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Regional dialect boundaries often coincide with geographical barriers such as mountains, rivers, or swamps. This differentiation is accounted for by the lack of communication in the old days when travel was difficult. 8.2.1.2Sociolect Just as regional dialect is associated with separation caused by physical conditions, social dialect has to do with separation brought about by different social conditions. Social-class dialect, or sociolect, refers to the linguistic variety characteristic of a particular social class. Two people who speak the same regional dialect may possess some linguistic features which arise because of social factors instead of regional factors. In other words, people who have different social and economic backgrounds, academic experiences, occupations, ages and sexes speak differently. Although living in the same region, people may consciously or unconsciously select linguistic features for communication that are appropriate to their social identities. 在词汇系统的使用上，上层社会的人习惯使用America，cake，helping，ice，lavatory, looking glass, pudding, relatives, rich, Royalties, scent, scurf, sick, sofa, spectacles, writing paper等，而不是与它们相对应的the States， pastry，portion， ice-cream，toilet，mirror， dessert， relations，wealthy， Royals， perfume， dandruff，ill，settee，notepaper，glasses等。 When we look at the language used by two speakers A and B, we can estimate roughly their relative social status: Speaker A speaker B I did it yesterday. I done it yesterday. He hasn’t got it. He ain’t got it. It was she that said it It was her what said it. In Britain, one of the most important markers of status is accent. “Received Pronunciation” , a non-localized form of pronunciation, refers to the particular way of pronouncing standard English, which is an indicator of a public school education and thus a high social status on the part of the speaker. In the past the possession of an RP accent was extremely important because it served