Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-k7rjm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-08-28T11:46:50.809Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
Coming soon

Discourse, Materiality and Agency within Everyday Social Interactions

Expected online publication date:  11 November 2025

Dariush Izadi
Affiliation:
Western Sydney University

Summary

Understanding the relationship between language, discourse, and materiality is essential for analysing everyday social action. This Element draws on linguistic ethnography to explore how objects, talk, and people interact in corner shops and markets in Sydney, Australia. Using insights from actor-network theory and the concept of mediational means/tools, it examines how discourse and materiality are mutually constitutive. Building on post-humanist approaches in applied linguistics, it reconceptualises the role of non-human entities in meaning-making. The Element offers a novel perspective on how objects participate in shaping cultural practices and social dynamics, extending applied linguistics' engagement with materiality. By treating objects as agents in discourse, it provides fresh insights into the entanglement of language, agency, and the material world. This Element highlights the importance of material conditions in shaping meaning and interaction, foregrounding the dynamic interplay between humans and non-humans in everyday communicative practices.

Information

Type
Element
Information
Online ISBN: 9781009675390
Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this Element is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.

Save element to Kindle

To save this element to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Discourse, Materiality and Agency within Everyday Social Interactions
  • Dariush Izadi, Western Sydney University
  • Online ISBN: 9781009675390
Available formats No formats are currently available for this content.
×

Save element to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Discourse, Materiality and Agency within Everyday Social Interactions
  • Dariush Izadi, Western Sydney University
  • Online ISBN: 9781009675390
Available formats No formats are currently available for this content.
×

Save element to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Discourse, Materiality and Agency within Everyday Social Interactions
  • Dariush Izadi, Western Sydney University
  • Online ISBN: 9781009675390
Available formats No formats are currently available for this content.
×