We use language to communicate, formulate thoughts and express our emotions. Every day we hear and use our mother tongue or other languages without asking ourselves where the underlying language system comes from, what properties it has and how it changes. Just as the language use of individuals changes, so does the language use of groups. That youth language is a source of change is of all times. That changes occur differently in urban areas than in rural areas is also well known. But how exactly does this work? And what properties of language ensure that - despite the enormous variety of languages - we can understand and comprehend each other with half a word in complex situations? And when does this go wrong?
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The concept of language variation raises questions with both scientific and social relevance, both fundamental and practice-oriented in nature. Of scientific interest and of a fundamental nature are questions about why language change and the variations within it, about the resistances that language features can offer to change, about coherence between language development and cognitive development, about the relationship between standard language and dialects and between spoken and sign language, about the consequences of language variation on communication, about the valuation of language variants, about semantics or about language and wavelength. Such questions focus mainly on description and explanation. But language variation also raises many normative questions, on topics that are mostly socially relevant: positive and negative effects of multilingualism, the value of small languages, attitudes towards different variants, gender and language, language loss. Finally, design questions are also mostly socially relevant, and concern, for example, strengthening language skills in foreign languages, making language gender-neutral, preventing language loss, optimal language learning by adults, overcoming language barriers in society, and communication with automatic systems and robots.
