Sociolinguistics

社会语言学

A branch of linguistics which studies all aspects of the relationship between language and society. Sociolinguists study such matters as the linguistic identity of social groups, social attitudes to language, standard and non-standard forms of language, the patterns and needs of national language use, social varieties and levels of language, the social basis of multilingualism, and so on. The term overlaps to some degree with ethnolinguistics and anthropological linguistics, reflecting the overlapping interests of the correlative disciplines involved - sociology, ethnology and anthropology. Also sometimes distinguished is sociohistorical linguistics, the study of the way particular linguistic functions and types of variation develop over time within specific languages, speech communities, social groups and individuals.

语言学的一个分支，研究语言和社会间各方面的关系。社会语言学家研究的问题包括：从语言识别社会群体，社会对语言的态度，语言的标准和非标准形式，使用国语的型式和需要，语言的社会变体和层面，多语现象的社会基础，等等。这个术语在一定程度上与人类文化语言学和人类语言学重叠，反映了这些相关学科——社会学、人类文化学、人类学——共同感兴趣的话题。有时还分出社会历史语言学，即研究特定语言、言语社会、社会群体内和个人的某些随时间演变的语言功能和变异类型。