Language and Power

Two main types of power: Instrumental power - the power to actually do something to someone or make them do something (e.g. law, education, medicine) Influential power - the power to persuade and influence (e.g. politics, media, advertising)

Language and Power Here are some of the stylistic features worth looking out for in texts featuring power. For revision purposes, it would be worth: Looking back over the texts we have looked at and identifying examples of these. Considering, for each one, whether it is a feature of instrumental power or influential power or both.

Stylistic Features formality - a high level of formality signals distance and can be experienced as intimidating use of jargon - can be intimidating/excluding; you can’t argue with something you don’t understand complex/‘difficult’ lexis or grammar - ditto modals to express certainty, such as will - can convey authority imperatives conditionals definitions - e.g. you qualify as a student for council tax purposes if you study for more than 21 hours per week (otherwise you’re not a student - even if you think you are!) hidden assumptions - things you have to agree with in order for the text to make sense metaphorical terms which are not explained/demystified, e.g. ‘a strong economy’ - this implies something good and invites agreement, not questioning passives - to evade responsibility and prevent argument, e.g. ‘Bicycles chained to these railing will be removed’ (By whom?) loaded/emotive lexis rhetorical techniques (e.g. lists of 3, parallelism, metaphor, repetition) direct address accent and dialect - Standard English has more authority and prestige in most situations

In conversation: Conversational dominance - through interruption, comparatively lengthy utterances, topic management Control of other participants’ contributions - telling them when to speak, or what to speak about Evaluating other participants’ contributions, e.g. approving/praising Mode of address (e.g. title of Christian name) Use of questions, statements, etc. Acknowledgement (or not) of other participants’ contributions Plus: all the language features listed above, that apply to written texts