Social Dialects

 

A social dialect is really called a "social REGISTER" of a specific language. It refers to the type of speech, pronunciation, and vocabulary used to communicate in the language with a specific social class or group within the greater society. For example, Standard English is the national language of Singapore and Jamaica, which is used by speakers as the highest social register of the language among elite circles or in formal circumstances, but the English spoken in both countries have lower registers than span from Standard English all the way to the bottom register, which is a Creole often incomprehensible by native speakers from elsewhere in the world.

The Social Dialect is a different notion. It may be defined as a variation of a standard norm of a language that is caused by social differences people may have, i.e. age, gender, ethnicity as well as some other social factors. It is not about how you say the words (regional dialect), but who you are in the society as it makes you and the way you express yourself. 

The dominant, or prestige, dialectis often called the standar dialect. Standar American English (SAE) is a dialect of English that many Americans nearly speak; divergencesfrom this ''norm'' are labeled ''philadelphia dialect,'' ''Chicago dialect,'' ''African American English, and so on.

SAE is an idealization. Nobody speaks this dialect; and somebody did, we would not know it, because SAE is not defined precisely (like most dialects , none of wich are easy to clarify).Teachers and linguists held a conference in the 1900s that attempted to come up with a precise definition of SAE. This meeting did not succed in satisfying everyone's view of SAE. SAe was once represented by the language used by national news broadcaster, but today many of them speak a regional dialect or a style of English that is not universally accepted as ''standar.'' For example, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) once used mostly speakers of RP English are commonly heard on BBC programs. The BBC describes its English as ''the speech of educated prefessionals.''

References

Fromkin, V. (2014). An introduction to langue. In V. Fromkin, An introduction to langue,Tenth edition. (p. 291). Boston: Wadsworth Cenage learning.