Sociology and ideas about language
We argued for the cardinal importance of ideas about structure and agency within social theory, and also signalled that similar ideas are at the heart of debates about language. That is to say that as soon as we observe the ways in which speakers use language we are engaged with the analysis of the social world. For this reason, we have claimed that it is in applied linguistics that theories about language are put to the test. We will suggest that insofar as social theorists neglect the insights of those who study language in use, their accounts of language will be under-developed. Conversely, insofar as the issue of structure and agency is inherent in the concerns of applied linguists, neglect of the work carried outby social theorists will lead to under-developed accounts of the social world. Accounts of both the social world and language require contributions from both disciplines. This is not to deny the particular expertise to be found in each field, nor to claim that every concern of each is shared by the other.
We will explore some sociological accounts of the relationship between language and society. We are not, of course, aiming to provide a comprehensive survey, but will focus on a particular set of concerns within the structure-agency problematic. These include the kinds of claim made in each tradition about what language is like, what it can do and what people can do with it. We also explore the extent to which these claims are based on empirical evidence.
Sociology has a longer history than linguistics, and a concern with language is evident in the writings of its founding figures- Durkheim, Marx and Weber, whose work we briefly discuss to begin with, as it sets the context for later sociological work about language. We examine next those approaches which view social relations as symbolic enactments and performances carried off by social actors, and which have regarded language as a key element in social interaction and as central to the elaboration of the meaningful nature of social life. We then consider those perspectives which have directed their attention to various aspects of what has come to be called 'the linguistic turn' in social theory. The emphasis here is on the discursive nature of social life, the importance of the linguistic mediation of social relations and the role of language in human knowledge and the understanding of social action. Finally, we discuss those writers who develop a dualistic view of language, seeing it as having systemic features as well as being the medium of social interaction.
