User-related varieties

User-related varieties areassociated with particular people and often places such as Black English (English spoken by blacks, especially by African-Americans in the US) and Canadian English(English used in Canada: either all such English or only the standard form).

When purely geographical aspect of variation is taken into account the term dialect (for definition view above) is applied. But when the social factor is determining the term social dialect or sociolect is employed. Social dialectembracesa number of linguistic peculiarities typical of some social group – professional, age, gender group or other. The term is a blend (socio-+ dialect) that first appeared in the 1970s. The speakers of a sociolect usually share a similar socioeconomic and / or educational background.

The two are studied by different disciplines: regional dialectology (the identification and mapping of boundaries between different varieties on the basis of clusters of similar and different features in particular regions, towns or villages) and social dialectology (the study of linguistic variation in relation to speaker’s participation or membership in social groups, or in relation to other non-linguistic factors).

Some other terms can also be employed by the scholars in terms of interspeaker variation and social class.

Lect (as a term) first appeared in the 1960s. This term is extracted from dialect (ultimately from Greek lektós “capable of being spoken”). This is a sociolinguistic term for a speech variety. It is used relatively little on its own but often occurs in combination, as in idiolect, acrolect, basilect, dialect, mesolect, cryptolect (private language), sociolect.

Acrolect (1960s from Greek ákros “top, tip”) is the most prestigious variety of a language, such as standard British English with an RP accent in England, acrolect is also called High language or H-variety,

Mesolect (1960s from Greek mésos “middle”) is the variety of language in a post-creole continuum intermediate between basilect and acrolect, often retaining semantic and syntactic features not found in the acrolect and tending to vary from speaker to speaker, such as between standard Jamaican English and Jamaican Creole.

Basilect (1960s from Greek basis “lowest step”) is the least prestigious variety of a language called the Low or L-variety, such as Gutter Glasgow in Scotland and Brooklyn in New York City. A term similar to basilect is v ernacular ‑ t he style of speech that one uses in the least self-conscious mode in informal settings, as when laughing and chatting with friends. It is the basic style of speech learnt in pre-adolescent years, which may be modified later on by other styles encountered at school and at work.