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Power of Language - Sociolinguistic Theory

Writer's picture: Hana KohoutHana Kohout

Bourdieu, Pierre. 1991. Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Pierre Bourdieu (1991) identifies language as an instrument of action and power. Bourdieu

(1991) suggests that words are never neutral or innocent and that all words convey some form of ideology.

Bourdieu (1991, 66) considers language highly performative and creative. He

argues that language has the power to produce existence.

Bourdieu observes that “language is not only a method of communication but also a

mechanism of power” (1991, 58).


Roland Barthes in The Pleasure of Text identifies two types of texts: pleasure and bliss



Not exactly opposed to the text of pleasure, yet different, for Barthes, is the text of jouissance. Unlike the text of pleasure, the text of jouissance is unsettling, subversive, unconventional, a text that produces a moment opposed to convention, expectation, and recognition

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