Power theorists

Warning’s social groups and power

• Political

• Personal

• Social

Political power

Held by politicians, police and those working in law courts

Personal power

Power held as a result of their occupation / role

Social power

• Power held as a result of social variables

  • e.g. class, gender, age

Knowledge power

Knowledge on a specific topic

Wareing’s instrumental power

• Used by individuals / groups to maintain and enforce authority over someone

  • e.g. not doing something leads to consequences

Wareing’s influential power

• Power to influence, make us believe or support something

  • No consequences if you don’t follow what is said

Fairclough’s synthetic personalisation

• Media texts treat mass audience as an individual using 2nd person pronouns to address

  • e.g. ‘you’, ‘your’

Brown & Levinson - Face theory

• Face - public self image that everyone tries to project

Positive face

To feel valued and appreciated

Negative face

Not to be imposed upon / threatened

Face threatening act

A communicative act that threatens someone’s positive or negative face

Brown & Levinson - types of politeness

• Bald on record politeness

• Positive politeness

• Negative politeness

• Off-record indirect politeness

Power behind discourse

The social and ideological reasons behind the enactment of power

Power in discourse

Ways in which power is manifested in situations through language

Asymmetry

An unequal balance of power between two people

Lakoff’s politeness principle

1. Don’t impose

2. Give options

3. Make the receiver feel good

Giles’ accommodation theory

People may switch their speech style to that of the other participants in the conversation (converge), or try to completely avoid it (diverge)

Convergence

Someone switches their speech style to become more like the other participant

Divergence

Someone’s language stylist is may attempt to be completely opposite of those in the conversation

Bald on record politeness

Provides no effort to save the other participants face

Positive politeness

• Obvious and outright politeness

  • E.g. compliments, praise

Negative politeness

• Formal politeness

  • E.g. using formal titles, super polite forms

Off-record indirect politeness

Instead of a direct request, you hint towards something in order for the other person to discover what you want

Grice’s conversational maxims

• Quality

• Quantity

• Relevance

• Manner

Maxim of quality

Do not say what you believe to be false

Maxim of quantity

Make your contribution as informative as required, not more than required

Maxim of relevance

Be relevant to the topic of conversation

Maxim of manner

Avoid ambiguity, be brief, be orderly

Fairclough’s model

Advertising exists as a prime example of ideology at work through building a relationship between text producer and receiver