Speech community is a concept in sociolinguistics that describes a distinct group of people who use language in a unique and mutually accepted way among themselves. A speech community is a group of speakers who share a language and patterns of language use. Members of the community speak more often with each other than they do with members outside the community. This pattern of behavior is known as communicative isolation. Communicative isolation is increased by social, cultural, economic, and geographical factors. Consequently, over time the speech community develops characteristics of language and language use that are different from those of another community.
Communities can be defined and identified in terms of space, place, affiliation, practices and any combination of these terms. For example, while the term “community” is generally used in reference to a social unit larger than a household, it can also refer to a national and inter-national group. Online communities can exist where members are in the thousands and there may be no physical, visual or auditory con-tact among members.
Speech communities can be members of a profession with a specialized jargon, distinct social groups like high school students or hip hop fans, or even tight-knit groups like families and friends. Members of speech communities will often develop slang or jargon to serve the group's special purposes and priorities.
To be considered part of a speech community, one must have a communicative competence. That is, the speaker has the ability to use language in a way that is appropriate in the given situation. It is possible for a speaker to be communicatively competent in more than one language.
A social network is one way of describing a particular speech community in terms of relations between individual members in a community. A network could be loose or tight depending on how members interact with each other. For instance, an office or factory may be considered a tight community because all members interact with each other. A large course with 100+ students would be a looser community because students may only interact with the instructor and maybe 1–2 other students. A multiplex community is one in which members have multiple relationships with each other. For instance, in some neighborhoods, members may live on the same street, work for the same employer and even intermarry.
A social network may apply to the macro level of a country or a city, but also to the interpersonal level of neighborhoods or a single family. Recently, social networks have been formed by the Internet, through chat rooms, Facebook groups, organizations, etc.
Networks and Repertoires
Another way of viewing how an individual relates to other individuals in society is to ask what networks he or she participates in. That is, how and on what occasions does a specific individual A interact now with B, then with C, and then again with D? How intensive are the various relationships: does A interact more frequently with B than with C or D? How extensive is A’s relationship with B in the sense of how many other individuals interact with both A and Bin whatever activity brings them together? If, in a situation in which A, B, C, D, and E are linked in a network, as in figure 5.1, are they all equally linked as in(1) in that illustration; strongly linked but with the link through A predominant, as in (2); weakly linked, with the link to A providing all the connections, as in(3); or, as in (4), is the link from A to E achieved through C? You are said to be involved in a dense network if the people you know and interact with also know and interact with one another. If they do not the net-work is a loose one. You are also said to be involved in a multiplex network if the people within it are tied together in more than one way, i.e., not just through work but also through other social activities. People go to school together, marry each other’s siblings, and work and play together participate in dense multiplex networks. In England these are said to be found at the extremes of the social-class structure. Such networks indicate strong social cohesion, produce feelings of solidarity, and encourage individuals to identify with others within the network. On the other hand, middle-class networks are likely to be loose and simplex; therefore, social cohesion is reduced and there are weaker feelings of solidarity and identity.
It is quite apparent that no two individuals are exactly alike in their linguistic capabilities, just as no two social situations are exactly alike. People are separated from one another by fine gradations of social class, regional origin, and occupation; by factors such as religion, gender, nationality, and ethnicity; by psychological differences such as particular kinds of linguistic skills, e.g., verbality or literacy; and by personality characteristics. These are but some of the more obvious differences that affect individual variation in speech.
The concept of ‘speech repertoire’ may be most useful when applied to individuals rather than to groups. We can use it to describe the communicative competence of individual speakers. Each person will then have a distinctive speech repertoire.
An individual also has a speech repertoire; that is, he or she controls a number of varieties of a language or of two or more languages. Quite often, many individuals will have virtually identical repertoires.
The linguistic repertoire of one individual speaker is determined by the language varieties that he or she knows and uses within his or her speech community (= active and passive knowledge). A speaker’s verbal repertoire defines his or her individual communicative competence. Communicative competence is the ability to not only construct grammatically correct sentences but also to apply language correctly and appropriately, i.e. with respect to different social speech situations. A competent speaker is able to vary his or her language by applying different registers and styles.
Open Network: A network which provide open access to its users. Information is often new and of importance, a (serious) blogger and visitor of blog.
Closed Network: Mostly strong ties. Information that flows in those networks tends to be redundant and inefficient.
Verbal repertoire: The totality of linguistic forms employed in a socially significant interaction. (Vocabulary, grammar)
Speech Repertoire: Linguistic Varieties used by a speech community.
