People do not always speak the same language even when they speak the same language

Many of my colleagues will be pleased to know Chapter 6 does not address the grammar and structure of language: that is, it is not concerned with The cold blooded murder of the English tongue (Professor Henry Higgins, My Fair Lady), although I have done my best to preserve the English tongue— you will not find any ‘weasel words’ (Watson 2004), tense disagreement, dangling participles, split infinitives or ‘undefined this’, in my chapters. Likewise, the chapter does not concern linguistics. It discusses the power and drama of language, what language is, how it shapes people’s thoughts and behaviours, and the social context in which language is used.