Sociolinguistics, Speaking and Intelligibility

Abstract

Sociolinguistics basically refers to the study of the relationship between language and society. It's main essence is to examine how language use. Avaries depending on the social factors. These factors may include culture, ethnicity, education, gender, social class, occupation, geographic location and others. It explores how social factors influence language use, language variation, language change among other things. It further analysis language in the social context and how language shapes and reflects social relationships and structures, how language is used to structure and negotiate social identities and how language varies overtime and space. In every speech community or society,language plays a vital role as the basic tool for communication for a speech community to function appropriately, language becomes an indispensable factor for communication among members of the community. Hudson(1980:1) defines sociolinguistics as the study of language in relation to society.