Language as a Social Phenomenon: The Foundations of Sociolinguistics and Its Historical Roots A Critical Comparative Analysis between Arab Heritage and Western Modernity

Abstract

This article addresses the issue of the relationship between language and society from the perspective of sociolinguistics, which has become one of the most expansive and branched modern knowledge fields. It seeks to establish an integrated critical conception that elucidates the roots of this science in Arab-Islamic heritage—represented by Sibawayh, Al-Jahiz, Ibn Jinni, and Ibn Khaldun—before reviewing its modern Western trajectory from Durkheim and de Saussure to Labov and Ferguson. The paper is also built upon a central proposition: that language is not an isolated system existing by itself, but rather a thoroughly social phenomenon. It is shaped by social structures and shapes them in return, carrying within its phonological, lexical, syntactic, and semantic levels the imprints of class, gender, geographical region, and religious and cultural affiliation.