Language and Power Key Terms

Question 1

A group with shared values and approaches to reading

Answer 1

Discourse community

Question 2

Power held by those with the backing of the law

Answer 2

Political Power

Question 3

Power held by individuals as a result of their roles in organisations

Answer 3

Personal power

Question 4

Power held as a result of being a member of a dominant social group.

Answer 4

Social group power

Question 5

Power used to maintain and enforce authority

Answer 5

Instrumental power

Question 6

Power used to influence or persuade others

Answer 6

Influential power

Question 7

The ways in which power is manifested in situations through power; actual word/action level things

Answer 7

Power in discourse

Question 8

The focus on the social and ideological reasons behind the enactment of power

Answer 8

Power behind discourse

Question 9

A set of belief systems, attitudes or a world view held by an individual or groups

Answer 9

Ideology

Question 10

Constructions that express degrees of possibility, probability or certainty

Answer 10

Epistemic modality

Question 11

Constructions that express degrees of duty, necessity and obligation

Answer 11

Deontic modality

Question 12

The way in which advertising and other forms of communication use personalised language such as the second-person pronoun ‘you’ to construct a relationship between text producer and receiver

Answer 12

Synthetic Personalisation

Question 13

A marked difference in the power status of individuals involved in discourse

Answer 13

Power asymmetry

Question 14

An alternative term for asymmetrical, highlighting the power one speaker has over another.

Answer 14

Unequal encounter

Question 15

A speaker with a higher status in a given context, who is therefore able to impose a degree of power.

Answer 15

Powerful participant

Question 16

Those with less status in a given context, who are subject to constraints imposed by more powerful participants

Answer 16

Less powerful participants

Question 17

Ways in which powerful participants may block or control the contributions of less powerful participants, for example through controlling content or interrupting

Answer 17

Constraints

Question 18

The rewording of another’s contribution by a powerful participant to impose a certain meaning or understanding

Answer 18

Formulation

Question 19

Talk that is primarily interactional in orientation and is geared towards establishing relationships

Answer 19

Small talk (Phatic)

Question 20

A more indirect way of exercising power and control through conversational constraints

Answer 20

Repressive discourse strategy

Question 21

Linguistic behaviour that is open in its exercising of power and control

Answer 21

Oppressive discourse strategy