4. Language Variation

• Language is an idealized form of speech, usually referred to as the standard variety.
• Dialect is a variety of speech; subordinate variety of a language.
• Register is a style of speech that varies depending on who is speaking to whom and in what context.
• Geographical factors such as rivers, mountains, lakes and islands affected migration routes and settlement locations, as well as the relative isolation of the settlements.
• Language contact with other language groups, such as Native Americans, French, Spanish, Germans, and African-Americans, along paths of migration and settlement resulted in mutual borrowing of vocabulary, pronunciation, and some syntax.
• A style of speech that varies depending on who is speaking to whom and in what context is referred to as register.
• Settlement Pattern may have different dialects, they tended to cluster together in their new homeland.
• Migration routes establish dialect boundaries as they traveled and settled in new places.
• Language contact is an interactions with other language groups, such as Native Americans, French, Spanish, Germans, and African-Americans, along paths of migration and settlement resulted in mutual borrowing of vocabulary, pronunciation, and some syntax.
• Region and occupation is where rural farming people may continue to use archaic expressions compared with urban people, who have much more contact with contemporary life styles and diverse speech communities.
• Social class reflects the education and income level of speakers.
• Group reference are categories of group identity, including ethnicity, national origin of ancestors, age, and gender can be symbolized by the way they speak, indicating in-group versus out-group identity.
• Linguistic processes are new development that promote the simplification of pronunciation or syntactic changes to clarify meaning can also contribute to language change.