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Traduction française
Dans plusieurs langues, on peut décrire une variété de langue « standard » —c'est-à-dire une variéte qui est promue par des autorités ou d'autres institutions sociales, telles que les écoles ou les médias. On accorde plus de prestige aux langues standards qu'aux autres, et les locuteurs d'une langue considèrent en général que ces variétés sont « correctes ». Puisque cette sélection est arbitraire, les langues standards sont « correctes » seulement de la manière qu'elles sont estimées par beaucoup d'individus de haut statut socio-économique—ceux qui possèdent le pouvoir de contrôler les normes linguistiques, y compris les écrivains, les éditeurs, les orateurs, et la classe dirigeante. Selon Ralph Harold Fasold, «La langue standard n'est peut-être pas la meilleure constellation de caractéristiques linguistiques qui existe. Il s'agit d'une acceptation sociale générale qui nous donne un standard arbitraire, pas une supériorité inhérente des caractéristiques qu'elle précise.» Par exemple, en anglais britannique, le Received Pronounciation correspond à l'accent standard le plus prestigieux, et c'est souvent associé avec l'anglais standard.

En général, les sociolinguistes reconnaissent la variété standard d'une langue comme une dialecte de la langue.

Dans certains cas, il existe un organisme de réglementation, telle que l'Académie française, qui maintient et codifie les normes d'usage pour une variété de langue standard. Cependant, ces standards sont souvent sous-entendus dans la parole. On voit que d'autres langues, comme l'anglais, ne sont pas réglementées par une telle agence.

Standard varieties
Many languages have a standard variety, some lect that is selected and promoted prescriptively by either quasi-legal authorities or other social institutions, such as schools or media. Standard varieties are accorded more sociolinguistic prestige than other, nonstandard lects and are generally thought of as "correct" by speakers of the language. Since the selection is an arbitrary standard, standard forms are "correct" only in the sense that they are highly valued by large numbers of individuals of medium and higher socio-economic status, those with the power to control language use, such as writers, publishers, public speakers and the ruling class, within the society that uses the language. As Ralph Harold Fasold puts it, "The standard language may not even be the best possible constellation of linguistic features available. It is general social acceptance that gives us a workable arbitrary standard, not any inherent superiority of the characteristics it specifies."

Sociolinguists generally recognize the standard variety of a language as one of the dialects of that language.

In some cases, an authoritative regulatory body, such as the Académie française, maintains and codifies the usage norms for a standard variety. More often, though, standards are understood in an implicit, practice-based way. Writing of Standard English, John Algeo suggests that the standard variety "is simply what English speakers agree to regard as good".

Registers and styles
A register (sometimes called a style) is a variety of language used in a particular social setting. Settings may be defined in terms of greater or lesser formality, or in terms of socially-recognized events, such as baby talk, which is used in many western cultures to talk to small children or as a joking register used in teasing or playing The Dozens. There are also registers associated with particular professions or interest groups; jargon refers specifically to the vocabulary associated with such registers.

Unlike dialects, which are used by particular speech communities and associated with geographical settings or social groupings, registers are associated with particular communicative situations, purposes, or levels of formality, and can constitute divisions within a single regional lect or standardized variety. Dialect and register may thus be thought of as different dimensions of linguistic variation. For example, Trudgill suggests the following sentence as an example of a nonstandard dialect that is used with the technical register of physical geography:

Most speakers command a range of registers, which they use in different situations. The choice of register is affected by the setting and topic of speech, as well as the relationship that exists between the speakers.

The appropriate form of language may also change during the course of a communicative event as the relationship between speakers changes, or different social facts become relevant. Speakers may shift styles, as their perception of an event in progress changes. Consider the following telephone call to the Embassy of Cuba in Washington, DC.

Caller: ¿Es la embajada de Cuba? (Is this the Cuban embassy?) Receptionist: Sí. Dígame. (Yes, may I help you?) Caller: Es Rosa. (It's Rosa.) Receptionist: ¡Ah Rosa! (Oh, Rosa! How's it going?)

At first, the receptionist uses a relatively formal register, as befits her professional role. After the caller identifies herself, the receptionist recognizes that she is speaking to a friend, and she shifts to an informal register of colloquial Cuban Spanish. The shift is similar to metaphorical code-switching, but since it involves styles or registers, it is considered an example of style-shifting.