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 less-valuable 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 non-linguistic)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?