Language, Culture, and Identity

Assignment No: 1

Discourse of Power

Course Instructor: Sir. Ghulam Mujtaba Yasir Sahib

Submiited By: Imtiaz Ahmad

Roll No: 45

M.Phil. Linguistics (1st)

Ghazi University Dera Ghazi Khan

Discourse of Power:-

1. Introduction:
When we are studying the language, culture, and identity then we also know about the
concept of power and how this power is gained and applied within a society? When we
talk about the discourse of power then first of all we know that what is meant by power
and how it enables someone to control over the other people? Here I will discuss about
the discourse and its relation to power.

Language is an exceptional trait of human beings, and through this unique human
attribute, individuals can express and communicate not only the concrete but also the
abstract things. Language is the central part in the social and cultural formation. It
enables human being to construct the different version of reality in the socio-cultural
perspective according to the core issue of structuralism.

Furthermore, Language is not a neutral tool of communication and expression as it is

always mediated through different means, because it is only through language that
different realities, identities and relations are established. It affects the social relations
to the extent that all dimensions of social activities revolve round this ability of
expression.
 2. Poststructuralist Views about Language:

Post-structuralist linguists are of the view that language is exercised to create identity
and ideology, production of knowledge and its reproduction, power relations and
community relations; thus, it creates a new version of reality supporting the idea that
reality is socially constructed. This power of language is exercised through institutional
and organizational control and through their hegemony.

Language is central to the concern of communicative behaviour, because it has to do

with the socialization of individuals. Discourse pattern relates to intimate details about
the psychic of the person and the structure of broader conceptions of institutional
organizations. If we examine the content and function of communication within political
institutions, we notice that certain symbols and phraseology tend to recur more
frequently than others in given contexts.

3. The Concept of Power:

In general sense, power refers to the ability of something, some person, and some
institution in a society. They use this power in order to gain their personal interests and
even sometimes to control the people. They can do anything which is convenient to
them and they also subordinate the other people by their way of speaking and living.
They think that their own life and ideology is just perfect as compared to other people.
In short, power is related to the idea of majority in a society.

The relationship between discourse and power is always remained as a major concern of
discussion in sociology and humanities. We can see in our daily life that when people
gain power and their popularity then how they imposed their own ideologies and
philosophies over the other people through discourse. Discourse always worked in the
shape of language when we are comparing its relation to power. As we know that
language is the only source of communication within a society. If this language has the
prestigious status then it works as a powerful discourse and it will always considered as
dominant source of communication. I have selected here two types of discourses and
their relation to power.

3.1 Power in Language:

The relation of power and language is established by many theorists over the years, and
the nature of this relation is multi-layered. It is obvious that language serves the power
or the powerful on the one hand and on the other it has a potential to undermine the
same. In other words, language itself has power. Fiske’s view is that language helps in
producing and asserting power structures in a society, and it reflects the interests of
speaker or writer. The power of language is quite evident in situations where the
privileged speaker has an opportunity to speak and the listeners are left with the only
option to obey in whatever sense. In this way power of language becomes the instrument
in the hand of powerful. It is evident ranging from political and public speaking to the
small prospects of daily life, from the arts of temptation through advertising to the sales
tactics of marketing, and from the hazards of unprivileged at the workplace to fear of
scarcity in the family. Huberman’s view is that language is a medium of domination and
social force. It serves to legitimize relations of organized power.

However, speakers depend on language and the power of language is not monopolized.
In the actual sense, the power of language, in most of the cases if institutions are not
involved, belongs to language itself. Therefore, the power of language can be exercised
by only those who possess language. Many theorists have analysed the links between
language and power in the past few decades. Bourdieu‘s (1991) work is instrumental in
studying how power is produced and asserted in different societies through language.
The famous theorists include Huberman 1977), Foucault (1983; 1991), Fairclough (1989)
and Gramsci (1971) who have explored the relationship between language and power.

Therefore, in the construction of our society, there are certain institutions that are given
privilege to propagate and influence the society with language and it is carefully set that
only one-sided flow of language can be maintained as to avoid the reversal influence of
power through language. Our political setting and media propagation are set in keeping
the same phenomenon. The study of language and power, though emerged in last few
decades, has now become an entire discipline where it is studied how language is used to
gain, exercise and maintain power structures in the society reinforcing the subjective
nature of language.

3.2 Foucault’s Concept of Power:

The concept of power cannot be comprehensive without discussing it with reference to

Foucault, as he is regarded as one of the main theorists who dealt with power. As a
matter of fact, he brought into spotlight the relationship of power with language.
Foucault examined power as a 'structure of actions', and found that power restrains
others in terms of their actions as well as independence. He introduces three main types
of power: power as strategic games between liberties, domination and governments. He
thinks that, due to this relationship, we have to consider the total action along with its
total structure to understand the notion of power. Therefore, it can be said that we
should observe others‘ actions, resistance and opposition prompted by those actions.

Moreover, making it a principle, Foucault is interested in explaining social practices

through the concept of power; however, he did not formulate any theory of power. In
contrary, he proposed some concepts. Initially, he thinks that the general concept of
power is different from the power practiced in public institutions as it is a multi-
dimensional notion which can be exercised in all institutions: education, judiciary,
media etc.

It can be observed all around, and it is negotiated between those who achieve power due
to their organizational position, and those who remain victim of this power. In other
words, power needs some goals and objectives. But, as a matter of fact, these goals and
objectives would be unavoidably the goals and objectives of the organizations and
institutions, or at least of those who are powerful there.

4. The Concept of Discourse:

Discourse in general sense is a way of thinking and communicating with people within a
society. In fact, when we are talking or sharing our ideas, feelings, and thoughts to other
people then we are using a specific medium of communication that is actually language.
In every society, language plays a key role in transformation and growth of that society
and culture. Therefore, we can say that when people convey their messages to other
people through language then this language is known as discourse.

4.1 Significance of Discourse:

Discourse is a domain of language use, structured as a unity by common assumptions.

There may be competing discourses, and discourses will change over time. For example,
M. Foucault describes the existence of discourse of madness which has changed over the
centuries. He also suggests that there may well be similarities between discourses at any
time. We find the term a discourse, most commonly used, referring to the nexus
between bodies of historically volatile disciplinary knowledge and specific linguistic
usages at social-institutional sites (hospitals, prisons, and schools, for example).

Discourses are used in everyday texts to build power and knowledge, to develop new
knowledge and power relations and to express oneself using words. Linguists' interest in
discourse in recent times is gradually shifting from the traditional focus on the linguistic
structure of text to how texts figure in the social process. Opinion leaders, courts,
government, newspaper editors, etc., play a crucial role in shaping issues in the society
and setting the boundaries of what is talked about and how it is talked about.

In its original sense in applied linguistics, discourse refers to stretches of language above
the level of the sentence in conversations or written texts. More recently, discourse has
also been taken on an extended meaning that differs from its use in applied linguistics in
at least two ways. First, in the extended meaning of the word, language is not the sole
system of signs to be studied as discourse; other semiotic systems are included, such as
habits of dress, the built environment, and, of course, gesture. Second, the meaning of
discourse has been further extended to include societal meaning-making systems such
as institutional power, social differentiation of groups, and cultural beliefs that create
identities for individuals and position them in social relationships. Here I will discuss
about two important types of discourses and their relation to power; political discourse
and media discourse.

4.2 Political Discourse:

Politics: It refers to the distribution and exercise of power within a society, and polity
refers to the political institution through which power is distributed and exercised. In
any society, decisions must be made regarding the allocation of resources and other
matters. Except perhaps in the simplest societies, specific people and often specific
organizations make these decisions. Depending on the society, they sometimes make
these decisions solely to benefit themselves and other times make these decisions to
benefit the society as a whole. Regardless of who benefits, a central point is this: some
individuals and groups have more power than others. Because power is so essential to
an understanding of politics, we begin our discussion of politics with a discussion of
power.

Political Process: This process involves a struggle over certain phenomenon in the
social boundary. Therefore, theorists take the political process as a struggle to decide
whose interpretation of social, cultural, political, or economic phenomena will generally
be accepted and endorsed by public. Here comes a point that if this type of struggle is
involved in policy-making so as to create alternative realities, language has a prominent
role to play in this scenario. As a matter of fact, language is that medium which reflects,
proceeds, and interprets the supposed versions of realities.

In addition to it, the process through which all political institutions as well as
individuals describe, characterize and give meaning to social, economical or cultural
issues and try to attach them to a greater political environment, has been termed as
framing. These frames identify the problem and diagnose its cause. Then, these frames
put forward and substantiate the treatments to mitigate and address the problem, and
in the end, they predict their probable effects.

4.3 Purpose of Political Discourse:

Politics, primarily, is associated with people and with their lives in organized
communities, and the traditional party politics is so beyond this arena. Politics is a
social activity like so many in a civilized society. It has a specific code, and the language
used in a political discourse has specific features. This type of discourse as one of
political rituals needs more attention. As a matter of fact, the work to find out
connection between language and power started few decades ago; however, the critical
angle to study it is not that much old (Beard, 2001). The way the language reflects the
ideological position of politicians and how the readers‘ ideological position is generated
and affected is very important.

Generally, Politics plays an important role in our lives. Likewise, Fairclough is of the
view that politics, to some extent, can be traced in the disputes and struggles occurred in
language and over language‘. Additionally, politics is carried out either through political
discourse or through diverse genres of political discourse, for instance, political speech,
parliamentary debates, media interviews and shows, and political advertising. Finally,
politics and political discourse are mingled in public sphere, and both affects
presentation of the participants, in other words politicians, and recipient of political
discourse, in other words public.

As it is the concern of present study, political speech, being a political genre, more often
is used to perform politics. It can also be used as an object of the analysis to see the
hidden agenda behind the statements of the speakers since language in political speech
can control and influence political action and trust of the audience . Political speech is
one type of discourse which produces and reproduces beliefs, opinions, and ideologies.
In other words, political speech must have certain ideology to be spread among the
audience. It indicates that the way the speaker speaks and represents something in the
speech is crucial in influencing the attitude of audience.

Some studies in the area of political discourse deal with the text and talk of professional
politicians or political institutions, such as presidents and prime ministers and other
members of government, parliament or political parties, both at the local, national and
international levels.

4.4 Politics and Politicians:

In view of politics and politicians, Bourdieu‘s (1991) view is thought to be one of the
earliest works in terms of their use of language and in terms of creation of political
discourse. It is pertinent to discuss a few of his views in the present context. According
to him, proficient organizations dealing in politics have a different life, and, as a
consequence, gradually disconnect those whom they represent. The sense of overall
political discourses and the political stances is the most prominent learning in the
training process of a politician.

This sense enables a politician to deliver a proper political discourse. Bourdieu gives this
sense a name of political habitus. Moreover, politicians produce a discourse which is
doubly determined. Firstly, it is internally determined by its position in politics, and
secondly, it is externally determined by its connections to the fields other than politics.
The latter is more concerned with the people‘s lives and efforts, which they represent.
Politicians endeavour to win their trust and support.

The above arguments of the linguists provide a platform to connect political discourse
with the power generated in discourse. Fairclough argues that political discourse
reproduces or alters the community by reproducing or changing representation of
people through discourse. Furthermore,

political discourse demonstrates the strong bond between ideational and interpersonal
practices in discourse. In other words, it has the potential to replicate or modify the
society solely through reproducing and changing classes and groups in society. It works
on representations as well as classifications of reality, along with representations and
classifications of the concerned people. In short, the power of discourse in politics relies
on its potential to form and activate social factors that have capacity to carry out its
promised reality into a new reality.

4.5 Bourdieu’s Political Discourse:

Bourdieu explains political discourse as a field of struggle with its varied dimensions.
According to him, this field of struggle can be classified in two main categories: internal
struggle and external struggle. Internal struggle is present in political discourse to
produce and maintain a consistent discourse inside the present structure of political
discourse. Whereas, external struggle in the political discourse helps to formulate a
political community to provide a base to support, and it earns a trust in favour of that
political discourse, institutions and politicians associated with it. As the purpose of this
study is to see closely the practices of politicians in newspapers as they are represented,
further discussion on Bourdieu‘s analysis of political discourse may be irrelevant.
However, he has presented the analysis of discourses, but has not put forth the analysis
of genres.

4.6 Techniques in Political Speeches:

The political speeches are marked significantly with certain techniques to create an
impact on the audience. These speeches, as discussed earlier, form the public opinion
alongside they create a political space for the speakers. Through imparting certain
techniques in the discourse, the politicians attain a position. A Few of very common
techniques in the discourse, as it is not the scope of this study to analyse the speeches of
the politicians rather their media coverage, include the use of words in different
association to generate persuasive impact in the speech. For instance, politicians use
alliteration, allusion, antithesis (inversion), asking questions and suggesting answers,
lists, metaphor, parallelism, parenthesis, repetition and redundant questioning.
Besides, persuasive techniques in political discourse are one aspect of creating specific
discourse impact on the public or audience. Political discourse is marked with speech
acts and their impact, particularly of illocutionary act. An in-depth study of political
discourse reveals the nature of the illocutionary act, which builds up the discourse
organization. Furthermore, political discourse is prominent in terms of emotive issues.
Politicians need attention of the audience, therefore, to attract their attention a political
speech forces in a straight line to emotive issues. The opening lines of the speech
generally attempt to tie up the audience into this; and therefore, set the course of the
whole discourse. Political speeches are different from the rest of genre at least in their
act of initiation. Being one of the prominent features of political discourse, the act of
initiation is marked with specific features requiring different techniques.

4.7 Features of Some Techniques:

Techniques of political discourse are prominent in political speeches. One of which is

the act of support in a political speech, and it may be called as supporting acts in
persuasive discourse. Here, the statement of initiating act is expanded, and new related
information is added in it. It can be termed as elaboration, where the supporting act
upholds the initiating act through elaboration of things placed at the time of initiation.
In other words, it can be said that the political discourse is developed through
supporting act.

Moreover, the next supporting act is developed through characteristics like, explanation,
enumeration, exemplification, causation, elaboration, consequence, and qualification.
They are linked in syntagmatic as well as paradigmatic relationships. At first place, in
syntagmatic order, explanations may possibly be pursued by enumeration, then, by
elaboration and exemplification to detail the point. Next, in paradigmatic structure,
features of speech are in vertical order, and one may be a substitute to other.

The third feature in the political speech is the act of summation. It characterizes the
statements and proposals in a very close association with the supporting as well as
initiating acts. Furthermore, in political speeches, the speaker, most often, speaks
directly to the audience to attain favour from them with vote, support, etc. In short, it
usually revolves around a direct address to the audience.

It is important to note that political discourse does not appear, in general, to be

objective or neutral. Subsequently, the subjective likes and dislikes are reflected in the
use of language particularly in political discourse. Hence, political speeches create
psychological impact on individual's mind to earn their own benefit beside creating
impact on the whole society.

5. Media Discourse:
Media discourse refers to interactions that take place through a broadcast platform,
whether spoken or written, in which the discourse is oriented to a non-present reader,
listener or viewer. Though the discourse is oriented towards these recipients, they very
often cannot make instantaneous responses to the producer(s) of the discourse, though
increasingly this is changing with the advent of new media technology, as we shall
explore. Crucially, the written or spoken discourse itself is oriented to the readership or
listening/viewing audience, respectively. In other words, media discourse is a public,
manufactured, on-record, form of interaction. It is not ad hoc or spontaneous (in the
same way as casual speaking or writing is); it is neither private nor off the record.
Obvious as these basic characteristics may sound, they are crucial to the investigation,
description and understanding of media discourse.

Because media discourse is manufactured, we need to consider how this has been done
– both in a literal sense of what goes into its making and at an ideological level. One
important strand of research into media discourse is preoccupied with taking a critical
stance to media discourse, namely critical discourse analysis(CDA). It is important that
we continually appraise the messages that we consume from our manufactured mass
media.

The fact that media discourse is public means that it also falls under the scrutiny of
many conversation analysts who are interested in it as a form of institutional talk, which
can be compared with other forms of talk, both mundane and institutional. The fact that
media discourse is on record makes it attractive for discourse analysts and increasingly
so because of the online availability of newspapers, radio stations, television
programmes and so on. Advances in technology have greatly offset the ephemerality
factor that used to relate to media discourse, especially radio and television (where it
used to be the case that, if you wanted to record something, it had to be done in real
time).

5.1 Role of Media Power and Influence:

It is now relevant to discuss media power in terms of the social power which is normally
assumed by groups and institutions. Putting aside the coercive nature of power either of
military and police on institutional level, or raping women and molesting children on
individual level, social power, by and large, is identified as the control of actions along
with control over access to resources by a dominant group or even individual. It means
that control of action generally indicates decrease of freedom. By applying this notion to
media, it can be inferred that the freedom of the media should be considered as power of
the media.

Moreover, action can be defined in many ways and different factors are involved in this
process. If intentions, reasons, objectives and goals may be taken as some parts in the
overall definition, then, control of action means control of mind. This is the key factor in
persuasive social power in general, and in media power in particular ground Van Dijk
feels the need to understand the cognitive processes and representations. In addition to
this, cognitive approach presents insight into the structures, formation and strategies of
cognition. Due to this very reason, it offers a foundation for an innovative
understanding of the power of the media in terms of persuasion.

With this overview of media discourse in general, it can be observed, with another
perspective, that companies exercise power to the masses through the media. The most
prominent phenomenon is advertising through which business companies communicate
messages to potential consumers, and they enjoy free access. Through a specific use of
language, different business organizations persuade the readers to pay money for their
product. They influence the content of news and language of the news implicitly, as they
know that being larger advertisers, they cannot be refused. Therefore, media owners
cooperate in the process of publishing and expression. The element of discursively can
be identified with an example that a paper would ignore the events of food poisoning if a
renowned fast food company is its client, and if it has to do so, the paper would place it
on less frequently read places of the newspaper.

5.2 Politicians and Media:

Despite the fact that interest groups seek prominence on media to influence politics,
politicians are not out of the scene in this struggle. On the contrary, media have become
very important place for politicians to increase influence and to get dominance as
compared to other politicians. With the help of media they sway the views of their
voters. Moreover, they are at the mercy of media persons, particularly editors, who
decide how to represent their institution, their own personalities and their policies along
with political agenda.

However, various perspectives exist for examining how politicians endeavor to present
political issues, and how they manage the media so as respond and interpret their
version of reality for the public. There is no doubt that the ability of dominated groups
to structure issues for the public presentation through the media is, supposedly,
influenced by a powerful political status, resources and credibility. In addition, there are
situations when the messages set forth by some more powerful and resourceful
politicians may not be considered by the media. In this case, information and messages
are presented unedited to the public. However, media manipulators, as they are experts,
impose their dominant frames, symbols and perspectives on the media, the outputs
may not digress significantly from the inputs.

5.3 The Politics of Media:

Media have multiple dimensions; therefore, the politics of media should be viewed in
studying media. It has been an issue of concern among scholars, (Chomsky, ; Fowler, ;
van Dijk), that the conventional media exerts ideologically, and in this way serves the
interests of the powerful, the influential and the state. With another way, Fairclough
stresses the same issue that media discourses contribute in the production of social
relations in terms of domination and exploitation.

At the same time, Fairclough argues that the interests of the media, under certain
circumstances, are not compatible with the state itself. He gives the example of the
Vietnam War when American media changed the public opinion against war by showing
the images. The influence of media by putting pressure on the government to intervene
to help and support the Kurdish refugees in Iraq is one more similar study.

Conversely, Chomsky argues that the criticism of the media on state is also a part of the
canon of dominant individuals, organizations and groups so as to give a strong
impression about themselves that they are spokesmen for free speech and the general
community interest. Here is a paradox that they, the critics of the media, acknowledge
the non-interference of the state in media affairs. The question is how and through what
means the media is an instrument of the powerful.

6. Conclusion:
In short, I point out the role and positioning of language in the paradigm of social
constructionist. It tells how power of language is exercised through institutional and
organizational control and through their hegemony. The role of media in this type of the
use of power is important. This chapter describes the objectives and the research
questions set forth for this study. The significance, to study the role of Pakistani
newspapers in shaping the reality, is also presented. The review of the literature
describes the media as discursive space in the light of argument of different theorists
looking at the phenomenon with different perspectives. Later on in this chapter, the
design of the study in which design of CDA is described along with selection and the
number of the speeches and the newspapers selected for this study are described. At the
end how this thesis will proceed in the coming chapters is discussed.