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In sociolinguistics, a variety, also known as a lect or an isolect, [1] is a specific form of a language or language cluster. This may include languages , dialects , registers , styles , or other forms of language, as well as a standard variety . [ 2 ]
By the definition most commonly used by linguists, any linguistic variety can be considered a "dialect" of some language—"everybody speaks a dialect". According to that interpretation, the criteria above merely serve to distinguish whether two varieties are dialects of the same language or dialects of different languages.
Dialects can be defined as "sub-forms of languages which are, in general, mutually comprehensible." [1] English speakers from different countries and regions use a variety of different accents (systems of pronunciation) as well as various localized words and grammatical constructions.
Variation is a characteristic of language: there is more than one way of saying the same thing in a given language. Variation can exist in domains such as pronunciation (e.g., more than one way of pronouncing the same phoneme or the same word), lexicon (e.g., multiple words with the same meaning), grammar (e.g., different syntactic constructions expressing the same grammatical function), and ...
Instead, dialectologists map variation of various language features across a dialect continuum, drawing lines called isoglosses between areas that differ with respect to some feature. [4] A variety within a dialect continuum may be developed and codified as a standard language, and then serve as an authority for part of the continuum, e.g ...
Dialectology (from Greek διάλεκτος, dialektos, "talk, dialect"; and -λογία, -logia) is the scientific study of dialects: subsets of languages.Though in the 19th century a branch of historical linguistics, dialectology is often now considered a sub-field of, or subsumed by, sociolinguistics. [1]
A list of non-standard grammatical features of Yorkshire speech is given below. In formal settings, these features are castigated and, as a result, their use is recessive. They are most common among older speakers and among the working class. Definite article reduction: shortening of the to a form without a vowel, often written t'.
Pragmatics is the meaning of a word in social context, while semantics has "purely linguistic meaning". [9]: 107 Register is "a language variety that is associated with a particular topic, subject, or activity...." Usually, it is defined by vocabulary, but has grammatical features as well. [9]: 110