Power and Language Use: The Discourse Elite

By Jordan Watts

Every day billions of language users utter, write and type to and at each other; we're fully aware of that, and most of us are so comfortable that we never question our language. What those people often aren't aware of is that language in general is dangerous; it's an instrument of power to those who control it, and an oppressive fist to those who don't.  

But what is 'power' anyway? 

The given definition on Google is "the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behaviour of others or the course of events." Power is therefore a relationship between two or more persons or parties. Manuel Castells said in his 1996 book, 'The Rise Of The Network Society', that "power relations are the foundations of society." In other words, power is cohesive. It can bind everyone and anyone together, creating anything from a maternal bond to an entire society.                                             

So lets say I'm a powerful figure and I wanted to rule a country, how would I go about it? Well I'd only really have two viable options: the one that immediately springs to mind is coercion, whereby force, or merely the threat of force, creates a sweeping wave of fear and consequently conformity. But force leads to resistance, so I wouldn't be ruling for very long. This means it would be best if I used the least obvious, far more common and far more enslaving second option. Hegemony. 

Hegemony is about the transmission of ideology to narrow the thought train and create social cohesion. It requires the supposed consent of its intended target in order to appear as being 'democratic' (a term that falls under a topic I'll shortly discuss,) and one of the main weapons in its arsenal is language.  

So how would I use language to control thought?  

One method is the controlling of discourse. George Lakoff describes the 'framing' of language, a creation of a conceptual framework with semantic purposes. Framing anyone who criticizes the actions of the Government as 'conspiracy theorists', for example, immediately triggers a semantic reaction of hate and despair in people. This is normally preceded or succeeded by a phrase from a political figure like 'we are serving the nation', done to name themselves as helpers of the people, and thus justify their actions. The political structure itself is justified often by the shouting of 'DEMOCRACY!', almost always followed by 'FREEDOM!'. This is another classic example of framing as 'freedom' is understood to be a good thing, and because 'democracy' is the current political paradigm, it must be defended whatever the cost.                                                                                            

Other linguistic tools used very effectively include the very popular euphemism, where certain words and phrases are used in a synonymic way due to the denotation being considered too blunt (the CIA doesn't torture people, they use 'enhanced interrogation techniques.') The use of complex jargon, or subject specific lexis, to confuse and steer away anyone who tries to take an interest (i.e 'budget deficit.') And of course there's the simple assertion of power, usually an exclamative and relatively self explanatory (such as David Cameron's personal favourite 'let me be absolutely clear about this.')            

Overshadowing these accessories of control is agenda setting. This is really where the power in language really exists. If you can control what is and isn't to be discussed, then you have dominance over the entire public discourse. The Conservative Party are very quick to discuss welfare and the need to cut £12billion of its funding from the budget, and yet they almost completely ignore talking about the estimated £25billion in tax revenue lost every year due to wealthy tax dodgers. The agenda being to protect the rich by imposing austerity and justifying it by claiming "we are all in this together." Oh the irony.                                                                                                                                                                              It's almost as if a sub-language, similar to Newspeak in George Orwell's 1984, has been and can be created using relatively simple methods; given the incredible power of the media, a 'discourse elite' of language controllers would find it surprisingly easy using their power to generate a desired effect (the labeling of welfare receivers as 'lazy' and 'benefit scroungers' to rationalise welfare cuts seems to be working quite well.) Applying other ideas, including linguistic relativity from Chomsky and Sapir-Whorf and the humorous take from George Carlin, only furthers the view that the language we hear, see and use affects the way we think and subsequently act. Perhaps this means there should be a warning notice on the front page of The Sun...