In sociolinguistics, language variety is a general term for any distinctive form of a language or linguistic expression.
Linguists commonly use language variety (or simply variety) as a cover term for any of the overlapping subcategories of a language, including dialect, idiolect, register, and social dialect.
In The Oxford Companion to the English Language (1992), Tom McArthur identifies two broad types of language variety: "(1) user-related varieties, associated with particular people and often places, .
use-related varieties, associated with function, such as legal English (the language of courts, contracts, etc.) and literary English (the typical usage of literary texts, conversations, etc.)."