Language, Identity and Conflict

2 Language and society

To say language is to say society.

(Lévi-Strauss in Duranti 1997: 337)

Habitus … in aliqua perfecta et constanti animi aut corporis absolution consistit.

(M. Tullius Cicero De Inventione Rhetorica 2, 9, 30)

Introduction

The idea of language, in part, and especially of language in conflict, resides in a complexity of relationships between self-identification, group cohesion and world-view. In this opening chapter the trajectory of this work is set here with regard to these concerns. From this it will be clear that this work is related to a view of language and society in which the two are locked in a relationship which may be characterised as dialectic. In a general sense it may be seen to follow DeBernardi in this, ...