Sociolinguistic competence is an aspect of SLA which has received
increasing attention in the past twenty years. Whereas in the 60’s and 70’s
syntax and morphology received most attention from researchers, it has
been felt increasingly that second language learning research could not be
confined simply to a limited number of these areas, despite the important
work done on these and despite the fact that these were indeed crucial to
an understanding of the process of language acquisition. Increasingly,
interesting work has been carried out in the areas of sociolinguistics, pragmatics
and discourse.