#12624 - Thompson Studies In The Theory Of Ideology - Sociological Theory

Chapter Two - Symbolic Violence: Language and power in the writings of Pierre Bourdieu

Reproduction of legitimate language

• Bourdieu attacks the separation of language from the social conditions of its production

  • to practice this separation is ‘tacitly to accept the official definition of the official language of a political unit’

    • so linguistic practices represent power structures

  • we must reconstruct the historical process by which a unified and asymmetrically structures linguistic market was formed

• In France, this process began with the promotion of the Ile de France dialect to the status of official language

  • this gave the bourgeoisie de facto monopoly over the political apparatus and central power

  • this was pushed forwards by the educational system, which came to be seen as the principal means of access to the labour market

  • this leads to symbolic domination, where those dominated apply the dominant criteria of evaluation to their own practices

    • i.e. judge their shortcomings in terms of their position in the language market etc.

Power and the performative utterance

• Speakers do not just acquire linguistic competence, whereby they can use grammar correctly

  • the also acquire practical competence, whereby they can produce the appropriate sentence

  • philosophers (e.g. Chomsky) who hold the former doctrine neglect the social conditions for the establishment of communication

    • in some situations certain individuals or groups of individuals, are effectively excluded from communication - there are relations of force here

• Utterances such as ‘I do’ and ‘I name this ship the Queen Elizabeth’ Bourdieu calls performative utterances

  • the efficacy of performative utterances cannot be separated from the institution which defines the conditions to be fulfilled for the utterance to be effective

    • there must be authority, or symbolic capital, behind the statement

• Authority comes from outside language, so we must examine the structures and properties of the linguistic markets within which expressions are exchanged

Linguistic Markets

• Linguistic markets (in which expressions are exchanged) have certain structures

  • these markets are the site of struggles between entrants, who seek to alter its structure in their favour, and established agents/groups, who seek to preserve the order

  • hence the structure of the market is a certain state of the relation of force between the agents/groups engaged in struggle

• There are different markets to represent different kinds of capital - symbolic, economic, cultural etc

  • capital acquired in one market can be converted into capital in another market

    • e.g. educational qualifications can lead to lucrative jobs

• Despite the antagonism, those engaged in struggles share an interest in preserving the market (why?)

  • hence they help to reproduce the game

• Variations in accent, syntax and vocabulary are all socially marked, and mark the speakers that employ them

  • this can be seen from even the most elementary or intimate exchange

    • the hierarchy of language can be inverted, but only successfully by those at the top of the power hierarchy

      • e.g. a politician may talk in a dialect at a formal occasion, and hence negate the objective relation of force between the two languages, but in reality this actually serves to reinforce the hierarchy

Linguistic habitus and corporeal hexis

• The linguistic habitus governs our linguistic practices and our anticipation of the value that our linguistic products will receive on other markets e.g. school, labour market

  • for the dominant class, there is a correspondence between the requirements of most markets and the dispositions of the habitus

    • the can speak confidently, with ease

  • the hyper-correction of the petit bourgeoisie speaks of a class seeking to produce linguistic expressions that bear the mark of a habitus other than their own

  • for the subordinate classes, their linguistic products are often assigned limited value

    • hence elimination from the education system

Symbolic violence

• There are societies with objective institutions for sustaining relations of domination, and societies without

  • in societies without, relations of domination must be continually renewed

    • they are achieved through symbolic violence - a gentle, invisible form of violence, in which if the true nature of the relationship were revealed violence would ensue

      • e.g. the violence of confidence, of personal loyalty, of the gify, of the debt, of recognition, of piety etc

  • in societies with such institutions, individuals need not have strategies aimed at domination; violence is built into the institution

    • e.g. the education system is arbitrary (cannot be derived from universal reasoning), but is embedded in power structures - it seeks to reproduce the existing relations of domination

      • the education system simultaneously reproduces and legitimates those relations, by presenting itself as autonomous, and hence concealing its reproduction of social hierarchies

• Every expression is a compromise between what is to be said and the censorship inherent in the particular market

  • this censorship is stronger where the occasion is more formal - hence the violence is more manifest

Part Two

Recognition, misrecognition, legitimacy

• Bourdieu might be kinda wrong about some things

  • what is it for an agent to recognise the structure of a market?

    • what is the status of symbolic violence in the case in which an agent recognises, but rejects the hierarchy in place - say, a student attending an interview who recognises the ‘dominant’ language, and the benefits of speaking it, but refuses to use it?

Consensus, fragmentation, social reproduction

• Is Bourdieu’s account too consensual?

  • authority is legitimated by its recognition in the market

    • we accept these values and norms not freely, and insofar as they constitute the habitus

  • BUT does this consensus exist?

    • working class youths reject school discipline

    • working class families have lesser allegiance to the state

    • MAYBE social order isn’t explained by consensus around certain values, but a lack of consensus around the basis for political action

      • i.e. a lack of common ideas for an alternative

• To study the way legitimacy is claimed for institutional arrangements is the job of a theory of ideology

  • ideology is the study of the ways in which meaning serves to sustain relations of domination

    • but ideology doesn’t operate as a coherent system of statements imposed by an authority

    • it is a complex series of mechanisms to mobilise meaning in everyday life, to reproduce relations of domination

Style and content

• Bourdieu concentrates too much on the style (i.e. context) of speech, and too little on the actual content of speech

  • he is concerned with the structure within which something is asserted at the total expense of the content of what is asserted

• Meaning is:

  • constituted by an expression’s production as much as by its reception

  • mediated by certain structural features of the linguistic product. in the case of expressions longer than a sentence, these may be grammar, syntax, style

  • to be interpreted - what is asserted by an expression must be interpreted

• Hence the analysis of ideology must interpret the meaning of expressions in relation to the historical and social conditions of their production and reception

  • if such an analysis generates interpretations that diverge from the accounts of agents in the social world, there is a possibility for a critique of ideology...