Power and Pragmatics PDF

Language and Linguistics Compass 3/4 (2009): 996–1009, 10.1111/j.1749-818x.2009.00148.
Blackwell
Oxford,
Language
LNCO
©
1749-818x
Journal
May
10.1111/j.1749-818x.2009.00148.x
148
9
0
Review
1009???
96???
2009
Power2009
ElizabethThe
UK
Article
compilation
and Publishing
and
Authors
KeatingLinguistic
Pragmatics ©Ltd
2009Compass
Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Power and Pragmatics

Elizabeth Keating*
Department of Anthropology, University of Texas at Austin
Abstract
Language is an important means through which power relations are created and
negotiated. In addition to everyday choices speakers make about their own
language use, variations in ways of talking are related to local theories of power,
status, identity, self, ethnicity, class, and gender. Grammatical and lexical choices,
choices in forms of address and reference, turn-taking, narratives of cause and
effect, genre, and stylistic performance, as well as the organization of space for
talk and participation, embodied behaviors, and silence are used as elements in
the distribution of power. Power and language are connected through the marking
of certain encounters and contexts as requiring particular types of language use,
the privileging of certain types of language, who may or may not speak in
certain settings, which contexts are appropriate for which types of speech and
which for silence, what types of talk are appropriate to persons of different
statuses and roles, norms for requesting and giving information, and practices for
alternating between speakers. Pragmatic uses of language are an important tool
for constructing social difference and distinctions between individuals in terms of
efficacy and power.
Language is an important means through which power relations are

created and maintained, reaching far across space and time and naturalizing
inequalities among people. It is well recognized that relations of domination
must be ‘endlessly renewed’ (Bourdieu 1977:183) and are continually
contested, despite conventional understandings of history as rational or
inevitable (Foucault 1970). Wherever societal distinctions are made among
community members, linguistic and stylistic variations become resources
in processes of segmentation. Variations in ways of talking are culturally
and socially made meaningful and related to local theories of power, status,
identity, self, ethnicity, class, gender, and other hierarchies. Grammatical
and lexical choices, choices in forms of address and reference, turn-taking,
narratives of cause and effect, genre, and stylistic performance (van Dijk
1981; 2003; Levinson 1983; Mey 1993), as well as the organization of
space for talk and participation, embodied behaviors, and silence are used
as elements in the distribution of power.
Power is a complex concept that is contested in anthropological scholarship
due to a wide range of values and assumptions which accompany the use
© 2009 The Author
Journal Compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Power and Pragmatics 997
of the term (see e.g., Lukes 2005), and difficulties in cross-cultural com-
parisons due to differences in belief as well as differences in scope of
comparison. For example, Anderson notes in his study of language and
power in Indonesia how the Javanese notion of power significantly differs
from the European concept in its ideas about the accumulation, absorption,
and legitimacy of power (Anderson 1990:23). However, most frequently
power is defined as the ability or capacity to perform or act effectively,
the ability or capacity to exert control over others, moral efficacy, authority,
and influence (political, social, or economic). Power can be relevant in
either systems or situations.
Power relations are often represented in the literature as categories
of powerful vs. powerless (even among postmodern theorists seeking to
deconstruct these relationships), but recently close ethnographic and
sociolinguistic analyses have revealed how power is rarely uncontested, is
often situationally based and context related, and how each person may have
several roles and identities with varying degrees of agency, efficacy, and
control. The relation between power and knowledge, the history of power
relations in a particular society, and the idea of power as having positive
as well as negative effects are key themes in recent work, for example, the
work of Foucault. Power is not unidirectional or nonreciprocal, and can
be locally organized around relations of dependence, rather than influence
(Ide 1989; Wetzel 1993). There are many differences cross-culturally in the
expression and constraint of the exhibition of power, for example, differences
between construals of domination in western and eastern societies, as in
the case of Japan, where the individual is not considered the locus of
power (Wetzel 1993) or Java (Errington 1990). Ideas about power almost
universally undervalue the part subordinate groups play in constructing
and maintaining power relations, i.e., the collaborative nature of this
work. Cultures differ in their ideas about who are authorized speakers and
hearers and about producers’ and audiences’ ability to control interpretation
and responsibility for interpretation, for example, the relevance of sincerity
and intentionality (Duranti 1994).
Whether power is tied to human agency or to structure seems to be a
key point in debates about the nature of power. Although Foucault (1970)
claims that there is no power without agents, that power is something that
is exercised rather than possessed, and only local exercises of power are
real, institutions and formal practices play an important role in the exercise
of power. However, the traditional notion of power as one group exercising
sovereign control over another has been made more complex by studies
of multiple contexts and by looking at the role of language pragmatics.
The part that language and other semiotic resources play in legitimizing
power distinctions can be studied through a close look at the local organization
of everyday language forms and use, as well as the circulation through oral
and written channels of discursive and linguistic forms which endure
beyond the local setting and time. The role of language in power relations
© 2009 The Author Language and Linguistics Compass 3/4 (2009): 996–1009, 10.1111/j.1749-818x.2009.00148.x
998 Elizabeth Keating
has been described as the product of the relation between a linguistic market
and a linguistic habitus, or learned conventions (Bourdieu 1990), as individuals
strategically deploy their linguistic resources, including adjusting their
words to the demands and characteristics of their audience. Every social
interaction potentially illustrates and reproduces important elements of
family, community, local, and transnational power structures.
Speaking Power
Even young speakers master not only grammatical competence but social
competence while learning how to participate in a range of different
communication events in their homes and community, and while interacting
with a range of members. Through participation they learn how to distinguish
between individuals in forms of address and talk, when it is appropriate
to talk and to whom, and different ways of speaking for different contexts,
acts, and events. Speech events are recognized in part by what kind of talk
is appropriate, but speech events also help to establish a regularized repertoire
of codes and ways of speaking (or signing in the case of deaf members of
the community), and constraints which influence these choices (Gumperz
1982). Speakers within a community are distinguished by their differential
accomplishment at these language skills. All communities include different
varieties, dialects, or styles. The access to events and access to learning
codes and styles is influenced by class, age, economic status, gender, and
prestigious or valued educational opportunities (for the latter see e.g.,
Heath 1982). There is a strong link between appropriate behavior and
community power relations in the case of gender (see e.g., McElhinny
2005). The acquisition of behavior appropriate to one’s group is highly
dependent on models of verbal and non-verbal behavior continuously
observed, accompanied by explicit instructions about membership categories
and identity.
Ways of speaking organize power relations through whether it is appropriate
to speak at all, who can speak, and what forms of talk are appropriate.
The appropriate use of language can include sounding incompetent. In
Burundi society, people are expected to speak in a hesitating and inept
manner to those of higher rank, but to speak fluently to peers or those
of lower rank (Albert 1972). Status and power relations in other societies
are grammatically marked through word or morpheme choices called
honorifics or status-marked speech. Such languages create a situation
where a speaker must continually calibrate social hierarchies and make a
choice of which linguistic form to use in a particular situation or to a
particular person. Scholars have shown how these choices are multiply
meaningful and can signal other aspects of social relationships such as
intimacy, solidarity, and age (Brown and Gilman 1960; Irvine 1992;
Tannen 1993; Mills 2003; Agha 2007). In French, German, and Spanish,
for example, speakers indicate relative social standing as well as intimacy
or distance by choosing between second person pronouns of address (e.g.,

the French tu and vous). Javanese, Japanese, and other languages have a
much richer and complex system of instantiating moment-by-moment
calibrations of status, with a much more extensive system. Use of the
plural personal pronoun (as in the case of vous) for a single individual as
an index of power or status is an interesting strategy that has been tied to
notions of impersonalization, increasing the size and power of the person
addressed or referred to, obscuring the individual in favor of a public
role, removing the person symbolically from a normal speaker–hearer
relationship, or the notion that the person also represents powerful ancestor
spirits or deities.
In languages without specific grammatical choices for signaling power
and status relationships, status and power differences can be communicated
through other pragmatic means, such as greeting patterns and use of
status-distinguishing titles instead of first names (see Irvine 1974; Duranti
1997). In the case of greeting patterns, choices can be made about how
to greet, who greets first, and accompanying body comportment during
greeting (such as bowing). In the case of titles, non-reciprocal use of first
name vs. title is a common indication of power relationships, as in the
case of parents and children or supervisors and subordinates. The closing
of a conversational exchange or speech activity can also indicate power
relationships in terms of who ends the exchange or event. Both the openings
and the closings of activities are rich sites for studying the establishment
of power relations and other social work in the construction of social
difference, including gender hierarchies and how these vary in their structure
and meaning across cultures.
The work of conversation analysts has been influential in understanding
how speakers manipulate language and how language activities are locally
managed moment-by-moment, including how speakers design their
language for particular recipients (see e.g., Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson
1974), the role of participation frameworks, and institutional-specific ways
of interacting (Drew and Heritage 1992). Discourse analysts and sociolinguists
have shown the ways that language is used in controlling topics, in the
construction of widely circulating texts, and the ways culturally shared
narratives and even humor shape meaning and ideas about power relations
(see e.g., van Dijk 1987; Fairclough 1989; Holmes and Stubbe 2003).
Using derogatory words for subordinate groups based on gender,
ethnicity, or race imposes ideas about such groups through rights to name
or refer. The justification of violence towards certain members of society
by others is often made through language, for example, in the case of ethnic
genocide or persecution. Discourses of racial, ethnic, or gender supremacy
can naturalize patterns of dominance and subordination and create an
environment in which it is difficult to see or consider alternatives within
the framework of established ideas (see, for example, Wodak 2008 on
discourses of discrimination). The practice of stereotyping or essentializing
qualities of a particular group is common not only in everyday conversation

but in academic and institutional texts.
Acts of Power
The role of language to effect change in the world through actions that
can only be accomplished by language was brought to our attention by
the language philosopher John Austin through his theory of Speech Acts
(Austin 1962). By speaking we accomplish many practical actions, such as
denying, praying, criticizing, arguing, demanding, requesting, apologizing,
and offering. The appropriate ways to do these acts must be learned, and
the speaker and his or her social role or power affect the success of some
speech acts. Making directives appropriately is a way to manage power and
the autonomy desires of others. When commands take the form of
questions or when we frame directives as requests, for example, ‘could you
be a bit more quiet’, we disguise a command as a question about ability,
implying that others have autonomy about complying. It is difficult,
however, for them to refuse, since they can risk losing face (Goffman
1959). This is an example of the many forms of ‘politeness’ that reify
existing hierarchies and action potentials (see Brown and Levinson 1987;
Mills 2003; Ide 2005; Holmes 2007). The formulation of requests and the
interactional consequences of requests can be an indication of who has
the power to control or harness the actions of others. The power of a
question to compel an answer has been studied by conversation analysts
who term a question the first pair part of an adjacency pair (Sacks,
Schegloff, and Jefferson 1974). Once a question has been asked the relevant
next action is an answer; if one is not forthcoming, then an explanation
will often be demanded. Other first pair parts speakers can use to constrain
what happens next in an interactional sequence include making an offer
and extending an invitation which must be refused or accepted. Children
are quick to understand the power of a question to influence what happens
next and utilize this resource to get the attention of an adult in strategies
such as ‘you know what?’ in order to introduce a topic or a narrative
(Sacks 1992:256–7).
Speakers and Their Styles

Most language communities consist of speakers using multiple dialects and
languages (Tucker 1999). Distinctions between languages and language
varieties then often become ‘capital’ in the activity of producing and
justifying inclusion or exclusion in powerful groups, social inequality, and
diverse access to resources. The dialect one speaks is often related to
social aspects of the person and is related to social categories and values.
Distinctive ways of speaking and correct language use are interestingly
considered to reflect qualities of the person, such as their morality or
intelligence. It is common for one particular language variety to be chosen

as the ideal way of speaking (typically the way of speaking of the elites)
and in this way power relations are maintained, since altering one’s dialect
is a complex task involving hours of coaching and creating potential identity
and group membership conflicts. Efforts of speakers of the dominant
language or language variety to eradicate other language influences or
minority language speakers can be particularly strong when the minority
language is seen as a distinct marker of identity. Formal policies involving
language use and which language or variety is preferred can have a devastating
effect in reducing the diversity of languages represented in a community.
For example in the case of the deaf community, language policies are
justified by members of the hearing community and health professionals
who view deafness as a disability rather than as a visual system of language
perception. A devaluation of sign language is a first step for legitimating
intervention strategies promoting spoken language and discriminating
against deaf people, though members of the deaf community resist the
disability view of deafness. The voices of some are legitimized over others
and made more powerful. Discourses of language ‘purism’, common in
France, the United States, India, and elsewhere, entail publicly ratified
political decisions about what is a pure form of the language and what is
not. For the Tewa Native Americans in the United States, part of their
language ideology includes the view that the language spoken in the
traditional ceremonial ground must be free from foreign expressions or
loan words. Language purism efforts often arise with changes in the social
order or power relations, or perceived threats to the social order. ‘Proper’
grammar can become a moral metaphor for order, tradition, authority,
hierarchy, and regulation, which are positive values for a civil society, and the
use of varieties other than standard varieties of language can be considered
evidence of disorder, change, fragmentation, anarchy, and lawlessness, i.e.,
the threat of breakdown of social relations (Cameron 1995).
Styles of talking are not correlated with power or authority in the same
way cross-linguistically. The same markers or ways of speaking that are
said to indicate powerlessness or low status in American English (e.g.,
indirectness, politeness) are valued for all speakers in Japanese culture. In
Japan, the so-called powerless style is an indicator of the speaker’s basic
humanness, desire for interpersonal harmony and empathy, and sensitivity
to others, as well as solicitation of agreement, and concern about what
others are thinking (see Ide 2005). Japanese speakers view communicative
behaviors that are considered signals of power in other societies (control
through interrupting, challenging, or ignoring another’s comments, direct
assertions of opinions) as immature or childish.
The use of humor, joking, and laughter can be powerful forms of
creating and also resisting dominant language forms and images (see e.g.,
Alvarez-Caccamo 1996; Bauman 1986). Through formulaic, artful language
such as traditional wise sayings the authority of others can be invoked,
and by using proverbial structure, a chief or other person does not risk
his or her own power, but relies on the authority of tradition. Silence can
be indicative of power, as when powerful leaders in some societies only speak
through others, increasing the symbolic distance between themselves and
their constituents, conserving their authority and protecting themselves from
contestations. It can also be indicative of lack of power or acknowledgement
of the power of others.
Language and Institutions

The use of language in education is an example of the complex ways that
power is distributed through social institutions. When educators privilege
one way of speaking over another or create valued forms of speaking in
school, children who are members of minorities or of different ethnic
backgrounds can be disadvantaged in learning or in being recognized for
their accomplishments. Even when educators develop novel means of
overcoming linguistic hegemony, as with the plan of one US school in
the 1990s to introduce students to the formal linguistics of African-American
English, dominant ideas about appropriate language forms can result in
destructive backlashes (Perry and Delpit 1998). In this case, African-
American English was considered to be inappropriate for classroom use or
formal study. The management of expression and talk in the classroom,
such as the system of taking turns at talk, is also a powerful regulator of
expert and novice relations.
Writers have an important role in the institutionalization or production
of power relations in terms of language and what are appropriate, ‘legitimate’,
or official ways of using language, which is often defined by its very distance
from the ‘ordinary’ or everyday language (Bourdieu 1990). Alphabets and
spelling systems establish cultural values and in cases of contested systems,
political authority. When a language or a system of written representation
is taught in school or has a religious or secular literature, it is a more
powerful tool in the management of social stratification and the wide
representation of ideas. The ‘invisibility’ of some members’ literacy skills
can be tied to gender dominance and dominant definitions and concepts
of what kind of literacy counts, such as the case where Hispanic women’s
uses of literacy at home in Los Angeles were undervalued (Street
1995:108). Kulick and Stroud (1993) show how imported literacies, such
as those brought by missionaries, are adapted to local uses and meanings
in Papua New Guinea. Street has shown how villagers in Iran adapted and
incorporated beliefs and myths associated with modern literacy into local
perceptions and their religious framework, for example, the idea that the
moon landing and modern technologies were predicted in the Qur’an.
Literacy is associated with identity, authority, and knowledge. Issues of
literacy are crucially bound up with issues of power in the wider society,
and a perception of literacy as the major source of western dominance has
influenced schooling practices in other parts of the world. Dictionaries

encourage the codification and normalization of a language, and not all
forms of language in use are included.
A common intersection of language and institutional power is in formalized
conflict negotiation, such as law courts, where there are distinct roles and
rules of conduct particularly about speaking. As shown by Drew (1992)
even the sequential nature of turns at talk can have a profound effect on
the outcome of legal proceedings, and those most skillful at manipulating
sequentially placed items of information have a powerful advantage. The
language used in conflict negotiations and in legal documents is often
quite specialized and a mediator or specialist is required to accomplish
understanding and self-expression. In societies such as the Ilongot of the
Philippines (Rosaldo 1983) conflicts are resolved through subtle, artful,
and charming ‘crooked’ speech, allowing one person to persuade others and
find agreement. Conventions for crooked speech are very different from
ordinary conversation, including stress patterns, repetitions, and metaphors.
Institutionalized medicine and practices of healing are important institutional
sites for the production of knowledge and power over important aspects
of everyday life. In studies of medical practitioners involved in home care
visits in the UK, for example, the idea of good mothering is controlled,
socialized, and oriented to (Heritage and Lindstrom 1998) through choice
of words, including the formulation and interpretation of questions about
a baby’s progress, symptoms, and behavior. Studies of political uses of
language, especially in oratory, have revealed interesting differences in how
societies manage political persuasion and governance, and socially produce
ideas such as racism (e.g., van Dijk 1987).
Power Relations of Space and the Body

The role of physical space in making visible power relations is very important,
for example, who is allowed to be in what spaces and who sits where can
affect rights and opportunities to talk. Settings across cultures are organized
into private space, public spaces, religious environments, ritual sites,
occupational sites, male and female spaces, and so forth. In Pacific societies
and elsewhere rank and power can be established by how people’s bodies
are arranged in space relative to each other both vertically and horizontally.
In Pohnpei, Micronesia sitting closer to the chiefs indicates higher status
than those farther away, and sitting in a chair or on a higher step while
others sit on the floor or lower also indicates relative status (Keating
1998).When the first female universities were established in the United
States, the organization of space for women was constructed quite differently
from the space at men’s colleges to allow greater surveillance of the
women (Spain 2005).
New challenges have arisen in the way technology can transgress spatial
norms, established boundaries, or contexts, for example, with television
bringing scenes of places and people, both real and fictional, into the
home. The capability of searching the internet for many types of knowledges,
reaching audiences both intended and unintended outside the immediate
environment, and the scope of new surveillance technologies are reshaping
relations of power and the distribution of power between the individual
and the state. Users of communication technologies can bridge societal
and geographic divides and create new ones.
Non-verbal expressions signify and produce power relations, and yet
differ in important ways to the construction of power in language. Scholars
have recently begun to look at language from the point of view of
multimodality, or the way language, gesture, the body, and gaze work
together to express meaning and are used to interpret meaning (e.g.,
Goodwin 1994), including managing contradictory signals. The semiotics
of dress and appearance can also express and be read (Entwistle and
Wilson 2001) in terms of power. The pervasive genre of advertising
utilizes both imagery and music to persuade consumers about clothing,
products, lifestyles, beliefs, medicine, and politics (Cook 1992).
Reports and Power

Language is the principal means for linking cause and effect chains and
other forms of argumentation, and influencing worldview. The language of
science has emerged as a powerful, cross-national form of communicating,
not only in terms of the use of particular registers, metaphors, symbols,
codes, and visual renderings of relationships, but in terms of ideology,
worldview, economics, the nature of inquiry, probability, and the value
and nature of knowledge. This has resulted in the delegitimization of certain
kinds of local knowledge and the disempowerment of those knowledge
systems. What is considered to be ‘truth’ and what counts as knowledge as
well as how readily it can be acquired or shared is a form of power.
The reporting of events and relationships through other types of narratives
is also influential in the investigation, discussion, and resolution of cultural
or behavioral contradictions, for example, the rationalization for some
members of society having better access to goods and services, or the
self-sacrifice of one member of society for the benefit of others, and class
and gender issues. There are means in every society through which
resources are differentially distributed and some categories of members
historically disadvantaged. These behaviors are often accounted for in
stories which explain and naturalize difference. In some cultures so-called
‘trickster’ narratives (such as the Coyote narratives in Amerindian languages)
feature transgressions of social conventions and natural world constraints.
Pohnpeian speakers use a disclaimer before or after telling historical
narratives; the formulaic phrase attests that they have purposely ‘twisted’
the narrative, and it is up to each listener set it straight (Keating 1998).
In this way they can conserve their power, since giving knowledge to
others can result in a loss of power or manaman (mana is a form of personal

power in many Pacific societies).
Gossip is an activity of reporting which is typically delegitimized, but
is an important activity in every culture where people tell stories, discuss
and negotiate power relations, cultural rules and sanctions, as well as build
social relationships (Brenneis 1984; Haviland 1977). Through gossip, an
informal means for characterizing others’ behavior, people subvert some
types of institutionalized power and shape reputations (Keating 2002). In
gossip, assessments (Goodwin and Goodwin 1987) organize common
interpretations, including ethical (e.g., Besnier 1990) and aesthetic inter-
pretations or judgments of value, and make the act of interpretation of
behavior an interactional event. As Gal has observed, power is more than
an authoritative voice in decision making, and that its strongest form may
be the ability to ‘define social reality, to impose visions of the world’
(1991:197).
Media and New Technologies

Innovations in technology have disrupted some aspects of the pragmatics
of power, with new opportunities for communication across conventional
social, linguistic, and environmental boundaries. The radio is an important
communication technology in many communities worldwide, serving as
a mechanism for transmitting messages across long distances rapidly and
to a large number of people instantaneously, and serving a standardizing
function with respect to how language is used, as well as creating innovative
new practices. With new technologies people must actively adapt appropriate
language conduct (Keating and Mirus 2003). The introduction of mobile
phones has, for example, created new conflicts in how to negotiate the
power and status implications of interrupting an ongoing conversation or
failing to answer a call. New communicative technologies can increase the
complexity of participation and require the development of new skills and
new ways to introduce these skills to novice users, creating power differences
in access to new technical knowledge.
Many internet users initially expressed a hope that ‘old’ cultural distinctions,
habits, and practices, which were felt to be restraining and discriminatory,
could be transformed. They felt that an opportunity existed, for example,
for transcending established power and status categories, an opportunity
to become ‘liberated’ from cultural and linguistic power relations and
category interpretations such as gender, age, and ethnicity, permitting a kind
of creative, selective self-presentation and social engagement among equals.
However, social interactions via computer and the internet in, for example,
online communities, instead now regularly utilize recognizable procedures
for instantiating cultural and social categories that are conventionally used
in interpretation of actions. Ways to produce pragmatic cues for inter-
preting communicative acts were experienced by users as indispensible
codes and interpretation resources. One of the concerns about new uses
of communication technology is unequal access which can vary widely
even within the same locale. How information is regulated can lead to
epistemological privilege and a change in the hierarchies of credibility
(Rogers 2004:169).
Conclusion
Language practices create concepts of similarity as well as difference,
dichotomy, and hierarchy; the relationship between these processes and
their relationship to dominance are important in examining power relations.
Power and language are connected through the marking of certain encounters,
contexts, and participants as requiring particular types of language use.
This can include the privileging of certain types of language and language
use, who may or may not speak in certain settings, which contexts are
appropriate for which types of speech and which for silence, what types
of talk are appropriate to persons of different statuses and roles, norms
for requesting and giving information, for making other requests, offers,
declinations, commands, the use of nonverbal behaviors in various contexts,
and practices for alternating between speakers. Everyday situations of
language are important not only for learning and socialization, but for the
production and maintenance of habits of understanding, relationships, and
expectations. Language organizes associations to life, death, the body, self,
perception, the environment, institutions, and others. Pragmatic uses of
language are an important tool for constructing social difference and
distinctions between individuals, and creating and rationalizing particular
ideas about power and distributions of power.
Short Biography
Elizabeth Keating’s research interests include language and power,
societal impacts of new technologies and scientific innovations, visual com-
munication, computer-mediated communication, and the role of language
in social stratification. She has conducted fieldwork in Pohnpei, Micronesia,
the Deaf Community, and the United States. She has published and
presented papers on a variety of interrelated topics in language and
technology, language and power, societal impacts of nanotechnology,
mobile phone communications, language and space, language and cognition,
American Sign Language, and multimodality in journals such as American
Anthropologist, Language in Society, American Ethnologist, and Anthropology
and Education Quarterly. Her book Language, Rank, Gender and Social Space
in Pohnpei, Micronesia was published by Oxford University Press. She is a
past editor of the Journal of Linguistic Anthropology and Director of the
Science, Technology and Society Program at the University of Texas at
Austin where she is Professor of Anthropology. She has been a visiting
lecturer at the University of Bremen and a research fellow at the Max

Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in the Netherlands. She holds a BA
in English Literature from the University of California Berkeley and a
PhD in Anthropology from the University of California Los Angeles.
Notes
* Correspondence address: Department of Anthropology, University of Texas at Austin, 1
University Station, Austin, Texas, 78712, USA. E-mail: ekeating@mail.utexas.edu.
Works Cited
Agha, Asif. 2007. Language and Social Relations: Structure, Use and Social Significance. New
York: Cambridge University Press.
Albert, Ethel. 1972. Culture patterning of speech behavior in Burundi. Directions in Sociolin-
guistics: The Ethnography of Communication, ed. by John Gumperz and Dell Hymes,
pp. 72–105. New York, NY: Basil Blackwell.
Alvarez-Caccamo, Celso. 1996. Building alliances in political discourse: language institutional
authority and resistance. Folia Linguistica 3/4, Special Issue on Interactional Sociolinguistics,
ed. by Helga Kottoff, pp. 245–70.
Anderson, Benedict R. 1990. Language and Power: Exploring Political Cultures in Indonesia.
Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Austin, John L. 1962. How to do Things with Words. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Bauman, Richard. 1986. Story, Performance, and Event. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press.
Besnier, Niko. 1990. Language and affect. Annual Review of Anthropology 19.419–51.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press.
——.1990. Language and Symbolic Power. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press.
Brenneis, Don. 1984. Grog and gossip in Bhatgaon: style and substance in Fiji Indian conversation.
American Ethnologist 11.487–506.
Brown, Penelope, and Stephen Levinson. 1987. Politeness. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press.
Brown, Roger, and Albert Gilman. 1960. The pronouns of power and solidarity. Style in
Language, ed. by Thomas A. Sebeok, pp. 253–76. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Cameron, Deborah. 1995. Verbal Hygiene. New York, NY: Routledge.
Cook, Guy. 1992. The Discourse of Advertising. New York, NY: Routledge.
Drew, Paul. 1992. Contested evidence in courtroom cross-examination: the case of a trial for
rape. Talk at Work: Interaction in Institutional Settings, ed. by Paul Drew and John Heritage,
pp. 470–520. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Drew, Paul and John Heritage (eds). 1992. Talk at Work: Interaction in Institutional Settings.
New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Duranti, Alessandro. 1994. From Grammar to Politics. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
——. 1997. Linguistic Anthropology. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Entwistle, Joanne, and Elizabeth Wilson. 2001. Body Dressing. Oxford, UK: Berg Publishers.
Errington, Shelley. 1990. Recasting sex, gender, and power. Power and Difference, ed. by Jane
Atkinson and Shelley Errington, pp. 1–58. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Fairclough, Norman. 1989. Language and Power. London, UK: Longman.
Foucault, Michel. 1970. The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. New
York, NY: Pantheon Books.
——. 1972. The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language. New York, NY:
Pantheon Books.
Gal, Susan. 1991. Between speech and silence. Gender at the Crossroads of Knowledge, ed. by
M. Dileonardo, pp. 175–203. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Goffman, Erving. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City, New York:
Doubleday.
Goodwin, Charles. 1994. Professional vision. American Anthropologist 96(3).606–33.
Goodwin, Marjorie, and Charles Goodwin. 1987. Children’s arguing. Language, Gender, and
Sex in Comparative Perspective, ed. by Susan Philips, Susan Steele, and Christine Tanz, pp.
200–48. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Gumperz, John. 1982. Discourse Strategies. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Haviland, John. 1977. Gossip, reputation, and knowledge in Zinacantan. Chicago, IL: University
of Chicago Press.
Heath, Shirley Brice. 1982. What no bedtime story means: narrative skills at home and at
school. Language in Society 11.49–76.
Heritage, John, and Anna Lindstrom. 1998. Motherhood, medicine and morality: scenes from
a medical encounter. Research on Language and Social Interaction 31(3–4).397–438.
Holmes, Janet. 2007. Politeness, power and provocation: how humour functions in the
workplace. Discourse Studies Vol. III, ed. by Teun von Dijk, pp. 76–101. London, UK:
Sage Publications.
Holmes, Janet, and Maria Stubbe. 2003. Power and Politeness in the Workplace: A Sociolinguistic
Analysis of Talk at Work. London, UK: Pearson.
Ide, Sachiko. 1989. Formal forms and discernment: two neglected aspects of linguistic politeness.
Multilingua 8(2–3).223–48.
——. 2005. How and why honorifics can signify dignity and elegance: the indexicality and
reflexivity of linguistic rituals. Broadening the Horizon of Linguistic Politeness, ed. by Robin
Tolmach Lakoff, and Sachiko Ide, pp. 45–64. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.
Irvine, Judith 1992. Ideologies of honorific language. Pragmatics, 2(3).251–62.
——. 1974. Strategies of status manipulation in the Wolof greeting. Explorations in the
Ethnography of Speaking, ed. by Richard Bauman and Joel Sherzer, pp. 167–191. Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge University Press.
Keating, Elizabeth. 1998. Power Sharing: Language, Rank, Gender and Social Space in
Pohnpei, Micronesia. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
——. 2002. Everyday interactions and the domestication of social inequality. IPRA Pragmatics
12(3).347–59.
Keating, Elizabeth, and Gene Mirus. 2003. American Sign Language in virtual space: interactions
between deaf users of computer-mediated video communication and the impact of technology
on language practices. Language in Society 32.693–714.
Kulick, Don, and Christopher Stroud. 1993. Conceptions and uses of literacy in a Papua New
Guinean village. Cross-Cultural Approaches to Literacy, ed. by Brian Street, pp. 30 – 61.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Levinson, Stephen. 1983. Pragmatics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Lukes, Stephen. 2005. Power: A Radical View. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
McElhinny, Bonnie. 2005. Gender and the stories Pittsburgh police officers tell about using
physical force. Gender in Cross-cultural Perspective, ed. by Caroline Brettell and Carolyn
Sargent, pp. 219–30. London, UK: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Mey, Jacob L. 1993. Pragmatics: An Introduction. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
Mills, Sara. 2003. Gender and Politeness. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Perry, Theresa, and Lisa Delpit. 1998. The Real Ebonics Debate. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Rogers, Richard. 2004. Information Politics on the Web. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Rosaldo, Michelle Z. 1983. The shame of headhunters and the autonomy of self. Ethos
11(3).135–51.
Sacks, Harvey. 1992. Lectures on Conversation, Volumes I and II, ed. by Gail Jefferson. Oxford,
UK: Blackwell.
Sacks, Harvey, Emanuel Schegloff, and Gail Jefferson. 1974. A simplest systematics for the
organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language 50.696–735.
Spain, Daphne. 2005. Space and status. Cities and Society, ed. by Nancy Kleniewski, pp. 43–53.
Boston, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Street, Brian. 1995. Social Literacies: Critical Approaches to Literacy Development, Ethnography,
and Education. New York, NY: Longman.
Tannen, Deborah. 1993. The relativity of linguistic strategies: rethinking power and solidarity
in gender and dominance. Gender and Conversational Interaction, ed. by Deborah Tannen,
165–88. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Tucker, G. Richard. 1999. A Global Perspective on Bilingualism and Bilingual Education,
retrieved on 13 May 2008 from http://www.cal.org/resources/Digest/digestglobal.html.
Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Mellon University.
van Dijk, Teun. 1981. Studies in the Pragmatics of Discourse. The Hague, the Netherlands/
Berlin, Germany: Mouton.
——. 1987. Communicating Racism: Ethnic Prejudice in Thought and Talk. Newbury Park, CA:
Sage.
——. 2003. The discourse-knowledge interface. Critical Discourse Analysis: Theory and
Interdisciplinarity, ed. by Gilbert Weiss and Ruth Wodak, pp. 85–109. Basingstoke, UK:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Wetzel, Patricia. 1993. The language of vertical relationships and linguistic analysis. Multilingua
12(4).387–406.
Wodak, Ruth. 2008. ‘Us’ and ‘them’: inclusion/exclusion – discrimination via discourse.
Migration, Identity, and Belonging, ed. by G. Delanty, P. Jones and R. Wodak, pp. 54–78,
Liverpool, UK: Liverpool University Press.

Power and Pragmatics PDF

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Power and Pragmatics PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Language and Linguistics Compass 3/4 (2009): 996–1009, 10.1111/j.1749-818x.2009.00148.

Power and Pragmatics

Language is an important means through which power relations are

or distance by choosing between second person pronouns of address (e.g.,

qualities of a particular group is common not only in everyday conversation

Speakers and Their Styles

intelligence. It is common for one particular language variety to be chosen

Language and Institutions

influenced schooling practices in other parts of the world. Dictionaries

Power Relations of Space and the Body

Reports and Power

others can result in a loss of power or manaman (mana is a form of personal

Media and New Technologies

lecturer at the University of Bremen and a research fellow at the Max

You might also like