The data will show that although social evaluations of language variation are often unrecognized, they have far-reaching implications in people s daily lives. In extreme cases, as those above, they are important enough to codify in law, to incite war, to justify murder, and to deny promotion. The answer is that language expresses much more than what is signified by its words. It expresses the way individuals situate themselves in relationship to others, the way they group themselves, the powers they claim for themselves and the powers they stipulate to others. In addition, they use language to create and maintain role relationships between individuals and between groups in such a manner that the linguistic varieties used by a community form a system that corresponds to the structure of the society.
Language is used to express role relationships between individuals.
Speakers position themselves in relation to others by using specific linguistic forms that convey social information. Reprinted in Language and Social Context , ed. Reprinted in Language and Social Context , ed.