Discourse, Materiality, and Agency within Everyday Social Interactions

Understanding the relationship between language, discourse, and materiality is crucial for analysing social action. This Element uses linguistic ethnography to examine how objects, discourse, and participants interact in shops and markets in Australia. It provides insights into the interplay of language, agency, and materiality in everyday life.

This Element investigates the interplay between language, discourse, and materiality by focusing on everyday social practices within corner shops and markets in Sydney, Australia. Drawing on linguistic ethnography and data from interactions involving objects, talk, and people, it explores how discourse and materiality are co-constituted. Employing theoretical perspectives from actor-network theory and the concept of mediational means/tools, the study reconceptualizes the role of non-human entities in meaning-making processes. It demonstrates that objects actively participate in shaping cultural practices and social dynamics, offering new insights that broaden applied linguistics' engagement with materiality. By treating objects as agents in discourse, this Element highlights the entanglement of language, agency, and the material world. It foregrounds the dynamic relationships between humans and non-humans in everyday communicative practices, bringing to the fore the significance of material conditions in the production of meaning and interaction.