Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T07:58:56.812Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - “I Do Things with Words, Therefore I Am”

from Part II - The Power of Symbolic Action

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 October 2020

Claire Kramsch
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
Get access

Summary

Using as an example an exchange between Donald Trump and FBI director James Comey in the Oval Office in February 2017, this chapter revisits in a post-structuralist perspective canonical concepts from pragmatics and sociolinguistics , such as Austin’s performative, Searle’s speech act, Goffman’s participation framework and Brown and Levinson's concept of politeness through facework. It shows the workings of symbolic power in the most mundane interaction rituals. It introduces the notion of institution, not only in the form of particular organizations such as the Government, the Family, the Army, or the Church, but also any durable social relation which endows individuals with power, status and resources of various kinds, for example, membership in a club, association, corporation or online community, but also more unspoken relations of wealth, race, ethnicity or gender that represent institutionalized forms of symbolic power. These institutions give people authority, legitimacy and the right to speak and be listened to. Communicative practice is therefore not just the ability to speak correctly and appropriately, but an individual and institutional struggle to be heard and taken seriously.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×