SCOPE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF SOCIOLINGUISTICS:

Sociolinguistics is a discipline that makes a link between sociology and linguistics. It is a branch of
sociology and as a concept, it is concerned with how language use is a determinant of a given
society’s linguistic requirements. It is concerned with the relationship between language and the
context in which it is used. In other words, it studies the relationship between language and society.
It explains we people speak differently in different social contexts. It discusses the social functions of
language and the ways it is used to convey social meaning. All of the topics provides a lot of
information about the language works, as well as about the social relationships in a community, and
the way people signal aspects of their social identity through their language Sociolinguististics is also
considered as a social science because it studies language which is a form of social behaviour and
exists in interaction between human beings in society.

Sociolinguists deal with how linguistic behavior relates to other aspects of social behavior. The
linguistic behavior, or more easily the language, shapes people's perceptions of groups and events in
society. But sociolinguists also argue that linguistic variation does not only illustrate social
differences. It is not just a social marker, it is also used by speakers who have the aim to position
themselves within the social world. So the speakers of a particular dialect tend to peg them as a
group belonging to a dialectal group, because language reflects the social and political status of
different groups in society, it defines them as inferior or superior. Besides linguistic variation can also
differ depending on situations. For example even a person who is in an intellectually higher position,
e.g. a professor, switches between different speech styles, so it can be observed that there is a
linguistic variation between different intended audiences he wants to speak to. As a comparison a
lecture and a talk to friends are a good example.

There are numerous factors which affect the way a language is spoken in a country or a city. These
factors can be ethnic, social and regional. The factors are interlinked with each other which means
they have an impact on each other to some extent. The notion of language variation is essential for
both language and sociolinguistics. Language variation is one of the critical contents of sociolinguistic
research, and the study of meaning is the research centre of cognitive linguistics. Various language
variants refers to a set of terms that express the same language function or achieve the same
language factor, and each term has social and stylistic meanings. These meanings are closely related
to extralinguistic factors, such as social status. , age, gender, occupation, ethnic groups, etc.
Therefore, in a real speech community based on social structure, communicative competence must
grasp the homogeneity of language and the variant of language based on cognitive ability, and the
mastery of this knowledge is just as appropriate as a habit.

Sociolinguistics is very important for the one who is an average language learner as there are little
things which can lead someone to embarrassment. Sociolinguistics interacts with other traditional
linguistic school also. As we know, society and culture play a vital role in our language acquisition,
and it shapes our respective roles in society, a language not only reflects a speaker’s individual
linguistic or social variants but at the same time displays the cultural, community, political
background of the respective nation