The institutions around the world use a specific set of meaningful features to communicate and determine the status and relations based on the meaningful features, in the respective organization and institute.
Discourse is one of the used mediums or modes. It is not only written but spoken as well. In addition, it carries symbolic importance and the language used may be interpreted through signs, either visible or invisible. These symbolic features are meaningful and carry ideas.
On this note, we move towards ideology, defined as the set of meaningful ideas and thoughts. Indeed, each and every organization or stable platform works based on some kind of ideology. The ideology caters to the symbolic representation of ideas through language and determines the power relations of a particular organization.
The term ideology was coined by Destutt de Tracy in the 1790s yet many intellectuals have perceived and explained its meaning and significance, such as Bourdieu, Kavanagh, Kress, Eagleton, Marx, Foucault, Althusser, Plato, etc. All in all, ideology is a set of beliefs, ideas, and perceptions that may have material as well as abstract existence. The mundane and simple actions of everyday life of a group of people living together reflect the ideology of that particular society.
We know without language, communication is impossible. For any stable society, the reflection of its behavior is reflected through its language. It tells us about its constituents, legalization, class system or categories, and power relations.
Power relations are asymmetrical as they are part of the ideologies that embody a particular society or institution. Here, a discourse of adverts is being highlighted to study the concepts and relationships between language and power on an ideological basis.
The discourse
of advertising is the study of language, ideologies, and power relations. The
most important key factors here are; subject and interpellations. Before we
come to that, we must understand the difference between state power and state
control. In any society, sovereignty lies with the state, it is all-powerful.
But whether this power frees it or lets it control those who think they are
free is altogether another debate.
State power is said to be secured or moderated by the ideological state apparatus. But sometimes in cases of control, the state can use repressive structures (army, courts, police, etc.) as well. As I have said earlier, ideology is a set of meaningful ideas. One perceives the world from their perspective.
Hence, on basis of these societies around the world have several ideologies, such as Marxist, Liberal, Feministic, Capitalism, Colonialism, etc. That is to prove the point that ideologies have material reality as well as abstract understanding. However, it is also true that the abstract imagination or representation more or less has little in common with the actual reality- ‘they think one thing, but do another.
Here an example of Edward Said’s Orientalism is noteworthy. The implications and perception of the West of Orient or East are far from the actual reality. The abstract thought process lets them think that the Orient is backward and, on this basis, they are far superior to them is a tarnished truth. As the basis of this, their superiority is flawed. One such example is the concept of ‘Paindu’ we associate with the people who speak in an accent common to rural areas and it means someone uneducated, yet the reality can be far from it.
We can deduce through this that irrespective of the semiotic and
linguistic existence of ideologies, there is no one-to-one relationship between
the abstract and the material.
Ideological state apparatus (ISA’s) is the upholder of the status quo. It is said to be the manufacturer of the real conditions- in terms of rituals, customs, behavior, way of thinking, acting, and consumption on ideological ground. However, it is not always the case that the apparatus honestly justifies particular features.
It can promote structural social inequality too. The tools employed by ISA’s are educational institutions, political parties, publications, religion, families, friends, and so on. All these institutions work on a specific set of rules or ideologies, they foster the elements of status power and status control.
They one way or another legitimize the power of the ruling class and perform a discourse for channeling rules for the conduct of individuals according to the set criteria. Hence, it is not wrong to categorize them as guardians for the promotion of the dominant agendas in the name of culture. To not let control, slip away, the state joins hands with the private sector as well.
With this, the trap of hegemony is weaved. According to Gramsci, hegemony is said to be a form of control that lets one manipulate the public to consent to whatever the state is saying as reality. Through hegemony, rulers mold ideologies i.e., make certain views seem natural and vice versa.
And here the
role of RSA is significant. If the society does not abide by the ideologies or
views presented by the rulers for them to accept, repressive apparatus coerces
them into acceptance.
Here, we
complete the circle of the debate back to subject and interpellations. ISA
subjects or individuals are interpellated into the ideologies presented by the
state.
What is subjectivity and who is subjected is important because ideology cannot exist without having a subject to accept it. Hence, in ideological structures ‘I’ or individual is important with the context.
Stuart Hill also comments that
ideological discourses themselves constitute individuals as subjects. The
reason is that to get an understanding of symbolic representation or signs, an
interpreter is important. Most importantly, the subject must have a firm belief
in the said ideology.
Interpellation, on the other hand, is said to hail or address someone. We can differentiate between subject and interpellation as addressee and someone addressing, respectively. When someone is interpellated, the power of control manipulates our way of thinking and existing. It directs our perception of the world, our decisions, and our acceptance of certain opportunities and possibilities.
Advertising agencies manipulate in all three aspects. It presents an imaginary wonderland in name of portraying real-life situations. In this way, adverts create subjects or consumers and they get interpellated. Many adverts let you fill in the shoes of an imaginary character to let you experience it by addressing as ‘You’ can do… From a spectator, your role becomes more active and intimate.
These are some ways of building power relations. Power is a capacity
human beings possess too dominant. Many intellectuals have tried to explain
power, such as Kress, Hodge, Calvo, Bradca et la, Kedar, Fairclough, Wong,
Kramarae et la, Fowler, etc.
Power is linked to ideology. There are four basic forms of power, economic, political, coercive, and symbolic. Economic power is equivalent to wealth. Political power is related to elected individuals, the ruling class, or the appointment holders who hold the power of decision-making.
Coercive power is implemented as a last resort in most cases, it is related to using the services of repressive state apparatus. Symbolic power is the most significant in the relation of language and power. Symbolic power is related to semiotics it is integral in other forms of power as well. Adverts make use of symbolic power using semiotics to bring the desired change in the purchasing habits of people.
They reflect things as
mandatory but do not use direct coercion. With the use of intentional symbolic
power, they lead to the fostering of economic and political power. Intentional
power is related to skills of persuasion and manipulation as well.
Foucault says that power is multidimensional and it has a multi-vocal positive stance. He is explaining the relation of power between force and resistance. Power does not stay in one place i.e., with the oppressor but shifts to the oppressed and resistors as well. In this way, the overall network becomes productive and culminates the whole social process on different levels.
Hence, when adverts
project or propose by interpellation to get hegemonic benefits and the subject
does not perceive it following the projection, this is a use of power as well
in terms of resistance, on behalf of the subject. This leads us to believe that
power is also knowledge because ISA does not use it only for submission, force,
or coercion but leads to productivity as well in terms of knowledge, discourse,
social awareness, etc.
If we talk about the relationship between society and discourse, it is didactic. Societal activities become symbolic by the use of language in a particular way. If we are ever to talk about power and ideology, the use of language and its importance will always be noteworthy.
As Bourdieu and Fowler explain every linguistic interaction of a significant or personal level bears the traces of social structure, its expression, and its reproduction. Ideological communication is directly related to linguistic interpretation. We can analyze forms of language through a close examination of the ideologies of a particular institute.
Fowler goes as far as claiming language to be the active participant
in discourse. It is not nocturnal or transparent. Hence, a discourse makes use
of language structures to represent the ideological positions of a particular
society.
In a system of governance, the distribution of power takes place among different groups. These groups are based on social classes, race, caste, consumer and producer, etc. The power sustenance and distribution among them is seen by analyzing the difference of language in terms of elaborated and restricted codes.
Petraeus
explains this concept in a way that language is a system of meaning and these
meanings become ideological by taking up an integral role in socio-historical
processes. In simple words, words, expressions, phrases- language changes
meanings according to the context in which it is being used or spoken.
Similarly,
Kress and Hodge say that language highlights ideologies because if ideas
are not expressed in terms of language, how can they be understood by the
masses. And these ideas are subject to change as well.
It is undeniable that language is a tool for the social construction of reality. Through discourse, language consolidates and manipulates concepts and relationships in power realms, leading to control of social and ideological communication.
The relationship or alliance of language and ideology is lexical as well as grammatical. We already know for the understanding of ideologies, context is as important as language. The reason is that with change in words, language can convey different meanings in different contexts under the same or dissimilar ideologies.
That is to say, the relation of language and ideology is not rigid or fixed and is subject to change with change in language use and context. Meanings and their interpretation are dependent on the category of discourse.
Linguistic forms are helpful in this regard to determine meanings based on sign
systems in discourse. The discursive and ideological systems are consolidated
through linguistic features as well.
The use of
language in terms of concepts of power and ideology adopts tools from context,
such as pragmatics, speech acts, semiotics, functional discourses, critical
discourse analysis, and so on. Hence, linguistic terms get their meaningful
interpretation based on solid context. Critical discourse analysis helps us understand this as it uses formal structures to explain the relationship
between power and language.
To study
language one has to study the relationship of power and language and its
significance in establishing the ideological structures. The discourse of
adverts is a perfect example to describe this by the phenomenon of intentional
power use to obtain the consent of subjects. To sum up, ideology constructs
individuals as subjects that sustain power relations through language
manipulation.
This article is written by Umm-e-Rumman Syed, one of the contributors at the School of Literature.
