P2SB: Linguistic Concepts

Question 1

imagined community (Anderson)

Answer 1

is a socially-constructed community that is imagined by the people who comprise it on the basis of their shared identity, their shared beliefs, and their shared practices

e.g. any nation, social movements like LGBTQ, feminist movements

Question 2

social forgetting (Beiner)

Answer 2

is the act of creating social memory or inducing collective amnesia in choosing to remember or forget certain aspects of the past

e.g. SG –> focuses on independence after 1965, ‘forgets’ pre-1965

e.g. Japan –> downplay atrocities it committed during WW2

Question 3

verbal hygiene (Cameron)

Answer 3

is the act of advocating a change in language use so as to bring about social change

Question 4

manufacture of consent (Chomsky)

Answer 4

is the ability of the media to shape public opinion on an industrial scale in a systemic manner given its reach

Question 5

Self (de Beauvoir)

Answer 5

is the socially-constructed sense of being that is shared by the members of the dominant in-group – which is defined relative to the Other

Question 6

Other (de Beauvoir)

Answer 6

is the socially-constructed representation of the subordinate out-group by the Self

Question 7

collective consciousness (Durkheim)

Answer 7

is the shared set of norms, perspectives and/or values that is common to a community and that functions as a unifying force

e.g. kiasuism in SG

Question 8

interdiscursivity (Fairclough)

Answer 8

is the act of drawing on elements from other discourses in the production of the text, which can then frame its interpretation

e.g. Barbie Girl song (draws from gender & age)

Question 9

linguistic reflectionism (Fairclough)

Answer 9

is the belief that thought precedes language, which will therefore mirror reality

Question 10

discursive formation (Foucalt)

Answer 10

is an organised set of beliefs that constitute a discourse, which can frame one’s understanding of reality when viewed through its lens

Question 11

power/knowledge (Foucalt)

Answer 11

is the symbiotic relationship between power and knowledge – where power can define what knowledge is, the restriction of which can then entrench one’s power

Question 12

labelling (Goffmann)

Answer 12

is the belief that the identity and/or the behaviour of individuals can be influenced by the language that is used to describe them

Question 13

hegemony (Gramsci)

Answer 13

is a set of shared perspectives and shared values that constitute what is “common sense”, which is perpetuated by the in-group as a means of entrenching their dominance

e.g. meritocracy in SG

i.e. to emphasise DOMINANT value

Question 14

recontextualization (Linell)

Answer 14

is the transfer and transformation of an element from one discourse to another discourse, which can reframe one’s understanding of it

e.g. boy (to refer to an African American) age marker –> race marker (used in a pejorative sense to portray inferiority of an African American man)

Question 15

Othering (Levinas)

Answer 15

is the act of creating an out-group by foregrounding their differences vis-à-vis the in-group, which can result in their exclusion from wider society

Question 16

euphemism treadmill (Pinker)

Answer 16

is the belief that euphemisms tend to gradually acquire the same pejorative connotations as the original terms they replaced, which would necessitate coining new euphemism

Question 17

Orientalism (Said)

Answer 17

is the creation of a dichotomy between the East and the West, where the former is represented as an inferior Other that is irrational, feminine and weak - vis-à-vis the latter, which is rational, masculine and powerful – to be subjugated and commodified by the latter

Question 18

linguistic relativism (Sapir-Whorf)

Answer 18

is the belief that language and thought share a two-way relationship where both can influence each other to some degree

Question 19

ideological square (van Dijk)

Answer 19

is the creation of an “us” vs “them” framing through positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation – that is, by foregrounding the positives whilst downplaying the negatives of the in-group and doing the converse for the out-group

Question 20

linguistic determinism (Wittgenstein)

Answer 20

is the belief that language precedes thought and will therefore shape reality