COM 370—Psychology of Language Def: “Controlling and constraining the contributions of...

COM 370—Psychology of Language

Def: “Controlling and constraining the contributions of non-[less]powerful participants” (Fairclough 2001, p. 38-39)

Contents: what is said or done, i.e. “access” to “communicative resources”

Relations: social relations of people in discourse

Subjects: “subject positions” of others (e.g., in mediated discourse)

Language form: what channel, dialect, register (e.g., level of formality) is/can be used?

Individual-Level Power(French & Raven)

Social-Level Power

• Coercive• Reward• Referent (liking)• Legitimate (assigned)• Expert (knowledge/info)http://changingminds.org/explanations/power/french_and_raven.htm

• Money (including government)• Influence (national)• Political• Status

Purpose: to study “the way social power abuse, dominance, and inequality are enacted, reproduced, and resisted by text in talk and the social and political context” (including media) (van Dijk, 2003, p. 352)

“Discourse” and “discourse” Discourse: A form of talk (e.g., discussion,

conversation) Discourse: The placing of ideas together in a

way that supports a particular way of thought.

Ideology: A set of interlocking assumptions about some aspect of reality—the “basis of social representations shared by members of a group” (van Dijk, 1998, p. 8) Ex: ideology of beauty Ex: ideology” of success

Hegemony: the dominance or influence of one group over another (political, economic, etc.)

MICRO•Ways of speaking (van Dijk, p. 356)•Phonemes•Syntax/morphemes•Genre/speech act•Pragmatics, rules of particular “discourses”•Narrative rules, face rules •Definition of the situation or context

•Personal and social cognitions (mind control): If you can control the ideologies, you will not need prisons or pink slips!

MACRO•Group identities•Institutions•Group-based power (e.g., sex-, race-, sexual orientation)

Ideology: A set of ideas, not a single idea Held by groups, not by individuals Often “naturalized” by language

Hegemony Not total or absolute Seldom absolute! Not just economic (à la Marx) Often implicit, not overt (p. 358)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMdiRkiYREU&feature=related

http://pietothemediaecologist.blogspot.com/2009/04/after-years-of-drinking-beer-and.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6u6G5hiA5_s

But: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/184184/women_in_beer_commercials.html

Three approaches to “power” in discourse: The “classic” model (no power, or IP power

only) The “hegemony” model (groups striving for

group-based power, or one group holding more power than others)

The “fragmented” model (postmodern)— “combining discourse elements in ever new ways to achieve momentary impact” – pastiche (p. 223)

Democratization: “the removal of inequalities and assymetries in the discursive and linguistic rights, obligations, and prestige of groups of people” (p. 201) Changing relations between social dialects Access to prestigious discourse types (e.g.,

managerial comm) Elimination of overt power markers in

institutional discourse types Tendency towards informality of language

(private public; conversation > literary/book) Changes in gender-related language processes

E.g., “topic pick-up” (whose topics are “picked up” M/W?)

But…are these real changes, or only cosmetic!?

Commodification: “the process whereby social domains and institutions, whose concern is not producing commodities in the narrower economic sense of goods for sale, come nevertheless to be organized and conceptualized in terms of commodity production, distribution, and consumption” (p. 207) Institutional “colonization of everyday life”

(Foucault/Deetz) We increasingly talk about various aspects of

life that both reflect and support capital economy and our “work” lives and goals

Things NOT commodities BECOME commodities!

Commodification

Educational Discussion

Consumers “Skills” Advertising

Funding

Relationships

Leisure, etc.

Technologization: Discourse technologies are when communication aspects have “the character of transcontexutal techniques, which are seen as resources or toolkits that can be used to pursue a wide variety of strategies in many diverse contexts” (p. 215) Interviewing, Teaching, Counseling,

Advertising The blurring of technologies and discourse

type Fragmentation: hybrid types of discourse

Do technologization and hybridization empower or disempower the everyday person?

How do the three forces work together?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEJfS1v-fU0