ABSTRACT
The steps in the language subordination process included in the language subordination model have been compiled from an analysis of a wide range of reactions or actions of dominant bloc institutions when a threat to the authority of the homogenous language of the nation-state has been perceived. The elements in this model grew out of analysis of many kinds of public commentary on language use and language communities, but they are similar to other models of ideological processes. In this model linguistic form and social structures are connected by means of ideology (used simply in the sense of “what people believe”), an approach that originated in its current form with Silverstein, as well as in the work of other anthropological linguists and sociolinguists. Clark’s cognitive model of the communicative act is based on a principle of mutual responsibility, in which participants in a conversation collaborate in the establishment of new information.
