What is variation in language?
The term linguistic variation (or simply variation) refers to regional, social, or contextual differences in the ways that a particular language is used. Variation between languages, dialects, and speakers is known as interspeaker variation.
What is Variationist theory?
Variationist Sociolinguistics differs from Interactional Sociolinguistics as it focuses on social variation in dialects and examines how this variation is highly structured. This structured variation tells us that this is part of human language capacity, a built in system of language in a brain.
What is diachronic approach of language?
Diachronic linguistics refers to the study of how a language evolves over a period of time. Tracing the development of English from the Old English period to the twentieth century is a diachronic study.
What is multilingualism linguistics?
Multilingualism is generally understood to mean knowledge of more languages than a native language. It is a language term that moves from monolingualism (knowing one language) beyond bilingualism (knowing two languages) into the realm of knowing many, or multiple, languages.
What is language variation and example?
“A dialect is variation in grammar and vocabulary in addition to sound variations. For example, if one person utters the sentence ‘John is a farmer’ and another says the same thing except pronounces the word farmer as ‘fahmuh,’ then the difference is one of accent.
What was Labov’s hypothesis?
Labov believed that the higher the social class of a speaker, the more frequent the occurrence of rhotic /r/ in speech. Labov’s sample of participants included a variety of social classes.
What is Interactionist and Variationist sociolinguistics?
macrosociolinguistics distinction, in that interactionist sociolinguistics is most concerned about how language use processes inform social processes, whereas variationist sociolinguistics is most concerned about how social factors (and sometimes social processes) inform linguistic processes.
Why is it useful to study diachronic linguistics?
Diachrony provides evidence for the interrelation of lexicon and grammar as well as evidence for the nature of the cognitive representation of phonological and grammatical form.
What is the main aim of diachronic linguistics?
Synchronic linguistics aims at describing a language at a specific point of time, usually the present. In contrast, a diachronic (from δια- “through” and χρόνος “time”) approach, as in historical linguistics, considers the development and evolution of a language through history.