Dr.

Raneem Ahmed Saber

AN INTRODUCTION TO
SOCIOLINGUISTICS
What Is Linguistics?
 It is the scientific study of human Language
meaning form and context.
 Linguistics can be divided into two main branches
Micro Linguistics and Macro Linguistics.
 The latter branch is also divided into two branches
the Inter Disciplinary and the Intra Disciplinary
linguistics
Image which explains branches of
Linguistics
What is Sociolinguistics?
 The word “Sociolinguistics” consists of two parts
the prefix “socio” and the word “linguistics”
 What does the prefix “Socio” mean?
 “Socio’ is derived from the Latin word “Socius”
which means partner or companion.
 In English the prefix socio refers to anything
related to society
?What is Sociolinguistics
 According to the previous information we can sum
up that Sociolinguistics is an inter disciplinary
branch of linguistics which studies the language in
relation to society
 There is a difference between Sociology of language
and Sociolinguistics that difference is the focus
 Sociology of language focuses on language effects
on society while Sociolinguistics focuses on the
effect of society on language
Characteristics of Sociolinguistics
 It is an applied, rather than theoretical, branch
Linguistic studies
 It is a science which thoroughly investigates the
relationship between language and society
 It regards the language as a social and cultural
phenomenon
 It studies language in its social context in real life by
empirical investigation
 It can also be related to methodology and contents of
social sciences
Fields of Sociolinguistics
 1- Varieties of Language
 2- Language in contact
 3- Language change
 4- language maintenance and shift
 5- language planning
What are the varieties of language?
 1- The standard variety: i.e. the variety of language spoken
in one community like in schools and universities or media
 2- The variety of regional or dialects: the variety of
language dialects spoken in different regions of one
country
 3- The variety of social dialects: the difference of dialects
among different social classes
 4- registers or functional variety: the variety of idioms or
terms which differs from one profession to another. It is
also called “varieties according the use”