Language Use and Social Class

Language use and social class is an interesting topic, not only for researchers, but also for language teachers because it opens up a lot of language variation that we want to make our students aware of.  In this session we’re going to take a look at how an individual’s language use changes depending upon their social class.  To do this, we will be exploring the concept of a sociolect, which is a variation of a language that is directly associated with a specific social class.  We will also look at some of the research that has been done on the subject, as well as a number of concepts and terms that relate to language use and social class.