ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on external social and contextual variables as they affect the learning and production of a second language. The basic premise of sociolinguistic-based SLA research is that second language data do not represent a static phenomenon, even at a single point in time. Many external variables (such as the specific task required of a learner, social status of the interlocutor, the relationship of the interlocutors to one another, gender differences, and so forth) affect learner production and the developing interlanguage system. The resultant effect is that learners in some instances produce different forms dependent on external variables. We begin the discussion of such variables with a consideration of interlanguage variation.
