Language as Social Semiotics: The Social Interpretation of Language and Meaning

what matters is that we all the time exchange meanings, and the exchange of meanings is a creative process in which language is one among others. When we come to interpret language in this perspective, the conceptual framework is likely to be a grammar of choices rather than of rules. The structure of sentences and other units is explained by derivation from their functions – which is doubtless how the structure evolved in the first place.