sociopragmatics

1. The term ‘sociopragmatics’ was coined by Leech to describe (the study of) the ways in which pragmatic meanings reflect ‘specific “local” conditions on language use’ (1983: 10), a sub-field of pragmatics that he distinguished from the study of more ‘general’ pragmatic meaning.
   
   “sociopragmatics” refers to the knowledge of the social conditions governing language use.