Language and Power- Racism

We stand here today to further change the history that racism has left its mark upon, crippling our society. A society that still allows many to be jobless and uneducated due to their race. A society that still accepts the death of many innocent lives due to their race. Should we stand here, watching it in horror but let it carry on? We are the ones that are here today with the power to do something. Lets take advantage of that. Lets look up to people like Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, who risked their lives for the cause. Let them be the inspiration for a change. Lets change today.

Even though people of different ethnicities are more accepted today some children/people still experience bullying just because they are of a different race. Many people are ignorant and still follow 'stereotypes'. For example, Muslims are now associated as bad people just because of the wrong doings of the extremist group called ISIS, when actually they aren't the ones doing wrong. Yet, Christians are never associated with wrong doing even though there was a terrorist group called the KKK who caused just as much terror, if not more.

We found that verbal abuse is the most common source of racism. We found that people of a darker tone have worse outcomes than those of a lighter shade of skin colour. We found that topics like home ownerships, health and employment can cause conflict due to the unfairness of assuming that certain ethnicities are and forever will be of a lower working class. We found that job interviews can vary in applicants and that how many applicants are sent vary depending on a persons ethnicity. An example would be that a Chinese person must submit 68% more applications than an Italian person who would only have to submit 12% more.

This is not acceptable. We must make it equal for all races. And to do that we need commitment and participation. We need you.


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This speech is quite powerful after noting the large amount of modal verbs used. For example; 'We found' and 'We must'. This declarative mood is present from the start all the way to the end. The facts and figures strengthen the context of racism today, and makes the speech seem more believable inferring the spokesperson as intelligent. By using complex and simple sentences, the speaker puts across the point in short outbursts as well as long evidential statements. This changes the tempo of certain points that are made therefore enhancing the impact that it has on the audience. The speaker has also used a rhetorical question thus implying that the audience should think about the answer. The rhetorical question also is a method of including the audience without actually asking for input. Overall this speech pursues the topic of racism with extreme power, taking into account the mentioning of the most important inspirations in black history, that as the speaker says,  'risked their lives for the cause'.

Relationship between the speaker and his/hers audience

What is the relationship between the speaker and his/hers audience?

• The speaker has influential power aiming to persuade the audience.
• The speaker was elected to be the mouth piece of the audience.
• The relationship is strong to provide and accept the audiences views.
• The audience trust who they elect to voice out their thoughts.
• The speaker must be powerful and intelligent with the use of persuasive language. The audience must choose the right person for them, understanding the depth and length at which the speaker must go through when publically voicing the audiences thoughts.
• The audience must like who they elect. The speaker must appeal to everyone. Not just one type of audience. E.g. all ages and all genders.

Analysis of Obamas Acceptance Speech (2012)

Obamas acceptance speech is a political speech that holds a lot of political power. It contains snippets of the Presidents home life as well as his opinions. The speech holds a lot of modal verbs in which I believe are used to give an effect to a certain situation. In this case deontic modality is running throughout. For example, ‘We are and forever will be’ and ‘We can never’. Another type of modality that makes a few appearances is epistemic modality; this modality is used to express the speaker’s opinion and statements on the pragmatically chosen subject of the political rights of America, ‘whether you’re black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American’.  By using these types of modalities, the speaker is addressing the audience showing his determination to accept those who feel unaccepted within the United States.

At the start of the acceptance speech, Obama clearly uses anaphora. This is where he repeats the same words at the beginning of his sentences. For example, ‘Thankyou, Thankyou. Thankyou so much.’ By repeating these words at the beginning of his speech, the speaker is clearly addressing the audience therefore acknowledging that they are within his presence. Similarly, Obama uses the words ‘stirs passions, stirs up controversy’ to lengthen and enhance the effect of his words. This is called an epistrophe.

Looking back at the speech, I realised that the speaker uses a lot of repetition, like ‘The best. The best ever’ and more towards the end of his speech he used the words ‘God bless you. God bless these United States.’. By using repetition in the last line of his speech, Obama successfully secures the audiences hopes of a communal life and relieves them of their worries that America will not overcome the racial divide. In addition, the repetition of the last few words, help to persuade the audience of the new found aims.

On top of that, throughout the speech, the speaker Barack Obama, has directly addressed the audience by the use of pronouns such as ‘I’, ‘We’ and ‘Us’. By using such pronouns, the speaker has directly appealed to the audience thus increasing the amount of attention he will receive. It also relates to the Presidents power over American civilians. By using, ‘We’ and ‘Us’, the President is convincingly addressing himself as one civilian who is the same as each and every audience member in his presence. From this powerful connection, Obama can help encourage those who do not believe, to believe.

Lastly, the president uses facts and figures to secure the feeling of intelligence and/or authority that he must hold. For instance he uses the words ‘Democracy in a nation of 300 million can be noisy and messy and complicated’, not only does this provide the audience with the understanding of how hard it must be to govern their country, but a new form of respect arises to the President and all those that help behind the scenes.

Finally, Obama uses Antitheses to compare and contrast two ideas, forming a relationship that is clear to help clarify information. For instance, he uses the words ‘depths of despair to the great heights of hope’. Obama uses this to explain how our negative thoughts may affect our spirits and compares them to how all American civilians must form hope to achieve a positive spirit.

Gemma Lucas

Language and Power- TEXT I (Headteacher Speech)

Text I is written so that the speech is very formal when the teacher is addressing the parents of the newest students. Straight away in the first line there is the word 'I'd', which brings in the use of pronouns. By addressing the audience and herself, the teacher is using direct speech, thus gaining the audiences attention. The speech is in a positive face, using facts and comments that project a positive effect. For example, 'We provide the very best for your son or daughter'.

The speech is very wordy, and long, however the teacher does her best to sound polite and well mannered. This is done to influence the audience that the school runs in an efficient way, giving children a good education as well as good manners.The teacher starts the speech and ends it too. She does not hesitate but does use fillers such as 'erm' and 'er'. Not all speeches are perfect and so this speech proves this fact by the spokesman creating these errors.

Finally, she uses repetition and statements which places her in a declarative mood, enhancing the audiences attention. The fact that she acknowledged the power above her by using 'Local authority', shows that she is has to obey as well as the children do. The headteacher being in a school role means that this speech is said with personal power. The spokesperson also uses tripling of the words 'I will', this choice of words sound like a promise. It asserts her dominance by using her opinion over the subject of pupils doing their best.

In conclusion, the headteacher speaks confidently about the subject of new students coming to her school. She puts forward her aims, not without relating them to a past experience in which she used to help persuade the parents that their children will be pushed to try harder and succeed. For example, she uses the words, 'They'd say mummy draw this but (.) useless (.) but i did have a go and that's what we want'

Gemma Lucas

Language & Power

One way of classifying types of power, according to Wareing (1999) is in terms of whether they represent political, personal or social group power.

Political Power- Held by politicians, the police and those working in the law courts.

Personal Power- Those who hold a position of power as a result of their occupation or role, such as teachers or employers.

Social Group- Those who hold power as a result of social variables such as class, gender and age. Typically (but not exclusively) white, middle class men hold positions of power.

Instrumental Power- When the power may be used by individuals or groups to maintain and enforce authority especially with dominance.

Influential Power- When power is used to influence or persuade others. For example, Advertisements/media.

What does it mean to be powerful?

• When people look up to you for instructions. 
• To have authority over someone else.
• Someone assertive, natural leader.

List of power in my household:

Mum- Assertive, more experienced, older, "Knows Best" Actions involve; Arguments, more convincing tone, stands tall, lots of hand gestures.

Me- Older sibling, Has more experience than younger sibling. Actions include, Laidback, backchat and loud volume. 

Brother- Younger, Less experienced Actions include moaning

It is social group power. It is all instrumental power. 

What is being powerful?

• Having class.
• Being intelligent.
• Using persuasive language.
• Having confidence.
• Being decisive.
• Being trustworthy and respectful.
• Being charismatic.
• Be convincing.
• Good voice projection.
• Qualifications/Experience.
• Age
• Being certain.

Why are interviews so stressful?

• Because the interviewee has to avoid being disrespectful.
• They have to sound educated.
• Be formal.
• The interviewer have more power and has the choice to employ the candidate.
• There is a lot at stake.
• The candidate is nervous.
• The candidate has influential power. (Power of persuasion)
• The environment is unfamiliar.
• There is limited time to express yourself.
• Threat of competition.
• The candidate may feel intimidated.
• The candidate is trying to impress the interviewer.
• The interviewer has instrumental power and puts the candidate on the spot.

Commentary: Pulp Fiction

Commentary: Pulp Fiction

Pulp Fiction is a story about the lives of two mob hit men, a boxer, a gangsters wife, and a pair of diner bandits whose tales of violence and redemption intertwine. I am going to review the ending scene where Jules is quoting from the bible, whilst holding a gun to another man's head.

From watching the clip and reading over the transcript, I find that in this particular scene, Jules is the person holding the control. The framing of the discourse lies with him as he both starts the conversation and ends it. Whilst he is talking, there are no interruptions or turn taking, therefore he dominates the scene as he is the one, and only, speaker. During the scene, Jules speaks in a calm but slowly pace, being sure to emphasise every point he is making. He does this to remove the power of the other guy, showing that he is of a higher status. The demanding tone in his voice, seems overly aggressive portraying the hatred for what he believes he is. In this case, the 'evil man'. In addition, Jules uses an aggressive Lexis to put his point across and to show whose in power. For example, “say to a motherfucker 'fore you popped a cap in his ass”

I find that Jules does not show politeness in his speech, however the depth and context of his
quote seems to imply that he is trying to be the ‘righteous man’. As Jules does not hesitate or correct himself, I am sure that he means to assert pre-eminence. However, he provides assurance by quoting a specific term from the bible. The quote seemed to be remembered precisely and accurately, both implying that Jules does have a 'righteous' side to him. Jules also states dominance by using personal authority when using first person throughout. For example, 'I been saying that shit for years.' Not only does this grab the attention of the reader, but it also focuses all tension on him, leaving the audience to conjure thoughts on what he might do next.

Not only does Jules provide us the intuition on how powerful he is, but he also states that the other man has less power than he does, by telling him, “The truth is you're the weak”. This can either refer to the other man's physical or metal weakness. By pointing the gun at the other guys head, Jules seems to take on the lead role of the 'evil man'. However, by removing the gun from his grip and setting the guy free, he has foreshadowed his earlier words, in which were said to show that he does indeed have a 'righteous' side. These last words were, 'Im tryin' real hard to be the Shepard'.

In the transcript there are no rhetorical questions implying that Jules is not interested in what the other guy thinks. The sentence function seems to be interrogative, as in he is pressurising the other guy by using an intense tone. Jules heightens the pressure by using different complex structures. By varying between complex and simple sentences, Jules plays with the pace of his speech. Therefore, he was intending on grabbing the audiences interest to provoke a reaction for when he decides not to shoot the other guy.

I think that Jules is a very literate character and tends to repeat things for emphasis. For
example, ‘But that shit ain't the truth. The truth is you're the weak.’ He does this to generate pressure or the sense of being pushed too far. This creates the other guys sense of insecurity and sadness, therefore it can have an effect on the audience, who may fear death.

Finally, Jules character does not use any alliteration or juxtaposition, as he is a very opinionated person, by only speaking the truth. This sense of heightened honesty provokes a simple but powerful status, that can sometimes effect the people around him. In this case, his honesty is interpreted as hate as well as respect towards the 'Shepards' from his first words. Also, there are no facts or statistics present in his speech, producing an insight to his sense of imagination and interpretation of the world around him.

In conclusion, I think that there isn't a 'hidden' subtext meaning, however, I feel that we can all see that the writer of Pulp Fiction was trying to get Jules' character to sound menacing and hard. This was done to not only scare the audience, but, to make the character seem human. As we humans are forever preventing past experiences from changing our future.

Gemma Lucas

Grices Maxims And Brown & Levinson Face Theory

Grices Maxims

Listeners and speakers must speak cooperatively and mutually accept one another to be understood in a particular way. The cooperative principle describes how effective communication in conversation is achieved in common social situations. Grice's Maxims describe how we should interact with one another. There are four maxims that we tend to follow, however some of them can be broken. These are:

1. The maxim of quantity, where one tries to be as informative as one possibly can, and gives as much information as is needed, and no more.
   
2. The maxim of quality, where one tries to be truthful, and does not give information that is false or that is not supported by evidence.
   
3. The maxim of relation, where one tries to be relevant, and says things that are pertinent to the discussion.
   
4. The maxim of manner, when one tries to be as clear, as brief, and as orderly as one can in what one says, and where one avoids obscurity and ambiguity.

The Gricean Maxims are a way to explain the link between utterances and what is understood from them.

Brown & Levinson Politeness Theory

Politeness is described a the social norm, or a set of prescriptive social 'rules'. Many linguists have aimed to research politness, including, Brown and Levinson (1987). The developed the 'Face theory' based on the principles of our desire to be liked and to not be imposed upon. It is the first important that we understand the concept of 'face'. 'Face' is defined as the public self image. 

There are 3 'faces' that we tend to fallback on during a conversation. These are:

Positive Face :) : This is where we try to be appreciated and liked.

Negative Face :( : Where we desire to have freedom and not be imposed upon by others.

FTA (Face Threatening Act): Is where we produce an act which is deliberately made to threaten the face of others.

To be polite we must: 

>Be contextually appropriate.

>Follow social and cultural Norms.

>Be socially positive by addressing the face needs.

In order to save face, we must:

>Bald on record: Where we must not attempt to minimise the face threat. Examples:

• Instances in which threat minimizing does not occur

• Great urgency or desperation

Watch out!

• Speaking as if great efficiency is necessary

Hear me out:...

• Task-oriented

Pass me the hammer.

• Little or no desire to maintain someone's face

Don't forget to clean the blinds!

• Doing the face-threatening act is in the interest of the hearer

Your headlights are on!

• Instances in which the threat is minimized implicitly

• Welcomes

Come in.

• Offers

Leave it, I'll clean up later.

Eat!

>Positive Politeness: Where we show the value of someone so minimising the threat to a positive face.They are used to make the hearer feel good about himself, his interests or possessions, and are most usually used in situations where the audience knows each other fairly well. In addition to hedging and attempts to avoid conflict, some strategies of positive politeness include statements of friendship, solidarity, compliments, and the following examples from Brown and Levinson:

• Attend to H’s interests, needs, wants

You look sad. Can I do anything?

• Use solidarity in-group identity markers

Heh, mate, can you lend me a dollar?

• Be optimistic

I’ll just come along, if you don’t mind.

• Include both speaker (S) and hearer (H) in activity

If we help each other, I guess, we’ll both sink or swim in this course.

• Offer or promise

If you wash the dishes, I’ll vacuum the floor.

• Exaggerate interest in H and his interests

That’s a nice haircut you got; where did you get it?

• Avoid Disagreement

Yes, it’s rather long; not short certainly.

• Joke

Wow, that’s a whopper!

>Negative Politeness: Is where we don't impede on someone so minimising the threat to a negative face. Some examples are below:

• Be indirect

Would you know where Oxford Street is?

• Use hedges or questions

Perhaps, he might have taken it, maybe.

Could you please pass the rice?

• Be pessimistic

You couldn’t find your way to lending me a thousand dollars, could you?

So I suppose some help is out of the question, then?

• Minimize the imposition

It’s not too much out of your way, just a couple of blocks.

• Use obviating structures, like nominalizations, passives, or statements of general rules

I hope offense will not be taken.

Visitors sign the ledger.

Spitting will not be tolerated.

• Apologize

I’m sorry; it’s a lot to ask, but can you lend me a thousand dollars?

• Use plural pronouns

We regret to inform you.

>Off record: Where we are being indirect/ change the subject. This strategy uses indirect language and removes the speaker from the potential to be imposing. For example, a speaker using the indirect strategy might merely say “wow, it’s getting cold in here” insinuating that it would be nice if the listener would get up and turn up the thermostat without directly asking the listener to do so.

>Withhold: Where we don't perform an Face Threatening Act (FTA)

• Speaker avoids offending Hearer at all
• Speaker also fails to achieve his desired communication

What is 'Face'? 

Face is the public self image that every adult tries to protect. Ten years later, Brown characterized positive face by desires to be liked, admired, ratified, and related to positively, noting that one would threaten positive face by ignoring someone. At the same time, she characterized negative face by the desire not to be imposed upon, noting that negative face could be impinged upon by imposing on someone. Positive Face refers to one's self-esteem, while negative face refers to one's freedom to act. The two aspects of face are the basic wants in any social interaction, and so during any social interaction, cooperation is needed amongst the  participants to maintain each other's faces.

What are the pay-offs to using the 'Face theory'?

In deciding which strategy to use, the speaker runs through the individual payoffs of each strategy.^[3]

• Bald on record

• enlists public pressure
• S gets credit for honesty, outspokenness which avoids the danger of seeming manipulative
• S avoids danger of being misunderstood

• Positive Politeness

• minimizes threatening aspect by assuring that S considers to be of the same kind with H

• criticism may lose much of its sting if done in a way that asserts mutual friendship

• when S includes himself equally as a participant in the request or offer, it may lessen the potential for face-threatening act debt

• “Let’s get on with dinner” to a husband in front of the TV

• Negative Politeness

• Helps avoid future debt by keeping social distance and not getting too familiar with the addressee
• pays respect or deference by assuming that you may be intruding on the hearer in return for the face-threatening act.

• "I don't mean to bother you, but can I ask a quick question?"

• Off record

• get credit for being tactful, non-coercive
• avoid responsibility for the potentially face-damaging interpretation
• give the addressee an opportunity to seem to care for S because it tests H's feelings towards S

• If S wants H to close the window, he may say "It's cold in here." If H answers "I'll go close the window" then he is responding to this potentially threatening act by giving a “gift” to the original speaker and therefore S avoids the potential threat of ordering H around and H gets credit for being generous or cooperative

• Don’t Do the face-threatening act.

• S avoids offending H at all
• S also fails to achieve his desired communication
• no overt examples exist