~

LANGUAGE AND PpWER

of discourse by social structures, and the effects of discourse u o

soci

ety through i

ts rep

rodu

ctio

n of

social

stru

ctur

es. Both the

determination of

discourse and its effects inv

olve

not jus

t elements

in the

social situations of dis

cour

se, but orders of discourse which

are th

e discoursal aspects of social orders at

the

societal and social

u~stitufional le

vels

. People are not generally aware of determi-

nations and eff

ects

at these levels, and CLS is therefore a matter of

help

ing people to become con

scio

us of opaque cau

ses and con-

sequences of the

ir own dis

cour

se.

T_~s chapter has laid foundations which w

ill be built upon in

subsequent cha

pter

s. A consequence of seeing di

scou

rse,

as jus

t a

particular form of social practice is perhaps tha

t language res

earc

hought to be more closely in

tT.ine wit

h the rhythms of so

cial

research

than it has tended to be. In Chapters 7 and 8 I exp

lore

lin

guis

tic

dune

nsio

ns of so

cial

changes with a view to dete

discourse has in the inception, development and c nsol

idat

ion of

soci

al cha

nge.

But more imm

edia

tely

, I need to put more fle

sh upon

the re

lati

onsh

ip between dis

cour

se, power and ideology which I

have sug

gest

ed, is at th

e centre o£ the social pr

acti

ce of di

scou

rse.

This

is my obj

ecti

ve in Chapters 3 and 4, which focus respectively

on power and on ideology in the

ir rel

atio

nshi

ps to di

scou

rse.

REFERENCES

For some views of 'di

scou

rse'

, and how it differs hom 'te

xt',

see:

Stubbs M 198

3; Widdowson H 197

9: 89-149; and Brown G, Yule G

1983

. On the con

cept

s of

'practice', '

reproduction', and 'su

bjec

t', see

Alth

usse

r L 1971. Henriques J et al. 1984 is a use

ful more rec

ent

compilation on the

subject. The lan

gue—

paro

le dis

tinc

tion

is drawn

in de Saussure F 1966, and Cul

ler J 1976 is a lucid commentary on

Saus

sure

. On th

e di

stin

ctio

n between 'de

scri

ptio

n'ation' and 'explanation' see

Fai

rclo

ugh N 1985 and Candlin C

e N1986. Barthes R 1972 and 1977 contain int

eres

ting

insights about

visu

al images. My int

erpr

etat

ion of cla

ss and power in contempor-

ary

Brit

ain draws upon a variety of sources in

clud

innist Party of Great Bri

tain

1978; the

znonthl

g~ COmmu-

Today; Habermas J 1984; and the

wri

ting

s of Marx E gelsMLeni m

Gramsci and others —see for ins

tanc

e:

n'Gramsci A 1

971. Foucault uses the

to Maw K' Engels F 1968;

Foucault M 197

1, and the Bourdieu quotation~is from B urdieu 1 P

1977.

THREE

~ ~

m ~

_ E

Disc

ours

e and power

`~ ~-

a_

T'he

purpose of th

is chapter is to exp

lore

var

ious

dimensions of

the

rela

tion

s o~

power and language. I foc

us upon two major

aspe

cts of

the

power/language relationship, power in di

scou

rse,

and power behind di

scou

rse.

Thi

s pi

cks up a dis

tinc

tion

which was

made in th

e opening pages of Chapter 1.

The section on power in discourse is

concerned with discourse

as a p

lace

where rel

atio

ns of power are a

ctua

lly exercised and

enacted; I

disc

uss

power in `face-to-face' spoken di

scou

rse,

power in

cross-cultural' discourse where participants belong to

diff

erent

ethn

ic gr

oupi

ngs,

and th

e 'hidden power' of

the

disc

ourse of

the

mass media.

The sec

tion

- on power behind dis

cour

se shifts th

e focus to how

orders of di

scou

rse,

as dimensions of th

e social ord

ers of social

institutions or

soci

etie

s, are themselves shaped and con

stit

uted

by rel

atio

ns of ,p

ower

,_ a pro

cess

alr

eady

referred to in Chapter

2. The section dis

cuss

es, as

effects of power: the

differentiation

of d

iale

cts in

to 'standard' and 'nonstandard'; th

e conventions

associated with a particular discourse

type, the

discourse

of

gynaecological examinations;

and co

nstr

aint

s on access to

disc

ours

es wit

hin an order of di

scou

rse.

The fin

al section of th

e chapter adds a vitally unp

orta

nt pro

viso

to what precedes it: power, whether it be 'i

n' or 'behind'

disc

ours

e, is never definitive he

ld b~ any one person, or soci

al

b ouping, because power can be won and exercised o~

win and

through social st

rugg

les in which it_

my_a

lso_

_be,

lost

.

POWER IN DISCOURSE

Let us begin th

e di

scus

sion

of

power in

discourse

with an

example of

the

exer

cise

of

power in a ty

pe of '

face

-to-

face

'

~

LANGUAGE AND POWER

disc

ours

e where p

arh_~__~ipants are une u

al -what we

ak

an une

qual

enc

ount

er The following is

an extract from a vis

it to a

premature baby u

nit by a doctor (n) and a group of med

ical

stud

ents

(s)

, as

pa

rt o

f the

stud

ents

' tr

aini

rispaced dot ind

icat

es a short pau

se, a das

h a o ger p u ee ex-

tend

ed square brackets overlap, and parentheses tal

k which was

not di

stin

guis

habl

e enough to tr

ansc

ribe

.

1) n: and let's gather round .the fi

rst of

the inf

ants

-now what

I want you to do is to

make a basic . neo-natal exa

mina

tion

just as Dr Mathews has to do as soon as a baby arr

ives

in

the ward .all ri

ght so you are

act

uall

y go

ing to get you

rhands on the inf

ant .and loo

k at the key poi

nts and

demo

nstr

ate them to the group as you're doing it

will you

do tha

t forme ple

ase .off you go

(2) s:

wel

l fi

rst of

all I'

m going to (

~(3

) n:

[fir

st .be

fore

you do

that

is do you wash you

r hands isn't it

I .cos you

've ju

stbeen examining ano

ther

baby (l

ong si

lenc

e) are

you still in

a are you in a positian to start exa

mini

ng yet

(4) s:

jus

t going to

remove this .

~(5

) n:

very good .it

's putting it

bac

k that's the problem isn't it

eh

(6) s: come bac

k Mum —

(~ n: th

at's

right. OK now just.get a

little more room by shi

ftin

gbaby , er up the . thing a bit

more thaYs very good .we

llnow .off you go and des

crib

e what's going on

(8) s:

wel

l he

re's

a young baby boy .who we've decided is .

t~'t1' •.fh~'ty seven weeks old

now .was bor

n . it

ivo weeks

age • um is fa

irly

act

ive .h

is er ey

es are open .he

's got

hair

on .hi

s heady his eye

s are open

(9) n:

~YeS

ye

s yo

u've

a ! ;_

S~i

~,

~..._~

told me tha

t _.

--

~-~-

--- -

.~. ,

1 0~

(10) s: um he's

cry

ing or

making

`' c~ , : : , ~-

~~~

J(1

1) n:

yeah we we we we've hea

rdth

at now what other examination are you goi

ng to make I

mean —

(12)

s: erm we'll see if he

'll re

spon

d to

(13) n: lo

ok at a baby with a head pro

blem

ye~te d ~d we not

(14) s: ri

ght

DISCOURSE AND POWER

45

(15) n: and might you not make one exa

mina

tion

of the head

almost at sq

uare

one .be

fore

you begin .

(16)

s: feel for the ( )

(17) n: now whatr. the next most important thi

ng .

(18)

s:

Ler

gross mo-

gross motor function

(19) n:

well now you come down to the

mouth

dori t we.

(20) s: yes

(21) n: now what about the

mouth

Text 3.1

Sou

rce:

'The Boys from Horseferry Ro

ad',

Granada T.~

le-

visi

on 198

0 ,

One immediately

striking fe

atur

e, marked by the

squa

re

brac

kets

, is the number of times the doctor interru~ the

stu

dent

- in (3), 9.).,....(11.~~13)~and~1~. (The

re are no squ

are brackets in

(13)

, be

caus

e there

is no act

ual ov

erla

p.) M_y im

pres

sion

is th

at

the doctor does not

interrupt simply because he wants to do all

the ta

lkin

g, as people sometimes do.

I think he int

erru

pts in ord

er

to con

trol

the contributions of the student - to

stop him beg

inni

ng

the ex

amin

atio

n be

fore

washing his hands, to stop him rep

eati

ng

information

or gi

ving

ob

viou

s and ir

rele

vant

information,

to

ensure the student giv

es the key inf

orma

tion

exp

ecte

d.

in what other ways does the doctor exercise control over the st

uden

t's

contributions?

Firs

tly,

in the opening turn, where the nature of what is going to go on

in the interaction is announced to the stu

dent

s —including the nat

ure

of their own con

trib

utio

ns. Secondly, in the way in which the stu

dent

is explicitly told when to st

art tallcing and examining, at the end of

turn

(1)

(off

you

go) and aga

in in (7). Thi

rdly

, in

the equ

ally

explicit

inst

ruct

ions

to the student as to how he should sequence his actions,

in (3). Four

thly

, in

the way in which the stu

dent

's con

trib

utio

ns are

evaluated in (5) (very go

od) and (~ (t

hat'

s right); po

siti

ve and

encouraging as they are, th

ese are

stil

l tec

hniq

ues of control which

would be regarded as presumptious or ar

roga

nt if

they were addressed

to an equal or someone more pow

erfu

l.

4 _.

T'he

fif

th and fin

al point is th

at the

student is 'put on the spo

t' in

the series of questions of turns (13

), (15) (1'

~ and'(1~.-The questions

constitute a strategically ordered sequence which lea

ds the student

thro

ugh the ro

utin

e he has failed to

master. Also,-the student's

k

~

LANGUAGE AND POWER

}

obligation to answer is un

ders

core

d in

eac

h ca

se b a

'by a spaced dot) —brief si

lenc

es in which all eye

s re onauhi~(and ed

which it i

s de

fini

tely

his

responsibility to end!

Noti

ce too the

grammatical forms in which the

se questions are

put

:(13) and (15) ar

e ne

gati

ve que

stio

ns —did we not

, mi

ght we not. Using

nega

tive

questions is sometimes (depending on int

onat

ion and other

fact

ors)

like say

ing 'I assume that X is th

e case, but you seem to be

sugg

esti

ng it

isn'

t; sur

ely it

is?'. In th

is case, the stu

dent

ought to

know that X is th

e case, so asking him questions of this ela

bora

te sor

tis

a way of making him Loo

k si

lly.

The power relationship is

more

bald

ly expressed in (1

7), where the

reduced que

stio

n forms (re

duce

d,th

at is

, from now wha

t do we do?

wha

t is the

nex

t most imp

orta

nt thi

ng?)

sound to me abrupt and cur

t. Fin

ally

, in (19) the

doc

tor us

es a

declarative sentence rat

her th

an an interrogative sentence, wit

h a que

stio

nEag: don

't we. The effect i

s ra

ther

like that of the ne

gati

ve quesrions.

On the bas

is of examples of this sort, we can say tha

t power

~/!''

in d

isco

urse

is to do w

ith

ower

ful

arti

ci an

constraining the contributions of no

n -po

werf

ul par

tici

pant

snIt

is~d

' ~

to dis

hngu

~sh br

oadl

y betwee wee

sefu

ico

nstr

aint

s on:

pes of such con

stra

ints

-

s c

ontents, on what is said

or done;

• relations th

e so

cial

relations people en

ter into in di

scou

rse;

J ~ sub

'-" ects;

or the

subject po

siti

ons'

peo

ple can occupy.

'Rel

atio

ns' and 'subjects' are very closely connected, and all three

over

lap and co-

occu

r in

pra

ctic

e, but it is

hel

pful

to be abl

e to

disianguish them. Our example illustrates

all

three

type

s of

cons

trai

nt, In terms

of co

nten

ts,

the

stud

ent

is required to

conduct an examination according to a Iearned rou

tine

, operating

(rel

atio

ns) in

a p

rofe

ssio

nal relationship t

o his au

dien

ce and a

subordinate relationship to th

e do

ctor

the su

bjec

t po

siti

ons of

(aspirant) doctor as w 11 a s to ent These

constraints imply particular linguistic forms.

But some of these co

nstr

aint

s on the

student do not appear to

invo

lve any dir

ect co

ntro

l being ex

erci

sed by the

doc

tor.

Notice

~fo

r in

stan

ce tha

t ail the

directive speech acts (o

rder

s and questions)

jin

the example come from the

doc

tor:

it ap

peax

s th

at the

doc

tor

has t

he r

ight

_to

wive ord

ers and as

k ueshons, whereas t

hestudents have onl

the_.,.

'g~ ~~

-Y .

- -

p-bh

lion

to comp and answer

acco

rdan

ce wit

h the subordinate relation o:~`s1=ue{

to doc

tor.

Yet

__

_i the doctor is not dir

ectl

y co

nfro

Ihng

the

stu

dent

in this res

pect

.

DISCOURSE AND POWER

47

Rath

er,

the

constraints

derive from th

e co

nven

tion

s of th

e

discourse ty

pe which is

being drawn upon. _However, in an

—. - -

indi

rect

sense, the doctor is in control, fo

r it

is the

pre

roga

tive

of

_ ._.

--_

_po

werfulparticipants to de

term

ine which. disc

ours

e types) may

b.e 1e

gi~i

mate

ly drawn upon.

Thus in ad

diti

on to directly

constrainingcontributions, ~owe

rful

~par

ticz

~ant

s_ can i

ndirectl

constrain them b

selectin th

e di

scou

rse ty

ke. Notice tha

t th

e

latter

tyke

of co

nstr

aint is al

so a form of ,self-co

nstr

aint. once

discourse ty

pe has been set

tled

,u~o

n, it

s conventions~~l

ty o_all

parr

iesa

nts,

inc

ludi

ng the.powerful ones. However, tha

t is

some-

thing of

a sim

plif

icat

ion,

bec

ause

more powerful ~arficipants may

be abl

e to tre

at conventions in a more cavalier way, as we

ll as to

allo

w or

disallow

vary

ing

degrees of

latitude to less powerful

participants.

There ar

e obvious similarities between the

tex

t in

the

example above

and the

pol

ice interview te

xt dis

cuss

ed in Chapter 2 (p. 18

) in

terms of

the un

equa

l power relationships between participants. Compare the

two texts, and see what con

clus

ions

you can

come up wit

h on

similarities and differences in th

e ways in which pol

ice in

terv

iewe

rs

'handle' wit

ness

es and doc

tors

'handle' me

dica

l st

uden

ts.

-- -

VLPower in cross-cultural encounters

In the example we have been loo

king

at, I thi

nk it is safe to assume

that

the stu

dent

s ar

e ab

le to operate within the

constraints on

legitimate dis

cour

se typ

e imposed by the

doctor. But what about

unequal enc

ount

ers where the

. non-powerful peo

ple have cultura

l ~

and lin

guis

tic backgrounds different from tho

se of th

e powerful

~eo~

le? Th

is is common for

ins

tanc

e in 'gatekeeping encounters'

encounters such as a job

int

ervi

ew in which a 'ga

teke

eper

' who

gene

rall

y be

long

s to the

soc

ieta

lly dominant cul

tura

l grouping

controls an enc

ount

er which det

ermi

nes whether someone gets a

job,

or gets access to some other valued objective. In contempor-

ary Britain, fo

r example, it

is mai

nly white middle-class peo

ple who

act as gat

ekee

pers

in ga

teke

epin

g encounters wit

h members of th

e

vari

ous et

hnic

(and c

ultu

ral)

, mi

nori

ties

of

Asia

n,- West Ind

ian,

African; etc., ori

gin.

Disc

ours

e ty

pes and orders of discourse var

y ac

ross

cultures. But

in such ga

teke

epin

g encounters, white middle-class gatekeepers are

]ike

ly to constrain th

e discourse ty

pes which can

be drawn upon to

those of

the

dominant cul

tura

l gr

oupi

ng. Se

nsit

ivit

y to c

ultu

ral

48

LANGUAGE AND PO4YER

diff

eren

ces is

gro

wing

in some cases, bu

f sl

owly

. Interviewers tend

to assume, for instance, tha

t interviewees are

fanuliar ~~

ith domi-

nant ways of co

nduc

ting

int

ervi

ews.

And interviewees' con

tri-

buti

ons ar

e co

rres

po~c

ling

ly interpreted on the assumption th

at the

yare

capable

of working out what is xegitired, and ca

pabl

e of

rovi

ding

it,

in terms of these dominant con

vent

ions

. So i

f an

terv

iewe

e gives what is fe

lt to be a poor or weak or ir

rele

vant

answer to a question, this is

1~l

cely

to be put

down to he

r'la

ck of the

requisite knowledge or ex

peri

ence

, he

r un

coop

erat

iven

ess,

and so

fort

h; the possibility of mi

scom

muni

cati

on .be

caus

e of differences

in discoursal co

nven

tion

s ra

rely

suggests it

self

. Pe

ople

may thus be

denied jobs and other valuable so

cial

goods' through misconcep-

tions .based upon cultural in

sens

itiv

ity and dominance.

The pos

sibi

liti

es for mis

comm

unic

atio

n are am

ple.

For

ins

tanc

e,th

e following snippet is from a simulated job int

ervi

ew for a post

in a lib

rary

with a member of an American cultural min

orit

y (C2):

Interviewer: What about the lib

rary

int

eres

ts you mos

t?C2:

What abo

ut the library in te

rms of

the

boo

ks? or the

whole building?

Interviewer: Any poi

nt tha

t you'd like to .. .

C2:

Oh, th

e children's books, be

caus

e I hav

e a child, and

the ch

ildr

en ...you know the

re's

so many you

know books for

.the

m to

rea

d you lc~ow; and lit

tle

things tha

t would interest them world interest me

toa

Text

3.2

Sou

rce:

Aki

nass

o F N, Ajr

otut

u C S 198

2:12

4

Noti

ce tha

t C2's English in terms.of grammar and voc

abul

ary is

nati

ve-like, whi

ch in it

self

is l

ikel

y to

-lea

d the interviewer to dismiss

any tho

ught

s of cul

tura

lly ba

sed mi

scom

muni

cati

on even if th

ose

thou

ghts

occ

urre

d. But tha

t is a pos

sibi

lity

- C2 has fai

led to int

er-

pret

the int

ervi

ewer

's question in

'the obvious way' — as an inv

i-tation to C2 to

show what she could do in her pr

ofes

sion

al work in

the library if appointed to the post. But th

e obvious way' is

the

way

within a spe

cifi

c culture of

'the interview, and there is no inherent

reas

on why people sh

ould

not show how the

ir work int

eres

ts rel

ate

to their family and other interests in re

spon

se to a que

stio

n of

this

sort

. It may be j

usti

fiab

le to

inte

rpre

t as

'mi

scom

muni

cati

on' the

DISCOURSE AND POWER

49

outcome of in

divi

dual

interviews where people are denied job

s or

othe

r 'goods' pa

rtly

on the bas

is of cu

ltur

al differences. But such

outcomes are

more regular and more systematic than tha

t would

imply, and the

y would appear to

be bas

ed upon not onl

y cultural

differences in discourse but

als

o upon more ove

rt dif

fere

nces

in skin

colo

ur and l

ifestyle. Power in

discourse between members o

f

diff

eren

t cultural grou~gs is in this pe~ective_an element in th

e

domination o_f part

icul

arly

, blacic.and Asian..minorities by_the..wlute

majo

rit~

,and

of institutionalized racism.

Hidden power

The examples so

far have been of face-to-face discourse, bu

t a not

inco

nsid

erab

le p

roportion

of dis

cour

se in co

ntem

pora

ry soc

iety

actu

ally

involves participants who are sep

arat

ed in place and tim

e.

This

is tr

ue of wr

itte

n la

ngua

ge generally, bu

t the growth area fo

r

this sort of

discourse has been the mass media —te

levi

sion

, radio,

film as well as new

spap

ers.

Mass-media di

scou

rse is int

eres

ting

beca

use the na

ture

of th

e mower rel

atio

ns enacted .in it is often not

clea

r, and the

re are rea

sons

for seeing it as in

volv

ing hi

dden

relations

_ . _ _

~._ _

_.__.. _

__ .

_ . _

_ _._ .

.~_

.._.. __.

.. _ .

..0

~,-. _.

._. --

of power.

The most obv

ious

dif

fere

nce between fac

e-to

-fac

e di

scou

rse and

media discourse is th

e 'o

ne-s

ided

ness

' of the lat

ter_

In fa

ce-t

o-fa

ce

inte

ract

ion,

participants alternate between being th

e producers and

the interpreters of text, bu

t in media discourse, as

well as

gen

er-

ally

in

writ

ing,

there i

s a sha

rp divide between ~roducexs and

- - --

interpreters — or,

sin

ce the

media product' takes on some of the

natu

re of a commodity, between producers and 'consumers'.

Ther

e is

ano

ther

imp

orta

nt difference. In face-to-face discourse,

prod

ucer

s design tkieir contributions fo

r the particular peo

ple they

are in

tera

ctin

g with —they ada

pt the lan

guag

e th

ey use

, and keep

adapting thr

ough

out an enc

ount

er in th

e li

ght of var

ious

sor

ts of

'feedback' the

y ge

t from co-participants. But media discourse is

desi

gned

for

mass aud

ienc

es, and the

re is no way tha

t producers

can even know who is in the

aud

ienc

e, le

t al

one ad

apt to its

diverse

sect

ion.

And since all dis

cour

se producers must produce _with som

e_.

---

ulterpre rs ~

mind, what media pro

duce

rs do is address an ideal

subj

ect,

be it viewer, or

listener, or re

ader

. Media discourse has

built

into

it a sub

ject

position for an ideal subject, and actual viewers or

listeners or rea

ders

have to negotiate a rel

atio

nshi

p with the ideal

subject.

V

50

LANGUAGE AND' POWER

But what is th

e nature of th

e power rel

atia

ns in me

dia di

scou

rse?

We can say tha

t producers exercise power over consumers in that

they have sole producing ri

ghts

and can therefore determine what

is included and excluded, how events are re

pres

ente

d, and (as

we

have seen) even the sub

ject

pos

itio

ns of th

eir audiences. But who

prec

isel

y are these 'producers'? Let us take a sp

ecif

ic example to try

to answer thi

s. Text 3.3'rs an art

icle

from my local nec

Nspa

per.

Quarry

load

:-sn

ead~

r,g

probtern

UN3IiEETED lorries

from Middlebartow

QusiTY were still taus-

Sng.

problems by ahe

d-ding st

ones

on their

journey through Wanton'

vill

age,

members of the

parl

'sh councII heard ai-

their September

meeting.

The councll's oba

erva

-ttona have been sen

t to

the quarry management

and members are hop-

1 n g t o s e e a n

improvement.

Text 3.3 Sou

rce:

Lancaster Gua

rdian,

12 September 198

6

Who is actually exercising power in this lit

tle ar

ticl

e? Perhaps it

is the jou

rnal

ist who wrote the pie

ce. But it is

.we

ll-k

nown

tha

tjournalists work under edi

tori

al con

trol

. ,So

perhaps

it is th

e ed

itor

,or

rat

her more nebulously the news~a~er its

elf,

as a sort of

insti-

tuti

onal

collective. But is the representation of the pa

rish

cou

ncil

meeting only the newspaper s, or is

not the newspaper perhaps

tran

smitting som

eone

. el

se's

rep

rese

ntat

ion?

And if so, do

es tha

t no

tgive a certain amount of power to th

at 'someone else'? ,

Let us generalize from thi

s example, but keep the

rep

orti

ng of

news particularly in

mind. It

is ra

ther

obv

ious

tha

t th

e pe

ople

and

orga

niza

tion

s th

at the

media use

as sources in

news reporting do not

represent equally

all so

cial

groupings in th

e po

pula

tion

: Govern-

ment min

iste

rs figure

far more than unemployed p

eople, and

industrial managers or trade union off

icia

ls figure fa

r more than

shop

floo

r workers. While the

unequal influence of so

cial

group-

DISCOURSE AND POWER

51

ings may be r

elatively

clear in terms of who get

s to be inter-

viewed, for

example, i

t is

less clear but nevertheless highly

sign

ificant in teems of whose per

spec

tive

is adopted in rep

orts

. If, f

orinstance, industrial dis

pute

s are sy

stem

atic

ally

referred to as

trouble

or disruption,

that

is

systematically bu

ildi

ng th

e employer's

perspective into industrial news coverage.

In the

British media, th

e balance of sou

rces

and perspectives and

ideol~_ is ~o

verw

helm

in~l

~y in favour of ex

isti

n_ ~ g~po_~e~ hold

ers.

_Where this is the

cas

e -and it sometimes is not the

case - we can

see media power relations as relations of

a med

iate

d (NB media-ted!)

sort between power-ho

lder

s and the mass of th

e population. Th

ese

medi

ated

relations of power include the

most fun

dame

ntal

rel

atio

n,th

e class re

lati

on; on bal

ance

aga

in, though wit

h all so

rts of

pro

-vi

sos and li

mita

tion

s, the

media operate

as a means for t

heex

pres

sion

and rep

rodu

ctio

n of the

power of th

e dominant cla

ss and

bloc. And the

med

iate

d ower of ex

istx

~.g:

po. ~T h ~~?~ s ;Ga

lso.

.ahidden power, b a 1~

e it i~ implicit in th

e pr

acti

ces of

the

media

rath

er than bei

ng explicit.,

,~ ~~ 1

Let us make the

cas

e more con

cret

ely,

though, in respect of the

example above. What I want to focus upon is

causality: who is

repr

esen

ted as cau

sing

what to happen, who is re

pres

ente

d as

doing what to whom. The gra

mmat

ical

form in which the hea

d-line i

s ca

st i

s th

at of

nominalization (see

p. 1

24): a pr

oces

s is

expressed as a nou

n, as

if it were an e

ntity. One eff

ect of

this

gram

mati

cal form i

s th

at cru

cial

aspects of th

e vrocess ar

e-le

ff'

we don't know who or what

or causing loa

ds to be shed -ca

usal

ity is

uns

The first paragraph of th

e re

port

makes thi

ngs clearer, but not

much. Causality is attributed to unsheeted

lorries fro

m Middlebarrow

Quarry. This its

elf co

ntai

ns unspecified cau

sali

ty again, for un

shee

ted

impl

ies the failure of a pro

cess

to happen -someone did not put

sheets over th

e loads, when (one assumes) they ought to have

done. It is di

ffic

ult to take literally th

e notion that th

e lorries are th

eca1~GP ~f~ P nroblem,. and _ it_

is evi

dent

that. in a differQnt xep

xeY

sent

atio

n it cou

ld be 'th

is 'someone' -presumably t

he quarry

management or people under their con

trol

. Yet the

quarry manage-

ment figure only in th

e second paragraph in this representation as

in rec

eipt

of the council's ob

serv

atio

ns, a tezzn which again avo

ids

attr

ibut

ing any res

pons

ibil

ity (i

t might have been com

plai

nts)

.The report (and maybe the

meeting it re

port

s, though one can

not

be sure) seems gea

red to

.rep

rese

ntin

g what might have come across,

i 3 ~

3

( ~f

~( ;~

52

LANGUAGE AND POWER-

from a quite dif

fere

nt per

spec

tive

, as

the

ant

isoc

ial consequences

of unscrupulous cor

nea-cutting on the part of

the quarry owners,

in a way that presents the con

sequ

ence

s wi

thou

t the ca

uses

, or the

resp

onsi

bili

ties

. The power bei

ng exe

rcis

ed here is the power to

disg

uise

power, i.e:'to disguise the power of quarry owners and

their ilk to behave ant

isoc

iall

y with impunity. It is

'a-form of th

e

power to co

nstr

ain content: to favor cer

tain

interpretations and

'wordings' of events,

-while exe

lucl

ing others (such as the alterna-

five

wording I have jus

t given). It is`

a form of hidden power, fo

r the

favoured int

erpr

etat

ions

' and wordings are

tho

se 'of

the power-

hold

ers in our soc

iety

, though they appear to be

-jus

t th

ose of the

newspaper.

Let us tak

e another and rat

her di

ffer

ent example. T'h

e extract in

Text 3.4

is taken from the

beginning of a front-page newspaper

article during the

Fallclands war.

How is Jenny Kee

ble represented here? What pic

ture

of army officers'

wive

s do you get from this extract? What impression of Major Kee

ble

do you get from the

pho

togr

aph?

Do you find yo

urse

lf having to

negotiate wi

th an ideal subject pos

itio

n built i

nto th

e te

xt by

its

producer? What is th

at pos

itio

n?

What is

at issue in

the

rep

rese

ntat

ion of Jenny Kee

ble is

ano

ther

form

of constraint on contents: such rep

rese

ntat

ions

cumulatively

stereotype 'army wives' and more generally the

wives

favoured

public figures, and so con

stra

in the

meanings people attach to them.

The process is pr

ofou

ndly

sexist: it

works by attaching to Jenny Kee

ble

attributes which are

ahead co

nven

tion

ally

def

iner

s of 'a good wif

e'.

Noti

ce that at

no poi

nt her

e (or in

the

rest of the

ari

a e) is

envy

Keeb

le explicitly said to be 'a good wif

e', or

an adm

irab

le per

son;

the

process depends entirely on an 'id

eal reader's' ca

paci

ty to in

fer th

at

from the

lis

t of attributes —she exp

ress

es con

fidE

nce in

her

husband's

professional abi

liti

es, she is concerned for hi

s safety, she 'prays' he has

'done enough', she tries to

main

tain

an air of norrnaTity for the

chil

dren

's sake'. But this indicates that what is

bei

ng constrained is not

only contents but also subjects: th

e process presupposes an ide

al

reader who wil

l indeed make the

'right' in

fere

nce from the

lis

t, i.e

.

have the

ri

ght'

ide

as about what a 'good wif

e' is

. Texts such as th

is

thus

reproduce sex

ists

, provided that readers generally fall int

o th

e

subject position of th

e id

eal reader, ra

ther

tha

n opposing it

.

Not all photographs are

equal: any photograph giv

es one image of a

scene or

a person from among the

many pos

sibl

e im

ages

. T'

he choice is

very

imp

orta

nt, be

caus

e different images convey different meanings.

DISCOURSE AND POWER

53

i~

~~

1 1

f ,

THE wife of the new CO of the 2nd

Parachute Battalion spoke las

t night

of her fears for her husband's safety.

As she played

in the sunshine with

her four ch

ildr

en, Jenny Keeblo sa

idahe hoped her husband would not have

to go into

batt

le again.

She sa

id: "1

pray he and hia men

have done enough. But i

f they do go

on b know that he is a man who will

tlo

his job to the be

st of hia

abil

ity and

am ce

rtai

n he and the 2nd Parachute

Battalion

will

succeed.

Major Christopher Keeble, a 40-year-

oId devout Roman Catholic, is to

succeed

Colonel Herbert Jones who died le

adin

ghis mert against an Argentine mashine-

gun po

et in the battle for

-Goose Green.

Yesterday Jenny Kee

ble'

s family and

friends gathered around in the garden

of her old

vicarage home—a rambling

Tudor bui

ldin

g at Maddington on Sal

ie•

bury Plain—for a pi

cnic

afternoon as

she tried to maintain an air of no

rmal

ity

for the children's sake•

Mater Seeble ...will lead

the pares into battle

Text

3.4

Sou

rce:

Dai

ly Mai

l, 1 June 1982

In this example, fo

r in

stan

ce, I

fin

d my attention drawn par

ticu

larl

y by

the Major's ey

es; he is looking st

raig

ht ahead, looking th

e re

ader

in th

eface, so

to speak, ra

ther

app

rais

ingl

y, with a serious exp

ress

ion

miti

gate

d by a hin

t of

a smi

le at th

e corners of

his mouth (po

ssib

ly a

cyni

cal on

e). Notice the

amb

iguo

us function of the

captian: does it

register for us what the

picture 's

ays', or

doe

s it lea

d us to '

read

' the

pict

ure in tha

t way? Be tha

t as

it may, th

e photograph in its ve

rbal

matrix shows me tha

t Major Ke

eble

is al

l I would expect a leader of an

elit

e military uni

t to be.

54

LANGUAGE AND PODVER

Look at some further examples of the way in which images and words

interact in the press, on television, on hoardings,. and so forth. Can you

spot particular techniques for giving particular impressions of people?

The hidden power of media discourse and the

- ca

paci

ty of th

eca

pita

list

cla

ss and, other power-holders to e

xercise

this power

depend on sys

tema

tic tendencies in news rep

orti

ng and other

media act

ivit

ies.

A sin

gle text on its

own is qu

ite insignificant: the

effe

cts of media power are

cumulative, working through the

repe

titi

on of

particular ways of handling cau

sali

ty and agency,

particular ways of

posi

tion

ing th

e re

ader

,. and so f

orth. Thus

through .

the way it po

siti

ons

read

ers,

fo

r in

stan

ce,

media

discourse

is abl

e to

exe

rcis

e a pervasive and powerful influence

in .so

cial

reproduction because of th

e very sca

le of the modern

mass media and the

ext

reme

ly high level of exposure of whole

popu

lati

ons to

a rel

ativ

ely homogeneous output. But caution is

nece

ssar

y: people do negotiate the

ir relationship to ideal sub

ject

s,and thi

s can mean keeping them at arm's length or even engagfng

in outright st

rugg

le against them. The power of th

e media does

not mechanically fo

llow

from the

ir mere exi

sten

ce.

Is the

hidden power of th

e media manipulative? It is

dif

ficu

lt to

give

a cat

egor

ical

answer to th

is question: sometimes and in some

ways it is, sometimes and in some ways it isn't. We can perhaps

approach the

problem by ask

ing from whom exa

ctly

the

power of

media dis

cour

se is hidden: is

it jus

t au

dien

ces,

or

is it not also

at least to some degree media workers? There are

of co

urse

cas

eswhere media output is consciously manipulated in th

e interests

of the cap

ital

ist cl

ass — a cas

e which is of

ten re

ferr

ed to is

tha

t of

BBC Radio during the Bri

tish

General Str

ike in

1926, when the

BBC openly supported the

Government in a con

text

where the

clas

s issues were clear to it

s Di

rect

or-General, Lord Rei

th. But for

many media workers, the p

ractices of production which can be

inte

rpre

ted as

fac

ilit

atin

g th

e exercise of media power by_.power-

hold

ers,

are

pe

rcei

ved as p

rofessional

practices with th

eir own

inte

rnal

sta

ndar

ds of excellence and the

ir own rationalizations in

terms of the

con

stra

int of

the

technical media themselves, what

the

public want, and ot

her

fact

ors.

Indeed, the professional

beli

efs and assumptions of

media workers ar

e unportant in

keeping the

power of media discourse hidden from the

mass of

the po

pula

tion

.Power is also sometimes hidden in face-to-face dis

cour

se. For

DISCOURSE AND POWER

55

i i i

inst

ance

, th

ere

is obviously a close connection between r

equests

and power, in th

at the

right to re

ques

t someone to do something

often de

rive

s from having power. But the

re are many grammati-

I ca

lly

diff

eren

t forms available

for making re

ques

ts. Some are

dire

ct and mark the

power relationship

ex_ illicitly, whi

le others are

indirect and l

eave i

t more or

less

impl

icit

. Di

rect

req

uest

s aze

typi

call

y expressed

grammatically in imperative

sentences: type

this

letter fo

r me by 5 o'clock, fo

r in

stan

ce. In

dire

ct requests can be

more or less indirect, and they are typically expressed grammati-

;, ca

lly in que

stio

ns of various degrees of el

abor

aten

ess and cor

re-

sponding ind

irec

tnes

s: can

you

typ

e th

is letter f

or me by 5 o'clock, do

you th

ink yo

u co

uld type thi

s letter for

me by 5 o'clock, co

uld I pos

sibl

yI

ask yo

u to

type

this

letter fo

r me by 5 o'c

lock

. ,There are al

so other

j . ways of indirectly requesting —through hin

ts, fo

r in

stan

ce: I would

like

to have the let

ter in the 5 o'clock pos

t.Why would a bus

ines

s ex

ecut

ive (let us say) choose an indirect

form to request her sec

reta

ry to type a let

ter?

It co

uld be, par

ticu

-lady if a hint or

one of th

e more elaborate questions is used, for

manipulative reasons: if th

e boss has been pr

essu

rizi

ng th

esecretary hard a

ll day, such a form of re

ques

t might head o

ffresentment or even refusal. But less elaborate forms of indirect

requ

est (can yo

u/wi

ll you/could you

type ...) are conventionally

used in the

sor

t of sit

uati

on I have d

escr

ibed

, so the question

becomes why bu

sine

ss executives and ot

her

power -holders

systematically avoid too much overt marking of th

eir power. This

lead

s us to th

e relations of hidden power and social struggle,

which is

'scu

ssed

in th

e fi

nal -

section of

this ch

apte

r.The examples I have given in this section are

~of hidden power.

bein

g ex

erci

sed

with

in di

scou

rse.

But what I have called th

e'power behind di

scou

rse'

is also a hidden power, in

that

the

shaping of

orders of

di

scou

rse by relations

of power is

not

gene

rall

y apparent to pe

ople

. This is an app

ropr

iate

poi

nt, then,

to move behind dis

cour

se.

POWER BEHIND DISCOURSE

', The ide

a of

'power behind discourse' is th

at the

whole s

ocial

order of

discourse is put tog

ethe

r and hel

d to

geth

er as a hidden

effe

ct of power. In this se

ctio

n I be

gin with jus# one dimension of

this —st

anda

rdiz

atio

n, the

pro

cess

which I have alr

eady

referred to

56

LANGUAGE AND POWER

in Chapter 2, whereby a par

ticu

lar social' dialect comes to be ele

-vated in

to what is of

ten called a sta

ndar

d or

even 'national' 1an

-guage. Iwill foc

us upon sta

ndar

d British English.

Standard language

I suggested in

Chapter 2 tha

t we ought to se

e standardization as

a par

t of

a much wid

er pro

cess

of ec

onom

ic,~

~oli

tica

l and cul

tura

lun

ific

atio

n, which was tie

d in with the emergence of capitalism

out of fe

udal

society in Britain. There is an economic bas

is for

this

conn

ecti

on between c

apit

alis

m and unification: the

need f

or a

unified home market if

commodity pro

duct

ion is to be ful

ly estab-

lish

ed. Th

is in

turn r

equi

res

political and cultural u

nification.

Stan

dard

izat

ion

is of

dire

ct economic imp

or#a

nce in

improving

communication: most peo

ple in

volv

ed in economic activity come

to understand the

standard, even i

f they don't alw

ays use i

tproductively. It is also of great

political and cultural im

port

ance

in the est

abli

shme

nt of nationhood, and the

nation-state

is the

favoured form of capitalism.

The soc

ial dialect which dev

elop

ed into st

anda

rd Eng

lish

was

the

East

Midland dialect

asso

ciat

ed with th

e merchant. cl

ass

in London at the end of the me

diev

al period. This underlines the

link to

capi

tali

sm, for these feudal merchants became the

fir

stca

pita

list

s, and the

rise

of

sta

ndar

d En

glis

h is li

nked

to th

egrowing power of the

merchants. The beg

inni

ngs of

sta

ndar

dEn

glis

h were ver

y modest in comparison with

its pr

e-em

inen

cenow: the emergent sta

ndar

d form was used in ve

ry few places

for

very

few purposes by ve

ry few pe

ople

_ St

anda

rdiz

atio

ninit

iall

y. affected written

lang

uage

, and has only gradually

extended to various as

pect

s of

spe

ech —grammar, vocabulary and

even pro

nunc

iati

on.

We can think of its growth as a long pr

oces

s of

colonization,

whereby it gr

adua

lly 't

ook ov

er' ma

jor so

cial

ins

titu

tion

s, pushing

out Lat

in and Fre

nch,

vas

tly extending th

e purposes it was used

for and its for

mal re

sour

ces as a res

ult,

and coming to be accepted

(i£ not always widely used} by more and more peo

ple.

By coming

to be associated with the most salient and pow

erfu

l institutions

— li

tera

ture

, Government and administration,

law, re

ligi

on,

education, et

c. — standard En

glis

h bean to emerge a s th

elanguage of po

liti

cal and cul

tur

dower, and as the language of

the

poli

tica

lly and cul

tura

lly powe

rful

. It

s su

cces

sful

colonization

DISCOURSE AND POWER

57

~; of

these ins

titu

tion

s cannot be sep

arat

ed from the

ir mod

erni

zati

onin the

per

iod of

transition from feu

dali

sm to ca

pita

lism

, or

from

the growing power wit

hin them of th

e emergent 'middle c

lass'

(bourgeoisie).

Standard English devel~ed not

only at the

expense of Latin

~` and French, but als

o at

the

expense of ot

her,

'no

n-standard' so

cial

dial

ects

(and th

e expense of

the

ot

her la

n~ua

~es

of B

ntai

ri ~—

Welsh and Gaelic, and es

ecia

ll

since th

e Second World War

----~----- Y

' many ot hers,_including anumber of As

ian languag e

s). Standard

I. English was reg

arde

d as correct English, and oth

er soc

ial dialects

were s

tigm

atiz

ed not one in terms of

correctness but also

in_

terms which ind

irec

t re

flec

ted on the

lifestyles, mor

alit

y and so

forth o£ the

ir speakers, the

emergent working cla

ss of

capi

tali

stsociety: they were v

ulgar, slo

venl

y, low,

barbarous, and so forth.

',

The establishment of th

e dominance of st

anda

rd Eng

lish

and the

subo

rdin

atio

n of

oth

er soc

ial di

alec

ts was part and parcel of the

esta

blis

hmen

t of

the

dominance of th

e capitalist c

lass

and the

j su

bord

inat

ion of

the

working cla

ss.

The codification of

the

st

anda

rd was a

cruc

ial

part of

th

isprocess,

which went hand -

in-hand wi

th p

rescription,,_the desi~.

_nation of th

e forms of th

e st

anda

rd as th

e only . 'correct' one

s.Co

difi

cati

on is

aimed at attaining

minimal va

riatio

n in form

thro

u gh setting down the

prescribed language code in a wri

tten

form — in grammars, dictionaries,

pronouncing dictionaries,

spel

ling

boo

ks. The hig

hpoi

nt of co

difi

cati

on was the

second hal

fof

the

eig

htee

nth ce

ntur

y, and much of th

e re

ader

ship

for the

vast

numbers of

grammar books and

dictionaries which were

produced at th

e be

ginn

ing of the industrial revolution came from

the in

dustrialists and the

ir fam

ilie

s.There is an ele

menf

i of

schizophrenia about sta

ndar

d English,

in the

sense tha

t it asp

ires

to be (and is

certainly po

rtra

yed as

)a n

ational language belonging_ to a

ll classes and s

ecti

ons of

the

society, and _yet_ remains in _many re

spec

ts_a

class

dial

ect.

The

power of its claims as a nat

iona

l language even over th

ose whose

use of

it is limited is apparent in th

e wi

desp

read

sel

f -depreciation

of working-class peo

ple who say they do not speak English, or

do not speak 'proper' En

glis

h. On the

other hand,

it is a c

lass

dialect not only in the

sense tha

t its dominance is associated, with

I ca

pita

list

class i

nter

ests

in

the way I

have outlined,

k~ut

_als

obecause

it is th

e dominant blo

c th

~~.a

ml,~

~es_

~osk

.~.~

~pf_itl and

g ;__

_„ _

„_ _ om it as an ass

et — as a form of 'c

ultu

ral ca

pita

l' ana

l-ains most fr

5S

LANGUAGE AND POWER

ogous to capital in

the economic sense, as Pierre Bourdieu has but

it.Standard English is an asset because its use is a passport to

mod jobs and positions of influence and power in national and

local communities. Thi

s appl

ie's naturally enough t

o standard

English as a written form, but als

o to standard spoken English

including the use of forms of Received Pronunciation (RI

') —the type

of pronunciation which most p

oliticians,

television and radio

reporters, university teachers, senior industrial managers, senior

civil servants use, which is precisely my point!

As I

have suggested

at one or two points above, p

eople

generally may acknowledge th

e dominance of the

standard

language, but tha

t does not mean tha

t they alw

ays use

it, or

indeed accept it in the full sense of th

e term. In fact ~t-meets sti

ffresistance from sneakers of other social dialects, as well as from

speakers of other languages in modern multilingual Britain. (See

the

last section of this chapter

.) Thi

s in itself indicates th

at the

schizophrenia I have referred to i

s sensed by people —people

know i

t is someone e

lse's language and not theirs, despite the

claims to the contrary. However, it

does not mean tha

t people are

aware of the power basis of standardization: they may know the

standard in a sense b

elongs to th

e dominant bloc, but the r

e-sp

onsi

bili

ty of the dominant bloc for

articulating and defining

the relationship and pecking

order between languages and social

dialects is generally hidden.

We quite often hear nonstandard social dialects on radio and N these

days, but my impression

is that certain key broadcasting roles are st

ill

restricted to standard spoken forms. Listen out for accents other th

anReceived Pronunciation (RP for short). In what'capacities' (e.g.

news

read

er, in

terv

iewe

r, announcer, interviewee, en

tertainer) do non

-RP-

speakers mainly appear? Do they te

nd to appear in particular sorts

of programme (such as news, comedy shows, qu

izzes, documentaries)?

Are there ce

rtai

n capacities and types of programme which don't

feature non-RP -speakers? What about N advertisements? Are there

particular roles within them which are open to non-RP

-speakers?

Power behind dis

cour

se: a discourse type

I want now to

shift focus, still with reference to 'power behind

disc

ours

e', and loo

k at a particular discourse type as 'an effect of

power' — as having conventions which embody particular power

DISCOURSE AND POWER

59

relations. The example I have chosen is the discourse of medical

examinations, and more specifically gynaecological examinations. I

focus especially on how medical staff and patients are positioned

in relation to each other in the conventions of the discourse type,

and how this po

siti

onin

g can be seen as an effect of the power of

thos

e who dominate medical institutions over conventions, and so

over staff as wel

l as patients.

According to one account of gynaecological examinations,

participants are subject to co

ntra

dict

ory pr

essu

res:

sta

ff feel obliged

to treat patients in a nonchalant and disengaged way, as technical

objects, in order to establish that their interest in their bodies is

medical and not sexual; yet they also feel obliged to tr

eat the patient

sens

itiv

ely as a person to cancel out the indignity of treating her as

a technical object, and to try to overcome her likely embarrass-

ment given the overwhelming taboo on exposing one's sex

ual

organs to non-

intimates. These contradictory pre

ssur

es are evident

in the conventions-

#or the discourse type.

For instance, the constraints on the settings of gynaecological

examinations are of major significance in guaranteeing that the

encounter is indeed a medical one and not

, for instance, a sexual

one. Such e

xaminafiions can leg

itim

atel

y be undertaken only in

'medical space' — a hospital or

a consulting room —which implies

the pr

esen

ce of a whole range of medical paraphernalia which help

to legitimize the encounter. There are also constraints on the subjects

who can tak

e part: th

ere

is a res

tric

ted set of legitimate subject

positions, tho

se of the doctor, the nur

se, and the patient, and str

ict

limitations on who can occupy them. There are requirements for

modes of dress which reinforce pro

pert

ies of the setting in defining

the encounter as medical, and (as we sha

ll see) for 'demeanour'.

There are constraints on t

opic —questions from medical staff on

bodi

ly functions and sex

ual experience must relate strictly to the

medical problem at issue, disallowing for instance the sort of topical

development we find elsewhere which would allow a transition to

a gen

eral

discussion of one's sex life.

The sequence of activities which constitutes the examination is

highly routinized, fol

lowi

ng a standard procedure, and this routine

property extends also to the verbal and non-verbal aspects of the

ways in which medical staff relate to patients. Medical staff show

their disengagement in the quality of their gaze, the professionally

appraisive (ra

ther

than aesthetically evaluative) way in which they

look at the pat

ient

's body. It emerges also in the bri

sk, efficient

6O

LANGUAGE AND POWER

hand

ling

of the

patient's body by the

doctor, and, too, in

que

s-ti

ons and requests to the pat

ient

which, fox example, dep

erso

n-al

ize th

e pa

tien

t's se

xual

org

ans by referring to, say

, th

e vagina rather

than your va

gina

.But e

ffor

ts of me

dica

l staff to ba

lanc

e disengagement with

sens

itiv

ity,

in ac

cord

ance

wit

h th

e pr

essu

res referred to ab

ove,

are

also evident in th

eir di

scou

rse.

They oft

en avo

id using terms which

might embarrass patients, by euphemizing (Did yo

u wash between

your le

gs?) or by relying upon dei

ctic

exp

ress

ions

(When did you

firs

tnotice dif ficulty down below. And doc

tors

use

a so

ft,. so

othi

ng voice

to enc

oura

ge the pat

ient

to rela

x (when they say th

ings

lik

e now

relax as

much as you ca

n, .I'll be

as gentle as I can), which con

trib

utes

to

'per

sona

lizi

ng' the examinatio

n. It is imp

orta

nt to emphasize- tha

tde

spit

e th

e im

pres

sion

some pat

ient

s may have that they are really

bein

g gi

ven in

divi

dual

tre

atme

nt, th

ese ar

e just as much routine

devi

ces as tho

se mentioned in th

e previous par

agra

ph.

So far

I have ref

erre

d ma

inly

to ways in which med

ical

staff are

posi

tion

ed, but the same i

s true for

patients, as th

e following

resume o

f how me

dica

l staff think

pati

ents

should

behave i

ngynaecological examinations

will ind

icat

e.

The pat

ient

's voice should be

con

trol

led,

mildly pl

easa

nt, se

lf-

conf

iden

t and imp

erso

nal.

Her fac

ial expression should be att

enti

veand neutral, leaning towards the mil

dly pl

easa

nt and friendly si

de, as

if she were talking to th

e doctor in his office, fully dressed and sea

ted

in a chair. The patient is to

have an att

enti

ve glance upward, at th

eceiling or at ot

her persons in the room, eyes open, not dreamy' or

away, but ready at a sec

ond'

s notice to re

vert

to the do

ctor

's face for a

spec

ific

ver

bal exchange. Except for such a ver

bal exchange, however,

the patient is

supposed to avoid lo

okin

g in

to the

doc

tor'

s eyes during

the ac

tual

examination because duect eye con

tact

between the two at

this

time is pr

ovoc

ativ

e. Her rol

e calls for passivity and self-

effacement. The pat

ient

should show wil

ling

ness

to re

linq

uish

control

to the doc

tor.

She should ref

rain

from speaking at le

ngth

and from

making inq

uiri

es which would require the doctor to

rep

ly at le

ngth

. So

as not to point up her und

igni

fied

position, she should not project her

personality profusely. The sel

f must be eclipsed in ord

er to su

stai

n the

defi

niti

on tha

t the doctor is working on a tec

hnic

al object and not a

pers

on.

Have you eve

r been in a position where you were expected to

behave

at all sim

ilar

ly? How wer

e'tl

iose

exp

ecta

tion

s communicated to you?

Have male readers eve

r fe

lt themselves required to

'ec

lips

e th

e se

lf' in

DISCOURSE AND POWER

61

anything lik

e th

is way? Are these expectations motivated en

tire

ly by the

natu

re of th

e occasion, or

are

the

y to do with th

e se

x of

the

pat

ient

?

Let us now bring power int

o the picture. The. medical staff and

particularly the doctor exercise power over the patient (and over

othe

r medical staff, in the cas

e of the doctor) wit

hin encounters

based upon this discourse type, in accordance with i

ts conven-

tions, which attribute rights to con

trol

encounters to medical staff

and especially do

ctor

s. And as par

t of their power, the medical

staf

f are likely to impose the dis

cour

se type upon pat

ient

s, in the

sense of put

ting

pre

ssur

e on them in va

riou

s ways to occupy the

subject position it lays down for

pat

ient

s, and so behave in certain

cons

trai

ned ways. These are aspects of power in discourse, but

what I am int

eres

ted in here is power beh

ind di

scou

rse:

the power

effe

ct whereby this discourse type with the

se properties comes

to be imposed upon a

ll of those involved, medical staff as well

as pat

ient

s, apparently by the medical institution or system its

elf.

But the power behind the conventions of a discourse type

belongs not to the institution i

tsel

f (whatever tha

t would mean)

but to the power-holders in the ins

titu

tion

. One indication of this

is the pol

icin

g of conventions, the way they are enf

orce

d, both in

the neg

ativ

e sense of what sanctions are taken aga

inst

those who

infringe them and in the positive sense of what affirmations th

ere

are fo

r those who abide by them. The policing of conventions is

in th

e hands o

f institutional power -

holders, at va

riou

s levels.

Thus in the ca

se of me

dica

l ex

amin

atio

ns, it is mainly the

med

ical

staff who come into co

ntac

t with patients, and are

power -holders

in re

lati

on to them, who enforce

patients' compliance with

conventions, whi

le the

compliance of med

ical

staff themselves is

enfo

rced

by tho

se higher in the institutional hierarchy —through

procedur

es for dis

cipl

inin

g people and dealing with professional

malpractice, through promotions, and so forth.

Cons

ider

atio

n of

the ways in which conventions are

shaped by

thos

e who have the power behind dis

cour

se tak

es us on to th

econcerns of Chapter 4, because such shaping is ac

hiev

ed through

ideology. In our example, the

conventions which pos

itio

n me

dica

lstaff and p

atients in r

elation to eac

h other can be reg

arde

d as

embodying the

dominant ideologies of

medicine as a soc

ial in

sti-

tuti

on,

i.e. th

e id

eolo

gies

of th

ose who co

ntro

l me

dici

ne.

Evidentl

y, what a doctor

is, what a nurse is,

what a pat

ient

is,

what con

stit

utes

'pr

ofes

sion

al' behaviour towards pat

ient

s, and

62

LANGUAGE AND POWER

so forth, are all matters which are open to argument. The conven-

tions for positioning

staff and p

atients in gynaecological exam-

inations are

premised upon the way i

n which the dominant

ideology answers these questions. I come to how this is done in

Chapter 4.

But the sense in which t

hese c

onventions a

re an effect o

fpower behind discourse does not end there. The same conven-

tions can be regarded, from the perspective of the societal (rather

than the institutional) order of discourse, as a particular case of

a general tendency in the way in which '

professionals' and

'clients' are positioned in

relation to each other, in a v

ariety of

institutional settings and discourse types where people who have

some official status i

n institutions (

'professionals') come into

contact with 'the

public' ('clients'). The contradictory pressures

upon medical staff to treat patients on the one hand nonchalantly

as `technical objects', and on the

other hand sensitively

aspersons, are not I think (as the account of gynaecological exam-

inations Ireferred to suggested) a peculiarity of the circumstances

of gynaecological or even more generally medical examinations

— though those peculiar circumstances would seem to give these

pressures a special colouring. One finds techniques for efficiently

and n

onchalantly 'handling' people wherever one looks in the

public institutions of the modern world. Equally, one finds what

I shall refer to as a synthetic personalization, acompensatory tend-

ency to give the

impression of treating each of the

people

'handled' en masse as an individual. Examples would be air travel

(have a nice day!), restaurants (welcome

to Wimpy!), and the simu-

lated conversation (e. g. chat shows) and bonhomie which litter the

media. These general tendencies in the order of discourse of modem

society accord with the nature of its power relations and modern

techniques for exercising power, as I shall show in some detail in

Chapter 8.

Power and access to discourse

The third and final aspect of 'power behind discourse' that I want

~to look at is not to do with the constitution of orders of discourse

and t

heir component discourse types, but with access to them.

The question

is, who has access to which discourses, and who

has the power to impose and enforce constraints on access?

!.

DISCOURSE AND POWER

63

~~%~OE~~'~t

The myth of free speech, that anyone is 'free' to

say what they

'like, i

s an ~maz'n l

v powerful one, given the

actuality

of a

plethora of constraints on access to various sorts ~f G~ch, and ~`

°twritin .These are part and parcel of more general constraints on

social practice — on access to the more exclusive social institutions,

their practices, and especially the most powerful subject positions

constituted

in their

practices. And in terms of discourse

inparticular, on access to the

discourse

types, and discoursal

positions of power. In a sense, these 'cultural goods' are anal-

ogous to other socially valued 'goods' of a more tangible nature

— accumulated w

ealth, good jobs, good housing, and so

forth.

Both sorts of goods are unequally distributed, so that members

of what I referred to in Chapter 2 as the dominant bloc (the capi-

talist class, the 'middle

class', the professions) have substantially

more of them than members of the working class —they are richer

in cultural capital (see p. 5~.

Religious rituals such as church services will serve to illustrate

constraints on access. You can only

officiate at a church

service

if you are a priest, which is itself a constraint on access. Further-

more, you can only get to be a priest through a rather rigorous

process of selection, during the course of which you must show

yourself to meet a range of 'entry conditions' — being a believer,

having a vocation, having some academic ability, conforming to

certain standards of honesty, sincerity, sexual

morality, and so

on. These are further constraints on access.

Religion is not really that much d

ifferent in

this respect from

medicine, or education, or law. Medical examinations, or lessons,

or litigation, may not be as ritualized as a religious service, but

nevertheless there are strict constraints on who can do them, and

strict constraints on who can acquire the qualifications required

to do them. In principle (as well as in law and in the rules of the

professions), anyone is free to obtain such qualifications. But in

practice, the people who do obtain them come rriainly from the

dominant b

loc. For most people, the

only involvement

with

medicine, education oz the law i

s in the c

apacity of 'client' —

patient, pupil or student, legal client —and 'clients' are not ready

'insiders' in an institution.

Another less institutionally

specific example of unequally ,

distributed

cultural capital is access to the various reading and ~~

--

—writing

abilities that can be s mmed_ up with the word l

iteracy.

literacy i

s highly valued in our s

ociety, and a great .deal of

64

LANGUAGE AND POWER

socially

y impo

rtan

t a~

cl~.

.p~

nUs pr

acti

ce_t

alce

s dace i

'the

written word'. Access _t

o a hig

h level of li

terac~,is a

r, pr

econdition

for a vari

ed_ of soc

iall

y va

lued

'go

ods'

, including most rew

ardi

ng~_

_ - ..

and we

ll-p

aid

jobs. Yet i

t is

evi

dent

tha

t .a

cces

s ,to

lite

racy

is

unequally

distributed — ix4deed

,. an estimated- on~~i~lian adults

in.. Br

itai

n_la

.ck 'b

asic

literacy sk

ills

', as defined by UNESCO, and

the overwhelming majority of

these are wor

king

-cla

ss peo

ple.

Among the more obvious and visible eff

ects

of co

nstr

aint

s on

access is the way in .which hav

ing access to prestigious sorts of

disc

ours

e and po

werf

ul su

bjec

t po

siti

ons

enhances publicly

acknowledged sta

tus and aut

hority..One re

ason

for

this is tha

tbecoming a doctor or

a teacher or a law

yer is

generally reg

arde

das a purely in

divi

dual

ach

ieve

ment which merits th

e 'r

ewar

ds' of

stat

us and authority, with soc

ial.

cons

trai

nts on who can

achieve

these

posi

tion

s be

ing co

rres

pond

ingl

y glossed over. As support

for this view, peo

ple of

ten re

fer to the

fact th

at training in these

prof

essi

ons involves spending years acquiring spe

cial

knowledge

and ski

lls.

Thus pro

fess

iona

l knowledge and skills ac

t as emblems

of personal achi

evem

ent,

mys

tify

ing so

cial

con

stra

ints

on access

— as we

ll a

s be

ing membership ca

rds

for th

ose who achieve

acce

ss, and a means of ex

clud

ing

outs

ider

s. The dis

cour

ses of

these

professions, inc

ludi

ng sp

ecia

list

vocabixlaries

or j

argons,

serv

e all these functions.

Conversely,

excl

usio

n of people from pa

rtic

ular

ty

pes

ofdi

scou

rse and s

ubje

ct p

osit

ions

low

ers

their

publicly acknowl-

edged sta

tus,

but also as I suggested above the

ir job and other

soci

al'p

rosp

ects

'. Let

us go ba

ck to th

e po

siti

on of

cul

tura

lmi

nority groupings in interviews, which I was dis

cuss

ing in

the

section Power in cr

oss-

cult

ural encounters.

I probably gave th

eim

pres

sion

tha

t th

ere

is a great dea

l more homogeneity within

cultural groupings

than th

ere

really is. In fa

ct, many white

working-class Br

itis

h, people from the

dominant cultural grouping

are

as unfamiliar wilth

the

conv

enti

ons

of in

terv

iewi

ng as

members of bl

ack or

Asi

an com

muni

ties

. But it

is in

crea

sing

ly the

case

, as a r

esult of

tl~

e spread of interviewing practices across

soci

al institutions and. the

more i

nten

sive

us

e of

them wi

thin

many institutions, tha

t everybody is expected to be abl

e to dea

lwith interviews —from the interviewee end, of co

urse

! Those who

cannot, ei

ther

because of th

eir cu

ltur

al exp

erie

nce or

because they

belo

ng to generations

for

which access to in

terv

iewi

ng was

constrained, are lik

ely to be soc

iall

y: di

sabl

ed..

DISCOURSE AND POWER

65

The educational system has the

maj

or immediate responsibility

for di

ffer

enti

als in access. In th

e words of Mi

chel

Foucault, 'any

system of education is

a political way of ma

inta

inin

g or

mod

ifyi

ngth

e ap

prop

riat

ion of

dis

cour

ses,

alo

ng with th

e knowledges and

powers which they

carr

y'. And what is striking is th

e ex

tent

to

which, despite the

claims of

education to differentiate only on'the

grounds o

f me

rit,

dif

fere

ntia

tion

follows s

ocia

l class

lines: the

higher one goes in th

e ed

ucat

iona

l sy

stem

, th

e greater

the

predominance of people from ca

pita

list

, 'm

iddl

e-cl

ass'

, and

prof

essi

onal

ba

ckgr

ound

s. The educational system reproduces

without dramatic change the

existing

soci

al d

ivis

ion of

lab

our,

and the existing system of cl

ass re

lati

ons.

However, it

will not do

to blame the

education system for

constraints on a

cces

s, or

toat

trib

ute to it alone power over access. Th

is power is diversified

through the

various soc

ial in

stit

utio

ns, no

t just edu

cati

on, and its

orig

ins

are,

as

I have been implying, in th

e system of

cla

ssrelations at the

soc

ieta

l le

vel.

Constraints on acc

ess:

formality'

'For

mali

ty' is one per

vasi

ve and familiar as

pect

of co

nstr

aint

s on

access t

o discourse. Formality i

s a common p

roperty in many

soci

etie

s of

practices and dis

cour

ses of

high

soci

al pre

stig

e and

rest

rict

ed access.

It i

s a contributory f

actor in ke

epin

g access

rest

rict

ed,

for

it makes demands on pa

rtic

ipan

ts above and

beyond tho

se of most dis

cour

se, and the

abi

lity

to meet tho

sedemands is it

self

unevenly distributed. It

can

also

se

rve

togenerate awe among tho

se who are

exc

lude

d by it and daunted

by it.

Form

alit

y is best re

gard

ed as a p

roperty

of soc

ial si

tuat

ions

which has pec

ulia

r ef

fect

s upon language forms. As a property

of soc

ial si

tuat

ions

, it manifests in an accentuated form the

thr

eetypes of con

stra

int upon pra

ctic

e which I have ass

ocia

ted with the

exercise of power: constraints on contents, subjects, and relations.

In terms of contents, di

scou

rse in a for

mal si

tuat

ion is sub

ject

to

exce

ptio

nal constraints on topic on rel

evan

ce, and in terms of

more or le

ss fixed int

erac

tive

routines. In terms of subj.ests,_ the

soci

al ide

ntit

ies of tho

se qua

lifi

ed to occupy sub

ject

pos

itio

ns in

the discourses of fo

rmal

sit

uati

ons are defined more rigorously

than is usual, and in terms of public pos

itio

ns or st

atus

es, as in

the

constraints

refe

rred

to above on who may of

fici

ate

at a

66

LANGUAGE AND POWER

I DISCOURSE AND POWER

67

religious

service. in

terms of r

ela '

formal situations are

!; informed Mr. Young or Mr. Krogh to see that this thing

characterized by an e

xceptional o

rientation t

o and marking of

should not happen again but you did not take any action

position, status, and 'face'; po rand social distance are overt,

i such as ordering the firing these people because of the

and consequently there is a strong tendency towards politeness.

~;' general sensitive issues that were involved. Do you recall

~` —' "~ "

' that?

PoIifeness is

use u~cogn~fiiori"'o~`~

erences o power,

degrees of social distance, and so forth, and oriented to repro-

~'

(6) A: Well, that is not on the ground of illegality, Mr. Dash. I do

ucutg

em wi ou c ange.

not think you asked me at that time whether —what my

The peculiar effects of formality on language forms follow from

legal opinion was, for whatever it was worth. What you

these accentuated

constraints. We find

levels of structuring of

were asking me was what I did, and that is what I did.

language above and beyond what i

s required in non-formal

(~ Q: Well, if it

was legal you would ordinarily have approved it

discourse. This extra structuring can affect any level of language.

would you not?

For example, the allocation of turns at talking to participants may

(8) A: Well; no, the thing that troubled me about it

was that it

be regulated by a formula (e.g. participants must speak in order

was totally unanticipated. Unauthorized by me.

of rank), whereas in conversation people work it out as they go

(9) Q~ ~o was it

authorized by?

along. Or encounters may have to proceed according to a strict

(10) A: Well, I am under the impression that it

was authorized by

routine which lays down stages in a fixed sequence. There may

Mr• Krogh, but it

is not based on any personal knowledge.

be requirements to do with the rhythm or tempo or loudness of

(11) Q. Well, now, as a matter of fa

ct, Mr. Ehrlichman, did you

talk —people may have to talk at a particular speed, for instance;

not personally approve in advance a covert entry into the

or to do with the grammar of sentences —highly complex struc-

Ellsberg psychiatrist office for the purpose of gaining

tares may be favoured. There is likely to be a general requirement

access to the psychoanalysts reports?

for

consistency of language forms, which w

ill mean for instance

(12) n: I approved a covert investigation. Now, if

a covert entry

that the

vocabulary must be selected from a restricted set

means a breaking and entering the answer to your

throughout. There is also a heightened self-consciousness which

question is, no.

results in c

are about using 'correct' grammar and vocabulary,

including a whole set of vocabulary which is reserved for more

Text 3.5 Source: New York Times, 1973:512

formal occasions, and is often

itself referred to as 'formal'.

~~The following text is an extract from a transcript of part of the

The questioner is

challenging Ehrlichman, ye

t in a manner which

isUnited States Senate investigation into the Watergate

affair, and

~ perhaps constrained by the formality of t

he situation. How is

itis part of the testimony of one of President Nixon's most senior

constrained? What aspects of t

he language are indicative of f

ormality?

aides, John Ehrlichman:

T'he taking of turns is

constrained within aquestion-plus-answer

(1) Q: Mr. Ehrlichman, prior to the luncheon recess you stated

pattern, with Dash asking and Ehrlichman answering. Any challenges

that in your opinion, the entry into the Ellsberg

or accusations and attempts to refute them must be fitted into this

format. Turn (7) is

a challenge, f

or instance, but it

is forced to be an

psychiatrist's office was legal because of national security

implicit and indirect c

hallenge because Dash has to put it in question

reasons. I think that was your testimony.

form. Consequently it

comes across as restrained. This is a case of

(2) a: Yes.

formality limiting the nature of re

lations between participants. P

erhaps

(3) Q: Have you always maintained that position?

' the other linguistic feature which is most st

rikingly indicative of

(4) n. Well, I dori tknow —

formality is the vocabulary —the consistent selection of 'formal' words.

(5) Q: Well, do you recall when we had our fi

rst i

ntexview in my

The opening turn, fo

r example, may in a less formal scenario have

office, and we discussed this issue you expressed shock

started: Jo

hn, you were making out before lunch that ....Notice also the

that such a thing had occurred, and indicated that you had

polite ti

tle +surname modes of address that are used (Mr Ehrlichman).

68

LANGUAGE AND POWER

Formal situations could

be regarded as adding an extra

constraint to the

three

I have a

ssociated wi

th t

he exercise of

power — a con

stra

int on language form — as well as heightening the

three. Thi

s means tha

t discourse, and practice genera, in_f_ormal

situ

atio

ns are difficult and demanding; ~T

~ey_~~epend on special

knowledge arid- s~kilt_which has to be learnt. Many people do not

acquire even the_ necessary knowledge and skill to_

occu

py,p

eri~

h-eral positions in formal situations, and consequently find formal

situations pe

r se

daunting and frightening — or ridiculous A

formidable axi

s is set

u~ between soc

ial po

siti

on and knowledge;

since those in~restigious

soci

al p

osit

ions

do learn t~,_o_g~erate

formally, an ea

sy conclusion for

those who don't

is '

I can't

because I'm not clever enoug _r

atti

er tFiari _'I can't because I'm

._..

woxking, class'. Thus for

mali

ty both restricts access and gen

erat

es

awe. However, I sha

ll discuss in th

e fi

nal section a contrary trend

in contemporary society against overt marking of power and thus

against formality.

SOCIAL STRUGGLE IN DISCOURSE

In this section I add a vitally important proviso to what has .g

one

before. Power, 'in

' discourse

or 'behind'

discourse, i

s not

a

permanent and undisputed

attr

ibut

e of

any one person or soc

ial

grouping. On the contrary, those who hold power at a particular

moment have to constantly reassert their power, and those who

do not hold power are always liable to make a bid for power. This

is tru

e whether one is talking at the

lev

el of th

e particular sit

u-

ation, or in

terms of a soc

ial in

stit

utio

n,- or in terms of a whole

society: power at all these levels is won, exercised, sustained, and

lost i

n the course of so

cial

str

uggl

e (s

ee Ch. 2, p. 34).

Let us begin wit

h a text where str

uggl

e is overt — an interview

between a youth (r) suspected of involvement in a crime, and his

headmaster (x).

(1) x: Why didn't you go straight down Queen Street?

(2) Y: I'm not walking down there wit

h a load of

coons from St

Hilda's coming out of school.

(3) x: Why's that?

(4) r: Well that's ob

viou

s, is

n't it

? I don't want to ge

t belted.

(5) x: Well there isn

't usually any bother in

Queen Str

eet,

is

ther

e?

DISCOURSE AND POWER

69

(6) Y: No. None of us white kids usually go down there, do we?

What about tha

t bu

st-u

p in the

Odeon carpark at

Christmas?

(~ x:

That was nearly a year ago, and I'm not con

vinc

ed you lot

were as innocent as you made out. So when you got to th

e

square, why did you wait around for

quarter of an hour

instead of going straight home?

(8) Y: I thought my mate might come down tha

t way aft

er work.

Anyway, we always go down the

square af

ter school.

Compare this with the premature baby uni

t text in the section Power in

disc

ours

e at the beginning of this chapter, in terms of the degree of

control exercised by the headmaster over the you

th's

contributions, and

the extent to which they bo

th sti

ck to the discoursal 'rights' and

'obligations' you would exp

ect in such an interview—for instance,

j don't think you would exp

ect the you

th to as

k questions and the

headmaster to answer them.

There are var

ious

ways in which Y exercises more control over the

4 di

scou

rse than one might expect, exceeds ivs discoursal'rights' and

does not fu

lfil

his 'obligations'. Firstly, he challenges x's questions on

two occ

asio

ns (turns 2 and 4) ra

ther than answezing them directly,

though an answer is implied in 2 and off

ered

after the challenge in 4.

Secondly, in tu

rn 6 r asks a question which x answers: as I said above,

you would expect ne

ithe

r Y to ask nor x to answer questions. Th

irdl

y,

the answers which Y does give to x's questions go beyond what is

directly relevant in turns 6 and 8; re

call

that in the med

ical

text, a

requirement of relevance is

strictly enforced by the doctor. Fou

rthl

y, Y

shows no sign of adapting his style of talk to the relatively formal

sett

ing;

he appears to treat the interview to an extent as if i

t were a

conversation, and to treat the policeman as a pee

r. Thi

s is

most

evident in Y's vocabulary (belted, kid

s, bus

t-up

) and especially m his

use

of the racist word coons. I think we would exp

ect people who would

use this so

rt of vocabulary with their friends to be influenced by the

settin

g, occasion, and the power and distance separating them from

the police to avoid it.

x does maintain quite a lot of co

ntro

l nevertheless. Most of the

questions aze asked by him, and some at least are answered fairly

compliantly, indicating a lev

el of adherence to conventional rights

and obligations. It is always possible in cases of this sort th

at the

person w

ith

institutional power — x in

this case — i

s tactically

yiel

ding

some ground in order to be abl

e to pursue alonger-term

stra

tegy

. Perhaps this is how we should

inte

rpre

t x's failure to

7O

LANGUAGE AND POWER

imme

diat

ely challenge or

dissociate hi

msel

f from the

racist coons:

by let

ting

it pass, he appears to be acc

epti

ng it.

But are we to re

gard

such a cas

e as just a str

uggl

e between an

indi

vidu

al youth showing how unimpressed he i

s wi

th school

auth

orit

y by flouting conventional constraints, and a headmaster

adop

ting

tactics to deal with that? Re

call

the

dis

tinc

tion

on p. 25

of cha

pter

2 between three

leve

ls of

soc

ial

organisation:

situ

-at

iona

l, ins

titu

tion

al, and s

ocietal. Thi

s seems a fai

r de

scri

ptio

nof

what is going on at the situational level. But it

mis

ses th

e so

cial

patt

ern to which t

his in

divi

dual

example seems to be

long

: th

eyouth seems typical of many young people, and the

tac

tics

which

the headmaster uses are perhaps fairly standard for dea

ling

with

this s

ort of

situation. In ot

her words, the

extract can a

lso be

interpreted in

terms of st

rugg

le at th

e in

stit

utio

nal level. More-

over," we could sur

ely fi

nd other pieces of

discourse from qui

tedi

ffer

ent institutional se

tfin

gs —the law and the

family might be

examples —showing ana

logo

us struggles between young people

and 'authority'; co

rres

pond

ingly, one can see

the

text. both as an

example o

f so

cial

str

uggl

e at the

ins

titu

tion

al lev

el w

ithin th

eschool as a soc

ial in

stit

utio

n, and as an example of a more gen

eral

stru

ggle

at the societal lev

el between (certain gr

oupi

ngs o fl young

people and power -holders of

var

ious

sorts.

Of course one cannot get far in

investigating

soci

al str

uggl

ebetween young people and the s

chools, or

young people and

public authorities more generally, on the

basis of a single piece

of dis

cour

se! What I am sug

gest

ing,

however, is th

at an

'ven

piec

e of

dis

cour

se maw simultaneousl~be mart of a sit

uati

onal

struggle, an institutional str

u~gl

e,_a

nd a soc

ieta

l stru,~,gle (in

clud

-',

ing class struggle). Thi

s has con

sequ

ence

s in

terms of our dis

tinc

-ti

on between 'power in di

scou

rse'

and 'power behind

discourse'.

While str

uggl

e at the situation

al lev

el is over power in di

scou

rse,

stru

ggle

at the other levels may als

o be over power behind d:

cour

se.

I re

ferr

ed ear

lier

in the ch

apte

r to a ten

denc

y against th

e overt

marking of power relationships in di

scou

rse — a ten

denc

y which

is of considerable int

eres

t from the perspective of so

cial

struggle.

Let me ill

ustr

ate

it wit

h a well known gra

mmat

ical

example, the

so-called 'T

' and 'V' pronoun forms which are found in many

languages —French, German, It

alia

n, Spa

nish

, Ru

ssia

n among the

European languages —but not (modern) sta

ndar

d En

glis

h. These

DISCOURSE AND POWER

71

';~ language

s have two forms for

the second-pe

rson

pronoun where

!, st

anda

rd Eng

lish

has jus

t tl~e one, you

, and although these forms

are in ori

gin ju

st sin

gula

r (T) and plu

ral (V), bot

h have come to

be used for

sin

gula

r reference. Let

us tak

e French as an example.

Its T-form (t

u) and its V-f

orm (vous~ are now both used to ad

dres

sa single person. At one sta

ge, the difference between them was

one of

power: t

o was used to ad

dres

s. subordinates, vows

toad

dres

s superiors, and ei

ther

(depending on the

clas

s of

the

spea

kers

) could be used reciprocally between soc

ial eq

uals

.More r

ecently, however, the

re has been a sh

ift towards a

system ba

sed upon s

olidarity ra

ther

than power. to i

s used t

oad

dres

s pe

ople

one is cl

ose to in some way (friends, relations, co-

'

workers, etc.), and vous is

used when the

re is so

cial

'distance'.

There is te

nsio

n between the

power -based and s

olidarity-based

syst

ems:

what happens, for

instance, if you want to ad

dres

s a

soci

al 'superior' who you are

close to (your parents, say), or

a~ ,J

subordinate who is socially distant (e.g. a soldier, if

you happen\/

to be an off

icer

)? The answer used to be tha

t you would use vous

and to re

spec

tive

ly on grounds of power, but now it is

tha

t you

would pr

obab

ly us

e to and vous re

spec

tive

ly on grounds of

soli

dari

ty.

The par

ticu

lar development of T/V away from the

power-based

system towards the

solidarity-based system seems to be in li

newith long-term developments across whole ranges of

ins

titu

tion

swhich have been documented in various la

ngua

ges:

a movement

away from th

e ex

plic

it marking of

power relationships. For

instance, th

is is true in

Brit

ain for hi

gher

edu

cati

on, fo

r a range

of types of di

scou

rse in soc

ial services, and now for ind

ustr

y —

where Jap

anes

e management tec

hniq

ues which eliminate surface

ineq

uali

ties

between managers and workers ar

e increasingly

infl

uent

ial.

It is

of course easy enough to find unreformed practice

in any_ of

these cas

es, but the

tre

nd over three decades or

more

is cle

ar enough.

Does this tr

end mean tha

t unequal power relationships are

on

the decline? That would seem to fo

llow

if we assumed a mechan-

ical

co

nnec

tion

between relationships

and

thei

r. discoursal

expression. But such a con

clus

ion would be h

ighl

y su

spec

t ir

nview of th

e evidence from elsewhere tha

t power inequalities have

not sub

stan

tial

ly changed —evidence about the d

istribution of

wealth, th

e increase in po

vert

y in the

1980s, in

equa

liti

es in access

72

LANGUAGE AND POWER

to h

ealt

h facilities, ed

ucat

ion,

housing, inequalities in employ-

ment prospects, and so for

th. Nor is it credible th

at tho

se with

power would give

it up for

no obvious rea

son.

One dimension of power in discourse is

arg

uabl

y th

e capacity

to det

ermi

ne to what ext

ent th

at power will be overtly exp

ress

ed.

It is th

eref

ore quite possible for the

exp

ress

ion of

power relation-

ships to be pla

yed down as a t

acti

c within a strati for the

continued possession and exe

rcise of

ower. That would seem to

be a r

easo

nabl

e interpretation o

f th

e co

nsci

ous and de

libe

rate

adop

tion

of Ja

pane

se management styles re

ferr

ed to above. Thi

sis a c

ase

of hiding power for ma

nipu

lati

ve reasons —see the

sect

ion on Hid

den power ab

ove. But can it ac

coun

t fo

r th

e longer-

term tre

nd across diverse in

stitutions and indeed across national

and lin

guis

tic frontiers? It is har

dly cr

edib

le to in

terp

ret it as an

international co

nspi

racy

!What both the optimistic exp

lana

tion

tha

t in

equa

lity

is on the

way out and the

cons

pira

torial explanation

fail to take into

acco

unt is the rel

atio

nshi

p between power and soc

ial struggle. I

would sug

gest

tha

t the

decl

ine in the

overt marking of power

rela

tion

ship

s should be interpr

eted

as a concession on the

part

of power -ho

lder

s which they have been forced to make by ,th

ein

crease in the re

lati

ve n~wPr of wnr~cina-~lacc nannla and n+l,or

and di

sreg

arde

d ne

onle

—

women, youth, black people gay_~e~le~etc. (That shi

ft in power

relations has been che

cked

and par

tly re

vers

ed in places during

the

crises of the

late 1970s and 1980s.) However, thi

s does not

mean th

at the

ower-holders

have su

rren

dere

d ower but

mere

ly tha

t they have been forced into less di

rect

ways of ex

er-

cisi

ng and rep

rodu

cing

their power. Nor is it a merely cosmetic

tactic: be

caus

e of

the c

onstrain

ts under which they have been

forced to operate, the

re _are severe problems of le

giti

macy

for

power -holders.

~

M~Discourse

is pa

rt and parcel of

this complex si

tuat

ion

ofst

rugg

le, and we can deepen our understanding of di

scou

rse by

keeping th

is ma

trix

in

mind, and our understanding

of t

hestruggle by att

endi

ng to. di

scourse. I shall explore for ins

tanc

e in

Chapter 8 the way in

which ce

rtai

n di

scou

rse

types

acquire

cultural sal

ienc

e, and 'co

loni

ze' new institutions and domains, a

perspective which I briefly air

ed in Chapter 2. Shifting patterns

of sal

ienc

e are a barometer of th

e development of so

cial

str

uggl

e

DISCOURSE AND POWER

73

and a part of

tha

t pr

oces

s. For example, cou

nsel

ling

is a s

alient

disc

ours

e ty

pe which has colonized workplaces, schools, and so

forth. Thi

s is superficially indicative of

an unwonted sen

siti

vity

to ind

ivid

ual needs and pro

blem

s. But it seems in some cases at

least to have been tur

ned into a means to

greater institutional

cont

rol of peo

ple through exposing as

pect

s of

the

ir 'private' lives

to unp

rece

dent

ed institutional pro

bing

. The app

aren

t sensitivity

to individ

uals

is a concession by power-holders to the

str

engt

h

of the

(relatively) unpowerful; th

e co

ntai

nmen

t of cou

nsel

ling

is

thei

r counter-offensive. See Chapter 8 for

examples and further

discussion.

Acce

ss to prestigious

disc

ours

e types and th

eir

powerful

subj

ect po

siti

ons is

another are

na of social struggle. One thi

nks

for inst

ance

of th

e struggles of

the

working c

lass

through the

trad

e unions and the

Labour Party around the

turn of

the

century

for access to

political ar

enas

inc

ludi

ng Parliament, and by imp

li-

cati

on to th

e discourses of

politics in th

e 'p

ubli

c' domain. Or of

the struggles of women and bla

ck people as wel

l as working-class

people to br

eak into the

professions, and more rec

entl

y th

e higher

echelons of th

e professions.

Struggles over access merge with

struggles around sta

ndar

d-

ization. Isuggested earlier tha

t an imp

orta

nt part of

sta

ndar

diz-

atio

n is

the establishment of the st

anda

rd language as the

form

used i

n a range o

f 'p

ubli

c' institutions. In

the

context of the

incr

easi

ng rel

ativ

e power of the working class in Br

itai

n af

ter th

e

Second World War, certain con

cess

ions

have had to be made to

nonstandard

dialects in some ins

titu

tion

s — in broadcasting and

some of the professions, for

example, cer

tain

fornns of

relatively

pres

tigi

ous nonstandard sp

eech

ar

e to

lera

ted.

Again, c

ultu

ral

mino

riti

es have demanded ri

ghts

for th

eir own languages

in

vari

ous in

stit

utio

nal spheres, inc

ludi

ng edu

cati

on, and these have

again re

sult

ed in certain li

mite

d co

nces

sion

s.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

In t

his ch

apte

r I have argued on the

one hand t

hat power is

exer

cise

d and ena

cted

in di

scou

rse,

and on the

other hand tha

t

ther

e are relations of

power behind discourse. I have als

o argued