Social psychology

Abstract

In order to understand the relationship between sociolinguistics and social psychology, the paper begins with an explanation of social psychology. The explanation focuses on the six factors
that are under analysis: social factors that influence language learning; social identity and accommodation, with a consideration of Tajfel’s social identity theory; ethnolinguistic vitality, which has a range of correlations with sociolinguistic aspects, both in its subjective and objective forms; stereotypes, especially regarding native or non-native speakers of a language; persuasion or social influence, the way of speaking is a crucial variable here; and attitudes both as regards language itself and as regards their users. Subsequently, a brief study is made of the lines of social psychology that have been followed in Catalan sociolinguistics and, to conclude, some possible future areas of research in this field are outlined.

KEY WORDS: social psychology, ethnolinguistic vitality, attitudes, language choice norms, language learning, Catalan, sociolinguistics.