THE ROLE OF LANGUAGE VARIATION IN SOCIAL CONTEXT AND ITS IMPORTANCE IN TEACHING FOREIGN LANGUAGES

Abstract

It is obvious to say that any language has seen considerable changes throughout the centuries. The reasons of it can be seen in raising immigration and migration rates, introducing technological development, providing governmental, political, economic, educational and geographical changes in a country. These language changes and variations should be taken into consideration during teaching process, as learners need to know how language has changed and what effects it can have on their live abroad in the future. Finegan and Rickford (2004) state that people would judge others relying more on the language variety rather than on the information which was given by their speakers. This article will discuss about the reasons of developing language variation in society and present results of Labov’s study on language variation in his two research work.