ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses political speeches and media English as examples of hegemonic varieties, looking at how they both reflect and construct people's perceptions of the world. Individual speakers may be powerful for a number of sociolinguistic reasons, but also through the way they use their language in a given context. In some cultures, factors such as respect for the speech of older people or self-consciousness about using a non-standard dialect might also come into play, altering power relations between conversational partners and again allowing some speakers to have longer turns and more control over how the conversation progresses. The growing trend in the media towards audience participation programmes and live studio debates with politicians cannot guarantee that discursive power has shifted in favour of the general public. Media English, however, does not communicate its content to us without at the same time influencing the ways in which we perceive that content.
