‘Authority’ is commonly conceptualised in relation to power. From a standard social psychology perspective, authority is one form (or sub-set) of power. However, the concept of ‘authority’ is more complex, and will be defined here as a form of culturally and interactionally constructed legitimation that comes to be worked out within everyday life as linguistic, pragmatic, practice. In this sense authority issues in pragmatics are much more pervasive than is normally acknowledged. It is demonstrated how e.g. the language of education emerges from selectional choices that are employed in establishing relationships of power and status against a background of conventional authority claims.