Language and power

Power exists in different modalities (power of physical force, symbolic power…), can be used together to: - Make people do something (coercion) - Make people think they want to do something (manufacture of consent) (Fairclough, 2014) 2 types of power: 1) Instrumental power: explicit and often imposed by a higher authority, does not allow choice and there are consequences if it is not followed - Institutional power: The ability or official authority to decide what is best for the societal good, with the capacity to exercise control over others 2) Influential power: tries to make people behave in a certain way or change their minds, no penalty for not following Institutional talk: characterised by asymmetrical speaking rights and obligations, and a clearly defined hierarchical structure with participants being in clear roles - Goal-oriented: driven by at least one participant - Special constraint on what can and can’t be said A defendant at trial cannot ask questions - Associated with inferential frameworks and procedures particular to specific institutional contexts Initiation-Response-Feedback (IRF) framework used in schools by teachers In a courtroom, questions are often accusations (Bourdieu, 1977) Linguistic marketplace: the symbolic market where linguistic exchanges happen, taking place on three main levels: between the audience and the text, within the content of the text, and between texts found in a common group - Linguistic capital: varieties in the market are assigned different market values, mostly based on the connotation of the linguistic variety - There are different markets everywhere, society as a whole is considered to be the macro-market for language application while many micro-markets exist within society such as families and peer groups - Linguistic varieties hold different linguistic capital in different markets (Bourdieu, 1991) Symbolic power: doesn't appear to be an exercise of power, comes from the type of language that is used

(Chomsky and Herman, 1998) Manufacture of consent using the media through 5 filters 1) Media ownership 2) Advertising income 3) Selection of news 4) How groups respond to the news 5) Creation of a common enemy - Note: “Propaganda” means that the state hides things from people so they do not know any alternatives (Gramsci, 1971) The concept of hegemony: where dominant groups legitimate certain norms and ideas such that they tend to be associated with commonsense and intuition Power in speech, a person