Language Varieties and Sociolects
Language Varieties: Diastratic and Diatopic
Diastratic Varieties: What Are They?
Diastratic varieties are the set of linguistic peculiarities associated with certain social parameters.
- Age: Age determines the existence of a register used as an idiomatic cohesive element. It affects greetings, farewell formulas, and differentiated vocabulary.
- Sex: Men and women have different language uses, such as respect for turn-taking and employment of prestigious varieties.
- Sociocultural Level: The level of instruction conditions the speaker’s ability to change their register in diverse situations. This includes limitations in vocabulary and the use of grammatical resources.
Understanding Language, Languages, and Specific Languages
- Language: The capacity that all human beings have to communicate with each other through signs or signals.
- Languages: The code consisting of signs (oral or written) and rules used by a particular community to communicate. Examples include Spanish, English, and French.
- Specific Languages: Varieties of common or standard language that identify a sociocultural group. These characteristics mainly concern the lexical level and, to a lesser extent, the morphosyntactic level. There are three types of specific languages:
Types of Specific Languages
- Jargon or Slang: Languages of social groups, often with a critical purpose, such as the language of urban tribes.
- Vector Language: Used by members of different trades and professions, such as legal, sports, or political language.
- Logographic Language Varieties: Diatopic varieties or dialects related to the speaker’s geographical origin, including dialects, regional speakers, and local dialects.
Social Varieties: Sociolects
The type of language used in a certain social stratum of the linguistic community is called a diastratic variety, social dialect, or language level (sociolect). According to the degree of instruction, we can distinguish the following language sets:
- People with solid middle-culture.
- Poorly educated or uneducated persons.
Sociolects can also differ according to habitat (rural vs. urban language), age, origin, and different offices or social activities.
Levels of Language
- Cultivated Level: Characterized by correctness, this language feature of scholars affects all levels.
- Phonetic: Pronunciation retains nuances of expression and avoids slang or local variations.
- Grammar: Rigorous use of syntactic constructions and appropriate links.
- Lexicon: Accuracy of meanings and rejection of vulgarity and barbarism.
- Lexical Richness: The language of scholars has a rich and precise lexicon covering all areas of science and culture.
- Capacity for Abstraction: Educated language differs from popular and vulgar language in its ability to express abstract concepts with greater depth and precision.
- Popular Level:
- Subjectivity: Use of exclamations.
- Lack of Precision: Lexical economy and appeals to the listener.
- Use of Proverbial Language: Proverbs related to popular philosophy (e.g., “Loose lips sink ships”).
- Vulgar Level: Used by less educated members of society, this level features a simple grammar and a reduced glossary. It includes various types of slang:
Types of Slang
- Phonetic Slang:
- Accent transport: *teacher*, *telegram*…
- Vowel indecision: *Sigune*, *accordion*…
- Consonant relaxation: *Doctor*, *instance*…
- Alteration r/l: *arquiler*…
- Change of consonants: *Grabiel*, *cocreta*…
- Morphological Slang:
- Analogical formations: *Haig*, *walk yesterday*…
- Leísmo, laísmo, loísmo: *I saw them*, *I said it*…
- Use of particles: *dempués*, *I think that*…
- Verbal changes: *cantastes*…
- Lexical Slang:
- Solecisms: *explode (explode)*…
- Figurative lexicon: *clean (steal)*…
- Of Gypsy origin: *andóval*…
- Humorous: *Vival*…
- Syntactic Slang:
- Word order: *escape me*…
- Incorrect agreement: *the climate*, *Carmen*…
- Impersonal phrases: *one is well*…