Sociolinguistics vs Psycholinguistics

Language barriers can be challenging when delivering instruction to struggling English learners.  It is important that ELL educators understand both sociolinguistic and psycholinguistics to best meet the needs of ELL students.  Sociolinguistics is the study of variations within a language or across languages with a view toward describing that variation or toward writing rules which incorporate it.  Basically, it is the relationship between language and society.  It may describe how dialects differ from one region to the next or one social group to another.  Psycholinguistics includes both psychology and linguistics.  It is how children and adults have different capacities or abilities to acquire their second language (www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-sociolinguistics-and-psycholinguistics).

Understanding sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics can have a large impact on language acquisition for English learners.  It is important to take the first language and culture in consideration when teacher English as a second language.  Psycholinguistics can be misleading when educators hear the word ‘linguistics’ attached to it.  When teachers truly understand the relevance of psycholinguistic theory and research, they will recognize reading materials for their true value.

Cobb, J.B., & Kallus, M.K. (2011). Historical, theoretical, and sociological foundations of reading in the United States. Boston, MA: Pearson Education.

www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-sociolinguistics-and-psycholinguistics