Example 1 

    When I was in Montreal I found a small restaurant in the old French quarter where the menu looked affordable and attractive. I was greeted in French by the waiter and I responded in French, though my accent clearly signalled that I was a native English speaker. At this point, the waiter, who was undoubtedly bilingual, had a choice. He chose to continue in French and, though I cannot be sure of his reasons, I interpreted this choice as expressing his wish to be identifi ed as a French Canadian. In any case, I was very happy that my French had not been so awful that he felt he had to switch to English. 

As can be seen in the examples mentioned in Example 1 above, many ethnic groups use a distinctive language connected with their ethnic origin. Where there is a choice of language for correspondence, a person is always able to show his race through his or her choice of language. Everyone can use short sentences, verbal fillets, or linguistic tags which signal ethnicity even if full conversation in the ethnic language is not possible.

There has been a lot of controversy in New Zealand about whether there is a Maori dialect. Many people are claiming too much, but there is no evidence to date of linguistic characteristics that can only be seen in Maori speech. A comparison of the vocabulary of a small group of New Zealand women also found, as shown in sentences (a) and (b) in example 8, that Maori women are more likely to use vernacular forms tense in past periods. In comparison, Maori women used tense forms in s more likely than Pakeha than in (c) and (d), and they were much more likely to skip them than in (e) and (f).

Example 8 

(a) She seen it happen and she stopped and picked Jo up off the bloody road. 

(b) Well next I rung up the police.

(c) I says you wanna bet. 

(d) So I gets home and I waited a couple of weeks. 

(e) Yeah well you * seen him dancing eh so you understand. 

(f) See I * been through all that rigmarole before.

Example 9 

Tom lives in Ballymacarrett, a Protestant area east of the River Lagan in Belfast. He is 18 years old and works as an apprentice in the shipyard. He got the job through his uncle Bob who works at the shipyard, and he has a cousin Mike, who works there too. He and Mike live in the same street and most nights they have a beer together after work. They also run a disco with two friends, Jo and Gerry, and that means that several nights a week they travel across town to perform at different venues.

The manner in which Tom and his cousin communicate reveals they belong to a small working group. They are all their relations and neighbors and they all talk with one another. They work with and mix with the outside work. As members of the working class they may use vernacular shapes more than other social classes, the trends noted in the previous sections indicate. And they do. And they do. Tom and his fellows use many vernacular modes of speech.

Somesociolinguists have introduced the term 'community of practice' to allow for an emphasis on social categories such as these that are more important to participants than abstract categories such as class and sex. Practical societies grow around the interactions of individuals and their common interests and attitudes. We are part of many rehearsal societies which have unique purposes and forms of engagement - the families, sports teams, workgroups, walking groups, theatre clubs, church choirs, etc. Others, including groups planning a picnic, a dance, a school fair or a meeting, are more immediate. They are relatively long-term.