The connection between sociolinguistics and language learning has
been seen in a variety of ways, and very different definitions of sociolinguistic
knowledge have informed research in second language acquisition.
The definitions have been more or less tightly characterised and can have a wide range of meanings. At one end of this continuum of meaning there
is the question of variation in language. Issues arise such as the acquisition
of sociolinguistic norms of the target language community as understood
by Labov. Labov sees the use of alternative forms by the speaker as
systematic and non-random. The native speaker makes a choice in relation
to the variants of the variables available; whether, for instance, the speaker
chooses in certain circumstances to use the velar in ‘walking’ [g] or the
apical in ‘walkin’ [n]. This choice will be conditioned by a host of linguistic
and extra-linguistic factors. Here the interest is in the acquisition
of the detail of the grammar of the native speaker, including sociolinguistic
variation (Adamson 1988; Bayley and Preston 1996; Bayley 1994;
Regan 1996; Young 1991, among others). Sociolinguistics also looks at
the wider social-psychological aspects of language. Sociolinguistic competence
can also be spoken of in terms of a more general knowledge of appropriate
linguistic and non-linguistic behaviour in a particular context; for
instance, see Kramsch (1991).