Sociolinguistics and Linguistics

Linguistics informs us about the structure of languages. Consider the following example:

Kalpana evideyanu? Avale kaanan kittunilla.

Through linguistics, we know that the word “avale” is a gender-appropriate personal pronoun that refers to Kalpana, who is female.

Sociolinguistics, on the other hand, informs us about how people use that structure to interact with each other in everyday situations. Linguistics is concerned with a structural approach, while sociolinguistics is concerned with a functional approach (that is, its use in society). Sociolinguists analyze languages for their use in a social context, while linguists analyze languages out of such contexts.

For example, through sociolinguistics, we know that English works as a marker for status in India. Through sociolinguistics, we are also made aware of the socio-economic/aspirational status of English in India through condominiums that have names like Wimbledon Park, Buckingham Court, and California Bay. Another example is the observation made in sociolinguistics about the tendency of many Indians to reduce their names to initials that represent their English spellings and not their native language’s orthography.