Language In Power Flashcards
Types of power:
Personal
Those who hold power as a result of their occupation or role, e.g. A teacher
Types of power:
Political
Held by politicians, the police and those working in law
Types of power:
Social group
Those who hold power due to a result of social variables such as class, gender and age
What are the three types of power?
Political, personal and social group
Instrumental power
Power used to maintain power and enforce authority
Influential power
Power used to influence or persuade others
Power in discourse
The ways in which power is manifested in situations through language
Power behind discourse
The focus on social and ideological reasons behind the enactment of power
Ideology
A set of belief systems, attitudes or a world view held by an individual or groups
Epistemic modality
Constructions that express degrees of possibility, probability or certainty
Deontic modality
Constructions that express degrees of necessity and obligation
Synthetic personalisation
The way in which advertising and other forms of communication use personalised language such as ‘you’ to create a relationship between the text producer and receiver
Members recourses
The vast amount of background knowledge and information that readers use in order to interpret texts and which may be explicitly drawn upon text producers
Powerful participant
A speaker with a higher status in a given context, who is therefore able to impose a degree of power
Less powerful participant
Those with less status in a given context, who are subject to constraints imposed by more powerful participants
Power asymmetry
A marked difference in the power status of individuals involved in discourse
Unequal encounter
An alternative term for ‘asymmetrical’, highlighting the power that one speaker has over another
Constraints
Ways in which powerful participants may block or control the contributions of less powerful participants e.g. interrupting
Formulation
The rewording of another’s contribution by a powerful participant to impose a certain meaning or understanding
Face
A person’s self-esteem or emotional needs
Positive Face
The need to feel wanted, liked and appreciated
Negative face
The need to have freedom of thought and action and not feel imposed on
Face-threatening act
A communicative act that threatens someone’s positive or negative face needs
Positive and negative politeness strategies
Redressive strategies that a speaker might use to mitigate or avoid face-threatening acts
Repressive discourse strategies
A more indirect way of exercising power and control through conversational constraints
Oppressive discourse strategies
Linguistic behaviour that is open in exercising of power and control
Small talk
Talk is primarily interatcial in orientation and is geared towards establishing relationships
