SOCIOLINGUISTICS DEFINITION

Victoria Fernandez Ramirez

“The study of language in relation to social factors, including differences of regional, class,
and occupational dialect, gender differences, and bilingualism.”

“The basic notion underlying sociolinguistics is quite simple: Language use symbolically
represents fundamental dimensions of social behavior and human interaction. […]
sociolinguists might investigate language attitudes among large populations on a national
level, such as those exhibited in the US with respect to the English-only amendment--the
legislative proposal to make English the 'official' language of the US.”

….

"Sociolinguistics... is that part of linguistics which is concerned with language as a social

and cultural phenomenon. It investigates the field of language and society & has close
connections with the social sciences, especially social psychology, anthropology, human
geography and sociology." [P. Trudgill (1974: 32)]

References
Patrick, Peter. (s.f.). Some Definitions and Divisions of Sociolinguistics. Obtained from Orb
Essex: http://orb.essex.ac.uk/lg/lg554/DefinitionsSlx.html

Sociolinguistics. (s.f.). Obtained from English: Oxford Living Dcitionaries:

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/sociolinguistics

Wolfram, W. (s.f.). Sociolinguistics. Obtained from Linguistic Society of America: Advancing

the Scientific Study of Language:
https://www.linguisticsociety.org/resource/sociolinguistics