CRITICAL APPROACHES TO DISCOURSE: LANGUAGE AND POWER

By Yasemin ORAL

 

 

 

 

Text Box: Introductory Remarks Theoretical Framework: Language, Discourse and Power Manipulation Accessibility Exercise of Power through Questions Representation and Identity Construction Critical Language Awareness

 

 

 

 

 

 

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

 

As is usually the case with any field of social sciences, the wide range of approaches to language and power makes it difficult to find a comprehensive definition of power in relation to language. However, it is possible to pin down three lines of thought on the issue:

 

  1. This view is concerned with language-power relationship in relatively well-defined settings such as the workplace, the classroom or a legal setting (see Sinclair & Coulthard, 1975).
  2. This view is based on the assumption that it is impossible to separate language and politics. It is concerned with more complex issues ranging from linguistic imperialism to the cultural politics of English in its current position (see Pennycook, 1994; Pennycook, 2001; Phillipson, 1992).
  3. This view places a broad conception of language as social practice at the centre of language study, with particular emphasis on power and ideology (see Fairclough, 1989; 1992; 1995).

 

 

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: LANGUAGE, DISCOURSE AND POWER

 

 

Mainstream Conception of Power

Foucault’s Conception of Power

Power is possessed

Power is exerxised

Power flows from a centralized source, from top to bottom

Power arises from the bottom

Power is primarily repressive

Power is productive, as well as repressive

(adopted from Olssen, 1999)

  

 

 

NON-CRITICAL VIEW

CRITICAL VIEW

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Stretch of language perceived to be meaningful, unified, and purposive

 

 

Different ways of talking/writing about (and structuring) areas of knowledge or social practice

 

Ideologically determined ways of talking or writing about persons, places, events, or phenomena

 

 

A mode of social practice that is both structured by society and, at the same time, contributes to structuring that same society

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Language reflects society

 

Language as discourse – which is outcomes of power relationships embedded in social practices and institutions

D

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A

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Description of natural spoken or written discourse

 

Study of what gives a stretch of language unity and meaning

 

Analysis of how texts work within specific social and cultural practices

 

Explanation of how discourse is shaped by relations of power and, at the same time, is used to construct social identities, social relations, systems of knowledge and belief

(adopted from Cots, 2006)

 

Having accepted that:

access to discourse and manipulation become essential.

 

MANIPULATION

 

Euphemism: downplaying one’s own aggression

 

e.g.  involvement: invasion

        pacification: bombing of civilians

 

Dysphemism: exaggerating the bad qualities of one’s opponents

 

e.g. terrorist: enemy soldier

 

Mystification: the use of jargon to conceal certain activities

 

e.g. termination with prejudice: assassination

       defoliate: bombing of countryside

 

 

Text Box: Look at the words below. What do they refer to?

 

to rest in peace

Cloud Callout: …………………… to pass away

to meet one’s end

to lose one’s life

to kick the bucket

to turn up one’s toes

to croak

 

 

Cloud Callout: …………………. efficiency gains

rationalization

delayering

delevelling

rightsizing

restructuring

 

 

MANIPULATION: Media Discourse

 

Text Box: Look at the sentences below taken from two different UK news channels which report the same incident. How does language choice here affect the way you understand and react to the situation reported?

The Russian space station, Mir, is spinning out of control………..     (ITV News, 18/8/97)

 

The Russian space station, Mir, is drifting in space………………      (Sky News, 18/8/97)

 

 

 

ACCESSIBILITY

 

 

Language is sometimes made difficult to understand through being inaccessible. Making language difficult to understand results in denying easy access to meaning, and is thus an imposition of the user’s power over the recipient.

 

 

 

 

 

Text Box: Look at the two versions of the same letter below. Try to identify the differences in language choice in both texts. Discuss these differences in terms of their significance for accessibility. Which letter would you prefer to receive?

VERSION 1

VERSION 2

Dear Madam,

 

Self-assessment 1st payment overdue: £ x

This includes interest to 7/5/97.

The total amount above is unpaid. Please pay it now unless you have done so within the last few days. You will find more information on the amount you owe and how to pay it on your Statement of Account

If I do not receive your payment within 7 days I shall start legal proceedings to collect the amount due.

This could result in:

  • your possessions being sized, removed and sold at public auction, or
  • a court order or judgement against you.

It may also mean you have to pay costs.

Should you wish to discuss this matter further then please contact this office immediately.

You are reminded that interest is charged on late payments and this increases daily.

 

Yours sincerely (illegible signature)

Dear Mrs. Smith

 

The new Self-Assessment has started.

Please send your first payment for £ x. This includes interest from Date A to Date B.

If you have already sent your payment, I am sorry for troubling you. If not, please pay it now. You will find more information on the amount you owe, and how to pay it, on your statement of account.

If I do not receive your payment within seven days, I will have to start legal proceedings to collect the amount you owe. These proceedings could include:

  • your possessions being removed by a bailiff and sold at public auction, or
  • a court order being made against you.

You could also have to pay costs.

Obviously we do not want this to happen. If you have any questions, please contact me immediately at the number shown above.

Please remember that we increase the interest you have to pay each day.

 

Yours sincerely (printed name)

(taken from Arndt, Harvey & Nuttall, 2000)

 

 

Text Box: Look at the dialogue between a doctor and a patient below. Try to identify the function of the question asked by the doctor. Discuss its significance for the power relations between the interlocutors? EXERCISE OF POWER THROUGH QUESTIONS

 

 

 

 

Text Box: Patient: ..and my period’s late so I think I’m pregnant. Doctor: Don’t you think that it would be pretty careless for you to get pregnant while you              haven’t got a house or job? (taken from Wang, 2006)  

 

 

 

Text Box: Look at the conversation between two friends below. Who seems to do dominate the dialogue? What discourse clues lead you to make your decision about this?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Text Box: 1. BECKY: You were standing in the middle of the street? 2. ANNIE: You know that dream where you’re walking down the street naked and everyone is looking                    at you? 3. BECKY: I love that dream. 4. ANNIE: That was nothing compared to this humiliation, nothing. 5. BECKY: But he saw you, right? 6. ANNIE: He said hello. (taken from Wang, 2006)

REPRESENTATION AND IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Text Box: The extracts below are from the opening address delivered by US Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane, 3 April 1918, Washington DC, at the Americanization as a War Measure Conference.   What relational values do words and grammatical features have? -        Are there euphemistic expressions? -        Are there markedly formal or informal values? -        What modes (declarative, grammatical question, imperative) are used? -        Are there important features of relational modality? -        Are the pronouns we and you used, if so, how?

Text Box: We have come to talk together as Americans, to find out how there might be made a greater America, a nobler America. We see clearly now what we have not so clearly seen before, that a democracy must have a self-protecting sense as well as a creative spirit. We have lived in the full expression of the most liberal and idealistic political philosophy. There has been nothing of paternalism in our Government.     The people that I love, the people that make a common nation with me, are the people into whose eyes I can look with frankness and directness and know that what they say they mean. They are people whom I understand, whom I instinctively understand, who speak my language. (taken from Ricento, 2003)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CRITICAL LANGUAGE AWARENESS

 

The case for critical approaches to language and language education is becoming increasingly persuasive, because of contemporary changes affecting the role of language in social life:

 

 

Critical language awareness entails the particular understanding of how underlying ideology, beliefs, and attitudes are encoded in text; how socio-historical contexts and socio-cognitive processes are inevitably bound up together in the production and interpretation of text; and how learners can exploit this kind of understanding for their own purposes. Such awareness empowers people to have a voice of their own (Arndt, Harvey & Nuttall, 2000).

 

REFERENCES

 

Arndt, V., P. Harley & J. Nuttall (2000) Alive to Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

 

Cots, J.M. (2006) “Teaching ‘with an attitude’: Critical Discourse Analysis in EFL Teaching”. ELT Journal, 60/4, Oxford University Press.

 

Fairclough, N. (1989) Language and Power. London: Longman.

 

Fairclough, N. (Ed.) (1992) Critical Language Awareness. London: Longman.

 

Fairclough, N. (1995) Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language. London: Longman.

 

Mesthrie, R., J. Swan, A. Deumert & W.L. Leap (2000) Introducing Sociolinguistics. Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

 

Pennycook, A. (1994) The Cultural Politics of English as an International Language. London: Longman.

 

Pennycook, A. (2001) Critical Applied Linguistics: A Critical Introduction. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Pub.

 

Phillipson, R. (1992) Linguistic Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

 

Ricento, T. (2003) “The discursive construction of Americanism”. Discourse and Society, 14/5, Sage Publications.

 

Sinclair, J. & R.M. Coulthard (1975) Towards an Analysis of Discourse. London: Oxford University Press.

Wang, J. (2006) “Questions and the exercise of power”. Discourse and Society, 17/4, Sage Publications.

 

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