In all languages there is inter-speaker variation. Some of this variation correlates with geographical location, some with social factors, some with situational factors such as the particular setting in which a speech act occurs. Some variation is simply due to the fact that all people are different, with different experiences and backgrounds and that everybody learns and speaks a language in more or less different circumstances. The branch of linguistics referred to as dialectology is consequently organized according to a geographical dimension, a sociolectal dimension and an idiolectal dimension.

The variation within all these dimensions is further subject to variation in the time dimension.

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          Last updated January 4, 1999.

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