Description
Language, Society and Power provides an accessible introduction to the study of language in a variety of social contexts. This book examines the ways language functions, how it influences the way we view society, and how it varies according to age, ethnicity, class, and gender. Readers are encouraged to consider whether representations of people and their language matter, explore how identity is constructed and performed, and examine the creative potential of language in the media, politics, and everyday talk.
With updates and new international examples throughout, the sixth edition of this popular textbook features:
- Thoroughly revised chapters on politics and media to include topics such as environmentalism, the politics of consumer choice, injustice in legal systems, and the power of social media in political activism
- Expanded coverage of ongoing debates around fake news, gender fluidity and representation, and multilingualism
- Discussions of surveillance in relation to linguistic landscapes
- Examination of linguistic change due to COVID-19
- A companion website which includes streamlined exercises, further reading, a 'who's who' of Twitter, and links to blogs and videos to support learning as students make their way through the book.
Language, Society and Power assumes no linguistic background among readers and is a must-read for all students of English language and linguistics, media, communication, cultural studies, sociology, and psychology who are studying language and society for the first time.
Table of Contents
Contents
List of Figures
List of Images
List of Tables
Transcription Conventions
Preface to the Sixth Edition
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1 Language?
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Why Study Language?
1.3 What Is Language?
1.3.1 Language: A System
1.3.2 Language: A System with Variation
1.3.3 The Potential to Create New Meanings
1.4 The ‘Rules’ of Language: Prescription Versus Description
1.5 Power
1.5.1 Ideology
1.6 ‘Political Correctness’
1.7 Summary
Further Reading
Chapter 2 Language, Thought and Representation
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Language as a System of Representation
2.2.1 Different Kinds of Language
2.2.2 Signs and Structure
2.3 Linguistic Diversity
2.3.1 Semantics
2.3.2 Syntax
2.4 The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
2.4.1 Linguistic Relativism and Determinism
2.4.2 Numbers, Things, and Animals
2.5 One Language, Many Worlds
2.6 A Model for Analysing Language
2.6.1 Lexical Choices
2.6.2 Transitivity
2.7 Summary
Further Reading
Chapter 3 Language and Politics
3.1 Introduction
3.2 What is ‘Politics’?
3.3 Politics and Ideology
3.4 Three Persuasive Strategies: Logos, Pathos, Ethos
3.5 Biscuits are Political?: Introducing Linguistic Tools
3.6 Climate Change and Political Discourse
3.7 Language, Ideology, and Metaphor
3.7.1 Student as Customer
3.8 Twitter and Political Agency
3.9 Silly Citizenship
3.9.1 Jorts the Cat
3.9.2 ‘K-Pop and TikTok
3.10 Summary
Further Reading
Chapter 4 Language and the Media
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Mass Media
4.3 The Changing Context
4.3.1 Structure
4.3.2 Who is Producing Content?
4.4 Manufacture of Consent
4.4.1 Filtering the Facts
4.5 News Values
4.5.1 Actors and Events
4.6 New News Values
4.7 Who is the Expert; Who is the Author?
4.8 Fake News
4.8.1 ‘Fake news’ as Delegitimising Accusation
4.8.2 Fabricated News Reports to Misinform
4.8.3 Fabricated News Reports to Entertain
4.8.4 Comedy News Shows
4.9 Summary
Further Reading
Chapter 5 Linguistic Landscapes
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Defining the Linguistic Landscape
5.2.1 Space and Meaning
5.2.2 Different Kinds of Signs
5.2.3 'Top-down' and 'Bottom-up' as a Continuum
5.3 Signs and Multilingualism and Power
5.3.1 Invisible Language
5.4 Signs and Ideology
5.5 Transgressive Signs: Graffiti
5.6 Surveillance
5.7 Online Landscapes
5.7.1 Twitter
5.7.2 Instagram
5.7.3 Memes
5.8 Summary
Further Reading
Chapter 6 Language and Gender
6.1 Introduction
6.2 What is Gender?
6.3 Inequality at the Lexical Level
6.3.1 Marked Terms
6.3.2 Semantic Derogation
6.3.3 Pronouns
6.4 Differences in Language Use: Doing Being a ‘Woman’ or A ‘Man’
6.4.1 Tag Questions
6.5 Gossip
6.5.1 Gossip and Men
6.5.2 Features of Men’s Talk
6.6 Gender and Power
6.6.1 Do Women Talk More than Men?
6.6.2 Gender or Power?
6.6.3 Intersectionality
6.7 Gendered Talk: Performing Identity
6.7.1 Mate
6.7.2 Variation
6.8 Summary
Further Reading
Chapter 7 Language and Ethnicity
7.1 Introduction
7.2 What Do We Mean By ‘Ethnicity’?
7.3 Racism and Representations of Ethnicity
7.3.1 Representations of Race
7.3.2 Racism Online
7.3.3 Reclaiming Terms
7.4 Ethnicity and Language Variation
7.4.1 Ethnolect or Repertoire?
7.4.2 African American Language
7.5 Ethnicity and Identity
7.5.1 Situated Ethnicity
7.6 Consequences for Ethnolinguistic Repertoires
7.6.1 Australian Aboriginal English
7.6.2 Sociolinguistic Labour
7.9 Summary
Further Reading
Chapter 8 Language and Age
8.1 Introduction
8.2 What do We Mean by 'Age'?
8.3 Early Life Stage
8.3.1 Language Used to Talk to Children
8.4 Adolescent Life Stage
8.4.1 What Teenagers Do
8.4.2 Multiple Negation
8.4.3 ‘Like’ as a Discourse Marker
8.4.4 Changes to Morphology
8.5 Middle Life Stage
8.5.1 Thanks Across the Generations
8.6 Later Life Stage
8.6.1 Representations of Older People
8.6.2 Self-representation of Older People
8.6.3 Language Used to Talk to Older People
8.6.4 Learning to Use the Internet
8.7 The Creep of Ageism
8.7.1 OK Boomer and Bla, Bla, Bla
8.8 Summary
Further Reading
Chapter 9 Language, Class and Symbolic Capital
9.1 Introduction
9.2 What is Social Class?
9.3 Attitudes to Class
9.3.1 Social Class as Other
9.3.2 Representations of Social Class
9.3.3 Pittsburghese
9.4 Linguistic Variation
9.4.1 New York City
9.4.2 Norwich
9.4.3 Glasgow
9.5 Intersection of Social Class and Other Variables
9.5.1 Social Class and Gender
9.6 Social Networks
9.7 Communities of Practice
9.8 Symbolic Capital
9.9 Revising the British Social Class Model
9.9.1 Power and Access to Symbolic Capital
9.9.2 Capital in the Global South
9.10 Summary
Further Reading
Chapter 10 Global Englishes
10.1 Introduction
10.2 What Does Global English Mean?
10.3 Learning English
10.3.1 Two Models
10.3.2 ‘Lingua Franca Core’
10.4 ‘Singlish’
10.5 Indian English
10.6 Linguistic Marketplace
10.6.1 Call Centres and English
10.7 Linguistic Imperialism
10.8 What do Language Varieties Mean in the Global Context?
10.8.1 Language Repertoires
10.8.2 Discourse in Advertising and Linguistic Landscapes
10.9 Summary
Further Reading
Chapter 11 Projects
11.1 Introduction
11.2 Things to Bear in Mind with Data Collection
11.2.1 What is 'Data'?
11.2.2 Transcribing
11.2.3 Data Analysis
11.3 Projects
Project 1 – Mini Dictionary
Project 2 – Political Texts
Project 3 – Your Own Many Voices
Project 4 – Conversational Politics
Project 5 – Expertise in the Media
Project 6 – Representation of Gender
Project 7 – Titles Around the World
Project 8 – Identity
Project 9 – Digital Detox
Project 10 – Little Bits of Data
Project 11 – Children’s Television
Project 12 – Texts and Social Media
Project 13 – Linguistic Landscapes
Project 14 – Political Agency
11.4 Research Resources
11.4.1 Where to Find Published Research
11.4.2 Other Resources
Further Reading
Works Cited
Index
