LANGUAGE, SOCIETY AND CULTUREBy Camilo Saavedra

Language variation

Speaker Situation

Factors that belong to the speaker, the person who speaks a certain dialect’s

features

Factors that come from the

situation or context of

communication

Sociolinguistics

Language

Important to form social

organisations

Society

Anthropology Sociology Psichology

Social Dialects

Variety of language used by groups

defined according to

Class

Education

Age

Sex

Other paramet

ers

Prestige

Overt prestigeCovert

prestige

Positively valued in

social communities

Non-standard forms and ways

of speaking

Not very valued by the larger community

Social Class and

Education

Important factors to determine social variety or dialect

Upper class and more educated

Lower class and less educated

Tend to use more

complicated forms

Tend to simplify they way of

speaking

Differ in form and

pronounciation

Age and Gender

Are also factors that can determine

language variety or dialect

Age

Elders may speak a bit

different from youngers

Gender

Female speakers

Male speakers

Tend to use more

sofisticated language

Tend to use simpler ways of

speaking

Ethnic Background

Important factor to determine dialects

People living in a place that is not where he/she was born has a special

way of speaking

Is easy to identify people’s belonging

place

Different geographical areas may affect the language causing a variation of a language

IdiolectA personal dialect

or way of speaking a language

Voice quality

Physical state

Help identifying an individual’s speech

features

Style

FormalInformal

Spoken Written

A job interview

A talking with a friend

Register

A variation according to

use in specific

situations

Legal Religious

Jargon

Technical vocabulary associated

with a special activity or

group