Concept of Language and

Power

M Jahidul Azad
Assistant Professor
Department of English
Prime University
• Language has the potential to yield
tremendous, influential power- just take
a look at some of the world’s most
‘successful’ dictators. Hitler managed to
convince thousands of people to help
him undertake one of the worst
genocides the world has ever seen, but
how? The answer is in language's
influential power.
• Dictators are not the only people who
have a way with words. The media,
advertising agencies, educational
institutions, politicians, religious
institutes, and the monarchy (the list
goes on) all use language to help them
maintain authority or gain influence over
others.
• So, how exactly is language used to create and
maintain power? This lecture will:
• Examine various types of power
• Explore different language features used to
represent power
• Analyze discourse in relation to power
• Introduce theories that are key to
understanding the relationship between
language and power.
 English language and power
• According to linguist Shân Wareing (1999), there
are three main types of power:
• Political power- power held by people with
authority, such as politicians and the police.
• Personal power- power based on an individual's
occupation or role in society. For example, a head
teacher would likely hold more power than a
teaching assistant.
• Social group power- power held by a group of
people due to certain social factors, such as class,
ethnicity, gender, or age.
• Wareing suggested that these three
types of power can be divided into
instrumental power and influential
power. People, or organizations, can hold
instrumental power, influential power, or
both.
• Let’s take a look at these types of power
in more detail.
 Instrumental Power
• Instrumental power is seen as authoritative power.
Typically speaking, someone who has instrumental
power has power simply because of who they are.
These people do not have to convince anyone of their
power or persuade anyone to listen to them; others
must listen to them simply because of the authority
they have.
• Examples, Head teachers, government officials, and the
police are figures who have instrumental power.
• People or organizations with instrumental power use
language to maintain or enforce their authority.
• Features of instrumental power language include:
• Formal register
• Imperative sentences- giving requests, demands, or
advice
• Modal verbs- e.g., 'you should'; 'you must'
• Mitigation- using language to reduce the seriousness
of what is being said
• Conditional sentences- e.g., ‘if you don’t respond
soon, further action will be taken.'
• Declarative statements- e.g., 'in today's class we will
look at declarative statements.'
• Latinate words- words derived from or imitating Latin
 Influential Power
• Influential power refers to when a person (or
group of people) does not have any authority
but is trying to gain power and influence over
others. Those who wish to gain influential
power may use language to persuade others
to believe in them or support them. This type
of power is often found in politics, the media,
and marketing.
• Features of influential power language include:
• Assertions- presenting opinions as facts, e.g., ‘we
all know that England is the greatest country in
the world’
• Metaphors- the use of established metaphors
can reassure the audience and evoke the power
of memory, establishing a bond between the
speaker and the listener.
• Loaded language- language that can evoke strong
emotions and/or exploit feelings
• Embedded assumptions- e.g., assuming the
listener is really interested in what the speaker
has to say
• In some spheres of society, such as in
politics, both aspects of power are
present. Politicians have authority over
us, as they impose the laws we must
follow; however, they must also try to
persuade us to continue voting for them
and their policies.
 Language and Power Examples
• We can see examples of language being used to
assert power all around us. Among other reasons,
language can be used to make us believe in
something or someone, to persuade us to buy
something or vote for someone, and to ensure
we follow the law and behave as ‘good citizens’.
• With that in mind, where do you think we most
commonly see language being used to assert
power?
• Here are a few examples we came up with:
• In the media
• The news
• Advertising
• Politics
• Speeches
• Education
• Law
• Religion
 Language and Power in Politics
• Politics and power (both instrumental and
influential power) go hand in hand. Politicians use
political rhetoric in their speeches to persuade
others to give them power.
• Definition:
• Rhetoric: the art of using language effectively and
persuasively; therefore, political rhetoric refers to
the strategies used to effectively create
persuasive arguments in political debates.
• Here are some of the strategies used in political
rhetoric:
• Repetition
• Rule of three- e.g., Tony Blaire’s ‘Education,
Education, Education’ policy
• Use of 1st person plural pronouns- 'we', 'us';
e.g., the Queen’s use of the royal ‘we’
• Hyperbole- exaggeration
• Rhetorical questions
• Leading questions- e.g., 'you don’t want your
country to be run by a clown, do you?'
• Changes in tone and intonation
• Use of lists
• Using imperative verbs- verbs used to create
imperative sentences, e.g., ‘act now’ or ‘speak
up’
• Use of humor
• Tautology- saying the same thing twice but using
different words to do so, e.g., ‘it’s 7 am in the
morning’
• Prevarication- not answering direct questions
 Features of Language and Power

• We have seen some examples of how

language is used to represent power, but
let’s take a look at some more language
features in both spoken and written
discourse that are used to maintain and
enforce power.
• Lexical choice
• Emotive language- e.g., emotive adjectives used in the
House of Commons include 'depraved', 'sickening', and
'unimaginable'
• Figurative language- e.g., metaphors, similes, and
personification
• Forms of address- someone with power may refer to
others by their first names but expect to be addressed
more formally, i.e., 'miss', 'sir', 'ma'am' etc.
• Synthetic personalization- Fairclough (1989) coined
the term ‘synthetic personalization’ to describe how
powerful institutes address the mass as individuals to
create a feeling of friendliness and reinforce their
power.
• Can you identify any of these language
features used to maintain and enforce power
in the following quote?
• And you have changed the face of Congress,
the Presidency, and the political process itself.
Yes, you, my fellow Americans, have forced the
spring. Now we must do the work the season
demands.
• (Bill Clinton, January 20, 1993)
• In Bill Clinton’s first inaugural speech, he
utilized synthetic personalization to
address the American people individually
and repeatedly used the pronoun ‘you’.
He also used figurative language, using
spring (the season) as a metaphor for the
country moving forward and away from
debt.
• Grammar
• Interrogatives- asking the listener/reader
questions
• Modal verbs- e.g., 'you should'; 'you must'
• Imperative sentences- commands or requests,
e.g., 'vote now!'
• Can you identify any of these grammatical
features in the following Coca-Cola
advertisement?
• This advert from Coca-Cola uses the
imperative sentence, 'open
happiness', to tell the audience what
to do and persuade them to buy
Coca-Cola's product.
• Phonology
• Alliteration- the repetition of letters or sounds
• Assonance- the repetition of vowel sounds
• Rising and falling intonation
• Can you identify any of these phonological
features in this UK Conservative Party election
campaign slogan?
• Strong and stable leadership. (2007)
• Here, the alliteration of the letter 'S' makes the
slogan more memorable and gives it staying
power.
 Spoken Conversational Features

• We can examine discourse in

conversations to see who holds power
based on which language features they
use.
• Here is a handy chart to help you
recognize the dominant and submissive
participants in a conversation:
The dominant participant The submissive participant

Sets the subject and tone of the Responds to the dominant

conversation participant
Changes the direction of the
Follows the directional change
conversation
Talks the most Listens the most
Interrupts and overlaps others Avoids interrupting others
May be unresponsive when
Uses more formal forms of
they have had enough of the
address ('sir', 'ma'am' etc.)
conversation
 Language and Power Theories and
Research
• Understanding language and power theories are
key to identifying when language is being used to
maintain power.
• When engaging in conversation, people who have
power or wish to have it will utilize specific
strategies when talking to help them establish
their dominance. Some of these strategies
include interrupting others, being polite or
impolite, committing face-saving and face-
threatening acts, and flouting Grice’s Maxims.
• If you are not sure about some of those terms
then don’t worry! This brings us to the key
theorists in language and power and their
arguments, including:
• Fairclough's Language and Power (1984)
• Goffman's Face Work Theory (1967) and
• Brown and Levinson's Politeness Theory (1987)
• Coulthard and Sinclair's Initiation-Response-
Feedback Model (1975)
• Grice's Conversational Maxims (1975)
 Fairclough
• In Language and Power (1984), Fairclough explains
how language serves as a tool to maintain and create
power in society.
• Fairclough suggested that many encounters (this is a
broad term, encompassing not only conversations but
also reading advertisements, for example) are unequal
and that the language we use (or are constrained to
use) reflects the power structures in society. Fairclough
argues that, in a capitalist society, power relations are
typically divided into the dominant and dominated
classes, i.e., business or landowners and their workers.
Fairclough based a lot of his work on Michel Foucault's
work on discourse and power.
• Fairclough states that we should analyze language to
recognize when it is being used by the powerful to
persuade or influence us. Fairclough named this analytical
practice 'critical discourse analysis'.
• A key part of critical discourse analysis can be split into two
disciplines:
• Power in discourse - the lexicon, strategies, and language
structures used to create power
• Power behind discourse - The sociological and ideological
reasons behind who is asserting power over others and
why.
• Fairclough also discussed the power behind advertising and
coined the term ‘synthetic personalization’ (remember we
discussed this earlier!). Synthetic personalization is a
technique that large corporations use to create a sense of
friendship between themselves and their potential
customers by addressing them on a personal level.
 Goffman, Brown, and Levinson
• Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson created
their Politeness Theory (1987) based on Erving
Goffman’s Face Work theory (1967). Face Work
refers to the act of preserving one’s ‘face’ and
appealing to or preserving another's ‘face’.
• 'Face' is an abstract concept and has nothing to
do with your physical face. Goffman recommends
thinking of your ‘face’ more like a mask we wear
in social situations.
• Brown and Levinson stated that the levels of
politeness we use with others are often
dependent on power relations - the more
powerful they are, the more polite we are.
• Two important terms to understand here are
‘face-saving acts’ (preventing others from
feeling publicly embarrassed) and ‘face-
threatening acts’ (behavior that may
embarrass others). Those in less powerful
positions are more likely to perform face-
saving acts for those with more power.
 Sinclair and Coulthard
• In 1975, Sinclair and Coulthard introduced the
Initiation-Response-Feedback (IRF) model.
The model can be used to describe and
highlight power relations between the teacher
and the student in a classroom. Sinclair and
Coulthard state that the teacher (the one with
the power) initiates the discourse by asking a
question, the student (the one without the
power) gives a response, and the teacher then
provides some sort of feedback.
• Example:
• Teacher- 'What did you do this
weekend?'
• Student- 'I went to the museum.'
• Teacher- 'That sounds nice. What did you
learn?'
 Grice
• Grice’s conversational maxims, also known as 'The
Gricean Maxims', are based on Grice’s Cooperative
Principle, which aims to explain how people achieve
effective communication in everyday situations.
• In Logic and Conversation (1975), Grice introduced his
four conversational maxims. They are:
• Maxim of Quality
• Maxim of Quantity
• Maxim of Relevance
• Maxim of Manner
• These maxims are based on Grice’s
observation that anyone who wished to
engage in meaningful conversation
usually attempts to be truthful,
informative, relevant, and clear.
• However, these conversational maxims are not
always followed by everyone and are often
violated or flouted:
• When maxims are violated, they are broken
secretly, and it’s usually considered quite serious
(such as lying to someone).
• When maxims are flouted, this is considered less
severe than violating a maxim and is done far
more often. Being ironic, using metaphors,
pretending to mishear someone, and using
vocabulary you know your listener won’t
understand are all examples of flouting Grice’s
Maxims.
• Grice suggested that those with more power,
or those wishing to create the illusion of
having more power, are more likely to flout
Grice’s maxims during conversations.
• Grice’s conversational maxims, and the
flouting of them to create a sense of power,
can be applied to any text that appears
conversational, including advertising.
Language and Power - Key takeaways
• According to Wareing, there are three main types
of power: political power, personal power, and
social group power. These types of power can be
divided into either instrumental or influential
power.
• Instrumental power is held by those who have
authority over others due to who they are (such
as the Queen). On the other hand, influential
power is held by those who aim to influence and
persuade others (such as politicians and
advertisers).
• We can see language being used to assert power
in the media, the news, advertising, politics,
speeches, education, the law, and religion.
• Some language features used to convey power
include rhetorical questions, imperative
sentences, alliteration, the rule of three, emotive
language, modal verbs, and synthetic
personalization.
• Key theorists include Fairclough, Goffman,
Brown, Levinson, Coulthard and Sinclair, and
Grice.
Thank you