Sociolinguistics is the study of the effect of any and all aspects of
society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context on the way
language is used. Sociolinguistics overlaps to a considerable degree with
pragmatics.It also studies how
lects differ between groups separated by certain
social variables, e.g.,
ethnicity,
religion,
status,
gender, level of
education, etc., and how creation and adherence to these rules is used to categorize individuals in
social class or
socio-economic classes. As the usage of a language varies from place to place (
dialect), language usage varies among social classes, and it is these
sociolects that sociolinguistics studies.
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