Sociolinguistics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Sociolinguistics - Essay Example Lower geographical distances and large population sizes often results in increased social contact between two locations and the chance that the respective dialects are influenced by each other (Heeringa, 2006). Therefore by establishing language variation theories more information can be gathered about the speakers, their representations, about the structures of the society and interactions (Berruto, 2004). The scientific study of language is called linguistics. Formal models are often constructed which allow us to understand the functioning of various modules of the linguistic grammar function1. These modules include study of variations in phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. In fact there's a school of thought which says that, "In the absence of variation, languages would no longer be the versatile, flexible semiotic instruments they are, malleably following the flow of time and history. This capacity for variation would appear to be co-essential to natural langu ages" (Berruto, 2004). Variations in language can be; Dialect: This is a somewhat complex concept. Dialect is considered a collection of attributes (phonetic, phonological, syntactic, morphological, semantic) that make one group of speakers noticeably different from another group of speakers of the same language Therefore while on the one hand there are variations in the languages li