Introduction: Language Variation: Research, Models and Perspectives

Abstract

Variation is a key concept in sociolinguistics. Not only can members of a speech community influence their use of language intentionally, but a single speaker’s unconscious idiosyncrasies may also show significant variation when compared to other individuals of the community. Further, groups within communities as well as whole communities commonly share a large set of variants, contrasting with other groups of speakers sharing the same language. The languages of the world are therefore not each a uniform entity but instead exhibit multifaceted patterns of internal variation. In general, four types of variation are defined: diatopic (based upon geographical location), diastratic (describing the language of a specific sub-set of a society), diachronic (comparing different stages of languages throughout history) and diaphasic/functional (register, based upon specific settings and pragmatics).

JournaLIPP No. 7 Language Variation: Research, Models, and Perspectives was edited by Michael Breyl, Yossef Pinhas and Elizabeth Stadtmiller of The Graduate School Language & Literature Munich - Class of Language.

This journal contains contributions in English and German.