The overall goal of this article is to contrast the different theorisations of norms in linguistics. Starting from the branches of structural linguistics, the article shows how linguistic norms are conceived in anthropological linguistics. Whereas the former separates linguistic usage from the speakers and tries to describe and analyse the linguistic structures which form different linguistic norms, the fields of anthropological linguistics as well as qualitative sociolinguistics and pragmatics focus on the contextually bound social functions and ideological implementations of the linguist signs that linguistic norms consist of. This way, linguistic norms can be understood more broadly as norms of conceiving and structuring social behaviour of which linguistic behaviour forms an integral part. Consequently, the social functionality of norms and the signs they consist of are theorised in this article. In order to demonstrate their social underpining, the example « J’aime right ton accent » in Acadian French will be analysed in more detail.