speech community

Speech community: Speech community is a concept in sociolinguistics that describes a more or less discrete groupe of people who use language in a unique and mutually accepted way among themselves. Exactly how to define speech community is debated in the literature. ZDefinitions of speech community tend to involve varying degrees of emphasis on the shared linguistic communication. How ever the relative importance and exat definiyions of these also vary. Some would arguen that a speech community must be a real community while more recent thinking proposes that all people are indeed part of several communities and that they are thus also part of simultaneous speech communication entails also a variable concept, some would argue that a shared first language even dialect is necessary, while for others the ability to communicate and interact is sufficient. While the exat definition of speech community is debated, there is a broad concensus that the concept is immensely useful. If not crucial for the study of language variation and change.