Language & Power

Language & Power

Types of Power
1. Instrumental
  1. Personal
    1. Using power to influence people through personality, nurturing or caring
  2. Positional
    1. Power gained from your position, often in a hierarchy
  3. Knowledge & Ideas
    1. Using knowledge and ideas to influence people
  4. Practical
    1. Power through physical actions, violence, skill, money, services
2. Influential
  1. Influence and persuade others
Theorists
1. Fairclough
  1. Unequal Encounters
    1. A marked difference in the power status of individuals (e.g. a judge speaking to a defendant)
      1. Often has a powerful participant who places constraints on a less powerful participant
  2. Synthetic Personalisation
    1. Building a relationship between text producer and text receiver by using personal pronouns
      1. Advertising
  3. Topic Management
    1. The person who controls what is spoken about is often the dominant speaker
      1. Known as the 'gatekeeper'
2. Grice
  1. 4 maxims which if flouted, can be a way of asserting dominance or undermining a dominant speaker
    1. Manner
    2. Quality
    3. Quantity
    4. Relevance
3. Sinclair & Coulthard
  1. Exchange Structure Theory
    1. Initiation, Response, Feedback
  2. Formulation
    1. A teacher rewording the contribution of student in order to impose meaning or understanding
4. Brown & Levinson
  1. Face
    1. Positive Face
      1. The need to feel wanted, liked and appreciated
        Positive Politeness
        e.g. 'I really appreciated all the music you've lent me, can I borrow this?'
    2. Negative Face
      1. The need to have freedom of thought without feeling imposed on
        Negative Politeness
        e.g. 'I'm really sorry to ask you again...'
    3. FTA's
      1. A communicative act that threatens someone’s positive or negative face needs
Modality
1. Deontic
  1. Structures that show things WILL happen
2. Epistemic
  1. Structures that show things MIGHT happen
    1. Includes things like modal verbs and hedges
Jargon
1. It can help specialists communicate quickly and accurately
  1. It can be used to assert knowledge power
    1. It can make non specialists feel less powerful if they do not understand the lexis
Exam Technique
1. You are assessed on your ability to...
  1. Demonstrate an understanding of the concepts/theories
  2. Analyse the influence of contextual factors
  3. Use evidence from the data to support you
2. Structure
  1. Intro
    1. Context
      1. Where does it take place?
      2. Type of relationship?
        Any impact?
      3. Who should be the dominant speaker?
        Are they?
        Is it asymmetrical?
      4. Type of power exerted?
        Reflected in which language features? (Briefly)
  2. Main Body
    1. POINT
      1. Use the question to help you form your point
      2. Pick a specific language feature and mention which linguistic method it is from
    2. EVIDENCE
      1. Give a short example
    3. EXPLORE
      1. What does your evidence shows about how power is being exerted?
      2. Link it to why this feature is being used in this context
      3. Try to link the language feature to any theories

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	Created by anna.swainson almost 9 years ago