ABSTRACT
In this chapter, my aim is to examine in a comparative mode some of the prevalent social theoretical accounts of language-as-action, and to do so against the backdrop of the social/discursive turn in linguistics. My focus is not so much on how social theorists deal with constructs such as power, knowledge, domination, deviance, etc., but rather on how they conceptualise the role of language vis-à-vis these social phenomena in their theorisation of society. I limit my discussion to three social theorists — Habermas, Foucault and Bourdieu — and their language-oriented writings. My choice of these three social theorists may appear arbitrary; it may even be controversial to label them as social theorists. Foucault is very much regarded as a historian: far from offering a new theory of social order, he focusses on deconstructing such theories. Bourdieu categorically denounces any specific intellectual labelling of himself: he calls himself a critical writer interested in social change, and offers a defence of his work against ‘theoricist’ readings (Calhoun et al. 1993). Habermas is more close to the tradition of critical theory as developed in the Frankfurt School, with his emphasis on language-based communicative interaction as foundational to the evolution of social life.
