Important Themes in Sociolinguistics

Language was studied from different points of view, and because of its social function, many linguists have been interested in its relation to society which led to the emergence of Sociolinguistics. The latter is defined as the study of language in relation to society; it is also defined as the main field which considers the linguistic question in relation to the sociological one. Sociolinguistics emerged in order to study all the aspects that touch language within society such as: bilingualism, multilingualism, diglossia, borrowing, code switching, and other phenomena. Most sociolinguists have also dealt with sociolinguistic variation in urban contexts regarding development, change and spread of new lexical, phonological, and morphological features. Sociolinguistic research intends to better understand the nature of human language in its social contexts as well as the relationship and the interaction between language and society.