Concept in Definition ABC

The term sociolect is a cultured word and belongs to the field of linguistics and, more specifically, that of sociolinguistics, the branch of language that studies the relationship between society and language.

By sociolect is understood the way of speaking of a social group determined. In the daily use of spoken language the same language can be spoken in many ways and, in this In this sense, when a collective or social group has its own way of expressing itself, it is using a sociolect. The sociolect can have several levels: the cult, the colloquial or the vulgar. Imagine a group of learned language teachers who regularly associate for reasons professionals (they communicate with a sociolect, since they handle the same language but with a higher). At the opposite extreme we could think in a marginal group that when communicating uses a series of common words and expressions and creates a "particular language", a sociolect.

The sociolect of a social stratum has a direct relationship with its formation and culture as a social group. Thus, studying a specific sociolect is a way of understanding the links between language and society within a community. It is evident that a social group that lives in an isolated area and is part of the environment does not speak the same

rural than another social group of the university elite.

Sociolect, dialect, interlect, idiolect and slang

Linguists who study the relationship between society and language analyze some key concepts. We have said that the sociolect, also known as dialect social, is the language spoken by a specific social group. By dialect I mean the way of speaking a language in a specific geographical area (for example, Spanish is the official language of Argentina but Argentines have a series of peculiarities that make up a variety dialectal).

Interlect refers to the use of a second language based on the influences of the mother tongue (If a Spanish speaker learns French as a second language, his / her phonetic command of the language will not be the same as that of a native French).

By idiolect we understand the way of speaking of each individual (a group of friends from the same place of birth share a language but each of them has their own way of expressing themselves). A slang is a linguistic variety different from the standard language of the majority (lunfardo is a slang of Spanish that is spoken in Buenos Aires but we can also talk about medical jargon, student jargon or prison jargon).

Photos: iStock - vitapix / Rafal Stachura

Topics in Sociolect