ESLB 3053
LANGUAGE AND POWER
THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE
CONTENTS
1) Introduction
2) Why study language?
3) What is language?
4) What is power?
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INTRODUCTION
- What counts as a language is a political, cultural and technical question.
- A group of people may share a language but have their own way when using the language.
- The language we use to speak is not same as the language we use to write a letter.
- Language varies depending on the people using it, the task and the society.
- Therefore, studying language allows us to understand the way in which people
exercised power and in turn, ways in which this can be resisted / avoided.
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Why study language
- The ability to understand how language functions, to think about it in different ways is
crucial to understand society.
- Critical thinking about language can assist in resisting oppression, protecting the powerless
and building a good society.
- Looking / studying closely at language can tell us about:
1) how our brain understand and process language (psycholinguistics)
2) how we learn language and how best to teach them (applied linguistics)
3) how social factors (age, gender, class, ethnicity) affect the way people use language
(sociolinguistics)
4) how it is possible to have a realistic conversation with computer (artificial intelligence)
5) distinctive about literature and poetry (stylistics)
6) how people in different cultures use language to do things (anthropology)
7) the relationship between words and meaning (philosophy)
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What is language?
1.1 Language: a system
- Language is a rule – governed system but it is not governed by rules the way society is
governed by laws.
- Rather, linguists look at language to discover the rules that make it works; communication
possible.
- As language changes, new rules are described.
- The rules of language tell speakers to combine different parts of that language.
- That is why we learn the rules of language; syntax, morphology, phonetics, phonology.
i) syntax: grammatical rules which determines how words can be combined into phrases
and sentences.
ii) phonetics: the study of speech sound especially how they are made by speakers and
perceived by the hearers.
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iii) phonology: the study of the sound systems of a language. Both the study of
phonology and phonetics look at speakers’ pronunciation.
iv) morphology: the study of the smallest meaningful part of a language which is known
as the morphemes.
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1.2 Language: Rules of theory and practice
- Noam Chomsky made distinction between competence and performance in language
learning.
- To have competence in a language means to have the knowledge of grammar.
- The rules of grammar needs to be followed in order to produce well – formed utterances.
- A competent speaker needs to know which word order to use (syntax), which form of word
should take (morphology), what those words mean (semantics) and how to pronounce these
words verbally (phonology and phonetics).
- Competence explained well – formed sentences and how we can generate new meanings.
- Performance refers to the way individual speaker use language.
- HOWEVER, it can be that a well – formed sentences tend to be inappropriate due to social
relationships, taboo or cultural convention / issues.
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- Thus, it can be said that the speaker may have grammatical competence but lack in
communicative competence.
- Communicative competence refers to what a speaker needs to do to construct
appropriate utterances in a speech community.
- Also known as sociolinguistic competence or pragmatic competence.
- Therefore, communicative competence allows speaker to speak correctly in social
relationships, cultural conventions in a community.
- Other than that, communicative competence allows speaker to avoid inappropriate
utterances.
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1.3 Language: Multiple functions
- Language have different functions; used to refer things, to demonstrate status and power
and to amuse.
- Roman Jakobson (2000) argued that, “Language must be investigated in all variety of its
functions”.
- Framework of language by Jakobson is divided by two;
i) features of language
ii) functions of language
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Jakobson’s framework of language functions
● Features of language • Functions of language
CONTEXT REFERENTIAL
ADDRESSER MESSAGE ADDRESSEE EMOTIVE POETIC CONATIVE
CONTACT PHATIC
CODE METALINGUAL
Addresser: the speaker Emotive: expressions of the speaker’s
Addressee: person spoken to attitudes towards what he is speaking
Context: environment about.
Message: content Conative: helps to describe message that
are intended to have an effect on the
Contact: medium; spoken / written
audience. Eg: a command, to persuade.
Code: words / hand signals
• Referential: information / denotative function of a language which includes information,
ideas, objects in which speaker share the knowledge. Eg: ask someone to pass the salt, and
get the salt, not pepper.
• Phatic: described as ‘small talk’ which functions is to build / sustain social relationship rather
than to convey information. Eg: you are sitting near the window and suddenly you say, “its
cold in here”. The point not to say close the window but to start a conversation.
• Poetic: when language functions have emotive function. Eg: advertising, politics or
persuasive texts.
• Metalingual: refers to language and communication while communicating. It is vital for
successful communication to continue take place. Eg: when we ask to repeat something /
explaining.
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1.4 Language Diversity
• Even though English is being used worldwide, there are many different varieties of English.
• The differences in the way people pronounce words are based on geographical
differences. This difference is what termed as accent.
• Accent – features of speakers’ pronunciation that can signal their regional or social
background.
• The differences in ways people use words and placed the words are termed as dialect.
• Dialect – also signal the regional or background of the speaker but difference in terms of their
grammatical structure. Eg: sentence structure: UK – Have you got?
US – Do you have?
vocabulary: UK – pavement
US - sidewalk
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POWER
• Since there are many functions of language, there are different ways power can be defined.
• The power of language can be exercised through the speakers’ status, physical or
institutional status.
• Eg: when a manager uses a particular form of language, the power comes partially with the
position and also from the kind of language used.
• Eg: when a policeman asks you to stop the car, we understood the command and stops the
car. Thus, the power is exercised through the language used.
• We called this as symbolic power.
• Therefore, power is exercised or defined by the way people use the language.
• Hence, studying language allows us to understand the way in which people exercised power
and in turn, ways in which this can be resisted / avoided.
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THANK YOU
u n i t a r. my
