DISCOURSE AND POWER
Broadly speaking, inculcation is the
mechanism of power-holders who
wish to preserve their power, while
communication is the mechanism of
emancipation and the struggle against
domination (Fairclough 2003: 63).
Two headlines: The Times and
the Guardian
• RIOTING BLACKS SHOT DEAD BY POLICE AS
ANC LEADERS MEET---Eleven Africans were shot
dead and 15 wounded when Rhodesian police opened
fire on a rioting crowd of about 2,000 in the African
Highfield township of Salisbury this afternoon.
• POLICE SHOOT 11 DEAD IN SALISBURY RIOT---Riot police shot and killed 11 African demonstrators
and wounded 15 others here today in the Highfield
township on the outskirts of Salisbury.
They both focus on different
aspects of the story
• Times: focuses on recipients, minimizes
roles of agents, passive syntax, negative
connotations
• The Guardian: police as agents, no negative
connotation, more information of context
TV, Film
• Similar hidden messages
• Focus on particular topics
• Sounds influences moods
• Organization of images
Construction of language
• Non-arbitrary
• Determined by: (1) social conditions and (2) By
the nature of the relationship between agents
• Social conditions are: 1. particular environments,
2. Institutions and 3. society as a whole
Social conditions determine:
• properties of discourse (the parts that
constitute it)
• and types of discourse (valuable and lessvaluable discourses)
Discourse connected to the whole
of society implies that:
• 1. Language is part of society and not
something external to it
• 2. That language is a social process:
interconnected, regulated
• 3. Language is a socially conditioned
processes: conditioned (by other nonlinguistic)parts of society
Social conventions
• Norms, rules, beliefs
• Internalizations of social
structures of power
• Regarded as natural and
common sensical
Text and discourse
• Text: (a product of the process of text
production) the product of social
interaction, utterance
• Discourse: the whole process of social
interaction including text
The conditioning of discoursive
language
•
•
•
•
•
MR (members’ resources)
Cognitive but dependent on social relations
Internalized and naturalized
MR part of the individual’s psyche
Resources for life
The production and interpreting of
discourse involve two types of social
conditions
• social conditions of production
• social conditions of interpretation
Social conditions and levels of
social organization
• 1. Social situation: the immediate social
environment in which the discourse occurs
• 2. Social institution; wider contexts
• 3. Society as a whole: Structures of
capitalist society
Why is it important to see
language as discourse and
discourse as a social practice?
Because looking at this
relationship:
• Forces as to be critical thinkers
• Understand our position in the
world
• Understand social structures
• Understand the non neutrality of
discourses
What is social or cultural capital?
Economic capital and
social/cultural capital
• Some types of discourse: intellectual talk,
some professions
• Economic capital related to social or
cultural capital
• Discourse is a product of social structures
and the producer of social structures
What do we mean by the notion
that discourse is a product of
social structures and the
producer of social structures?
Economic and cultural capital
• Unequally distributed in society
--literacy, professions, some
knowledges--
Discourses carry particular
knowledges and power
• Institutional system
• Reproducers of structures of power
• Limited access
Can we regard access to social
and economic capital as purely
an individual achievement?
Do people resist power relation
and discourse?
Constraints on less powerful
participants
• Constraints on contents
• Constraints on relations
• Constraints on subjects
Summary
• Discourse is part of social practices
• Discourse contributes to the reproduction of
social structures
• The production and interpretation of discourse
is socially constructed
• Not neutral
• Part of the whole of society
Discussion question
• To what extent are ideologies
variable within a society, and how
are such variations manifested in
discourse?