Language and Power
Language
and Power Question Plan
·
Overview – Use ‘because’ and ‘although’. Evaluate
context, Barrister has more instrumental power due to nature of the court, Mr Niel
has less instrumental power. Power asymmetry, why? How? Barrister sets agenda
due to personal (role) power. Non-fluency features indicate natural,
spontaneous speech where power roles could be more natural as people are not
thinking about what they are saying as much. However could suggest that
Barrister has planned questions before and may be displaying more power due to
preparation
·
Paragraph 1 – Mr Neil tries to use influential power
to battle for status in order to not make himself look stupid and avoid face
threatening acts (FTAs), because he laughs, and also interrupts on two occasions.
Cooperative or competitive overlap? He also does so in order to look
respectable, so that he doesn’t look guilty.
Barrister
uses emphasis which patronises the witness, ‘so many times Mr Neil’, ‘two and
two together’ and ‘police’ which he has thought about carefully so that the
people listening recognise the emphasised lexis which may give negative
conceptions of Mr Neil and make him look guilty. Tries to achieve ultimate
goal, for Mr Neil to be found guilty. Uses repetition of personal pronoun ‘you’
to make Mr Neil feel intimidated and impeded upon. Barrister displays
influential power by use of language as well as displaying instrumental power.
Language and Power Answer
Because of the nature of the court setting, there is an obvious differentiation of the power roles between the barrister and Mr Niel. The barrister has much more instrumental power due to his status in court, and Mr Niel has much less instrumental power as he is the one being questioned. However this does not take away the fact that Mr Niel may or may not display some influential power, based on his answers to persuade or influence the judge's view on his guilty position. The relationship between the two, displays obvious power asymmetry because the barrister uses leading questions like "when er you had er (.) done something to the gate he wanted you to repair a gate?", because in fact he knows that is the case but he is trying to get Mr Niel to admit that is true in order to make him look guilty in front of the court. The barrister also sets the agenda by asking the questions, which is using Wareing's types of power, personal power. This uses his role to display how he is more powerful and therefore the less powerful participant, Mr Niel, must answer to him.
The non-fluency features by both of the participants can be interpreted in different ways, as of course it indicates natural, spontaneous speech which we recognise from the context siutation, but also that Mr Niel pauses a lot before speaking, as he is almost being imposed upon by being asked questions and this can be seen as a Face Threatening Act (FTA) as it flouts Goffman's face needs. In contrast, we could question why the barrister uses more non-fluency features such as pauses and fillers, as it is likely that he would have prepared his questions beforehand, and this is why he has more of an advantage when it comes to displaying power. But however does not explain why he uses more non-fluency features, and so I would suggest that it could purely be due to his idiolect or the fact that he has pressure on himself to ask the right questions and make Mr Niel look guilty.
There are several occasions when Mr Niel uses influential power to battle for status in order to make himself seem truthful and honest and perhaps to avoid FTA's. He laughs after he is asked a question by the barrister and follows with "that's not true no", and this bald, on record way of replying to the barrister coincides with Brown and Levinsons politeness strategies, and gives a straight answer and also shows that he doesn't really care what the barrister thinks of him. Mr Niel also interrupts on two occasions, when the barrister says "you can't remember whether they came to see you or not?" he interrupts and says "I don't think they did no". This could be seen as competitive overlap as he may be trying to gain power and get his point across, but however I think it could be more of a co-operative overlap, because he may have not realised that the barrister was going to continue talking.
The barrister uses emphasis on regularly when interrogating Mr Niel, which can be seen as a tool to patronise him. He uses it when saying "so many times Mr Niel", "two and two together" and "police". He carefully selects the lexis or phrases to emphasise in order to trigger ideas in the audience's mind that could have negative connotations assosciated with Mr Niel's guilt. The barrister does so in order to achieve his ultimate goal, for Mr Niel to be found guilty, and so these techniques are used along with use of influential power that he has, due to his choice of lexis like "suspected" and "incident" in order to influence the judge's opinion. He also combines this with his personal power to create a strong powerful role, which contributes towards Fairclough's unequal encounter theory, as he shows he is the most dominant participant and furthermore more superior to Mr Niel.
