Language and Power PDF
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Language and Power Second edition LANGUAGE IN SOCIAL LIFE SERIES Series Editor: Professor Christopher N Candlin Chair Professor of Applied Linguistics Department of English Centre for English Language Education if Communication Research City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong For a complete list of books in this series see pages v and vi Language and Power Second edition Norman Fairciough Q Routledge * Taylor & Francis Group LONDON AND NEW YORK First published 1989 Second edition published 2001 by Pearson Education Limited Published 2013 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY, 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © Taylor & Francis 1989, 2001 The right of Norman Fairclough to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notices Knowledge and best practice in this field are constantly changing. As new research and experience broaden our understanding, changes in research methods, professional practices, or medical treatment may become necessary. Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or experiments described herein. In using such information or methods they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including parties for whom they have a professional responsibility. To the fullest extent of the law, neither the Publisher nor the authors, contributors, or editors, assume any liability for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions, or ideas contained in the material herein. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress ISBN-13: 978-0-582-41483-9 (pbk) Set in 10/12pt Janson by 35 LANGUAGE IN SOCIAL LIFE SERIES Series Editor: Professor Christopher N Candlin Chair Professor of Applied Linguistics Department of English Centre for English Language Education & Communication Research City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Language and Power Second edition Norman Fairclough Discourse and the Translator Basil Hatim and Ian Mason Planning Language, Planning Inequality James W Tollefson Language and Ideology in Children’s Fiction John Stephens The Cultural Politics of English as an International Language Alastair Pennycook Literacy Practices: Investigating Literacy in Social Contexts Mike Baynham Critical Discourse Analysis: the Critical Study of Language Norman Fairclough Fictions at Work: Language and Social Practice in Fiction Mary M Talbot Knowledge Machines: Language and Information in a Technological Society Denise E Murray Mediated Discourse as Social Interaction Ron Scollon Interpreting as Interaction Cecilia Wadensjo Language and Literacy in Workplace Education Giselle Mawer Writing Business: Genres, Media and Discourses Francesca Bargiela-Chiappini and Catherine Nickerson (eds) Identity and Language Learning: Gender, Ethnicity and Educational Change Bonny Norton Small Talk Justine Coupland (ed.) Typography and Language in Everyday Life Susan Walker The Power of Tests: A Critical Perspective on the Uses of Language Tests Elana Shohamy Sociolinguistics and Social Theory Nikolas Coupland, Srikant Sarangi and Christopher N. Candlin (eds) Language and Minority Rights: Ethnicity, Nationalism and the Politics of Language Stephen May Contents Author's Preface to the Second Edition viii Acknowledgements xi 1. Introduction: critical language study 1 2. Discourse as social practice 14 3. Discourse and power 36 4. Discourse, common sense and ideology 64 5. Critical discourse analysis in practice: description 91 6. Critical discourse analysis in practice: interpretation, explanation, and the position of the analyst 117 7. Creativity and struggle in discourse: the discourse of Thatcherism 140 8. Discourse in social change 163 9. Critical language study and social emancipation: language education in the schools 193 10. Language and power 2000 203 Bibliography 219 Index 225 Author's Preface to the Second Edition Language a?id Power is about how language functions in maintaining and changing power relations in contemporary society, about ways of analysing language which can reveal these processes, and about how people can be come more conscious of them, and more able to resist and change them. The book is designed to be accessible to readers with no previous acquaint ance with this field. But the Preface to the second edition seems an appro priate place to explain especially to those who are more familiar with the field why I am producing a second edition, how it differs from the first, and the relationship of Language and Power to subsequent publications. The second edition of Language and Power is published just over a decade after the first, which appeared in 1989. Apart from updating the biblio graphical references and making a number of minor changes, the first nine chapters remain substantially the same. But I have felt it necessary to add a new chapter, Chapter 10. The question of language and power is just as important and just as urgent now as it was in 1989, but there have been substantial changes in social life during the past decade which have some what changed the nature of unequal power relations, and therefore the ‘agenda’ for critical study of language. Specifically, power relations on an international and even ‘global’ level frame and shape what happens nation ally and locally to a greater extent than they did even ten years ago. Chapter 10 focuses upon these changes, and their implications for the question of language and power. It is not that these changes negate the concerns of the first edition or make them obsolete; rather, they indicate that when we research the relationship of language to power in national or local settings, we must recognize that these settings are both penetrated by processes and relations at an international level, and potentially contribute to shaping them. There are various other changes which have taken place over the past decade which are relevant to the question of language and power. Let me just mention one which has received a great deal of attention - the develop ment of the Internet. The Internet is a major new medium which has given AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION rise to new forms of communication. It has led to a certain optimism about power inequalities, because it is freely accessible to those who have the necessary technology (though the division been technological ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ both within and between countries is a major problem in itself), it is a relatively egalitarian form of communication, it allows forms of net working which promise new possibilities for social and political mobiliza tion, and so forth. It seems that communication on the Internet may ultimately bring important changes in what I call in Chapter 2 the societal ‘order of discourse’ - though to estimate those changes we must look at the place of the Internet in the overall ‘economy’ of the order of discourse, not just look at it in isolation. The publication of the first edition of Language and Power corresponded with a stage in the development of what I call in Chapter 1 ‘critical language study’: the emergence of Critical Discourse Analysis. Critical Discourse Ana lysis has attracted an increasing number of researchers during the past decade. There was already significant work going on before the book was published (notably in ‘critical linguistics’, and in French discourse analysis), and the field has continued to develop since. My own subsequent work has extended research on discourse as a part of wider processes of social change (which is addressed particularly in Chapters 7 and 8), and to a lesser degree ‘critical language awareness’ (see Chapter 9). More recently I have published stud ies specifically on media discourse and the political discourse of the ‘New Labour’ Government in Britain. One theme in reviews of Language and Power was that the theorization of discourse and its relation to other elements of social life was underdeveloped and in some ways unsatisfactory, and I have also been concerned to try to remedy that. Another theme in reviews of Language and Power was that Critical Discourse Analysis should be used in combination with other methods such as ethnography, and that has been taken up by a number of researchers. Many scholars have been involved in the development and application of Critical Discourse Analysis, and it has now become quite a significant field of language research. My hope is that Language and Power will continue to serve as a relatively accessible introduc tion to the field. (See the references at the end of this Preface.) Critical Discourse Analysis has attracted considerable interest outside Linguistics and language studies. I have already referred to work in critical language awareness, which has been widely taken up by teachers in schools and educational institutions at other levels. Critical Discourse Analysis has also been used in various social sciences and humanities for purposes of research and teaching - Sociology, Cultural Studies, Media Studies, Gender Studies, Politics, History, and so forth. Let me mention one example: the Department of Urban Studies at the University of Glasgow organized two successful conferences in 1998 and 1999 around the themes of Discourse and Urban Change and Discourse and Policy Change, both of which drew extensively on Critical Discourse Analysis as well as other approaches to
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