This document discusses sociolinguistic patterns and how factors like age, gender, social class, and situation influence language use. It notes that males and females use different vocabulary and communication styles. It also explains that social class affects pronunciation and vocabulary, and that people adjust their formality depending on who they are speaking to. The document emphasizes that these differences do not make one way of speaking better than another, but are a natural part of how language evolves over time and contexts. It concludes that language use can strongly impact the impression you give others.

1. Sociolinguistic Patterns
This paper taught me that language is a powerful tool. It has the power of reveals
who you are. Moreover language reveals background information such education, social
and economic position in a society, age, gender, etc.
Through my reading I learnt that there are some factors that affect the language used
by people. A good example of that is the age and gender of the speakers. Males and
females speak differently. They use different words and ways of communication.
Independently they speak about the same issue, they speech is not the same. This is
something that I did not know and personally I think that it is really important as a teacher
of English. Because I will speak with different people (males/females) in the future I this
new knowledge help me to know how to speak depending on the person. Also the gender is
other factor that influences the speech, for example, my niece does not speak like my
parents. They use different grammar structures. But it does not mean that one of them is
correct and the other is wrong. It only means that the language is changing with the time.
And those speakers have the power to change or modify the language. These aspects are
quite interesting and I believe that to know it has a great importance for me as a future
teacher, because know I can consider that my future students will have a different age than
me and their speech will be different but this does not mean that they will be disrespectful
with me. It is only a different way to communicate. And at the same time I will have to
consider these aspects when I talk with my students, because the idea is that they can
understand me when I speak.
Besides, there are other factors that affect the language such as the social class, the
style and network. For example, in the case of social class, upper class has differences in
terms of vocabulary and pronunciation from the lower class. In the case of style, we tend to
use a different level of formality depending of the person we are speaking. We do not use
the same words or pronunciation if we are talking with a friend and if we are talking with a
teacher our speech change too. Also lower class sometimes tend to imitate the accent of the
upper class they tend to exaggerate some sounds like /r/ in order to feel that there is not
different between both classes. This process is called hypercorrection and I think that is
really important to be aware of this process because I can sound wear not only in English
but also in Spanish if I imitate the speech of other person. I have to accept that I have my
own speech; it does not mean that I cannot correct my mistakes; however, it is not
necessary to imitate someone else.
Finally, language is a really powerful tool. You can give a good impression of
yourself or give a bad impression only depending of the language you use.