sociolinguistics
nounUK /ˌsəʊ.si.əʊ.lɪŋˈɡwɪs.tɪks/
US /ˌsoʊ.si.oʊ.lɪŋˈɡwɪs.tɪks/
The study of how people use language in everyday life and how it connects to who they are.
She studied sociolinguistics to understand why people speak differently in different places.
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OTHER MEANINGS
2. The branch of linguistics that examines how social factors like age, gender, and class affect language.
Sociolinguistics shows that teenagers often create their own slang words.
3. The study of how language changes when people from different groups talk to each other.
Through sociolinguistics, researchers learned how accents shift in multicultural cities.
4. An area of research that looks at how language is used to show identity and belonging.
His work in sociolinguistics focused on how bilingual families choose which language to speak at home.