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Summary Thompson - Studies in the Theory of Ideology (notes)
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Notes on Thompson's 'Studies in the Theory of Ideology'
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Chapter Two - Symbolic Violence: Language and power in the writings of Pierre BourdieuReproduction 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
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