sociolinguist

1 8.4

A person who studies how people use language in different social groups

noun
/ˌsoʊsiəˈlɪŋɡwɪst/

Specialized

: sociolingüista

As a sociolinguist, she investigates how dialect differences reflect social status in various communities.

Examples

Many sociolinguists study how language varies across different regions and social groups.
This major difference between the genders was researched by the well-known sociolinguist, Deborah Tannen.

Blog text (33)
In 1976, Visiting Professor Angela Gilliam, who was not, strictly speaking, an Americanist, but rather an African American sociolinguist from SUNY-Westbury, helped us to make problematic and expand the very notion of American Studies.

Academic text (2000)
The sociolinguist presented her findings on how cultural identity influences language use at the conference.

How Specialized

sociolinguist

Specialized

1 8.4

linguist

Specialized

24 4.2

Surface Forms

sociolinguist singular

sociolinguists plural

Morphology

sociolinguist = linguist (transparent) = socio + linguist + socio

The combining form 'socio-' (relating to society/social) attaches to the existing word 'linguist' to yield a person who studies language in social contexts, a semantically regular formation.

Etymology

Sociolinguist joins socio- 'society', as in social, and lingua 'tongue', the source of 'language', so a sociolinguist is someone who studies how people use language in different social groups.