What we have covered so far....

Do you have the power?????  Jot down 5 things that you have learnt so far about Language and power

So far we have looked at.....  The different types of power:  Instrumental  Influential  Knowledge  Personal  Practical  Position

We have looked at  Grice’s Maxims of:  Quality (what you say is honest)  Quantity (You don’t say too much or too little)  Manner (what you say is clear and meaningful)  Relevance (what you say has something to do with what has just been said)  Flouting these maxims can be a way of asserting dominance or undermining a dominant speaker. For example if a student makes an irrelevant answer to a teacher then they could be trying to undermine the (supposedly) dominant teacher.

We also looked at...  Adjacency pairs and the three part exchange structure (Sinclair, Coulthard and Brazil) which is often found in a classroom context. For example:  T: Ollie, shut up.  S: Yes sir.  T: Well done, you are listening!  The person able to pass judgement on another’s utterances is often a reflection that they are the dominant speaker. It can be found in other contexts beyond just the classroom!

Blimey we have done loads!  We have looked at politeness strategies as researched by Brown and Levinson. We employ these strategies to help save “face” to either make people feel positive about themselves (positive politeness) or to avoid making them feel imposed upon (negative politeness).  Positive  Negative  Off the record  Bald on the record (is not the name of my band btw!)

Modality  Could, would, should, might, will not, can, etc are modal auxiliary verbs. They indicate the degree of possibility of something happening. They can often indicate whether a text is EPISTEMIC in its modality or DEONTIC.  Epistemic modality are structures that express things may happen-there are other possibilities.  Deontic modality are structures that express things will happen.

Norman Fairclough.....  We have also looked at topic management. The person who controls what is spoken about is often the dominant speaker, they are known as the “gatekeeper” of the interaction according to the theorist Norman Fairclough.  We have looked at asymmetrical relationships (as proposed by Norm Fairclough), in which one person has more power than another in an interaction.  We have also looked at “synthetic personalisation”. This is another Fairclough theory about how texts (particularly modern media texts) address the audience personally using second person pronouns (“you”) and create a “synthetic” relationship with them.  He also came up with the theory that writers of texts have an “ideal reader” in mind, one in which the content and language features are appropriate for. This can empower the audience if they are close to being the “ideal reader” but if not it can disempower them.

Terms of address…  First names  Last names  Sir..Miss  Nicknames  How can these terms of address reflect power?

Jargon…  Jargon is specialised lexis to do with a particular topic. It can be used to assert knowledge power and it can make non specialists feel less powerful if they do not understand the lexis.  However, jargon can be useful though. It can help specialists communicate quickly and accurately. You would not feel reassured if you heard a surgeon saying this:  “Nurse hand me that do-whacky, so I can chop this thingy-majig off, I mean he has got another one anyway!”

Initialisms/Acronyms  Initialisms are when you take the initial letters of a phrase and you make it into a word that you sound out each individual letter.  CIA, DNA, GCSE….  Acronyms  Are the same but you say it as a word.  SCUBA, ASBO…..  Again these can assert knowledge power and/or disempower an audience who does not know what they mean.  Can you find any initialisms in the Clubcard receipt?

 BOOM!