10.1 What is variationist sociolinguistics?

Why do some Canadian English speakers say eh at the end of their sentences while others opt for right?

“It’s cold out, eh?”
“It’s cold out, right?”

In what contexts is one person more likely to say eh or more likely to say right?

If we hear a person say eh, or right, or innit, what kinds of information do we assume about them?

Have these patterns changed over time?

These are variationist sociolinguistic questions. Variationist sociolinguistics is a methodological and analytical approach to understanding the relationship between language and its context of use.  We call it sociolinguistics because both social and linguistic factors are equally important in this field of study. We call it variationist sociolinguistics because it’s concerned with the variable nature of language in use.

The formal subfields of linguistics, like phonology and syntax, tend to focus on a kind of abstract, impersonal grammar: all the things our mind knows about our language. In contrast, sociolinguistics analyzes language as humans actually use it in practice. Some linguists refer to those two different ways of studying language as the competence/performance distinction. Competence is the abstract language knowledge, while performance is the practical language use.