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 - Introduction - Making connections: some key issues in social theory and applied linguistics - Sociology and ideas about language - Language as a cultural emergent property - Researching language learning: theories, evidence, claims - Social categories and theoretical descriptions - Social domain theory: interpreting intercultural communication - Language in the world: properties and powers - A social realist approach to research in applied linguistics.