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An instance of social relation status is the collective ascription of a social relationship between one person and another by a community. The substance of the social relation status is the communal recognition of the binary social connection between the two actors in question.

It is important to underline that an instance of social relation consists is a binary construct that binds two different actors in a certain relation and is to be distinguished from social status. For example an instance of social relation status could be the social relation status of "professor of" between a teacher and their student. This is a social relation status that is recognized particularly between the two individuals concerned, to be distinguished from a social status, recognized, for example, by the title 'Dr.', which may or may not be held at the time in question and has no particular bearing on a relationship with any one individual.

Instances of social relation status are recognizable through evidence of community members adopting the intentional stance and behaviour indicated as proper to this relation, as observable from direct witnesses, through the reports of competent observers or through evidence of a declarative act initiating this status.

Instances of social relation status may come to be simply through birth in a certain community or may require that a formal process such as a right of passage has been undertaken. Instances of social relation status may end either though a formal process such as a renunciation, or may simply fade out of use, be eliminated by fiat or be of unknown reason. or through death.

Language

en