SOCIOLINGUISTICS

LANGUAGE VARIATION

PRESENTED BY MS. NGUYỄN THỊ KIM NGÂN

 2 MAJOR TYPES OF LANGUAGE VARIATION
DIALECTAL VARIATION (DIALECT)
variation according to USERS
+ Geographical/ regional (regional
differences)
+ Temporal (differences in different periods of
time).
+ Social (differences between people from
different social classes).
+ Standard/ non-standard (standard/ non-
standard differences)
+ Idiolect (differences between individuals)
DIATYPICAL VARIATION (DIATYPE)
variation according to USE
results from the interaction between the
following 3 variables of situation:
+ Field of discourse (topics about which
language is used to talk)
+ Mode of discourse (relationships between
the language user and the
mode of delivery)
+ Tenor of discourse (the relationships
between the speaker/ writer
and the listener/ reader)
 REGIONAL DIALECTS

A change that occurs in one region and fails to spread to other regions
of the language community gives rise to dialect differences. When enough such differences
give the language spoken in a particular region its own “flavor" -> a regional dialect.

GEOGRAPHICAL BARRIERS

GRADUAL CHANGE IN GRAMMAR

MASS MEDIA AND JET INDUSTRY

 IDIOLECT vs DIALECT

IDIOLECT: The unique characteristics of the language of an individual speaker.

DIALECT: mutually intelligible forms of a language that differ in systematic ways from
each other.

DIALECT vs LANGUAGE

When dialects become mutually unintelligible – when the speakers of one dialect group can no
longer understand the speakers or another dialect group – these “dialects” become different
languages.
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PRESENTED BY MS. NGUYỄN THỊ KIM NGÂN