sociolect
Syllables: so·ci·o·lect/ˈsəʊ.ʃɪ.ə(ʊ).lɛkt/US/ˈsoʊ.ʃi.əˌlɛkt/
sociolect noun: the variant of language used by a social group such as a socioeconomic class, an ethnic group, an age group, etc.
Noun
sociolect (plural sociolects)
- The variant of language used by a social group such as a socioeconomic class, an ethnic group, an age group, etc.
- The French literary critic Roland Barthes has paid special attention to the relationship between the individual language ("idiolect") and the language of a collective of speech ("sociolect"). Public life is characterized by "social multilingualism." There are a number of languages, such as the...1984, Yu[ri] Suvaryan, V[aleri] Mirzoyan, R[uben] Hayrapetyan, “Language and Speech in the System of Public Administration”, in Public Administration: Theory and History, Yerevan, Armenia: “Gitutuin”...
- […] I believe that it is mistaken to maintain that the language of ideology is a discrete ‘sociolect’, a sort of meta-language which draws upon but remains distinct from the language of everyday life.1984, John B[rookshire] Thompson, “Theories of Ideology and Methods of Discourse Analysis: Towards a Framework for the Analysis of Ideology”, in Studies in the Theory of Ideology, Berkeley; Los...
sociolect meaning in Tamil, Tagalog, Arabic and Indonesian
sociolect in Tamil
- பன்மொழியாளர்
sociolect in Tagalog
- variant of language used by a social group
- sosyolek
sociolect in Arabic
- variant of language used by a social group
- لهجة اجتماعية
sociolect in Indonesian
- variant of language used by a social group
- sosiolek
More languagesFewer languages
- sociolect in Vietnamese
- phương ngữ xã hội
Examples of sociolect in a sentence
- The French literary critic Roland Barthes has paid special attention to the relationship between the individual language ("idiolect") and the language of a collective of speech ("sociolect").1984, Yu[ri] Suvaryan, V[aleri] Mirzoyan, R[uben] Hayrapetyan, “Language and Speech in the System of Public Administration”, in Public...
- This paper uses sociolect as a cover term for slang, technical jargon (professionalisms), and argot.1999, Pavol Odaloš, “Mi a szociolektus és mi a szleng? [What is a Sociolect and what is Slang?]”, in Anna Fenyvesi, Tamás Kis, Judit...
- Sociolinguists define a sociolect by examining the social distribution of specific linguistic terms.2014, Peter Wuteh Vakunta, “Literary Camfranglais in Mercédès Fouda’s Je parle camerounais : pour un renouveau francofaune”, in...
Forms of sociolect
| plural | sociolects |
|---|
Origin of sociolect
From socio- + -lect, by analogy with dialect, idiolect, etc.
Questions about sociolect
- What does sociolect mean?
- Sociolect means the variant of language used by a social group such as a socioeconomic class, an ethnic group, an age group, etc.
- What is sociolect in Tamil?
- Sociolect in Tamil is பன்மொழியாளர். See Sociolect meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use sociolect in a sentence?
- The French literary critic Roland Barthes has paid special attention to the relationship between the individual language ("idiolect") and the language of a collective of speech ("sociolect").
- What part of speech is sociolect?
- Sociolect is a noun.
- How do you pronounce sociolect?
- Sociolect is pronounced /ˈsəʊ.ʃɪ.ə(ʊ).lɛkt/ (UK).
- What is the plural of sociolect?
- The plural of sociolect is sociolects.
Words near sociolect in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: sociolect (page history and authors); sociolect (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-sociolect.wav.
Cite this entry: “sociolect.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sociolect. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.