ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a realist approach to studying agency in language policy and planning (LPP), largely informed by the works of Margaret Archer, Derek Layder, Alison Sealey, Bob Carter and other prominent realist thinkers. It presents structure and culture as influencing each other only if they possess distinct and emergent properties in the first place. The chapter also presents the social realm as constituted of different strata: structure, culture and agency. Analysis of agency in LPP can begin with a description of the context and domain of language use. To recap, the presentation of structure, culture and agency as distinct layers is possible due to the centrality of emergence as a central feature of phenomena within the social realm. The domains of psychobiography and situated activity are generally associated with agency, whereas the domains of social settings and contextual resources can be related to structure.
