What is the discipline that focuses on the social aspects of language and its intersection with culture?

The discipline that focuses on the social aspects of language and its intersection with culture is sociolinguistics. This field examines how language is used within social contexts and how various social factors such as class, ethnicity, gender, and region influence linguistic choices and structures. Sociolinguistics analyzes language variation and change, and it explores how language functions in social interactions, reflecting and shaping cultural identities.

In contrast, psycholinguistics is concerned with the cognitive processes involved in language comprehension and production, emphasizing the psychological factors in language use rather than social aspects. Anthropological linguistics, while it does explore the relationship between language and culture, often focuses more on the historical development and evolution of languages within cultural contexts rather than the contemporary social use of language. Phonology, on the other hand, deals with the sound systems of languages and their rules, which is a narrower focus that does not account for the social dimensions of language use.