Speech community is a concept in sociolinguistics that describes a more or less
discrete group of people who use language in a unique and mutually accepted way
among themselves.
Speech communities can be members
of a profession with a specialized jargon,
distinct social groups like high school students or hip hop fans (see f.eg. ghetto lingo), or even
tight-knit groups like families and friends. In addition, online and other
mediated communities, such as many internet forums, often
constitute speech communities. Members of speech communities will often develop
slang
or jargon
to serve the group's special purposes and priorities.
Exactly how to define speech
community is debated in the literature. Definitions of speech community
tend to involve varying degrees of emphasis on the following:
- Shared community membership
- Shared linguistic communication
However, the relative importance
and exact definitions of these also vary. Some would argue that a speech
community must be a 'real' community, i.e. a group of people living in the same
location (such as a city or a neighborhood), while more recent thinking
proposes that all people are indeed part of several communities (through home
location, occupation, gender, class, religious belonging, and more), and that
they are thus also part of simultaneous speech communities.
Similarly, what shared linguistic
communication entails is 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 (even across language barriers) is sufficient.
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