Language, Society and Power – Key Vocabulary

CHAPTER 1: LANGUAGE

• Everyday invisibility of language

  • We only notice language when it malfunctions or when we focus on the topic/speaker.

• Variation & identity

  • Same shared language, different realizations depending on age, education, context.

  • Register shift: friends vs. teacher.

  • Language choices index information about speakers & relationships.

• Why linguists study language

  • See it as a rule-governed system enabling story-telling, joking, poetry…

  • Norman Fairclough: understanding language ⇒ understanding society, power, oppression, resistance.

• Rules & change

  • Rules make communication possible but evolve; linguists document new norms.

• Chomsky’s distinction

  • Competence = internalised grammar knowledge.

  • Performance = actual use; can possess grammatical competence yet lack communicative competence.

• Language varieties

  • Geographical: accent (phonetic), vocabulary, syntax ⇒ dialector “variety” (neutral term).

• Word creation mechanisms

  • Neologisms for new objects.

  • Semantic shift of existing words.

  • Conversion (noun→verb etc.).

  • Dictionaries lag behind usage; absence ≠ illegitimacy.

• Prescription vs. description

  • Descriptive grammar: what speakers really do (all varieties).

  • Prescriptive grammar: rules about how speakers should speak.

CHAPTER 2: FUNCTIONS, POWER & REPRESENTATION

• Jakobson’s communication model

  • Addresser / Addressee; mediating factors:

  1. Context → Referential function

  2. Message → Poetic function

  3. Contact → Phatic function

  4. Code → Metalingual function

  5. Addresser → Emotive function

  6. Addressee → Conative function

• Language & power

  • Standard varieties confer symbolic advantages (e.g., British English perceived as polite).

  • Direct political control: ex-Pres. of Turkmenistan renamed months/foods.

  • Institutional power: police command.

  • Symbolic power: managerial language style.

• Saussurean sign

  • Signifier = sound; Signified = concept; arbitrary link.

  • Sound-symbol variation ("buzz" vs. Japanese "boon boon").

• Langage / Langue / Parole

  • Langue (system, social) enables Parole (individual use).

• Relational meaning & structure

  • Signs gain value via differences; spatial metaphor of “slots”.

  • Synchronic vs. Diachronic analysis.

• Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

  • Linguistic diversity: languages segment reality differently (Dyirbal noun classes 4 groups).

  • Determinism (rejected): language limits thought.

  • Relativism: habitual thought patterns shaped by language (Lucy).

  • Colour study: Russian 2 basic blues ("goluboy", "siniy") → faster category decisions.

• Paradigmatic vs. Syntagmatic choice

  • Paradigmatic (vertical): alternative word options.

  • Syntagmatic (horizontal): word order.

  • Active vs. Passive voice shifts focus.

  • Transitivity = who does what to whom.

CHAPTER 3: LANGUAGE, POLITICS & "PC"

• Political Correctness / Language Reform

  • Aim: representational justice, avoid discriminatory language.

  • Critics: conformity, limits free speech, imposition of authority.

  • Cameron: expands "repertoire of social meanings"; offers positive identity terms.

• Broad notion of politics

  • Any communal decision-making about governance/power.

  • Ideology = belief systems about social organisation.

• Persuasion arsenal

  • Aristotle: Logos, Pathos, Ethos.

  • Grass-roots tools: contrast, three-part lists, parallelism, repetition, passive, pronouns (inclusive/exclusive "we"), presupposition (semantic vs. pragmatic), metaphor vs. simile.

• War discourse

  • Euphemism ("nukespeak"), Dysphemism, Nominalisation (reification).

• Toys & ideology

  • War toys inculcate “us vs. them”, heroic masculinity (Machine & van Leeuwen).

• Extended metaphors

  • Evoke scenarios, causal chains (e.g., "student as customer").

• Silly citizenship (Hartley)

  • Humorous media participation (e.g., The Daily Show) as political agency.

CHAPTER 4: LANGUAGE & MEDIA

• Mass media filters (Chomsky & Herman) 1 Ownership 2 Advertising 3 Sourcing 4 Flak/responses 5 Ideology (anti-communism etc.)

  • Result: manufactured consent, propaganda model.

• Semantic unity (van Dijk)

  • Coherent theme/headline frames reading.

• News values (Allan Bell)

  • Negativity, Recency, Proximity, Consonance, Unambiguity, Unexpectedness, Superlativeness, Relevance, Personalisation, Eliteness, Attribution, Facticity.

  • Hard vs. Soft; Fast vs. Slow news.

• Experts positioning matters as much as selection.

• Online news transformation

  • Jucker’s 6 changes: hypermedia, personalisation, producer-consumer interaction, lifespan shift, synchronicity, loss of fixity.

  • Bateman/Delin/Henshel 5 structures: content, rhetorical, layout, navigation, linguistic.

• Twitter & citizen journalism

  • Microblog 140/280 chars, hashtags, digital divide, literacy demands, fake news circulation.

CHAPTER 5: LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPES

• Top-down vs. Bottom-up signage

  • Official (regulatory, infrastructural) vs. individual (commercial, transgressive).

• Kress & van Leeuwen reading paths

  • Given→New, Ideal (top)→Real (bottom).

• Geosemiotics (Scollon)

  • Spatial placement imparts meaning; boundary marking exerts power.

• Multilingualism & power

  • Bilingual Welsh/English signage marks official status; contested languages ⇒ ideological struggle.

• Campaign example: Singapore Courtesy

  • "Informalised authority" (Lazar) with Smiley & Singa, community rhetoric.

• Graffiti as transgressive voice

  • Commercial vs. non-commercial; reclaim space, participatory culture.

• Online landscapes & memes

  • YouTube: decentered, atemporal, post-TV (Telson).

  • Memes: replicability, humour, intertextuality, anomalous juxtaposition (Knobel & Lankshear).

CHAPTER 6: LANGUAGE & GENDER

• Sex vs. Gender

  • Sex = biological; Gender = social performance.

• Lexical asymmetry & markedness

  • Bachelor vs. Spinster; actor (unmarked) vs. actress (marked); master vs. mistress.

  • Titles: Mr (status-neutral) vs. Miss/Mrs/Ms (marital info, contested).

  • Generic "he" challenged; singular "they" rising (Baranowski).

  • Binomial order usually male-first; feminine domains exception.

  • Semantic derogation: "spinster", "slut" (reclaimed), animal terms.

• Women’s language stereotype (Lakoff)

  • Tags, hedges, politeness, lack of swear words.

• Tag questions re-evaluated

  • Modal (certainty) vs. Affective (interactional). Women mainly affective; men modal.

• Gossip research (Jones)

  • Shared floor, back-channeling, hedging; both genders use gossip but perceived feminine.

• Androcentric rule (linguistic subordination)

  • Women’s speech marked & judged; belief women talk more (Spender, Herring et al.).

• Performing identity

  • "Dude" signals cool solidarity among men (Kiesling).

  • Lesbian talk & community of practice (Jones – Sapphic Stompers).

CHAPTER 7: LANGUAGE & ETHNICITY

• Ethnicity vs. Race

  • Social/cultural construct analogous to gender vs. sex.

• Ideology of homogeneous nation → pressure on minorities (e.g., UK learn English).

• Racist discourse strategies (van Dijk) 1 Difference 2 Deviance 3 Threat; plus slurs.

  • Reclamation ("nigger", "wog").

• Ethnolect studies

  • Australia “wogspeak”: Greek-Aust. longest a in HRT.

  • AAE: copula deletion + habitual "be"; stigma vs. covert prestige.

  • Lumbee vs. AAE distinctions (rhoticity, inflected "be").

  • Latina gangs (Mendoza-Denton): creaky voice indexes hardcore persona.

  • Authenticity discourse: Mexican identity via code-switching (Shenk). White teen adopting AAE features (Cutler) for social capital.

• Miscommunication consequences

  • Caribbean English vs. SAE (Nero) → classroom issues.

  • Aboriginal English in courts (Eades): silence, gratuitous concurrence, rising declaratives misread.

• Crossing (Rampton)

  • Using codes not "owned"; linked to liminality, identity play.

CHAPTER 8: LANGUAGE & AGE

• Life-stage perspective

  • Early (CDL features), Adolescent (innovation, multiple negation, discourse marker "like", CMC texting features), Middle (stable, conservative), Later (stereotypes, elderspeak).

• CDL vs. Elderspeak

  • Similar simplifications but elderspeak can be patronising.

• Ageism

  • Negative framing of "elderly" (Mautner). Gendered differences among seniors.

  • Age discrimination masked by expectations of appearance/youth.

CHAPTER 9: LANGUAGE, CLASS & SYMBOLIC CAPITAL

• Class not just money: education, residence, language

• Stigmatised varieties & labels

  • "Bogan" (AU), "Chav" (UK), "White trash" (US).

  • Bennett: perceived chav speech = widespread non-standard features.

  • Pittsburgh study: same features can evoke authenticity or stigma (Johnstone et al.).

• Labov’s NYC rhoticity study

  • Postvocalic r increases with social class; style shifting.

• Social networks (Milroy)

  • Network Strength Score; density & multiplexity correlate with use of vernacular features.

• Communities of Practice (Eckert’s Jocks vs. Burnouts)

  • Multiple negation associated with burnout CoP.

• Symbolic capital (Bourdieu)

  • Intangible assets: accent, degree.

  • Gendered access: male activities vs. female appearance/language (Trudgill).

• Great British Class Survey (Savage et al.)

  • 7 classes: Elite, Established MC, Technical MC, New Affluent Workers, Traditional WC, Emergent Service Workers, Precariat.

• Deaf community & audism

  • Limited economic/cultural capital; internal elite via early BSL or attendance at Gallaudet.

CHAPTER 10: GLOBAL ENGLISHES

• Kachru’s Circles

  • Inner (L1), Outer (official/co-official, post-colonial), Expanding (EFL).

  • Inner = norm providing; Outer = norm developing; Expanding = norm dependent.

• Critiques & alternatives

  • Jenkins: treat all as World Englishes; Lingua Franca Core prioritises intelligibility (e.g., \theta→f/v acceptable).

  • Quirk: insists on inner-circle standard for teaching.

  • Linguistic insecurity among outer/expanding speakers.

• Diglossia examples

  • Singapore: Standard English (High) vs. Singlish (Low); identity vs. policy.

  • Indian English: heterogeneous, L1 for some, English + Hindi influence.

• Pidgin → Creole continuum

  • Lexifier vs. substrate; basilect/mesolect/acrolect in Caribbean English.

• Global linguistic market

  • Varieties carry differential value; elite English confers capital.

• Linguistic imperialism debate

  • Phillipson/Skutnabb-Kangas: English = neo-imperial project; "killer language" metaphor.

  • Mufwene: adoption for pragmatic reasons, not necessarily language abandonment.

• Second linguistic relativity (Hymes via Blommaert)

  • Meaning of variety depends on context; Singlish high capital locally, low abroad.

• English in advertising (Germany)

  • Indexes young, cosmopolitan, business elite (Androutsopoulos, Piller).

OVERARCHING THEMES & CONNECTIONS

• Language choice both reflects and constructs social reality (power, identity, ideology).

• Representational practices (media, signage, metaphor) shape common sense & consent.

• Variation (gender, ethnicity, class, age) demonstrates rule-governed diversity, challenges deficit views.

• Access to prestigious varieties = access to symbolic capital; inequities persist (audism, linguistic imperialism).

• Critical awareness of descriptive vs. prescriptive, of norms vs. emergent forms, is key to resisting oppression and fostering inclusive societies.