تسجيل الدخول

تسجيل

Language in the world: properties and powers Conclusion

المؤلف:  Alison Sealey & Bob Carter

المصدر:  Applied Linguistics as Social Science

الجزء والصفحة:  P182-C7

2026-10-02

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Language in the world: properties and powers

Conclusion

We will have analyzed four topics in order to set out further our view of the properties and powers of language in relation to social structure and human agency. We have argued that languages are cultural emergent properties and as such are: irreducible to either human agency (that is, languages are able to shape the context of social action) or to the material world (that is, languages are pre-eminently social, which is why we have rejected the biodiversity analogy); partially autonomous of individuals (that is, languages have some properties which are peculiar to them); causally influential in shaping the contexts of human action and linguistic choice.

We have explored how the political struggles between groups with different interests are affected by the second order emergent property which is writing; how these impact on education policy; and how they lead to the spread of some language varieties at the expense of others. We have argued that an analytical distinction between languages, agency and structure facilitates an understanding of, and response to, these issues which brings together key insights from both social theory and applied linguistics.