Language as a biocultural niche and social institution

Grammars ... refer to real structures, though not to psychologically real structures in the processing sense ... a grammar is a description of our knowledge of a social institution—the language—and because of this basis in social or institutional reality, rather than in cognitive functioning, grammars and psychological processes have no more than the loose relationships they appear, in fact, to have. The role of grammar during speech programming is analogous to the role of other social institutions during individual behaviour. This role is to define and evaluate the behaviour of individuals. It is not to cause the behaviour (McNeill 1979: 293).