Sociolect

In sociolinguistics, a sociolect is a form of language (non-standard dialect, restricted register) or a set of lexical items used by a socioeconomic class, profession, age group, or other social group. Sociolects involve both passive acquisition of particular communicative practices through association with a local community, as well as active learning and choice among speech or writing forms to demonstrate identification with particular groups. The term sociolect might refer to socially restricted dialects, but it is sometimes also treated as equivalent with the concept of register, or used as a synonym for jargon and slang. Sociolinguists—people who study sociolects and language variation—define a sociolect by examining the social distribution of specific linguistic terms. For example, a sociolinguist would examine the use of the second person pronoun you within a given population. If one distinct social group used yous as the plural form of the pronoun, then this could indicate the existence of a sociolect. A sociolect is distinct from a regional dialect (regiolect) because social class, rather than geographical subdivision, substantiates the unique linguistic features.