language is variable at a number of structural levels (phonology, morphology, and syntax).

Variability is within everyones experience of using and listening to it.

Variationist paradigm : understanding variation and change in the structural parts of language. quantitative paradigm explores regularity in linguistic variation by examining certain dimensions that are external to language itself and relating variation in these to variation in language.

Haugen points out (p. 923) that language can be used to refer either to a single linguistic norm or to a group of related norms, and dialect to refer to one of the norms

Research Procedures of quantitative paradigm: 1. Selecting a variable (for example, a sound segment such as /a/ which is observed to vary in pronunciation) 2. Quantifying occurrences of variants in the speech of different speakers and groups of speakers.

main advance of quantification:

relating variation in language to variation in society and situational context of speech (contextual style), for example, socio-economic class, age of speaker, sex (gender) of speaker, ethnic group of speaker, and social netwok

A technique to elicit casual or informal styles, which informants may tend to avoid in talking to an outsider such as the fieldworker

Quantitative sociolinguistics focuses on the speech community.

Definition of Speech community

all people who use a given language or dialect. the whole set of people who communicate which each

other, either directly or indirectly, via the common language

a group of people who interact by means of speech a social group which may be either monolingual or

multilingual, held together by frequency of social interaction patterns and set off from the surrounding areas by weakness in the line of communication. any marked agreement in the use of the language element, so much as by participation in a set of shared norms

Language maintenance signifies the process of consciously maintaining. It can be categorized into two types, institutional and non institutional

Institutional maintenance arises from the imposition of linguistic norms by powerful social groups also called standardization

Non institutional maintenance or vernacular maintenance is extended to cover situations in which the pressure to maintain language states (Milroy (1975:82).

standardization, vitality, historicity, autonomy, reduction, mixture, and de facto norms, (Bell, 1976, pp. 14757)

refers to the process by which a language has been codified in some way, such things as grammars, spelling books, and dictionaries, and possibly a literature.

refers to the existence of a living community of speakers.

refers to the fact that a particular group of people finds a sense of identity through using a particular language

is an interesting concept because it is really one of feeling. A language must be felt by its speakers to be different from other languages.

refers to the fact that a particular variety may be regarded as a subvariety rather than as an independent entity.

refers to feelings speakers have about the purity of the variety they speak.

refers to the feeling that many speakers have, that there are both good speakers and poor speakers and that the good speakers represent the norms of proper usage.

Patois is usually used to describe only rural forms of speech and the speech of the lower strata in society. Dialect is to describe urban speech and middle class (Petyt, 1980, pp. 245)

Extra Linguistic Variables

Social class, eg: income, trade, or

profession, and educational level, gender Social Network depends on indicators of density and multiplexity in a speakers social relationship

Measurements of extralinguistic variables model tratificational

classifying individuals in a hierarchy of class groupings based on the idea of a continuum from the highest to the lowest
process model of class

as the means of production and distributing and resulting in two broad groupings of society proletariat and bourgeoisie.