Variety (linguistics)In linguistics, a variety, also known as a lect or an isolect, 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.
Standard languageA standard language (or standard variety, standard dialect, standardized dialect or simply standard) is any language variety that has undergone substantial codification in its grammar, lexicon, writing system, or other features and that stands out among related varieties in a community as the one with the highest status or prestige, particularly in formal public and academic contexts. Often, it is the prestige language variety of a whole country.
IdiolectIdiolect is an individual's unique use of language, including speech. This unique usage encompasses a person's active vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. This differs from a dialect, a common set of linguistic characteristics shared among a group of people.
EthnicitySocial group defined by shared traitsAn ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of humans who identify with each other on the basis of perceived shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Attributes that ethnicities are believed to share include language, culture, common sets of ancestry, traditions, society, religion, history, region(s), or social treatment.
SociolectIn sociolinguistics, a sociolect is a form of language (non-standard dialect, restricted register) or a set of lexical items used by a socioeconomic class, profession, age group, or other social group. Sociolects involve both passive acquisition of particular communicative practices through association with a local community, as well as active learning and choice among speech or writing forms to demonstrate identification with particular groups.EthnolectAn ethnolect is generally defined as a language variety that marks speakers as members of ethnic groups who originally used another language or distinctive variety. According to another definition, an ethnolect is any speech variety (language, dialect, subdialect) associated with a specific ethnic group. It may be a distinguishing mark of social identity, both within the group and for outsiders. The term combines the concepts of an ethnic group and dialect.Morphology (linguistics)In linguistics, morphology is the study of how words are formed, and how they relate to one another within a language. Most approaches to morphology investigate the structure of words in terms of morphemes, which are the smallest units in a language with some independent meaning or grammatical function. Morphemes include roots that can exist as words by themselves, but also categories such as affixes that can only appear as part of a larger word.VernacularVernacular is the ordinary, informal, spoken form of a language or dialect. The term particularly carries the perception of a language variety with lower social status or less prestige than standard language, which is more codified, institutionally promoted, literary, or formal.
PhonologyPhonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics) is the branch of linguistics that concerns how languages organize the foundational elements that make their words. In spoken languages, these are phonemes like vowel and consonant sounds that affect meaning. Examples of this effect can be found in comparisons of English words like bat and gnat. In sign languages, these are components of signs such as hand shape and location.
Social classA social class or social stratum is a grouping of people into a set of hierarchical social categories, the most common ones being: the working class, the middle class and the upper class. Class is a subject of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists and social historians. The term has a wide range of sometimes conflicting meanings, and there is no broad consensus on a definition of class.
VocabularyA vocabulary (also known as a lexicon) is a set of words, typically the set in a language or the set known to an individual. The word vocabulary originated from the Latin vocabulum, meaning "a word, name". It forms an essential component of language and communication, helping convey thoughts, ideas, emotions, and information.SyntaxIn linguistics, syntax ( SIN-taks) is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form well-formed larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns in this area of linguistics include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituency), agreement, cross-linguistic variation, and the relationship between structure and meaning (semantics).Special:Search/dialectRelated word or term.*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.