The field of sociolinguistics focuses on different aspects of the relationship between language and society. Language use typically varies systematically according to social characteristics of the users, social context and aims of the communication. Languages offer a variety of ways for conveying a single message, allowing speakers to communicate a range of social meanings through their choice of linguistic means. Understanding the role of social factors in language use is therefore a key aspect in successful communication for both first language (L1) and second language (L2) speakers. The importance of sociolinguistic topics in language learning has been long recognised, and a variety of methods have been used to integrate social aspects of language communication into language classrooms. Corpus-based approaches to language learning, such as data-driven leaning (DDL), represent a very effective method of introducing learners to sociolinguistic concepts. In particular, they help learners develop their awareness of language variation by drawing on empirical data representing real-life language use by different social actors and in different social contexts. Such use of DDL serves to broaden learners’ understanding of the relationship between language and society, providing opportunities to explore the values and belief systems of a given language community.