SILVAGroup

The concept of ¿language variation¿ is key for the study of the evolution of languages and of social, professional and educational communicative systems. Social, cultural, health, economic, technological and educational transformations are developed, conveyed and reflected through their linguistic and communicative manifestations. The aim of the group is to study the progress that current society is undergoing through the analysis of the essential linguistic variables that are involved and interact in human communication. These variables depend on the profiles of speakers (e.g. idiolectal, dialectal variation, according to gender, age, social status, level of education, etc.) and on the uses they make of language according to the interpersonal identities they adopt (i.e. register variation), the codes they use to communicate (i.e. variation of mode), the different textual platforms they use (i.e. variation of discursive genre) and the different persuasive strategies with which they convey their intention and image (i.e. stylistic variation). The analysis of these variables requires approaching the study of communication at different scales, from its macro and hyper discursive aspect (e.g. interrelation between the variables that interact in business or academic communication, or the complexity of multimodal communication of social media and digital platforms) and also of its micro discursive components (e.g. variation of phonetic, morphological, lexical and syntactic units). As highlighted by experts in language variation (Bayley, 2013; Chambers and Schilling, 2018), in order to address comprehensive and innovative studies in this field, it is necessary to keep up to date the methodology needed to define and classify the categories, criteria and parameters essential to understand and analyse these variables and their interrelation. Some of these have been extensively studied (e.g. dialectal variation) and others are currently being studied (e.g. variation of discursive genre), but there are still many ambiguous and controversial aspects of other relevant variables, such as those involved in communicative register variation. This type of interpersonal and contextual variation covers the whole spectrum of human interaction, from that which takes place in the most sophisticated and conventional contexts to that which takes place in the most intimate and familiar settings. There are different degrees of dependence and interrelation between various registers in the same communicative act, which has posed a difficult challenge for experts, particularly when it comes to accessing real data and compiling large and representative corpora. Moreover, throughout history, its study has been approached from many different perspectives, including heterogeneous, ambiguous and confusing variables that have generated controversy within this field of research. This theoretical heterogeneity and methodological complexity have hindered the development of in-depth and wide-ranging studies on this language variety, which could effectively transfer their results to society and the labour market, offering practical methods and tools for understanding, learning and mastering it. There are other variables in a similar situation (e.g. idiolectal variation, stylistic variation, genolects, chronolects, etc.). With the aim of contributing to the advancement of this field, the main objectives of the SILVAGroup are the following: To delve into the fundamental categor