ABSTRACT
In the preceding chapters I have assumed more or less implicitly that there is a link between linguistic form and cognitive processes. There is nothing new about this assumption, though normally the link between language and thought, or language and cognition, is discussed at the level of word-meanings, through concern with topics such as concept-formation rather than at the level of syntax or of genre. While the importance of the link has never been in question, its status has always remained hypothetical, for it has been possible to interpret the evidence either way. Over the last two decades the significance of the putative link has become heightened because of the shifting of this question into the social domain as a question about possible links between socially differentiated forms of language-social dialects-and cognitive processes.
