ABSTRACT

Even though we use language constantly, we usually take it for granted. When we pay attention to it, it’s usually because something has gone wrong, or because we’re passionate about the topic or speaker. While we will consider cases where things go wrong, in this book we focus more often on how language works successfully, in common situations, in different ways, for different people. We also consider the effects that language can have, especially in relation to power, representations and control. Before we do this, we need to think about what ‘language’ is. This is not an easy task. What counts as a language is a political, cultural and technical question. As will be discussed, there are well-established languages that are often not considered to be ‘proper’ languages by people in general. To make matters even more complicated, individuals don’t always use language in the same way. The language we use when we talk to our friends is not the same as the language we use to write a letter of complaint. Language varies depending on the people using it, the task at hand, and the society in which it all takes place. Linguists study language for many different reasons, with various questions that they want to answer. Whatever path this research

takes, it always treats language as a system. Studying systems might sound tedious, but linguists do more than that – they describe the systems. Linguists describe the construction of these complex and changing systems, working with examples of language from the everyday world. And this is not just any set of rules for construction – language is a system that enables people to tell jokes, write poetry, make an arrest, sell you washing powder, pay a compliment and wish you good night.