Applied Linguistics as Social Science surveys the increasing dialogue between linguistics and social theory. The book shows how social theory, applied linguistics and sociolinguistics share a set of common concerns, and how an analysis of these to produce a social scientific account of applied linguistics helps to explain the interaction between social structures, human agents and language. Foreword o Introduction o Making connections: some key issues in social theory and applied linguistics o Sociology and ideas about language o Language as a cultural emergent property o Researching language learning: theories, evidence, claims o Social categories and theoretical descriptions o Social domain theory: interpreting intercultural communication o Language in the world: properties and powers o A social realist approach to research in applied linguistics