What is regional variation of a language?
The term linguistic variation (or simply variation) refers to regional, social, or contextual differences in the ways that a particular language is used. Variation between languages, dialects, and speakers is known as interspeaker variation. … The formal study of variation is known as variationist (socio)linguistics.
What are examples of language variation?
Defining Language Variations
- Standard / Polite / Formal.
- Colloquial / Informal.
- Regional Dialect.
- Social Dialect.
- Lingua Franca.
- Pidgin.
- Creole.
- Vernacular.
What are the examples of regional language?
Official languages as regional languages An official language of a country may also be spoken as a regional language in a region of a neighbouring country. For example: Afrikaans, an official language of South Africa, is a regional language of Namibia. Arabic, official in Zanzibar region of Tanzania.
How does region affect language variation?
Recently, linguists have discovered another way geography and terrain influences language. In tropical regions with heavily forested landscapes, the languages and dialects spoken tend to use more vowels and softer consonants than the dialects spoken by people in colder and drier areas.
What is language variation and change?
Language variation and change is an integrated subfield of linguistics that includes dialectology (the study of regional variation in language), historical linguistics (the study of how languages change over time) and sociolinguistics (the study of social variation in language).
What is variation in English language?
Variation is a characteristic of language: there is more than one way of saying the same thing. Speakers may vary pronunciation (accent), word choice (lexicon), or morphology and syntax (sometimes called "grammar"). … Variationists study how a language changes by observing it.
What are the factors of language variation?
The factors that influence a speaker's or writer's choice of language vary, and they include the context that surrounds the speaker or writer, the age, gender, culture, etc. Very often, the choice of language is conscious, and the speaker can switch the language choice depending on such factors.