Sociolects. Language Variations in Sociolinguistics

Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2017 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 9, , course: Sociolinguistics, language: English, abstract: In this paper, the author addresses the investigation of social varieties of language such as sociolects. This work will concentrate on vernacular, slang, argot, domain, register and jargon of the English language. For this purpose the author analyses definitions, terms and examples. The way we speak is an indicator of our social background as there are many features which can be used as clues. Sociolect is when a person speaks in accordance with the social group. If we know the history of different varieties of a language we can learn about the region, history and people. The speech of the dominant class is referred as the standard speech whereas the speech of the minority groups is referred as dialects. The main aim of this study is to explore the different concepts and differentiate them one by one.