تسجيل الدخول

تسجيل

Language in the world: properties and powers Human choices and purposes - agency

المؤلف:  Alison Sealey & Bob Carter

المصدر:  Applied Linguistics as Social Science

الجزء والصفحة:  P181-C7

2026-10-02

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Language in the world: properties and powers

Human choices and purposes - agency

It is important to emphasize once again that it is human beings - and not languages - which do things in the social world. Human beings, in a socially differentiated world, necessarily pursue complex and conflicting interests. It is these human beings who determine how, and which, linguistic resources remain vital elements of social mediation. Languages will survive only insofar as they have a function in furthering people's social interests (or obstructing those of others), and what is functional for one group of people pursuing particular sets of interests may well not be functional for another group, or for the same group if they choose to pursue different interests. It is important to note here that functionality is not synonymous with instrumentality, and our claims do not rest on a reductive conception of language as merely a channel of communication. There is a wide spectrum of functions which a language may have for speakers which can serve to sustain it. People may use a particular variety predominantly for the interpersonal function of expressing solidarity with a social group; it may have a powerful emotional connotation for them, or be significant in language play or other creative and artistic domains (cf. Cook 2000).