sociolect

[ soh-see-uh-lekt, soh-shee- ]

noun

1. a variety of a language used by a particular social group; a social dialect.

Word History and Origins

Origin of sociolect¹

First recorded in 1970–75; socio- + (dia)lect

Example Sentences

Swift appears to be lightly deploying what scholars call Multicultural London English, a sociolect that has emerged in the past two decades and that combines multiple ethnic and linguistic influences to produce a mode of speech that is widely spoken among younger people of all races and classes in the capital.

From The New Yorker

The juvenile used a sociolect of English that was common in East St. Louis.

From Slate

The human spoke the same sociolect of English that Bey used.

From Slate

Boris Johnson, David Attenborough and Emma Thompson all speak variations of R.P., which is an idealized accent called a sociolect, not a dialect — its entire purpose is to manage sounds, not the regional idiosyncrasies in vocabulary and grammar that make dialects dialects.

From New York Times