Sociolect
Encyclopedia : S : SO : SOC : Sociolect
In linguistics, a sociolect is the language spoken by a social group, social class or subculture. It is a portmanteau term combining the words "social" and "dialect", which in this regard differs from an idiolect – which is the form of a language peculiar to an individual – and a dialect, which is a form of speech peculiar to a certain area. However, dialects often have a particular social status, so that a given variant may be considered simultaneously a dialect and a sociolect. For example, standard Italian is a dialect in that it is particular to Tuscany; yet, being the national language of Italy, it is also a sociolect in that it carries a certain prestige from being a lingua franca throughout the country – both in broadcasting, in the press and by people of high social status.
See also
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.