See Lerman (1980) for one such extended attempt.
- A more adequate account of such features of language in use would demand a detailed discussion of work such asFoucault's (e.g. 1972) attempts to define the discourses which constitute such fields as medicine or econ- omics, and Habermas' (e.g. 1979) work on communicative competence and universal pragmatics. Such a discussion is well beyond the scope of this chapter.
- However, it should already be clear that recent work in pragmatics has therefore contributed many concepts which can help to analyse such rhe- torical strategies. People have many everyday ways of talking about language, but they do not normally have available ways of talking precisely about such aspects of meaning. Again, I have had room here only for the briefest examples of a type which might be developed by a teacher in the classroom. The basic argument is that language is used for social control, but that the mechanisms of such control are describable and understandable, and that some escape is possible. As Bolinger (1980a, p. 387) argues:
- ... people ... are bright enough to learn the language of language -with a bit of help from linguists who have acquired a sense of their social responsibilities