Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides grounding for the development within the broader debate about the nature of processes of consciousness within societies which are marked by systematic inequalities of power, and the role of language and ideology in these processes. It offers a sustained engagement with a work which is itself offered as a critical reflection upon the broader literature in this field - J. C. Scott’s Domination and the Arts of Resistance. The book deals with a critical review of Michael Huspek’s attempt to develop an ‘emancipatory linguistics’ by linking debates in sociolinguistics and pragmatics directly to wider debates about ideology and power. It addresses the problems in Huspek’s attempt to develop an emancipatory linguistics in the light of the attempt to link L. S. Vygotsky and V. N. Voloshinov.