The widespread perception amongst advocates for learners from oppressed communities that linguistics are incapable of addressing such issues as the unequal distribution of power in South Africa, or of making their discipline part of the process of democratic transformation is traced to the paucity of studies concerned with the role of language in the establishment, maintenance, and change of social relations of power. To illustrate the sort of research required, this paper focuses on studies of compliment giving and responding behaviour in the fields of ethnography of speaking and critical language study. It also traces the implications of a fuller understanding of the relationships between language and power for language education policy and practice for post-apartheid South Africa. (Author)