The article is devoted to studying socially determined linguistic processes, which are traditionally associated with the broad problem of social variation of communication (discourse) and linguistic variability of the German language. It presents the results of a study conducted within the framework of cognitive sociolinguistics - the linguistics of social meanings. The author observes continuity in the development of scientific thought, explores the problem of linguistic variability in two modes - theoretical and applied. The subject of the research is the terminological apparatus and specific linguistic facts that are based on the cognitive, communicative and social functions of language, that is, to be the reality of the thought of individual and/or collective knowledge of representatives of a certain society and the means of their communication. The purpose of the article is to analyze theoretical propositions, linguistic terms and existing specific language forms that convey social meanings, marked by a social feature in their terminological interpretations with a focus on the linguistic picture of the Germany new lands. The novelty of the research lies in cognitive-semantic analysis, systematization and modeling this phenomenon in the social aspect. As a result, the author comes to her own conclusions, which lead to understanding and rethinking the old views on the problems of dialectology in the context of modern realities of the German language society and the data of modern linguistics. The methodology of the research and the description of its results are determined by the principle of interdependence of the three most important didactic and linguistic strata - the study of modern language from the standpoint of linguistic norms, the study of linguistic variability and the analysis of language change in the framework of its historical development. General scientific methods and special methods of cognitive linguistics are used to analyze theoretical material and linguistic facts, including explanatory description, interpretation, cognitive modeling, cognitive dominance, and focusing.