as we stated before, has contributed by pointing out some fundamental concepts, such as that of 'situation', of 'domain' and of 'competence'. But not only is it necessary to enrich the conceptual battery or the whole unit of categories that sociolinguistics disposes of, it is also neces-sary to make a rigorous definition, in view of new needs, of concepts and categories which were already used in traditional linguistics.
eBook - PDF- Ronald Wardhaugh, Janet M. Fuller(Authors)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Wiley-Blackwell(Publisher)
Languages, Communities, and Contexts Part I An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, Eighth Edition. Ronald Wardhaugh and Janet M. Fuller. © 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Companion website: www.wiley.com/go/wardhaugh8e 2 We stated in the introductory chapter that the concept of language is considered by many sociolinguists to be an ideological construct. Further, we noted that all languages exhibit internal variation, that is, each language exists in a number of varieties and is in one sense the sum of those varieties. We use the term variety as a general term for a way of speaking; this may be something as broad as Standard English, or a variety defined in terms of loca- tion and social class (e.g., ‘working-class New York City speech’), or something defined by its function or where it is used, such as ‘legalese.’ In the following sections, we will explore these different ways of specifying language varieties and how we define the terms ‘lan- guage’ and ‘dialect’ (regional and social). We will also address how the associations between language and social meaning develop and are used in communicating in different speech contexts. What is a Language? What do we mean when we refer to a language or, even more important, the idea of mixing languages? As we will discuss further in chapters 8 and 9, recent research has coined many new terms to describe what has traditionally been called multilingualism – ‘(trans)lan- guaging,’ ‘metrolingualism,’ ‘heteroglossia.’ These terms reflect the idea that languages are ideological constructs; while we (usually) have names for different ways of speaking and can describe their features, in practice linguistic boundaries may be fluid.
eBook - PDFOutsider Designations and Boundary Construction in the New Testament
Early Christian Communities and the Formation of Group Identity
- Paul Raymond Trebilco(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
There are several points to note with regard to the ‘social dialect’ of a group. Firstly, because of the relationship between the practice of a community and a shared language repertoire, different communities can have very different linguistic repertoires, since they have very different practices. Halliday writes: ‘Variation in language is in a quite direct sense the expression of fundamental attributes of the social system’. Secondly, the social dialect of a community is shaped by its social practice and by its shared enterprise. The actual language used by a group is developed jointly by the community as it constructs its social identity. Particular language is used because it is meaningful to the group and because it is intimately connected with all that they are involved in as a group with shared goals. Through understanding that a community constructs its own social dialect, we can better understand the social significance of a community’s language. Thirdly, while a community will use language in its own distinctive ways to construct and maintain its identity, to construct meaning and to symbolise loyalty and solidarity, that language, once used, impacts on how identity is understood. Identity is constructed in language, and language in turn shapes identity. Neither can be seen as independent of the other. As Halliday writes: ‘the relation of language to the social system is not simply one of expression, but a more complex natural dialectic in which language actively symbolizes the social system, thus creating as well as being created by it’. Language and identity are Holmes and Meyerhoff : . See Halliday : , –; Martin and Ringham : . Halliday : . See the discussion of this work in Trebilco a: –. Halliday : . See Philogène : . See Milroy : . Halliday : , italics added; see also Romaine : . . Insights from Sociolinguistics 
eBook - PDF- Rob Penhallurick(Author)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Bloomsbury Academic(Publisher)
A language such as English varies according to its geography. At the same time, it will vary according to social class – not all speakers from the same locality will speak the same dialect of English uniformly if those speakers vary in social class. The speech of the locality as a whole can vary along a non-standard to standard continuum that correlates largely with social stratifica-tion. Similarly, the local speech may vary in regular patterns that become apparent when the linguistic data is matched with information about the age, sex, and ethnicity of speakers. What is more, each individual dialect speaker will tend to vary his or her own speech according to the social situation, in relation to such factors as the perceived informality/formality of the context and the social class of the other interlocutors. We each may pronounce any given word differently not only in comparison to other speakers but also according to whether we are speaking to friends or to strangers, whether we are in a bar or at home or in work or in a classroom, and so on. If the inves-tigator of dialect ignores such social and stylistic correlations, then it is likely that the data will appear to contain what looks like quite random or ‘free’ variation. But when the sociolinguistic correlations are made, this random variation might assume regular patterning, and its causes are revealed. The variation then appears not random but structured. What we see is ‘orderly’ or ‘structured heterogeneity’, to use the terms first developed by Weinreich, Studying Dialect 184 Labov and Herzog (1968) in a paper given at a conference at the University of Texas in 1966. For as long as dialectologists focused on the speech of one class (rural working class) and one age-group (elderly), it was to some extent defensible to neglect these correlations. However, when the focus expanded it was time for the methods, aims, and general approach to evolve in new direc-tions.
eBook - PDFThree essays on linguistic diversity in the Spanish-speaking world
The U.S. Southwest and the River Plate Area
- Jacob Ornstein-Galicia, Frederick Gerald Hensey, David William Foster, Jacob Ornstein-Galicia, Frederick Gerald Hensey, David William Foster(Authors)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
See also: Basil Bernstein, Social Class and Linguistic Development: A Theory of Social Learning, in: A. H. Halsey, Jean Floud and C. Arnold Anderson, eds., Education, Economy and Society (Glencoe, 111.: Free Press, 1961); Social Class, Linguistic Codes and Grammatical Elements, Language and Speech 5 (1962), 221-40. 38 See: Lawton, Social Class, Language and Education; Social Class Differences in Language Devel-opment: A Study of Some Samples of Written Work, Language and Speech 7, 3 (1963). SPANISH AND ENGLISH LANGUAGE VARIETIES IN THE U.S. SOUTHWEST 2 3 ties to one linguistic school or another, be it neo-structural, tagmemic, glossematic. Firthian or Transformation Grammar) before the boundary line will be erased between 'pure linguistics' and applied. Increasing dissatisfaction is being felt with the idealized 'educated native speaker' (often the linguist himself) as the central focus of linguistic inquiry. Labov (an increasingly influential figure, who, like most of his school, happens to be a Chomskian adherent) comments as follows in a recent article: No matter what help the theorist's intuitions may give him in formulating his hypotheses, it is clear that his own intuitions are the only kinds of data which are NOT allowable as evidence, for no one can estimate the degree to which such judgments are influenced by the universal and understandable desire to prove oneself right. In any case, the construction of complete grammars for idiolects, even ones own, is a fruitless and unrewarding task; we now know enough about language in its social context to realize that the grammar of the speech community is more regular and systematic than the behavior of any one individual. Unless the individual speech pattern is studied within the over-all system of the community, it will appear as a mosaic of unaccountable and sporadic variations.
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