Sociolinguistics - Lesson 1

Sociolinguistics investigates the _____ between language and society, attempting to explain why people speak differently in different social contexts, identify the social functions of language and the ways it is used to convey social meaning.

• connection
• correlation
• interaction
• relationship

People indicate aspects of their social identity through the way they talk. Their speech provides clues to others about who they are, where they come from and perhaps what kind of social _____ they have had.

• achievements
• skills
• memories
• experiences

The term '_____' in sociolinguistics refers to variation in speech features according to a range of possible aspects of the social context, including features of the setting and addressee(s).

• style

• register

• accent

• genre

A regionally or socially definable human group, all of whose members share at least a single code/variety and a set of norms and rules for its appropriate use. This refers to the term '____' in sociolinguistics.

• Speech community

• Speech act

• Speech variation

• Speech identity

Linguistic variation may occur at different levels of linguistic analysis: sounds, word-structure (or _____), and grammar (or syntax), and vocabulary.

• Etymology

• Philology

• Phonology

• Morphology

In sociolinguistics, _____ typically refers to the language variety with distinctive regional or social features of vocabulary and/or grammar, as well as differences in pronunciation.

• Dialect

• Idiolect

• Intellect

• Reflect

Verbal/linguistic _____ refer to, in every community, a range of varieties from which people select according to the context in which they are communicating.

• repertoires

• jargons
• idiolects

• accents

Some social factors relate to the users of language – the participants; others relate to its uses – the social setting and _____ of the interaction.

• audience
• environment
• context
• function

This scale emphasises that how well we know someone is a relevant factor in linguistic choice.

• social distance scale

• status scale

• formality scale

• functional scale

This scale points to the relevance of relative status in some linguistic choices.

• social distance scale

• status scale

• formality scale

• functional scale