16 October 2012 - Language and culture, power, ethics and representation

CULTURE, POWER, ETHICS AND REPRESENTATION

88091:

Language and:

in Relation to Film,

Dr Sarah Maitland

www.facebook.com/transcast

Discourse is “language as social practice determined by social structures.” (2001: 14) Social practice is “[f]irstly, that language is a part of society, and not somehow external to it. Secondly, that language is a social process. And thirdly, that language is a socially conditioned process, conditioned that is by other (non-linguistic) parts of society.” (2001: 18-19)

“we can say that power in discourse is to do with powerful participants controlling and constraining the contributions of non-powerful participants.” (2001: 38-39)

Ideology noun 1 (plural ideologies) a system of ideas and ideals, especially one which forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy: the ideology of republicanism the set of beliefs characteristic of a social group or individual: a critique of bourgeois ideology 2 [mass noun] archaic the science of ideas; the study of their origin and nature. archaic visionary speculation, especially of an unrealistic or idealistic nature.

“Ideologies are closely linked to power, because the nature of the ideological assumptions embedded in particular conventions, and so the nature of those conventions themselves, depends on the power relations which underlie the conventions; and because they are a means of legitimising existing social relations and differences in power, simply through the recurrence of ordinary, familiar ways of behaving which take these relations and power differences for granted.” (Fairclough 2001: 2)

• Language as a form of social practice

• How social and political domination is produced and reproduced through text

• Language as primary domain of ideology and struggles for power

• Draws from social theory to examine ideologies and power relations in discourse

• Series of techniques for insights into the way discourse produces or resists inequalities or domination

• Relates text to socio-political context

• Explores how power relations are legitimised or promulgated

• Deconstructs motivation, manipulation of reader response, inclusion/exclusion of context, agenda, author and audience

• Fairclough – ‘Discourse as text’ (choices in structural, grammatical and lexical construction); ‘Discourse as social practice’ (ideological framework that situates discourse)

• Widdowson – ‘Shared realities’ (ideologies common to author and reader)

• Exploring the use, function and effect of:

metaphor; lexical choice; semantic fields; rhetoric; demagogy; how the text influences relations between author/audience; how the text is made meaningful to audience; allusions to ideological practices intended to resonate with audience

• What CDA can you do on the following speech? http://www.britishpoliticalspeech.org/speech-archive.htm?speech=324

• What does Orwell have to say?

CULTURE, POWER, ETHICS AND REPRESENTATION

88091:

Language and:

in Relation to Film,