In this paper, I would like to give a short summary of Dr. David Britain’s article on sociolinguistic variation. After precisely defining sociolinguistic variation as the study of the variation of language, Dr. Britain goes ahead to look into the origin; methodologies; data collection; quantification and various approaches in the study of sociolinguistics. Finally, he ends by looking at the various challenges facing this study and their possible remedial measures (Ekpert, P., 2001).
According to Dr. Britain, the study of sociolinguistic variations arose in the early 1960s after an extensive research by a classical linguist called Chomsky. It was aimed at finding out how the various social groups end up selecting and perfecting in the use of distinct forms of dialects. After a thorough collection of the data, it was found out that it is the use of linguistic variables parentheses that can of course, give substantial information on the rise of different dialectical features within specific groups of people in the society. This is very true.
It is true that the knowledge of sociolinguistics can be used to study the process of language change in the society. Actually, the issue of language change is brought about by the plural nature of the society (Milroy, L., 1987). This results from the various roles played by the lower, middle and the upper classes. However, as Dr. Britain found out, this transformation takes time making it require a considerably longer duration to study.
Similarly, I also strongly concur with Dr. Britain for suggesting that the teaching of linguistic variation requires a combination of theoretical and methodological strategies. This will definitely acquaint the learners with collection, comparison, analysis and the interpretation competencies.
However, even if the study of sociolinguistics variations has been very instrumental, it does not go deeper to explain how these variations can be manifested by the people belonging in different sex and age groups. Therefore, more exhaustive dialectical variations should be adopted. Surely, this is the way to go (Milroy, L., 1987).
Work cited
Ekpert, P. (2001) Linguistic Variation as Social Practice. Oxford: Blackwell.
Milroy, L. (1987) Observing and Analyzing Natural Speech. Oxford: Blackwell.
