warning; or, on a different plane, referring to people or things, presupposing the existence of people or things or the truth of propositions, and implicating mean-ings which are not overtly expressed. The idea of uttering as acting is an impor-tant one, and it is also central to CLS in the form of the claim, that discourse is social practice. The main weakness of pragmatics from a critical point of view is its individ-ualism: ‘action’ is thought of atomistically as emanating wholly from the individ-ual, and is often conceptualized in terms of the ‘strategies’ adopted by the individual speaker to achieve her ‘goals’ or ‘intentions’. This understates the extent to which people are caught up in, constrained by, and indeed derive their individual iden-tities from social conventions, and gives the implausible impression that conven-tionalized ways of speaking or writing are ‘reinvented’ on each occasion of their use by the speaker generating a suitable strategy for her particular goals. And it correspondingly overstates the extent to which people manipulate language for strate-gic purposes. Of course, people do act strategically in certain circumstances and use conventions rather than simply following them; but in other circumstances they do simply follow them, and what one needs is a theory of social action – social practice – which accounts for both the determining effect of conventions and the strategic creativity of individual speakers, without reducing practice to one or the other. The individuals postulated in pragmatics, moreover, are generally assumed to be involved in cooperative interactions whose ground rules they have equal con-trol over, and to which they are able to contribute equally. Cooperative interac-tion between equals is elevated into a prototype for social interaction in general, rather than being seen as a form of interaction whose occurrence is limited and socially constrained. The result is an idealized and Utopian image of verbal inter-action which is in stark contrast with the image offered by CLS of a sociolinguistic order moulded in social struggles and riven with inequalities of power. Pragmatics often appears to describe discourse as it might be in a better world, rather than discourse as it is. Pragmatics is also limited in having been mainly developed with reference to single invented utterances rather than real extended discourse, and central notions like ‘speech act’ have turned out to be problematic when people try to use them to analyse real discourse. Finally, Anglo-American pragmatics bears the scars of the way in which it has developed in relation to ‘linguistics proper’. While it has provided a space for investigating the interdependence of language and social con-text which was not available before its inception, it is a strictly constrained space, for pragmatics tends to be seen as an additional ‘level’ of language study which fills in gaps left by the more ‘core’ levels of grammar and semantics. Social con-text is acknowledged but kept in its place, which does it less than justice.

DOI link for warning; or, on a different plane, referring to people or things, presupposing the existence of people or things or the truth of propositions, and implicating mean-ings which are not overtly expressed. The idea of uttering as acting is an impor-tant one, and it is also central to CLS in the form of the claim, that discourse is social practice. The main weakness of pragmatics from a critical point of view is its individ-ualism: ‘action’ is thought of atomistically as emanating wholly from the individ-ual, and is often conceptualized in terms of the ‘strategies’ adopted by the individual speaker to achieve her ‘goals’ or ‘intentions’. This understates the extent to which people are caught up in, constrained by, and indeed derive their individual iden-tities from social conventions, and gives the implausible impression that conven-tionalized ways of speaking or writing are ‘reinvented’ on each occasion of their use by the speaker generating a suitable strategy for her particular goals. And it correspondingly overstates the extent to which people manipulate language for strate-gic purposes. Of course, people do act strategically in certain circumstances and use conventions rather than simply following them; but in other circumstances they do simply follow them, and what one needs is a theory of social action – social practice – which accounts for both the determining effect of conventions and the strategic creativity of individual speakers, without reducing practice to one or the other. The individuals postulated in pragmatics, moreover, are generally assumed to be involved in cooperative interactions whose ground rules they have equal con-trol over, and to which they are able to contribute equally. Cooperative interac-tion between equals is elevated into a prototype for social interaction in general, rather than being seen as a form of interaction whose occurrence is limited and socially constrained. The result is an idealized and Utopian image of verbal inter-action which is in stark contrast with the image offered by CLS of a sociolinguistic order moulded in social struggles and riven with inequalities of power. Pragmatics often appears to describe discourse as it might be in a better world, rather than discourse as it is. Pragmatics is also limited in having been mainly developed with reference to single invented utterances rather than real extended discourse, and central notions like ‘speech act’ have turned out to be problematic when people try to use them to analyse real discourse. Finally, Anglo-American pragmatics bears the scars of the way in which it has developed in relation to ‘linguistics proper’. While it has provided a space for investigating the interdependence of language and social con-text which was not available before its inception, it is a strictly constrained space, for pragmatics tends to be seen as an additional ‘level’ of language study which fills in gaps left by the more ‘core’ levels of grammar and semantics. Social con-text is acknowledged but kept in its place, which does it less than justice.

warning; or, on a different plane, referring to people or things, presupposing the existence of people or things or the truth of propositions, and implicating mean-ings which are not overtly expressed. The idea of uttering as acting is an impor-tant one, and it is also central to CLS in the form of the claim, that discourse is social practice. The main weakness of pragmatics from a critical point of view is its individ-ualism: ‘action’ is thought of atomistically as emanating wholly from the individ-ual, and is often conceptualized in terms of the ‘strategies’ adopted by the individual speaker to achieve her ‘goals’ or ‘intentions’. This understates the extent to which people are caught up in, constrained by, and indeed derive their individual iden-tities from social conventions, and gives the implausible impression that conven-tionalized ways of speaking or writing are ‘reinvented’ on each occasion of their use by the speaker generating a suitable strategy for her particular goals. And it correspondingly overstates the extent to which people manipulate language for strate-gic purposes. Of course, people do act strategically in certain circumstances and use conventions rather than simply following them; but in other circumstances they do simply follow them, and what one needs is a theory of social action – social practice – which accounts for both the determining effect of conventions and the strategic creativity of individual speakers, without reducing practice to one or the other. The individuals postulated in pragmatics, moreover, are generally assumed to be involved in cooperative interactions whose ground rules they have equal con-trol over, and to which they are able to contribute equally. Cooperative interac-tion between equals is elevated into a prototype for social interaction in general, rather than being seen as a form of interaction whose occurrence is limited and socially constrained. The result is an idealized and Utopian image of verbal inter-action which is in stark contrast with the image offered by CLS of a sociolinguistic order moulded in social struggles and riven with inequalities of power. Pragmatics often appears to describe discourse as it might be in a better world, rather than discourse as it is. Pragmatics is also limited in having been mainly developed with reference to single invented utterances rather than real extended discourse, and central notions like ‘speech act’ have turned out to be problematic when people try to use them to analyse real discourse. Finally, Anglo-American pragmatics bears the scars of the way in which it has developed in relation to ‘linguistics proper’. While it has provided a space for investigating the interdependence of language and social con-text which was not available before its inception, it is a strictly constrained space, for pragmatics tends to be seen as an additional ‘level’ of language study which fills in gaps left by the more ‘core’ levels of grammar and semantics. Social con-text is acknowledged but kept in its place, which does it less than justice.