ABSTRACT
This book is about the ways in which language intersects with the social and political reflexes of power. Over the last forty years, scholars working in Linguistics, English Language and related fields of study have become ever more interested in how powerful groups can influence the way language is used and in how these groups can exercise control over access to language. Similarly, scholars have been interested in the obverse or reflex of this situation; that is, in how the exercise of power meets with resistance and how ‘ordinary’ people can and do contest discursive power through a variety of language strategies. This book sets out a comprehensive programme of study for this significant and expanding area of language and linguistics. Across its four sections, the book provides a history of the field and its associated methods of analysis. It covers the major approaches, the core technical terms and the main theoretical concepts. Additionally, it presents a series of seminal readings by some of the major academic figures in the field. Our aim is for students using the book to be able to identify the ways in which power is disseminated through language, whether that be through print or broadcast media, through legal or advertising discourse, or through political and other forms of institutional rhetoric.
