Social and Linguistic Structure

Language is eminently a social phenomenon." From the outset one should expect an interdependence of linguistic and social phenomena, as well as extremely complex relationships of action and reaction. In such matters, oversimplification can only lead to a dead end. On the other hand, a criticism of data that respects their true nature within the framework of their extreme complexity can pave the way for researches from which one may expect solid results so far as future progress is concerned. These researches are necessarily bound up with linguistics (the first human science which, while still very young, assumed a rigorous form), with psychology (better and better equipped and yet disarmed in the face of so many problems), and with sociology, that latecomer in developing well-based techniques, whose theorists still confront each other with diverse points of view

Linguistics · Sociology · Linguistics, Language Diversity, and Identity · Philosophy