QuickTioNarY
Accents -- distinguished from each other by pronunciation.
Acquisition planning -- sociolinguists can make a contribution to organized efforts to spread a language by increasing the number of its users, by using it in the education system (language-in- Education planning) or in the media domains
Addressee -- any of the immediate intended recipients of the speaker's communication, as grammaticalized in second person morphemes.
Audience design -- the influence of the audience (listeners) on a speaker's style, for example: the same news is read differently by newsreaders on different radio stations during the same day, therefore producing different styles for each audience.
Backronym (or bacronym) -- a phrase constructed purposely, such that an acronym can be formed to a specific desired word. It is a combination of backward and acronym, and has been defined as a "reverse acronym." For example, wiki is said to mean "What I Know Is," but in fact derived from the Hawaiian phrase wiki wiki, meaning "fast."
Community practice -- the activities that group members share, and their shared objectives and attitudes (one belongs to many communities of practice such as family, workgroup, sports team, etc).
Creole -- when a pidgin becomes the language of newly-born generations as a mother-tongue or first language, and acquires additional vocabulary and grammatical structures to serve their various necessary communicative needs (referential and social functions) it becomes a Creole.
Density -- it refers to whether members of a person's network are in touch with each other.
Dialect -- describes the speech habits characteristic of a geographical area or region, or of a specific social group. Sociolinguists may talk about social dialects and regional dialects. The term class dialect is also found for clearly defined varieties distinguishable along class lines. A distinction is sometimes made between rural dialects and urban dialects. In its popular usage the term 'dialect' is commonly contrasted with the more general and prestigious "standard language" or "standard dialect" of the broader language. It is difficult to establish a clear, simple distinction between "dialect" and "language."
Diachronic -- historical. A diachronic study of a language traces changes in the language over time.
Domain -- domains of language use, a term popularized by an American sociolinguist, Joshua Fishman. A domain of language involves typical interactions between typical participants in typical settings about a typical topic. Examples of these domains are family, friendship, religion, education and employment.
Dysphemism: using derogatory terms of language to reflect society's perceptions of particular groups
Euphemism: substituting unacceptable terms with nicer words or terms
Fused lect (metaphorical switching or "code-mixing") -- a distinctive conversational style used among bilinguals or multilinguals. By switching between two or more codes, the speakers convey affective meaning as well as information.
Gap -- a conversational silence that is a short lapse or "switching pause."
Homograph -- a word that has the same spelling as another. (bow, to bend -- bow, a decorative knot)
Idiosyncratic -- a structural or behavioral characteristic peculiar to an individual or group.
Isoglosses -- a geographic boundary line delimiting the area in which a given linguistic feature occurs
Language shift -- it happens when the language of the wider society (majority) displaces the minority mother tongue language over time in migrant communities or in communities under military occupation. Therefore when language shift occurs, it shifts most of the time towards the language of the dominant group, and the result could be the eradication of the local language
Lexical borrowing -- the adoption of individual words or even large sets of vocabulary items from another language or dialect
Lingua franca -- any language that is widely used as a means of communication among speakers of other languages
Metaphor -- 1. the expression of an understanding of one concept in terms of another concept, where there is some similarity or correlation between the two. 2. A metaphor is the understanding itself of one concept in terms of another.
Metonymy -- broadly defined, a trope in which one entity is used to stand for another associated entity. Metonymy is, more specifically, a replacive relationship that is the basis for a number of conventional metonymic expressions occurring in ordinary language. (Ex. "The pen is mightier than the sword.")
Morphology -- the word structure of languages and the study of word structure
Multiplex relationship -- it involves interactions with others along several dimensions.
Neologism -- a newly coined term, word, or phrase, that may be in the process of entering common use, but has not yet been accepted into mainstream language. Neologisms are often directly attributable to a specific person, publication, period, or event. Neolexia (the act of creating a new word) is a fully equivalent term.
Object Complement -- a complement that is used to predicate a description of the direct object. (Ex. "The people considered Ambrose holy.")
Opposite Lexical Relation -- some cultures base their worldview on the dichotomy of opposites, other cultures recognize relatively few sets of opposite concepts.
Phonology --- the sound systems of human languages and the study of sound systems
Pidgin -- it is a language which has no native speakers. Pidgins develop as a means of communication between people who don't have a common language.
Plexity -- is a measure of the range of different types of transaction people are involved in with different individuals.
Polyglossia -- basically polyglossia situations involve two contrasting varieties (high and low) but in general it refers to communities that regularly use more than two languages.
Reference -- the symbolic relationship that a linguistic expression has with the concrete object or abstraction it represents.
Referent -- the concrete object or concept that is designated by a word or expression. A referent is an object, action, state, relationship, or attribute in the referential realm.
Register -- occupational style using specialized or technical jargon, it describes the language of groups of people with common interests or jobs, or the language used in situations associated with such groups, such as the language of doctors, engineers, journals, legalese, etc.
Setting -- the physical situation or the typical place where speech interactions occur (code choice), settings such as home, church, mosque, school, office, etc.
Speech converges -- each person's speech converges towards the speech of the person they are talking to. It tends to happen when the speakers like one another, or where one speaker has a vested interest in pleasing the other or putting them at ease.
Speech diverges -- deliberately choosing a different language style not used by one's addressee, it tends to happen when a person wants to show his cultural distinctiveness, social status, ethnic identity, etc.
Social network -- A social network locates an individual in the center of a net that connects him/her to other members of the community.
Sociolinguistics -- the study of language in relation to its sociocultural context
Statusful - having status (ie. "women may be more status-conscious individuals who use more standard speech forms to ensure that they are perceived as socially statusful." -- Holmes page 170)
Syntax -- the structure of sentences and the study of sentence structure
Target -- the ultimate intended recipient of a speaker's message, especially when distinct from the addressee.
Uniplex relationship -- is one where the link with the other person is in only one area.
Vernacular -- the standard native language of a country or locality; the everyday language spoken by a people as distinguished from the literary
Weltanschauung -- worldview
