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This paper addresses the concept of variation, which became popular in sociolinguistics thanks to variationism, and which remains an important concept in sociolinguistics today. After discussing the two possible interpretations of the term (system-oriented or speaker-oriented), the paper takes a critical look at related terms and their implications, especially variety. It attempts to show that it would be desirable for variational sociolinguistics to take both orientations into consideration in order to fulfill two aims, the description of variable phenomena and explanations of variation, in what could be called the dialinguistic domain.