Sociolinguistic Variation of the English Language

1.3. Language variation

• Language variation presupposes that we have at our disposal a range of means allowing to speak about the same things in a variety of ways. Two important points have to be made in this respect: that variation can occur at different levels of language system and that it can be determined by different factors.
• .

1.3. Language variation

principally an abstract representation of the source of variation. Realised by two or more variants.
the actual realisation of a variable. Analogous to the phonetic realisations of a phoneme.

is a relatively neutral term used to refer to languages and dialects.
A variable
A variant
A variety

1.3. Language variation

• The study of language in use with a focus on describing and explaining the distribution of variables is called variationist sociolinguistics. It is an approach strongly associated with quantitative methods in the tradition established by William Labov.

1.3.1. Variation on different levels of language system

Area	very	few	cars	made	up	long	hill
Northeast	veree	few	cahs	mehd	oop	long	hill
Central North	veri	few	cahs	mehd	oop	long	ill