Heteroglossia and Boundaries

Abstract

Language is the primary semiotic tool for representing and negotiating social reality, and it is thus at the centre of social and political life. Among its myriad social and political functions is to position speakers relative to a wide variety of phenomena including co-present interlocutors, the activities in which speakers are engaged, and various dimensions of the wider world, including social identity categories and their relative value. To speak is thus to position oneself in the social world, i.e. to engage in identity practices (cf. Le Page and Tabouret-Keller 1985).