It should be noted that when two or more people communicate with each other in speech, we can call the system of communication that they employ a code. In most cases that code will be something we may also want to call a language.
Code (language code) – languages, dialects, jargons and stylistic varieties of the same language regarded as a means of communication. All these – separate languages or varieties of one language – in sociolinguistics sometimes receive the name of language formations. The sum total of codes and subcodes used in a given language community that complement each other functionally is called social-communicative system. In a language community language formations (irrespective of their nature) can carry the same functional load, which is the testimony of their functional isomorphism. Cockney, Scouse, on the one hand, and scientific language, student slang, thieves’ cant or Black vernacular, on the other, can be chosen to illustrate what a language code means. The former are the examples of territorial dialects, the latter – of social dialects.
The same contingent of speakers comprising a language community have at their disposal a range of linguistic means and they use them according to the conditions of communication. In other words, depending on the sphere of communication the speaker switches from one language means (one code) to another. This alteration between varieties, or codes which takes place in individual utterances, or even across sentences or clause boundaries is called c ode-switching. This phenomenon is identified as the reason of for intraspeaker variation.
