Introduction

It is possible to distinguish between three different questions that can be asked about the notion of a linguistic practice:

1. What are the criteria that must be satisfied for a social practice to be a linguistic one?

2. What structure must a set of performances within a social practice have to fulfill those criteria?

3. When should an interpreter treat a specific set of performances as having that structure?

Chapter 1 focused on the first of these questions, claiming that a social practice is a linguistic one when the practice includes the speech act of asserting. This chapter considers in detail Brandom's response to the second question. The third question will be addressed in Chapter 4.

One way of answering the second question is to provide a model of a social practice that contains the minimal structural components that are both necessary and sufficient for it to be a linguistic one. A social practice is made up of the norm-governed performances of the practitioners: performances that are the making of a move within the practice, and performances that are the assessing of those performances as appropriate according to the norms. As a result, linguistic practitioners must have certain move-making and move-assessing abilities. In providing a model of a linguistic practice, therefore, we need to specify a certain set of practical abilities displayed by individuals, part-mastery of which is treated by fellow practitioners as both necessary and sufficient for being a rational being.