Sociolinguistic : Some Basic Methodological Concern

The approach to sociolinguistic adopted in this text is that is should encompass everything from considering 'who speaks (or writes ) what language (or what variety) to whom and when and to what end (Fishman, 1972), that is, the social distribution of linguistic items, to considering how a particular linguistic variable might related to the formulation of a specific grammatical rule in particular language or dialect, and even to the process through which language change. Whatever sociolinguistic is, it must be oriented toward both data and theory; that is, any conclusion we come to must be solidly based on evidence, but also must be motivated by questions that are posed in terms such they can be answered in an approved scientific way. Data collected for the sake of collecting data can have little interest, since without some kind of focus - that is without some kind of non-trivial motive for collection - they can tell us little or nothing.  A set of random observation about how few people we happen to observe use language cannot lead us to any useful generalizations about behavior, either linguistic or social.We cannot be content with butterfly collecting, no matter how beautiful the specimens are !
In like manner, questions phrased in ways that do not allow for some kind of empirical testing have no more than a speculative interest. Those who seek to investigate the possible relationship between language and society must have a twofold concern : they must ask good questions, and they must find the right kinds of data that bear on those questions . We will discover how wide the variety of questions and data in sociolinguistic has been : correlational studies, which attempt to relate two or more variables (e.g certain linguistic usages to social class differences); implicational studies, which suggest that if X, then Y (e.g, if someone says tests, does he or she also says bes' or best?) ; microlinguistic studies, which typicaly focus on very specific linguistic items or individual differences and uses and seek for possibly wire-ranging linguistic and or social implications (e.g, the distribution of singing and singin'); macrolinguistic studies, which examine large amounts of language data to draw broad conclusions about group relationships (e.g, choices made in language planning); and still other studies, which try to arrive a generalizations about certain universal characteristics of human communication e.g, studies of conversational structure.
Since sociolinguistic is an empirical science, must be founded on an adequate data base. As we will see, that data base is drawn from a wide variety of sources. These include censuses, documents, surveys, and interviews. Some data require investigator to observe naturally occurring linguistic events, e.g, conversations; other require the use of various elicitation techniques to gain access to the data we require and different varieties of experimental manipulation. Some kind of data require various statistical procedures, particularly when we wish to make statements about the typical behavior of group e.g, social class; other kinds seem best treated through such devices as graphing, scalling and categorizing in non -statistical ways, as dialect geography or the study of kinship systems.
A bona fide empirical science sets stringent demands so far as data collecting and analysis are concerned, demands involving sampling techniques, error estimation and the confidence level or the level of significance with which certain statements can be made, particularly when arguments are based on numbers, e.g averages, percentages, or proportion . However, many of the conclusion we can draw from sociolinguistic studies are of a non statistical nature and have no element of doubt attached to them. This is because much of language use is categorical )i.e something is or is not) rather than statistical (i.e, something occurs either  more or less). A recurring concern, then must be with considering the certainty with which we can draw any conclusion in sociolinguistics.
Eight  as worthy of consideration :

• The cumulative principle
• The uninformation principle
• The principle of convergence.
• The principle of subordinate shift
• The principle of style-shifting
• The principle of attention
• The vernacular principle
• The principle of formality