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Power in discourse

COM 370—Psychology of Language . Power in discourse . Def: “ Controlling and constraining the contributions of non-[less]powerful participants” ( Fairclough 2001, p. 38-39) Contents : what is said or done, i.e. “access” to “communicative resources”

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Power in discourse

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  1. COM 370—Psychology of Language Power in discourse

  2. Def: “Controlling and constraining the contributions of non-[less]powerful participants” (Fairclough 2001, p. 38-39) • Contents: what is said or done, i.e. “access” to “communicative resources” • Relations: social relations of people in discourse • Subjects: “subject positions” of others (e.g., in mediated discourse) • Language form: what channel, dialect, register (e.g., level of formality) is/can be used? Defining power

  3. Types/aspects of power

  4. Purpose: to study “the way social power abuse, dominance, and inequality are enacted, reproduced, and resisted by text in talk and the social and political context” (including media) (van Dijk, 2003, p. 352) • “Discourse” and “discourse” • Discourse: A form of talk (e.g., discussion, conversation) • Discourse: The placing of ideas together in a way that supports a particular way of thought. Critical discourse analysis

  5. Ideology: A set of interlocking assumptions about some aspect of reality—the “basis of social representations shared by members of a group” (van Dijk, 1998, p. 8) • Ex: ideology of beauty • Ex: ideology” of success • Hegemony: the dominance or influence of one group over another (political, economic, etc.) Some key words

  6. Macro versus micro aspects of social order

  7. Ideology: • A set of ideas, not a single idea • Held by groups, not by individuals • Often “naturalized” by language • Hegemony • Not total or absolute • Seldom absolute! • Not just economic (à la Marx) • Often implicit, not overt (p. 358) Clarifying ideology & hegemony

  8. In what ways do you see “power” played out in interaction?

  9. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMdiRkiYREU&feature=related • http://pietothemediaecologist.blogspot.com/2009/04/after-years-of-drinking-beer-and.html • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6u6G5hiA5_s • But: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/184184/women_in_beer_commercials.html

  10. Three approaches to “power” in discourse: • The “classic” model (no power, or IP power only) • The “hegemony” model (groups striving for group-based power, or one group holding more power than others) • The “fragmented” model (postmodern)— “combining discourse elements in ever new ways to achieve momentary impact” – pastiche (p. 223) Changing processes of power(Fairclough, 1992)

  11. Democratization: “the removal of inequalities and assymetries in the discursive and linguistic rights, obligations, and prestige of groups of people” (p. 201) • Changing relations between social dialects • Access to prestigious discourse types (e.g., managerial comm) • Elimination of overt power markers in institutional discourse types • Tendency towards informality of language • (private  public; conversation > literary/book) • Changes in gender-related language processes • E.g., “topic pick-up” (whose topics are “picked up” M/W?) • But…are these real changes, or only cosmetic!? 3 processes of change (Fairclough)

  12. Commodification: “the process whereby social domains and institutions, whose concern is not producing commodities in the narrower economic sense of goods for sale, come nevertheless to be organized and conceptualized in terms of commodity production, distribution, and consumption” (p. 207) • Institutional “colonization of everyday life” (Foucault/Deetz) • We increasingly talk about various aspects of life that both reflect and support capital economy and our “work” lives and goals • Things NOT commodities BECOME commodities! 3 processes of change (Fairclough)

  13. Commodification Leisure, etc. Educational Discussion Relationships Consumers “Skills” Advertising Funding

  14. Technologization: Discourse technologies are when communication aspects have “the character of transcontexutal techniques, which are seen as resources or toolkits that can be used to pursue a wide variety of strategies in many diverse contexts” (p. 215) • Interviewing, Teaching, Counseling, Advertising • The blurring of technologies and discourse type • Fragmentation: hybrid types of discourse • Do technologization and hybridization empower or disempower the everyday person? • How do the three forces work together? 3 processes of change (Fairclough)

  15. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEJfS1v-fU0 compare

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