What is Power

Power comes from the access to social resources like education, knowledge and
wealth, that provides authority, status and influence, which is an enabling mechanism
for the domination, coercion and control of subordinate groups. Power is also produced
because people sometimes are led to believe that dominance is legitimate. So theres
a distinction between power through dominance and power by consent. Research of
power falls into two traditions: the mainstream and the secondstream. The first one,
represent a view of power as dominance, and find its origins in Webers study of
authority in modern and premodern states and tend to focus on the corrective power
of the state and its institutions. In democratic societies, power needs to be seen as
legitimate by the people in order to be accepted, and this process of legitimation is
generally expressed by means of language and other communicative systems.
The secondstream tradition of research on power represent the view of power by
consent, and has been concerned with the significance of it persuasive influence. A
central concept in this tradition in Gramscis concept of hegemony, that describes the
mechanism through which dominant groups in society succeed In persuading
subordinate groups to accept their moral political and cultural values and institutions.
Gramsci argues that is through the cultural formations of individuals by the institutions
of civil society (such as family, churches, the educational system), that dominant
groups in society can fain a more stable position for themselves than through the
more obviously constraining powers of the state. The importance of the concept of
hegemony as power is that it operates through language: people consent to particular
formations of power because the dominant cultural groups generating language, tend
to represent them as natural or common sense. Gramsci also points out that dominant
groups have to work at stay dominant: firstly they attempt to secure domination
through building and maintaining political alliances, secondly by generating
consenting (legitimacy) among the population, and thirdly by building a capacity for
coercion through institutions (police, legal system, prisons..) in order to create
authority.
Ideology
The term ideology refers to a set of beliefs, especially one held by a particular group,
that influences the way people behave, or to a set of ideas that an economic or
political system is based on. Language is influenced by ideology and all the texts are
determined by a web of political beliefs and socio cultural practices. Although coined
in the early 1800s by a French philosopher, this term is often associated with Karl Marx
and his treatise on The German Ideology. In Marxs original conception, ideology is
seen as an important means by which dominant forces in society (royalty, aristocracy,
bourgeoisie), can exercise power over subordinated groups ( industrial and rural
proletariat).
Althusser was one of the first to describe power as a discursive phenomenon. He
highlights the sifnificant roles of ideologies in reproducing or changing political
relations through ideological state apparatuses like for example the construction of
citizens as consumers who should take personal responsibility for their health through

proper lifestyle choices and so people are reproducing the ideology of consumerism
and the construction of health problems as individual problems.
Language as discourse
Basically discourse is what happens when language gets done. Whereas language
refers to the more abstract set of patterns and rules which operate simultaneously at
different levels in the system (grammatical, semantic, phonological), discourse refers
to the instantiation of these patterns in real context of use. So discourse works above
grammar and semantics to capture what happens when these language forms are
played out in different social, political and cultural arenas. Thers an interconnection
between language and ideology , a texts linguistic structure functions, as discourse,
to privilege certain ideological position while downplaying others, the linguistic choices
can be shown to correlate with the ideological orientation of the text.
The discourse of institution and organizations
Language is used to create and shape institutions and institutions in turn have the
capacity to create, shape and impose discourses, so language is the principal means
by which institutions create their own social reality. Mumby and Clair elaborate this
point. The view of discourse as constitutive of social reality does not mean that
discourse is all there is; although discourses play an important role in creating the
patterns of understanding which people apply to social interactions, people are not
completely constrained by them, and they can do resist and subvert dominant
institutional discourses and practices by drawing an oppositional knowledge. There are
many forms of resistance like humor, or secret vocabularies created by alienated
social groups like for example the cockneys secret language: the cockneys
appertained to the poor working class of the south east of London and they invented a
secret language to communicate called Rhyming slang and for example if they wanted
to say stairs theyll say apples and pears or corner Jolly Jack Horner.
Discourse, institutions and power
Mumby and Clair have identified various strands of research in the study of the
relationship between discourse, institutions and power. The first strand explores how
members of oppressed groups can discursively penetrate the institutionalized form of
their oppression; the second how subordinate individuals discursively frame their own
subordination perpetuating it and the third is concerned with the analysis of how
dominant groups discursively construct and reproduce their own positions of
institutional dominance.
Institution are commonly associated with physical buildings like schools, hospitals,
courts of law. The terms institution and organization are often used interchangeably
although organization is used more for commercial corporations, whereas institution is
more associated with the public organs of the state.
Institutions are also linked to power, serving the interests of certain powerful groups.
There is also a relationship between institutional discourse practices, power and
resistance, as power and dominance are usually organized and institutionalized to
enhance their effectiveness.

The term Institutional talk was coined by Drew and Herritage: in contrast to ordinary
conversation between speakers of the same status, in institutional settings
(courtroom, classroom), there is at least one participant who may restrict the
contributions of the other participant. Interactions in institutional settings have a very
specific goal and are often asymmetrical in their distribution of speaking rights and
obligations.
Power and talk
How speakers draw on linguistic resources in different ways, depending on their
different and unequal institutional status. In many institutional contexts, the person
asking the questions is in a more powerful interactional position than the person who
has to answer.

Institutional talk and asymmetrical talk

Everytime people interact they enact, reproduce and sometimes resist power
relationships through language.
The notion of people being able to contribute equally in talk has been expressed by
the turn taking model, a model that states that conversations can only happen when
people agree to co operate in talk and contribute to the interaction on equal basis.
Having equal status means giving the same discoursal rights and obligations..
However, in unequal conversations (called unequal encounters), the rules for
conversational interaction can be very different from the ones for ordinary and
informal conversation. The person who has more power in an interaction can define
the context and decide what is discoursally relevant. Institutional discourse is
characterized by asymmetrical speaking rights and obligations which differentiate it
from ordinary conversation. Social institutions have a defined hierarchical structure.
Power in spoken discourse is expressed by the more powerful person in an institutional
setting, constraining the contributions if the less powerful participant. Fariclough lists 4
devices that are used to do this:
1) INTERRUPTION: is one common device through which dominant speakers can
dismiss or ignore contributions which they consider irrelevant. It is the
institutionally determined social roles that determine the discoursal rights and
obligations of the speaker. Interruption have been defined as displays of
dominance or sometimes as male violation of female speaking rights, but other
research has suggested that there are occasions when interruptions can
evidence co operation and are not perceived by the person interrupting as a
sign of violating the latters speaking rights. So interruptions can have positive
functions and can restore the order of the conversation (turn sharing).
2) ENFORCING EXPLICITNESS: In institutional interactions, a less powerful speaker
may use ambiguous or vague utterances to deal with the more powerful person
but the latter may demand discoursal disambiguation by asking questions such
as are you saying that..? or what is your opinion exactly?.
3) TOPIC CONTROL: in informal conversation, the way topics develop is often
unpredictable. In many forms of institutional interactions topics are introduced

and changed by the dominant person according to a pre set agenda. Questions
are used as a means of controlling the topic and to guide the participant in a
certain direction. Although questions are a prerogative of the dominant
speakers, this does not mean that they always manage to achieve their
interactional goals, depending on the institutional context.
4) FORMULATION: is the practice of summarizing or developing a speakers
previous statements. Formulations are common in institutionalized settings like
police or news interviews, courtrooms or classrooms. Formulations serve to
check understanding of what has transpired from an interaction, but they are
also control devices, a way of making participants accept ones own version.
In news interviews, formulations are addressed not only to the interviewee but
also to an audience, to make the interviewees meaning more explicit.
Formulation are a weapon for the interviewer enabling him or her to control the
interaction while at the same time clarifying matters for the audience, which is
institutionally legitimate.

Language and gender

Although the terms sex and gender are used as synonyms, linguists and fender
theorists make an important distinction between the two: sex is a biological and
physiological category, gender is a social category and a social construct. Gender
refers to the traits that men and women are assigned and how these can vary within
different classes, cultures and societies. These traits are not immutable but are
assigned by a culture, socially determined and learned. As the French philosopher
Simone de Beauvoir once said one is not born a woman, one becomes one and the
same for the social determination of men. The distinction between sex and gender has
important political implications, in that traditionally and historically, socially
constructed differences between men and women have been given biological
explanations thereby justifying practices that discriminate against the sexes,
particularly women. These distinctions can be said to be ideological and have often
been used to justify male privilege. An example is the ideology that see the woman as
mother, nurturers and men as providers and breadwinners (stereotypical family); or
another example of gender ideologies are the postulations that women by nature are
more suitable for the lower status and less well paid caring professions, whereas men
by nature are better qualified for the more prestigious technical professions.
Pre feminist linguistic research on mens and womens language has argued that
linguistic differences are due to the biological differences between the sexes, but this
biological determinism has criticized by feminist linguists for perpetuating gender
stereotypes about mens and womans behavior, and they argues that differences are
due to socially prescribed gender roles.
Sexist language
The term sexism can be defined as discrimination within a social system on the basis
of sexual membership and denotes a historically hierarchical system of inequality.
Language is a powerful resource for reflecting but also shaping the way we see the
world. Litosseliti provides a checklist of areas where gender bias become apparent:

Sex specification ( actor/actrice)

Gratuitous modifiers (lady driver/male nurse)
Lexical gaps and under-lexicalization (where there are no female or male equivalents
like henpecked husband but Lawrence invented the term cocksure men like male
equivalent term.)
Semantic derogation (where certain terms describing women have changed from
neutral to negative in connotation, this terms often include sexual slur like mistress
madam queen, like the singer Freddy Mercury who called his music band queen to
emphasize on his homosexuality)
Asymmetrically gendered language items ( like the term asymmetrically suggest, are
not equal gendered language items like police men or the term mrs. Used to describe
a married women does not exist for mr.)
Connotations of language items (are often critical terms like girls and not woman, or
single mother)
Linguistic studies on gender: deficit, dominance and difference
The early gender and language studies in 1702 and 80s were characterized by the
emergence of 3 schools of thought: deficit, dominance and difference.
Deficit: Lackoff claimed that womens language was characterized by: lexical disparity
(as in the use of certain female specific colour adjectives like pink beige); empty
adjectives (like nice that is something positive attitude or sweet or divine); hedges
(used to avoid the subject of conversation, vague, such as sort of or well); intensifiers (
like so or very); and overly polite forms (dear, sugar).
The use of any linguistic form depend on many factors apart from gender such as the
speakers status and relative institutional power, their objectives, the type of
interaction and the overall context.
The other 2 main theoretical positions in the gendered language debate were
dominance and difference approaches, one seeking to expose the supposed
dominance of men over women thorough their linguistic behavior; the other one
relating differences in conversational behavior mainly to the sexes growing up in
different subcultures and being socialized from an early age into different gender
roles.
Beyond dominance and difference
The dominance and difference frameworks offered too simplistic a model of gender
differences in language. From another perspective introduced by the third wave
feminism and the Focaults studies on power, fender is seen as a process of
negotiation and not something that is given, so men and woman constantly negotiate
their gender roles and therefore are able to challenge them. Masculinity and femininity
is a construct, an identity that has constantly to be reaffirmed. Recently there has
been introduced mens lifestyle magazines whereas before it exists only womens
lifestyle magazines. This because through this magazines womens reaffirmed their

identity and femininity and so men were menaced by that and had to do the same
thing to reaffirm their masculinity using mens lifestyle magazines.
Language and race
We use the term race and racial in inverted commas to emphasize that races do not
exist biologically but are social constructions based on the common sense perceptions
of superficial differences of appearance.
Racialization involves the construction of a specific image based on a set of
assumptions or stereotypes according to a certain race. Is an imposition of racial
character on a person or action.
Racism, on the other hand, is predicated on these imagined biological differences,, is
real and can be defined as a social system of ethnic or racial inequality like sexism.
Racism has both a social and a cognitive dimension.
Racial discourse is a social practice that consists of everyday and institutional
discriminatory action. Racist stereotypes and ideologies explain why people engage in
discriminatory practices.
Although racism is often directed against immigrants and other minorities, its
important to note that racism and racist discourses are not only about skin colour and
confined to minorities. National character and ethnic differences are mobilized by
states and the media in times od conflict and war for example, or also in sport are
used terms that emphasize the differences between 2 teams like them and us or
terms like attack, defend the goal.
The discursive (re)production of race
Stuart Hall offers 4 theoretical perspectives of why the recognizing of ethnic difference
(othering) is such a compelling them in representation:
1) is associated with the French linguist Saussure who argues that difference is
important because it is essential to meaning; without difference, meaning would not
exist. People know what is black because they compare it to white.
2) The Russian linguist Bakhtin argued that we need difference because meaning can
only be constructed through a dialogue with the other.
3)Is an anthropological explanation, difference is the basis of the symbolic order of
what people call culture. Social groups impose meanings on their worlds by ordering
and organizing things into systems of classification.
4) is a psychoanalytical explanation that argues that the Other is fundamental to the
constitution oF the self. For Freud people can only develop a sense of self and
subjectivity through the symbolic and subconscious elations they form with an other
that is outside and different From them. Racism in this sense is a defence mechanism.
Hall concludes that difference is ambivalent: on one hand it is necessary for
establishing meaning, language and culture, social identities and a sense of self; on
the other hand it is a site of negativity, aggression and hostility towards the other.

Naturalization for Hall works as a representational strategy created to fix difference

( slavery), so naturalization is when phenomena which are the product of social and
cultural processes come to appear as innate and natural ability.
Use of pronouns is an effective means of interpersonally representing in-out group
status, by the use of pronouns like we and they speakers or writers can construct
identities.
Changing representations of race
Contemporary forms of racism are often characterized as cultural racism or new
racism. Van Dijk introduces the idea of elites as those groups in the socio political
power structure that develop fundamental policies, make the most influential decision
and control the overall modes of their execution. Elite groups produce and reproduce
racial thinking and racial discourses. The elite racism is like popular racism, lower
class..
Institutional racism is a form of racism which occurs specifically in corporations,
educational and other public institutions such as the police or organizations with the
power to influence the lives of many people. A form of elite racism it can be detected
in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through
prejudice, ignorance or racist stereotyping of minority ethnic people.
Humor, language and power
Humor is endemic to all human society and culture so cannot be ignored in any
serious study of the way language interacts with power. Many popular forms of humor
like parody, irony and satire have for centuries been oriented towards the structuring
and restructuring, at both the micro and macro level, of personal, political and social
relationships.
Humor can be used as a tool of repression and ridicule by the powerful, or as a dorm
of resistance by the less powerful.
Incongruity as a humor mechanism
A text to be funny must exhibit some sort of incongruity. The incongruity may operate
at any level of language, which means that it can be found in the narrower features of
vocabulary, or in the wider context, in the units of discourse organization and social
interaction.
Puns and related forms of verbal play are good illustrations of the type of incongruity
that operates in the linguistic context. By contrast, pragmatic devices like irony situate
the humor mechanism in a n incongruity at the level of discourse.
A pun is a linguistic structure which simultaneously combines 2 unrelated meanings.
The central incongruity in the formation of a pun is that a chance connection between
2 elements of language is identified, and this allows a controlled double meaning to be
created in the text. (tabloid newspaper)
Incongruity can work at different levels of language, a common form of it is the
echoicing or mixing of different varieties of discourse, different styles and registers

(register mixing). An example of mixing styles for comic are the burlesques of the
comedia dellarte in Italy.
Humor is a serious business and the consequences can be grave for those who use it
injudiciously or who are caught out by the strictures of regimes intolerant of criticism.
Irony is often a key to understanding how certain types of humorous discourse work.
Language and the law
The power of the legal system is connected to the power as domination, coercion and
social control, so the linguists have become increasingly interested in the role
language plays in the legal process and in the discourse of judicial and penal
institutions. This studies are called Forensic linguistic and Forensic discourse analysis.
The remit of Forensic linguistics is to report on all areas where language intersects
with the legal process. A forensic linguist can expect to perform:
Performing expert analysis and commentary on the language of legal documents
courts and prisons; improving translation services in the court system; helping
alleviate disadvantage produced by the legal process; providing forensic evidence that
is based on professional academic knowledge of language and discourse; offering
advice in legal interpreting often with an emphasis on the use of plain language.
Not all legal systems are the same, with different parts of the world subject to different
kinds of rule of law. Shariah law (Africa and asia), roman law (Europe) common law
(england). In contrast with the inquisitorial system of the roman law, common law is
an adversarial system because it involves a prosecution and a defence, and in higher
courts, the use of juries.
The law as institution
Legal language is the institutional discourse and its specialist nature makes for a
problematic relationship with the ordinary lay people whose everyday language
practices are removed from the judicial system.
Legal English can be thought of as a specialist register or as a mosaic of special
registers and so it is a form of discourse with which non specialist members of the
public are nonetheless expected to negotiate.
The proliferation of specialist language in oral and written legal documents has been
prompted by the judiciarys struggle for exactitude precision and consistency, and also
conservatism has played an important role in these language forms that are at one
archaic ( preservation of words by latin, anglosaxon, French..).
Legal discourse also employs sets of paired, often synonymous words known as
binomials (save and except). Many binomials have a rhetorical structure (clear and
convincing).
Language and advertising

Advertising is the promotion of goods and services through various media, so they
comes in different forms, draws on a vast range of linguistic strategies and is targeted
at a host of potential costumer groups. Cook suggests 5 important distinction:
1) Product/non product ads (distinction between advertising which draw attention
to a particular product and those which represent the image of a company or
organization).
2) Hard/soft sell ads ( hard sell ads exhort potential consumers to buy now, soft
sell ads are less immediate, less urgent and less explicitly persuasive, and is
often multimodally constructed through the additional use of music and
pictures).
3) Reason/tickle ads (reason ads are those which suggest a motive or reason for
purchase, while tickle ads tend to appeal to humor, emotion and mood).
4) Slow drip/sudden burst ads (slow drip advertisements are those which are fed
out gradually through various media over a period of time and are often soft sell
or tickle; sudden burst ads are that ion tv or pages of newspapers, are often
signal new products like new films or a new model of a car, or can also
announce commodities where duration is limited like April sales).
5) Short/long copy ads ( short is a minimalist message, low on textual matter; long
copy ads are those which appear as features in print media such as weekend
news paper supplements and lifestyle magazines, sometimes in the guise of
advertorials.
Another distinction to do is that between space based and time based advertising.
Space based appears in print media while time based appears on television or
cinemas.
The anatomy of advertisements
Print ads generally exhibit 5 types of formal design, but not all ads have all five of
these features:
1) Headline (is designed to catch the readers or viewers attention, it often
interacts with the visual image of the ads. Headlines often outline a problem or
a need using direct questions to the consumer)
2) Body copy ( is designed to do informative and persuasive work. It often offers
the solution to the problem posed in the headline and given reasons to buy the
product)
3) Signature (is a small picture of the product itself or the trade name of the
product or the company)
4) Slogan (often accompanies the signature and constitutes a memorable phrase
or line that may become the touchstone of the product Im lovin it)
5) Testimonial (occasionally ads are supported by a testimonial for ex. Famous
actor)
Linguistic innovations play work as mnemonic aids in helping to make the product and
brands more memorable.

Language in the new capitalism

The term new capitalism is applied to those forms of contemporary transformations of

capitalism which are characterized by a restructuring of the relations between the
economic, political and social. This restructuring consists in a colonization of political
and social field with the economic like the reconstruction of a range of non business
institutions like schools, universities and hospitals along business lines. One ex. Is the
marketization of universities and the construction of students as consumers
encouraged by British new labours pro managerial educational discourses and policies
which advocate an entrepreneurial culture and education system.
Many governments have adopted neo liberalism, the dominant political project to
eddect the restructuring of social relations in the new capitalism. Neo liberalism is
characterized by anti unionism, free market economics and the dismantling of the
welfare system. Neo liberalism and its discourses present the economic changes as
inevitable development ( Tony Blair), but these changes affect also peoples personal
lives and also their linguistic capabilities and performance (poverty = social exlusion).
In fact neo liberalism introduced a Newspeak to introduce these changes as inevitable
development.
Discourse in the new capitalism: the knowledge driven economy
The knowledge driven economy is an economy in which new knowledges and hence
new discourses are continuously produced circulated and applied. These discourses
are intended to shape how people act in the world, booth in the workplace and in their
private lives. Language in this context has to be managed, even workers verbal
behavior.
This knowledge driven economy can also be said to have produced a new work order
with 2 categories: a knowledge producing elite and a less privileged group serving the
needs of others. In new capitalist business the top is sometimes the boss/coach,
sometimes the consumer or market and sometimes both.
One typical discourse in the new work order is the discourse of teamwork (words like
participation collaboration empowerment suggest a partnership between management
and workers and a commitment to democratic values in the workplace) employees
work together for the good of the company to achieve particular institutional goals.
Its also important the discourse of flexibility: a flexible and adaptable workforce is
preferred (fairchlough). If workers can be persuaded that flexibility is an inevitable fact
of contemporary workers they may be more likely to accept that they must be eager
to stay but also ready to leave. Cameron says that the capitalists flexibility is the
workers insecurity. As an ideology the discourse of flexibility is promoted in the mass
media and in politics.
New capitalist language can be said to embody the new perhaps more hegemonic,
techniques of control now masquerading in the name of democratic organizational
reform across the globe.
Technologization of discourse
All interactions use transcontextual techniques to make more involvement the less
powerful person. Knowledge and information are organized into expert systems, so

discourse practices are relatively context free and so can be applied to a variety of
settings.
Expert knowledges and discourses that have the capacity to shape peoples lives are
disseminated through texts of different sorts and are transmitted through the media
and modern information technologies.
Globalization and the commercialization of the media
In the new capitalism visual discourses have become more central and salient then in
earlier form of capitalism. This can be observed in new capitalisms dependence upon
new communications technologies, the increased importance of brands and the
concomitant importance of representations and image in the media. In this neo
capitalist mood, social awareness does not mean awareness about poverty but about
market defined trends and lifestyle issues.
Language and politics
Are closely connected. The study of this connection has been a key concern since
antiquity (aristotele people are by nature political animals).
It is not just professional politicians who are involved in political activity and
processes, but also ordinary people as citizens, voters, demonstrators and consumers.
Both critical linguistic and critical discourse analysis have changed the view of
language as an essentially transparent and neutral medium by concentrating on topics
which are thought to be of particular socio political relevance: political rhetoric, media
discourse, racism, nationalism, sexism, education..
Political discourse is discourse produced by politicians but what is political depens very
much on the viewpoint of the speaker, so politicians are not the only actors in political
process, we have to include the public the people citizens the masses. People are
actively and increasingly engaged in what has been described as subpolitics (protests,
social movements..).
The organization of public life around lifestyle oriented service and consumer
activities, has shaped conceptions of political reprensentation so politicians have
adopted a more personalized rhetoric of choice and lifestyle values to communicate
their political messages to citizens.
One of the goals of politicians is to persuade their audience of the validity of their
claims and they can achieve it using:
Presupposition and implicature: by implying rather than asserting an idea, speakers
and writers can evade responsibility for what they say. Implicatures operates over
more than one sentence or phrace and are more dependent on shared background
knowledge between speaker and hearer and on the sourrounding context of discourse.
Metaphor: is the means by which we understand one concept in terms of another.
Pronouns:
Euphemism

Parallelism