Instrumental function of language

Abstract

There are certain life situations in which the normal speaker faces enormous linguistic and discourse problems when he interacts with institutions and their spokespersons. The speaker or his spokesperson, a lawyer, for instance, not only needs to be familiar with the code used but also must have a knowledge of the instrumental use of language. This boils down to a very careful and specific mastering of the reading process of the facts the specific code implies. Since few pay attention to that pragmatic aspect of mastering oral or written speech, the gap becomes part of the social and historical everyday life of many people. It turns up to be a tragedy when the ordinary speaker often needs to settle juridical and political verbal interactions with institutions.