sociolinguistics
/ˌsoʊsioʊlɪŋˈɡwɪstɪks/
noun
- The study of how language is used in society, including how it varies by region, class, gender, and culture.
- The professor's research in sociolinguistics focused on how teenagers create new slang words.
- Sociolinguistics helps explain why we change the way we speak depending on who we are talking to.
- In her sociolinguistics class, she learned how people in different parts of the country pronounce the same word differently.