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There is a long tradition of semantic studies regarding the concept of lexical meaning that reflects the importance of sociocultural factors for its description. Some examples are the study of synonymy, some remarks in dictionaries and the typology of linguistic variation. This paper investigates lexical variants from a sociolinguistic point of view in socially stratified samples. The statistical analysis of the data obtained up to now confirms the relevance of sociolinguistic variables such as the degree of (in) formality, the hearer, the topic of the conversation, the situation where communication takes place, and options offered by the lexicon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]