thesis statement power of language

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Language and power.

Sik Hung Ng Sik Hung Ng Department of Psychology, Renmin University of China
and Fei Deng Fei Deng School of Foreign Studies, South China Agricultural University
https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.436
Published online: 22 August 2017

Five dynamic language–power relationships in communication have emerged from critical language studies, sociolinguistics, conversation analysis, and the social psychology of language and communication. Two of them stem from preexisting powers behind language that it reveals and reflects, thereby transferring the extralinguistic powers to the communication context. Such powers exist at both the micro and macro levels. At the micro level, the power behind language is a speaker’s possession of a weapon, money, high social status, or other attractive personal qualities—by revealing them in convincing language, the speaker influences the hearer. At the macro level, the power behind language is the collective power (ethnolinguistic vitality) of the communities that speak the language. The dominance of English as a global language and international lingua franca, for example, has less to do with its linguistic quality and more to do with the ethnolinguistic vitality of English-speakers worldwide that it reflects. The other three language–power relationships refer to the powers of language that are based on a language’s communicative versatility and its broad range of cognitive, communicative, social, and identity functions in meaning-making, social interaction, and language policies. Such language powers include, first, the power of language to maintain existing dominance in legal, sexist, racist, and ageist discourses that favor particular groups of language users over others. Another language power is its immense impact on national unity and discord. The third language power is its ability to create influence through single words (e.g., metaphors), oratories, conversations and narratives in political campaigns, emergence of leaders, terrorist narratives, and so forth.

power behind language
power of language
intergroup communication
World Englishes
oratorical power
conversational power
leader emergence
al-Qaeda narrative
social identity approach

Introduction

Language is for communication and power.

Language is a natural human system of conventionalized symbols that have understood meanings. Through it humans express and communicate their private thoughts and feelings as well as enact various social functions. The social functions include co-constructing social reality between and among individuals, performing and coordinating social actions such as conversing, arguing, cheating, and telling people what they should or should not do. Language is also a public marker of ethnolinguistic, national, or religious identity, so strong that people are willing to go to war for its defense, just as they would defend other markers of social identity, such as their national flag. These cognitive, communicative, social, and identity functions make language a fundamental medium of human communication. Language is also a versatile communication medium, often and widely used in tandem with music, pictures, and actions to amplify its power. Silence, too, adds to the force of speech when it is used strategically to speak louder than words. The wide range of language functions and its versatility combine to make language powerful. Even so, this is only one part of what is in fact a dynamic relationship between language and power. The other part is that there is preexisting power behind language which it reveals and reflects, thereby transferring extralinguistic power to the communication context. It is thus important to delineate the language–power relationships and their implications for human communication.

This chapter provides a systematic account of the dynamic interrelationships between language and power, not comprehensively for lack of space, but sufficiently focused so as to align with the intergroup communication theme of the present volume. The term “intergroup communication” will be used herein to refer to an intergroup perspective on communication, which stresses intergroup processes underlying communication and is not restricted to any particular form of intergroup communication such as interethnic or intergender communication, important though they are. It echoes the pioneering attempts to develop an intergroup perspective on the social psychology of language and communication behavior made by pioneers drawn from communication, social psychology, and cognate fields (see Harwood et al., 2005 ). This intergroup perspective has fostered the development of intergroup communication as a discipline distinct from and complementing the discipline of interpersonal communication. One of its insights is that apparently interpersonal communication is in fact dynamically intergroup (Dragojevic & Giles, 2014 ). For this and other reasons, an intergroup perspective on language and communication behavior has proved surprisingly useful in revealing intergroup processes in health communication (Jones & Watson, 2012 ), media communication (Harwood & Roy, 2005 ), and communication in a variety of organizational contexts (Giles, 2012 ).

The major theoretical foundation that has underpinned the intergroup perspective is social identity theory (Tajfel, 1982 ), which continues to service the field as a metatheory (Abrams & Hogg, 2004 ) alongside relatively more specialized theories such as ethnolinguistic identity theory (Harwood et al., 1994 ), communication accommodation theory (Palomares et al., 2016 ), and self-categorization theory applied to intergroup communication (Reid et al., 2005 ). Against this backdrop, this chapter will be less concerned with any particular social category of intergroup communication or variant of social identity theory, and more with developing a conceptual framework of looking at the language–power relationships and their implications for understanding intergroup communication. Readers interested in an intra- or interpersonal perspective may refer to the volume edited by Holtgraves ( 2014a ).

Conceptual Approaches to Power

Bertrand Russell, logician cum philosopher and social activist, published a relatively little-known book on power when World War II was looming large in Europe (Russell, 2004 ). In it he asserted the fundamental importance of the concept of power in the social sciences and likened its importance to the concept of energy in the physical sciences. But unlike physical energy, which can be defined in a formula (e.g., E=MC 2 ), social power has defied any such definition. This state of affairs is not unexpected because the very nature of (social) power is elusive. Foucault ( 1979 , p. 92) has put it this way: “Power is everywhere, not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere.” This view is not beyond criticism but it does highlight the elusiveness of power. Power is also a value-laden concept meaning different things to different people. To functional theorists and power-wielders, power is “power to,” a responsibility to unite people and do good for all. To conflict theorists and those who are dominated, power is “power over,” which corrupts and is a source of social conflict rather than integration (Lenski, 1966 ; Sassenberg et al., 2014 ). These entrenched views surface in management–labor negotiations and political debates between government and opposition. Management and government would try to frame the negotiation in terms of “power to,” whereas labor and opposition would try to frame the same in “power over” in a clash of power discourses. The two discourses also interchange when the same speakers reverse their power relations: While in opposition, politicians adhere to “power over” rhetorics, once in government, they talk “power to.” And vice versa.

The elusive and value-laden nature of power has led to a plurality of theoretical and conceptual approaches. Five approaches that are particularly pertinent to the language–power relationships will be discussed, and briefly so because of space limitation. One approach views power in terms of structural dominance in society by groups who own and/or control the economy, the government, and other social institutions. Another approach views power as the production of intended effects by overcoming resistance that arises from objective conflict of interests or from psychological reactance to being coerced, manipulated, or unfairly treated. A complementary approach, represented by Kurt Lewin’s field theory, takes the view that power is not the actual production of effects but the potential for doing this. It looks behind power to find out the sources or bases of this potential, which may stem from the power-wielders’ access to the means of punishment, reward, and information, as well as from their perceived expertise and legitimacy (Raven, 2008 ). A fourth approach views power in terms of the balance of control/dependence in the ongoing social exchange between two actors that takes place either in the absence or presence of third parties. It provides a structural account of power-balancing mechanisms in social networking (Emerson, 1962 ), and forms the basis for combining with symbolic interaction theory, which brings in subjective factors such as shared social cognition and affects for the analysis of power in interpersonal and intergroup negotiation (Stolte, 1987 ). The fifth, social identity approach digs behind the social exchange account, which has started from control/dependence as a given but has left it unexplained, to propose a three-process model of power emergence (Turner, 2005 ). According to this model, it is psychological group formation and associated group-based social identity that produce influence; influence then cumulates to form the basis of power, which in turn leads to the control of resources.

Common to the five approaches above is the recognition that power is dynamic in its usage and can transform from one form of power to another. Lukes ( 2005 ) has attempted to articulate three different forms or faces of power called “dimensions.” The first, behavioral dimension of power refers to decision-making power that is manifest in the open contest for dominance in situations of objective conflict of interests. Non-decision-making power, the second dimension, is power behind the scene. It involves the mobilization of organizational bias (e.g., agenda fixing) to keep conflict of interests from surfacing to become public issues and to deprive oppositions of a communication platform to raise their voices, thereby limiting the scope of decision-making to only “safe” issues that would not challenge the interests of the power-wielder. The third dimension is ideological and works by socializing people’s needs and values so that they want the wants and do the things wanted by the power-wielders, willingly as their own. Conflict of interests, opposition, and resistance would be absent from this form of power, not because they have been maneuvered out of the contest as in the case of non-decision-making power, but because the people who are subject to power are no longer aware of any conflict of interest in the power relationship, which may otherwise ferment opposition and resistance. Power in this form can be exercised without the application of coercion or reward, and without arousing perceived manipulation or conflict of interests.

Language–Power Relationships

As indicated in the chapter title, discussion will focus on the language–power relationships, and not on language alone or power alone, in intergroup communication. It draws from all the five approaches to power and can be grouped for discussion under the power behind language and the power of language. In the former, language is viewed as having no power of its own and yet can produce influence and control by revealing the power behind the speaker. Language also reflects the collective/historical power of the language community that uses it. In the case of modern English, its preeminent status as a global language and international lingua franca has shaped the communication between native and nonnative English speakers because of the power of the English-speaking world that it reflects, rather than because of its linguistic superiority. In both cases, language provides a widely used conventional means to transfer extralinguistic power to the communication context. Research on the power of language takes the view that language has power of its own. This power allows a language to maintain the power behind it, unite or divide a nation, and create influence.

In Figure 1 we have grouped the five language–power relationships into five boxes. Note that the boundary between any two boxes is not meant to be rigid but permeable. For example, by revealing the power behind a message (box 1), a message can create influence (box 5). As another example, language does not passively reflect the power of the language community that uses it (box 2), but also, through its spread to other language communities, generates power to maintain its preeminence among languages (box 3). This expansive process of language power can be seen in the rise of English to global language status. A similar expansive process also applies to a particular language style that first reflects the power of the language subcommunity who uses the style, and then, through its common acceptance and usage by other subcommunities in the country, maintains the power of the subcommunity concerned. A prime example of this type of expansive process is linguistic sexism, which reflects preexisting male dominance in society and then, through its common usage by both sexes, contributes to the maintenance of male dominance. Other examples are linguistic racism and the language style of the legal profession, each of which, like linguistic sexism and the preeminence of the English language worldwide, has considerable impact on individuals and society at large.

Space precludes a full discussion of all five language–power relationships. Instead, some of them will warrant only a brief mention, whereas others will be presented in greater detail. The complexity of the language–power relations and their cross-disciplinary ramifications will be evident in the multiple sets of interrelated literatures that we cite from. These include the social psychology of language and communication, critical language studies (Fairclough, 1989 ), sociolinguistics (Kachru, 1992 ), and conversation analysis (Sacks et al., 1974 ).

Figure 1. Power behind language and power of language.

Power Behind Language

Language reveals power.

When negotiating with police, a gang may issue the threatening message, “Meet our demands, or we will shoot the hostages!” The threatening message may succeed in coercing the police to submit; its power, however, is more apparent than real because it is based on the guns gangsters posses. The message merely reveals the power of a weapon in their possession. Apart from revealing power, the gangsters may also cheat. As long as the message comes across as credible and convincing enough to arouse overwhelming fear, it would allow them to get away with their demands without actually possessing any weapon. In this case, language is used to produce an intended effect despite resistance by deceptively revealing a nonexisting power base and planting it in the mind of the message recipient. The literature on linguistic deception illustrates the widespread deceptive use of language-reveals-power to produce intended effects despite resistance (Robinson, 1996 ).

Language Reflects Power

Ethnolinguistic vitality.

The language that a person uses reflects the language community’s power. A useful way to think about a language community’s linguistic power is through the ethnolinguistic vitality model (Bourhis et al., 1981 ; Harwood et al., 1994 ). Language communities in a country vary in absolute size overall and, just as important, a relative numeric concentration in particular regions. Francophone Canadians, though fewer than Anglophone Canadians overall, are concentrated in Quebec to give them the power of numbers there. Similarly, ethnic minorities in mainland China have considerable power of numbers in those autonomous regions where they are concentrated, such as Inner Mongolia, Tibet, and Xinjiang. Collectively, these factors form the demographic base of the language community’s ethnolinguistic vitality, an index of the community’s relative linguistic dominance. Another base of ethnolinguistic vitality is institutional representations of the language community in government, legislatures, education, religion, the media, and so forth, which afford its members institutional leadership, influence, and control. Such institutional representation is often reinforced by a language policy that installs the language as the nation’s sole official language. The third base of ethnolinguistic vitality comprises sociohistorical and cultural status of the language community inside the nation and internationally. In short, the dominant language of a nation is one that comes from and reflects the high ethnolinguistic vitality of its language community.

An important finding of ethnolinguistic vitality research is that it is perceived vitality, and not so much its objective demographic-institutional-cultural strengths, that influences language behavior in interpersonal and intergroup contexts. Interestingly, the visibility and salience of languages shown on public and commercial signs, referred to as the “linguistic landscape,” serve important informational and symbolic functions as a marker of their relative vitality, which in turn affects the use of in-group language in institutional settings (Cenoz & Gorter, 2006 ; Landry & Bourhis, 1997 ).

World Englishes and Lingua Franca English

Another field of research on the power behind and reflected in language is “World Englishes.” At the height of the British Empire English spread on the back of the Industrial Revolution and through large-scale migrations of Britons to the “New World,” which has since become the core of an “inner circle” of traditional native English-speaking nations now led by the United States (Kachru, 1992 ). The emergent wealth and power of these nations has maintained English despite the decline of the British Empire after World War II. In the post-War era, English has become internationalized with the support of an “outer circle” nations and, later, through its spread to “expanding circle” nations. Outer circle nations are made up mostly of former British colonies such as India, Pakistan, and Nigeria. In compliance with colonial language policies that institutionalized English as the new colonial national language, a sizeable proportion of the colonial populations has learned and continued using English over generations, thereby vastly increasing the number of English speakers over and above those in the inner circle nations. The expanding circle encompasses nations where English has played no historical government roles, but which are keen to appropriate English as the preeminent foreign language for local purposes such as national development, internationalization of higher education, and participation in globalization (e.g., China, Indonesia, South Korea, Japan, Egypt, Israel, and continental Europe).

English is becoming a global language with official or special status in at least 75 countries (British Council, n.d. ). It is also the language choice in international organizations and companies, as well as academia, and is commonly used in trade, international mass media, and entertainment, and over the Internet as the main source of information. English native speakers can now follow the worldwide English language track to find jobs overseas without having to learn the local language and may instead enjoy a competitive language advantage where the job requires English proficiency. This situation is a far cry from the colonial era when similar advantages had to come under political patronage. Alongside English native speakers who work overseas benefitting from the preeminence of English over other languages, a new phenomenon of outsourcing international call centers away from the United Kingdom and the United States has emerged (Friginal, 2007 ). Callers can find the information or help they need from people stationed in remote places such as India or the Philippines where English has penetrated.

As English spreads worldwide, it has also become the major international lingua franca, serving some 800 million multilinguals in Asia alone, and numerous others elsewhere (Bolton, 2008 ). The practical importance of this phenomenon and its impact on English vocabulary, grammar, and accent have led to the emergence of a new field of research called “English as a lingua franca” (Brosch, 2015 ). The twin developments of World Englishes and lingua franca English raise interesting and important research questions. A vast area of research lies in waiting.

Several lines of research suggest themselves from an intergroup communication perspective. How communicatively effective are English native speakers who are international civil servants in organizations such as the UN and WTO, where they habitually speak as if they were addressing their fellow natives without accommodating to the international audience? Another line of research is lingua franca English communication between two English nonnative speakers. Their common use of English signals a joint willingness of linguistic accommodation, motivated more by communication efficiency of getting messages across and less by concerns of their respective ethnolinguistic identities. An intergroup communication perspective, however, would sensitize researchers to social identity processes and nonaccommodation behaviors underneath lingua franca communication. For example, two nationals from two different countries, X and Y, communicating with each other in English are accommodating on the language level; at the same time they may, according to communication accommodation theory, use their respective X English and Y English for asserting their ethnolinguistic distinctiveness whilst maintaining a surface appearance of accommodation. There are other possibilities. According to a survey of attitudes toward English accents, attachment to “standard” native speaker models remains strong among nonnative English speakers in many countries (Jenkins, 2009 ). This suggests that our hypothetical X and Y may, in addition to asserting their respective Englishes, try to outperform one another in speaking with overcorrect standard English accents, not so much because they want to assert their respective ethnolinguistic identities, but because they want to project a common in-group identity for positive social comparison—“We are all English-speakers but I am a better one than you!”

Many countries in the expanding circle nations are keen to appropriate English for local purposes, encouraging their students and especially their educational elites to learn English as a foreign language. A prime example is the Learn-English Movement in China. It has affected generations of students and teachers over the past 30 years and consumed a vast amount of resources. The results are mixed. Even more disturbing, discontents and backlashes have emerged from anti-English Chinese motivated to protect the vitality and cultural values of the Chinese language (Sun et al., 2016 ). The power behind and reflected in modern English has widespread and far-reaching consequences in need of more systematic research.

Power of Language

Language maintains existing dominance.

Language maintains and reproduces existing dominance in three different ways represented respectively by the ascent of English, linguistic sexism, and legal language style. For reasons already noted, English has become a global language, an international lingua franca, and an indispensable medium for nonnative English speaking countries to participate in the globalized world. Phillipson ( 2009 ) referred to this phenomenon as “linguistic imperialism.” It is ironic that as the spread of English has increased the extent of multilingualism of non-English-speaking nations, English native speakers in the inner circle of nations have largely remained English-only. This puts pressure on the rest of the world to accommodate them in English, the widespread use of which maintains its preeminence among languages.

A language evolves and changes to adapt to socially accepted word meanings, grammatical rules, accents, and other manners of speaking. What is acceptable or unacceptable reflects common usage and hence the numerical influence of users, but also the elites’ particular language preferences and communication styles. Research on linguistic sexism has shown, for example, a man-made language such as English (there are many others) is imbued with sexist words and grammatical rules that reflect historical male dominance in society. Its uncritical usage routinely by both sexes in daily life has in turn naturalized male dominance and associated sexist inequalities (Spender, 1998 ). Similar other examples are racist (Reisigl & Wodak, 2005 ) and ageist (Ryan et al., 1995 ) language styles.

Professional languages are made by and for particular professions such as the legal profession (Danet, 1980 ; Mertz et al., 2016 ; O’Barr, 1982 ). The legal language is used not only among members of the profession, but also with the general public, who may know each and every word in a legal document but are still unable to decipher its meaning. Through its language, the legal profession maintains its professional dominance with the complicity of the general public, who submits to the use of the language and accedes to the profession’s authority in interpreting its meanings in matters relating to their legal rights and obligations. Communication between lawyers and their “clients” is not only problematic, but the public’s continual dependence on the legal language contributes to the maintenance of the dominance of the profession.

Language Unites and Divides a Nation

A nation of many peoples who, despite their diverse cultural and ethnic background, all speak in the same tongue and write in the same script would reap the benefit of the unifying power of a common language. The power of the language to unite peoples would be stronger if it has become part of their common national identity and contributed to its vitality and psychological distinctiveness. Such power has often been seized upon by national leaders and intellectuals to unify their countries and serve other nationalistic purposes (Patten, 2006 ). In China, for example, Emperor Qin Shi Huang standardized the Chinese script ( hanzi ) as an important part of the reforms to unify the country after he had defeated the other states and brought the Warring States Period ( 475–221 bc ) to an end. A similar reform of language standardization was set in motion soon after the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty ( ad 1644–1911 ), by simplifying some of the hanzi and promoting Putonghua as the national standard oral language. In the postcolonial part of the world, language is often used to service nationalism by restoring the official status of their indigenous language as the national language whilst retaining the colonial language or, in more radical cases of decolonization, relegating the latter to nonofficial status. Yet language is a two-edged sword: It can also divide a nation. The tension can be seen in competing claims to official-language status made by minority language communities, protest over maintenance of minority languages, language rights at schools and in courts of law, bilingual education, and outright language wars (Calvet, 1998 ; DeVotta, 2004 ).

Language Creates Influence

In this section we discuss the power of language to create influence through single words and more complex linguistic structures ranging from oratories and conversations to narratives/stories.

Power of Single Words

Learning a language empowers humans to master an elaborate system of conventions and the associations between words and their sounds on the one hand, and on the other hand, categories of objects and relations to which they refer. After mastering the referential meanings of words, a person can mentally access the objects and relations simply by hearing or reading the words. Apart from their referential meanings, words also have connotative meanings with their own social-cognitive consequences. Together, these social-cognitive functions underpin the power of single words that has been extensively studied in metaphors, which is a huge research area that crosses disciplinary boundaries and probes into the inner workings of the brain (Benedek et al., 2014 ; Landau et al., 2014 ; Marshal et al., 2007 ). The power of single words extends beyond metaphors. It can be seen in misleading words in leading questions (Loftus, 1975 ), concessive connectives that reverse expectations from real-world knowledge (Xiang & Kuperberg, 2014 ), verbs that attribute implicit causality to either verb subject or object (Hartshorne & Snedeker, 2013 ), “uncertainty terms” that hedge potentially face-threatening messages (Holtgraves, 2014b ), and abstract words that signal power (Wakslak et al., 2014 ).

The literature on the power of single words has rarely been applied to intergroup communication, with the exception of research arising from the linguistic category model (e.g., Semin & Fiedler, 1991 ). The model distinguishes among descriptive action verbs (e.g., “hits”), interpretative action verbs (e.g., “hurts”) and state verbs (e.g., “hates”), which increase in abstraction in that order. Sentences made up of abstract verbs convey more information about the protagonist, imply greater temporal and cross-situational stability, and are more difficult to disconfirm. The use of abstract language to represent a particular behavior will attribute the behavior to the protagonist rather than the situation and the resulting image of the protagonist will persist despite disconfirming information, whereas the use of concrete language will attribute the same behavior more to the situation and the resulting image of the protagonist will be easier to change. According to the linguistic intergroup bias model (Maass, 1999 ), abstract language will be used to represent positive in-group and negative out-group behaviors, whereas concrete language will be used to represent negative in-group and positive out-group behaviors. The combined effects of the differential use of abstract and concrete language would, first, lead to biased attribution (explanation) of behavior privileging the in-group over the out-group, and second, perpetuate the prejudiced intergroup stereotypes. More recent research has shown that linguistic intergroup bias varies with the power differential between groups—it is stronger in high and low power groups than in equal power groups (Rubini et al., 2007 ).

Oratorical Power

A charismatic speaker may, by the sheer force of oratory, buoy up people’s hopes, convert their hearts from hatred to forgiveness, or embolden them to take up arms for a cause. One may recall moving speeches (in English) such as Susan B. Anthony’s “On Women’s Right to Vote,” Winston Churchill’s “We Shall Fight on the Beaches,” Mahatma Gandhi’s “Quit India,” or Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream.” The speech may be delivered face-to-face to an audience, or broadcast over the media. The discussion below focuses on face-to-face oratories in political meetings.

Oratorical power may be measured in terms of money donated or pledged to the speaker’s cause, or, in a religious sermon, the number of converts made. Not much research has been reported on these topics. Another measurement approach is to count the frequency of online audience responses that a speech has generated, usually but not exclusively in the form of applause. Audience applause can be measured fairly objectively in terms of frequency, length, or loudness, and collected nonobtrusively from a public recording of the meeting. Audience applause affords researchers the opportunity to explore communicative and social psychological processes that underpin some aspects of the power of rhetorical formats. Note, however, that not all incidences of audience applause are valid measures of the power of rhetoric. A valid incidence should be one that is invited by the speaker and synchronized with the flow of the speech, occurring at the appropriate time and place as indicated by the rhetorical format. Thus, an uninvited incidence of applause would not count, nor is one that is invited but has occurred “out of place” (too soon or too late). Furthermore, not all valid incidences are theoretically informative to the same degree. An isolated applause from just a handful of the audience, though valid and in the right place, has relatively little theoretical import for understanding the power of rhetoric compared to one that is made by many acting in unison as a group. When the latter occurs, it would be a clear indication of the power of rhetorically formulated speech. Such positive audience response constitutes the most direct and immediate means by which an audience can display its collective support for the speaker, something which they would not otherwise show to a speech of less power. To influence and orchestrate hundreds and thousands of people in the audience to precisely coordinate their response to applaud (and cheer) together as a group at the right time and place is no mean feat. Such a feat also influences the wider society through broadcast on television and other news and social media. The combined effect could be enormous there and then, and its downstream influence far-reaching, crossing country boarders and inspiring generations to come.

To accomplish the feat, an orator has to excite the audience to applaud, build up the excitement to a crescendo, and simultaneously cue the audience to synchronize their outburst of stored-up applause with the ongoing speech. Rhetorical formats that aid the orator to accomplish the dual functions include contrast, list, puzzle solution, headline-punchline, position-taking, and pursuit (Heritage & Greatbatch, 1986 ). To illustrate, we cite the contrast and list formats.

A contrast, or antithesis, is made up of binary schemata such as “too much” and “too little.” Heritage and Greatbatch ( 1986 , p. 123) reported the following example:

Governments will argue that resources are not available to help disabled people. The fact is that too much is spent on the munitions of war, and too little is spent on the munitions of peace [italics added]. As the audience is familiar with the binary schema of “too much” and “too little” they can habitually match the second half of the contrast against the first half. This decoding process reinforces message comprehension and helps them to correctly anticipate and applaud at the completion point of the contrast. In the example quoted above, the speaker micropaused for 0.2 seconds after the second word “spent,” at which point the audience began to applaud in anticipation of the completion point of the contrast, and applauded more excitedly upon hearing “. . . on the munitions of peace.” The applause continued and lasted for 9.2 long seconds.

A list is usually made up of a series of three parallel words, phrases or clauses. “Government of the people, by the people, for the people” is a fine example, as is Obama’s “It’s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day , in this election , at this defining moment , change has come to America!” (italics added) The three parts in the list echo one another, step up the argument and its corresponding excitement in the audience as they move from one part to the next. The third part projects a completion point to cue the audience to get themselves ready to display their support via applause, cheers, and so forth. In a real conversation this juncture is called a “transition-relevance place,” at which point a conversational partner (hearer) may take up a turn to speak. A skilful orator will micropause at that juncture to create a conversational space for the audience to take up their turn in applauding and cheering as a group.

As illustrated by the two examples above, speaker and audience collaborate to transform an otherwise monological speech into a quasiconversation, turning a passive audience into an active supportive “conversational” partner who, by their synchronized responses, reduces the psychological separation from the speaker and emboldens the latter’s self-confidence. Through such enjoyable and emotional participation collectively, an audience made up of formerly unconnected individuals with no strong common group identity may henceforth begin to feel “we are all one.” According to social identity theory and related theories (van Zomeren et al., 2008 ), the emergent group identity, politicized in the process, will in turn provide a social psychological base for collective social action. This process of identity making in the audience is further strengthened by the speaker’s frequent use of “we” as a first person, plural personal pronoun.

Conversational Power

A conversation is a speech exchange system in which the length and order of speaking turns have not been preassigned but require coordination on an utterance-by-utterance basis between two or more individuals. It differs from other speech exchange systems in which speaking turns have been preassigned and/or monitored by a third party, for example, job interviews and debate contests. Turn-taking, because of its centrality to conversations and the important theoretical issues that it raises for social coordination and implicit conversational conventions, has been the subject of extensive research and theorizing (Goodwin & Heritage, 1990 ; Grice, 1975 ; Sacks et al., 1974 ). Success at turn-taking is a key part of the conversational process leading to influence. A person who cannot do this is in no position to influence others in and through conversations, which are probably the most common and ubiquitous form of human social interaction. Below we discuss studies of conversational power based on conversational turns and applied to leader emergence in group and intergroup settings. These studies, as they unfold, link conversation analysis with social identity theory and expectation states theory (Berger et al., 1974 ).

A conversational turn in hand allows the speaker to influence others in two important ways. First, through current-speaker-selects-next the speaker can influence who will speak next and, indirectly, increases the probability that he or she will regain the turn after the next. A common method for selecting the next speaker is through tag questions. The current speaker (A) may direct a tag question such as “Ya know?” or “Don’t you agree?” to a particular hearer (B), which carries the illocutionary force of selecting the addressee to be the next speaker and, simultaneously, restraining others from self-selecting. The A 1 B 1 sequence of exchange has been found to have a high probability of extending into A 1 B 1 A 2 in the next round of exchange, followed by its continuation in the form of A 1 B 1 A 2 B 2 . For example, in a six-member group, the A 1 B 1 →A 1 B 1 A 2 sequence of exchange has more than 50% chance of extending to the A 1 B 1 A 2 B 2 sequence, which is well above chance level, considering that there are four other hearers who could intrude at either the A 2 or B 2 slot of turn (Stasser & Taylor, 1991 ). Thus speakership not only offers the current speaker the power to select the next speaker twice, but also to indirectly regain a turn.

Second, a turn in hand provides the speaker with an opportunity to exercise topic control. He or she can exercise non-decision-making power by changing an unfavorable or embarrassing topic to a safer one, thereby silencing or preventing it from reaching the “floor.” Conversely, he or she can exercise decision-making power by continuing or raising a topic that is favorable to self. Or the speaker can move on to talk about an innocuous topic to ease tension in the group.

Bales ( 1950 ) has studied leader emergence in groups made up of unacquainted individuals in situations where they have to bid or compete for speaking turns. Results show that individuals who talk the most have a much better chance of becoming leaders. Depending on the social orientations of their talk, they would be recognized as a task or relational leader. Subsequent research on leader emergence has shown that an even better behavioral predictor than volume of talk is the number of speaking turns. An obvious reason for this is that the volume of talk depends on the number of turns—it usually accumulates across turns, rather than being the result of a single extraordinary long turn of talk. Another reason is that more turns afford the speaker more opportunities to realize the powers of turns that have been explicated above. Group members who become leaders are the ones who can penetrate the complex, on-line conversational system to obtain a disproportionately large number of speaking turns by perfect timing at “transition-relevance places” to self-select as the next speaker or, paradoxical as it may seem, constructive interruptions (Ng et al., 1995 ).

More recent research has extended the experimental study of group leadership to intergroup contexts, where members belonging to two groups who hold opposing stances on a social or political issue interact within and also between groups. The results showed, first, that speaking turns remain important in leader emergence, but the intergroup context now generates social identity and self-categorization processes that selectively privilege particular forms of speech. What potential leaders say, and not only how many speaking turns they have gained, becomes crucial in conveying to group members that they are prototypical members of their group. Prototypical communication is enacted by adopting an accent, choosing code words, and speaking in a tone that characterize the in-group; above all, it is enacted through the content of utterances to represent or exemplify the in-group position. Such prototypical utterances that are directed successfully at the out-group correlate strongly with leader emergence (Reid & Ng, 2000 ). These out-group-directed prototypical utterances project an in-group identity that is psychologically distinctive from the out-group for in-group members to feel proud of and to rally together when debating with the out-group.

Building on these experimental results Reid and Ng ( 2003 ) developed a social identity theory of leadership to account for the emergence and maintenance of intergroup leadership, grounding it in case studies of the intergroup communication strategies that brought Ariel Sharon and John Howard to power in Israel and Australia, respectively. In a later development, the social identity account was fused with expectation states theory to explain how group processes collectively shape the behavior of in-group members to augment the prototypical communication behavior of the emergent leader (Reid & Ng, 2006 ). Specifically, when conversational influence gained through prototypical utterances culminates to form an incipient power hierarchy, group members develop expectations of who is and will be leading the group. Acting on these tacit expectations they collectively coordinate the behavior of each other to conform with the expectations by granting incipient leaders more speaking turns and supporting them with positive audience responses. In this way, group members collectively amplify the influence of incipient leaders and jointly propel them to leadership roles (see also Correll & Ridgeway, 2006 ). In short, the emergence of intergroup leaders is a joint process of what they do individually and what group members do collectively, enabled by speaking turns and mediated by social identity and expectation states processes. In a similar vein, Hogg ( 2014 ) has developed a social identity account of leadership in intergroup settings.

Narrative Power

Narratives and stories are closely related and are sometimes used interchangeably. However, it is useful to distinguish a narrative from a story and from other related terms such as discourse and frames. A story is a sequence of related events in the past recounted for rhetorical or ideological purposes, whereas a narrative is a coherent system of interrelated and sequentially organized stories formed by incorporating new stories and relating them to others so as to provide an ongoing basis for interpreting events, envisioning an ideal future, and motivating and justifying collective actions (Halverson et al., 2011 ). The temporal dimension and sense of movement in a narrative also distinguish it from discourse and frames. According to Miskimmon, O’Loughlin, and Roselle ( 2013 ), discourses are the raw material of communication that actors plot into a narrative, and frames are the acts of selecting and highlighting some events or issues to promote a particular interpretation, evaluation, and solution. Both discourse and frame lack the temporal and causal transformation of a narrative.

Pitching narratives at the suprastory level and stressing their temporal and transformational movements allows researchers to take a structurally more systemic and temporally more expansive view than traditional research on propaganda wars between nations, religions, or political systems (Halverson et al., 2011 ; Miskimmon et al., 2013 ). Schmid ( 2014 ) has provided an analysis of al-Qaeda’s “compelling narrative that authorizes its strategy, justifies its violent tactics, propagates its ideology and wins new recruits.” According to this analysis, the chief message of the narrative is “the West is at war with Islam,” a strategic communication that is fundamentally intergroup in both structure and content. The intergroup structure of al-Qaeda narrative includes the rhetorical constructions that there are a group grievance inflicted on Muslims by a Zionist–Christian alliance, a vision of the good society (under the Caliphate and sharia), and a path from grievance to the realization of the vision led by al-Qaeda in a violent jihad to eradicate Western influence in the Muslim world. The al-Qaeda narrative draws support not only from traditional Arab and Muslim cultural narratives interpreted to justify its unorthodox means (such as attacks against women and children), but also from pre-existing anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism propagated by some Arab governments, Soviet Cold War propaganda, anti-Western sermons by Muslim clerics, and the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinians. It is deeply embedded in culture and history, and has reached out to numerous Muslims who have emigrated to the West.

The intergroup content of al-Qaeda narrative was shown in a computer-aided content analysis of 18 representative transcripts of propaganda speeches released between 2006–2011 by al-Qaeda leaders, totaling over 66,000 words (Cohen et al., 2016 ). As part of the study, an “Ideology Extraction using Linguistic Extremization” (IELEX) categorization scheme was developed for mapping the content of the corpus, which revealed 19 IELEX rhetorical categories referring to either the out-group/enemy or the in-group/enemy victims. The out-group/enemy was represented by four categories such as “The enemy is extremely negative (bloodthirsty, vengeful, brainwashed, etc.)”; whereas the in-group/enemy victims were represented by more categories such as “we are entirely innocent/good/virtuous.” The content of polarized intergroup stereotypes, demonizing “them” and glorifying “us,” echoes other similar findings (Smith et al., 2008 ), as well as the general finding of intergroup stereotyping in social psychology (Yzerbyt, 2016 ).

The success of the al-Qaeda narrative has alarmed various international agencies, individual governments, think tanks, and religious groups to spend huge sums of money on developing counternarratives that are, according to Schmid ( 2014 ), largely feeble. The so-called “global war on terror” has failed in its effort to construct effective counternarratives although al-Qaeda’s finance, personnel, and infrastructure have been much weakened. Ironically, it has developed into a narrative of its own, not so much for countering external extremism, but for promoting and justifying internal nationalistic extremist policies and influencing national elections. This reactive coradicalization phenomenon is spreading (Mink, 2015 ; Pratt, 2015 ; Reicher & Haslam, 2016 ).

Discussion and Future Directions

This chapter provides a systematic framework for understanding five language–power relationships, namely, language reveals power, reflects power, maintains existing dominance, unites and divides a nation, and creates influence. The first two relationships are derived from the power behind language and the last three from the power of language. Collectively they provide a relatively comprehensible framework for understanding the relationships between language and power, and not simply for understanding language alone or power alone separated from one another. The language–power relationships are dynamically interrelated, one influencing the other, and each can draw from an array of the cognitive, communicative, social, and identity functions of language. The framework is applicable to both interpersonal and intergroup contexts of communication, although for present purposes the latter has been highlighted. Among the substantive issues discussed in this chapter, English as a global language, oratorical and narrative power, and intergroup leadership stand out as particularly important for political and theoretical reasons.

In closing, we note some of the gaps that need to be filled and directions for further research. When discussing the powers of language to maintain and reflect existing dominance, we have omitted the countervailing power of language to resist or subvert existing dominance and, importantly, to create social change for the collective good. Furthermore, in this age of globalization and its discontents, English as a global language will increasingly be resented for its excessive unaccommodating power despite tangible lingua franca English benefits, and challenged by the expanding ethnolinguistic vitality of peoples who speak Arabic, Chinese, or Spanish. Internet communication is no longer predominantly in English, but is rapidly diversifying to become the modern Tower of Babel. And yet we have barely scratched the surface of these issues. Other glaring gaps include the omission of media discourse and recent developments in Corpus-based Critical Discourse Analysis (Loring, 2016 ), as well as the lack of reference to languages other than English that may cast one or more of the language–power relationships in a different light.

One of the main themes of this chapter—that the diverse language–power relationships are dynamically interrelated—clearly points to the need for greater theoretical fertilization across cognate disciplines. Our discussion of the three powers of language (boxes 3–5 in Figure 1 ) clearly points in this direction, most notably in the case of the powers of language to create influence through single words, oratories, conversations, and narratives, but much more needs to be done. The social identity approach will continue to serve as a meta theory of intergroup communication. To the extent that intergroup communication takes place in an existing power relation and that the changes that it seeks are not simply a more positive or psychologically distinctive social identity but greater group power and a more powerful social identity, the social identity approach has to incorporate power in its application to intergroup communication.

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Speaking, writing and reading are integral to everyday life, where language is the primary tool for expression and communication. Studying how people use language – what words and phrases they unconsciously choose and combine – can help us better understand ourselves and why we behave the way we do.

Linguistics scholars seek to determine what is unique and universal about the language we use, how it is acquired and the ways it changes over time. They consider language as a cultural, social and psychological phenomenon.

“Understanding why and how languages differ tells about the range of what is human,” said Dan Jurafsky , the Jackson Eli Reynolds Professor in Humanities and chair of the Department of Linguistics in the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford . “Discovering what’s universal about languages can help us understand the core of our humanity.”

The stories below represent some of the ways linguists have investigated many aspects of language, including its semantics and syntax, phonetics and phonology, and its social, psychological and computational aspects.

Understanding stereotypes

Stanford linguists and psychologists study how language is interpreted by people. Even the slightest differences in language use can correspond with biased beliefs of the speakers, according to research.

One study showed that a relatively harmless sentence, such as “girls are as good as boys at math,” can subtly perpetuate sexist stereotypes. Because of the statement’s grammatical structure, it implies that being good at math is more common or natural for boys than girls, the researchers said.

Language can play a big role in how we and others perceive the world, and linguists work to discover what words and phrases can influence us, unknowingly.

How well-meaning statements can spread stereotypes unintentionally

New Stanford research shows that sentences that frame one gender as the standard for the other can unintentionally perpetuate biases.

Algorithms reveal changes in stereotypes

New Stanford research shows that, over the past century, linguistic changes in gender and ethnic stereotypes correlated with major social movements and demographic changes in the U.S. Census data.

Exploring what an interruption is in conversation

Stanford doctoral candidate Katherine Hilton found that people perceive interruptions in conversation differently, and those perceptions differ depending on the listener’s own conversational style as well as gender.

Cops speak less respectfully to black community members

Professors Jennifer Eberhardt and Dan Jurafsky, along with other Stanford researchers, detected racial disparities in police officers’ speech after analyzing more than 100 hours of body camera footage from Oakland Police.

How other languages inform our own

People speak roughly 7,000 languages worldwide. Although there is a lot in common among languages, each one is unique, both in its structure and in the way it reflects the culture of the people who speak it.

Jurafsky said it’s important to study languages other than our own and how they develop over time because it can help scholars understand what lies at the foundation of humans’ unique way of communicating with one another.

“All this research can help us discover what it means to be human,” Jurafsky said.

Stanford PhD student documents indigenous language of Papua New Guinea

Fifth-year PhD student Kate Lindsey recently returned to the United States after a year of documenting an obscure language indigenous to the South Pacific nation.

Students explore Esperanto across Europe

In a research project spanning eight countries, two Stanford students search for Esperanto, a constructed language, against the backdrop of European populism.

Chris Manning: How computers are learning to understand language

A computer scientist discusses the evolution of computational linguistics and where it’s headed next.

Stanford research explores novel perspectives on the evolution of Spanish

Using digital tools and literature to explore the evolution of the Spanish language, Stanford researcher Cuauhtémoc García-García reveals a new historical perspective on linguistic changes in Latin America and Spain.

Language as a lens into behavior

Linguists analyze how certain speech patterns correspond to particular behaviors, including how language can impact people’s buying decisions or influence their social media use.

For example, in one research paper, a group of Stanford researchers examined the differences in how Republicans and Democrats express themselves online to better understand how a polarization of beliefs can occur on social media.

“We live in a very polarized time,” Jurafsky said. “Understanding what different groups of people say and why is the first step in determining how we can help bring people together.”

Analyzing the tweets of Republicans and Democrats

New research by Dora Demszky and colleagues examined how Republicans and Democrats express themselves online in an attempt to understand how polarization of beliefs occurs on social media.

Examining bilingual behavior of children at Texas preschool

A Stanford senior studied a group of bilingual children at a Spanish immersion preschool in Texas to understand how they distinguished between their two languages.

Predicting sales of online products from advertising language

Stanford linguist Dan Jurafsky and colleagues have found that products in Japan sell better if their advertising includes polite language and words that invoke cultural traditions or authority.

Language can help the elderly cope with the challenges of aging, says Stanford professor

By examining conversations of elderly Japanese women, linguist Yoshiko Matsumoto uncovers language techniques that help people move past traumatic events and regain a sense of normalcy.

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Baruch College Writing Center

Useful Language for Thesis Statements

This resource highlights language that frequently appears in argumentative writing. It is designed to draw your attention to common linguistic forms in thesis statements.

Using this resource

We recommend reading this list twice:

The first time you read, focus on the language itself. What verbs (like illustrates, demonstrates, shows ) make for strong claims? What dependent clauses (like In this passage ) introduce the sentences? Where have you seen phrases like these before? In what genre of essay would you expect to see the phrase (in literary analysis or a policy paper)?
The second time you read, focus on the conceptual relationships. Note that many introduce their evidence— Based on X, or Through examination of Y —before making a claim. Which phrases emphasize differences or similarities? Which phrases introduce complication?

Once you’ve read through, try using these phrases in your own writing.

Basic sentence structures:

Identifying something significant to analyze:.

In this play, the character of Joseph s ymbolizes … This passage illustrates the importance of… The author sheds light on the crucial point of… The text highlights the difference between… In both [text 1] and [text 2], the authors demonstrate how…

Affirming what you believe:

From my perspective, the idea that… In my view, the author… I strongly agree with the argument that… I disagree with the notion that…

Challenging an author’s argument:

The article fails to address… The author overlooks… The argument lacks clear evidence about… The author’s point is questionable in that it…

Complex sentence structures:

Linking key background information or evidence to your claim:.

Keywords: Based on, As, Through, In + (verb)-ing Based on the facts concerning the “Molotov” case study, it is apparent that… Based on the analysis of the “Molotov” case study, I believe that… In examining the controversy surrounding artists’ rights , [author’s name] demonstrates… Through the examination of Molotov Man, [author’s name] identifies… Considering the debate over the reproduction of images , it is clear that copyright law fails to… In light of the Molotov Man controversy, it is useful to reconsider/re-examine… As this case demonstrates, it is important to…

Expressing a less obvious claim by challenging commonly held beliefs:

Keywords: While, Although, Though While it is true that _______________, the more significant problem with X is… Although it may seem that _______________, the more significant issue relates to… Though X seems to suggest that _______________, a crucial part of this debate involves… While I acknowledge that _______________, it is necessary to take into account the fact that.. While Garnett makes a strong case for the reproduction of Molotov Man , she fails to address the deeper problem of…

Emphasizing an important similarity:

While it may seem that A and B have little in common apart from ________________, they actually share ________________.
Despite many clear differences, both A and B ______________________________.
While it may seem that Democrats and Republicans disagree fundamentally on how the U.S. should be run, the fact that both parties supported the Defense Authorization Act—permitting the indefinite detention of American citizens on U.S. soil— suggests they share a core set of beliefs about government power.
Despite the schools’ different curricula, both serve the same overarching mission …

Emphasizing an important difference:

Although A and B share ________________, they significantly differ in that ______________________________.
A and B appear to have many commonalities, but depart from one another when ______________________________.
While T-Mobile and Verizon may appear to have similar marketing strategies, they target their audiences differently : T-Mobile caters to a niche audience of young people who live in cities, while Verizon emphasizes their nationwide coverage.
Although Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn” and Rilke’s “Archaic Torso of Apollo” are both ekphrastic poems about ancient Greek artifacts, they offer very different perspectives on antiquity…

Providing reasons for your claim:

Keywords: Due to, Because of Due to unfair restrictions imposed by copyright law, artists struggle to Due to the fact that copyright law imposes unfair restrictions, artists struggle to… Because they put aesthetic effect before historical context, artists often misrepresent historical events in their images. Artists often misrepresent historical events in their images because they… Given the fact that American soldiers cannot refuse to be photographed in combat , we recommend…

Providing multiple reasons for your claim:

Keywords: Both, Due to, Among the reasons, Not only Both _______ and _______ offer evidence for / explain why… Due to both [reason 1] and [reason 2], I consider… Not only does [reason 1] contribute to the problem of the reproduction of images , but so does [reason 2]. The emotional appeal of the painting together with the omission of any signs of war conveys a sense of…

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The Oxford Handbook of Language and Society

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4 Language and Power

Luisa Martín Rojo is Professor of Linguistics at the Universidad Autónoma (Madrid, Spain), and Member of the International Pragmatic Association Consultation Board (2006–2011; re-elected for the period 2012–2017). Through her research trajectory, she has conducted research in the fields of discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, and communication, mainly focused on immigration and racism. Since 2000, she has focused on studying the management of cultural and linguistic diversity in Madrid schools, applying a sociolinguistic and ethnographic perspective and analyzing how inequality is constructed, naturalized, and legitimized through discourse (Constructing Inequality in Multilingual Classrooms, 2010). Currently she is exploring the interplay between urban spaces and linguistic practices in new global protest movements (Occupy: The spatial Dynamics of Discourse in Global Protest Movements, 2014). She is also a member of the editorial boards of the journals Discourse & Society, Journal of Language and Politics, Spanish in Context, Critical Discourse Studies, and Journal of Multicultural Discourses, and she chairs the Iberian Association of Discourse in Society (EDiSO).

Published: 05 December 2016
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This chapter examines the extent to which shifts in the understanding of power within a poststructuralist frame are compelling researchers to re-examine the relationships between language and power. In the light of current notions of power, such as those developed by Foucault, this chapter shows how new research questions and objects of study are emerging for sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, discourse analysis, and applied linguistics, among other research fields. The chapter focuses on five postulates about power and on the conditions research on power in relation to language should fulfill in order to take them into account. Starting with a critique of earlier approaches which tend to localize power in the state (e.g. linguistic policies), the chapter examines how subsequent contributions made by critical approaches in sociolinguistics and in discourse analyses have prepared the ground for a more fluid and dynamic understanding of the microphysics of power in relation to language.

Introduction

This chapter will examine in depth what the implications of the changes in our understanding of power are in relation to language. In order to give an idea of the difficulty but also the interest of this task, I first try to show some of the implications of the current postulates of power. First, if, as Foucault’s work shows (1978: 92–95), power is not concentrated in a single place, such as the state apparatus, but is, instead, ubiquitous and at once visible and invisible, present and hidden, research cannot focus merely on state policies, institutional regimes, and the discourses of the elites, but should rather focus on a multiplicity of nodal points and/or relations in which power is exercised.

Second, if power is not a thing or substance but rather a network of relations ( Foucault, 1978 : 92–95), and if no one, strictly speaking, has an official right to power and, as a result, power is not always exercised in a single direction, with some people on one side and some on the other, it will be difficult to ascertain who holds power in a precise sense. As we find out when we approach power, it is easier to identify who lacks power ( Foucault, 1977b : 213), or even who becomes empowered and depowered within a particular context or conflict. In fact, Foucault’s notion of a microphysics of power means that power is not only experienced but is also exercised in a myriad of social encounters in which participants have to define who has access to the management of power resources and technologies.

Third, if power is repressive and/or destructive, but productive as well, since it produces knowledge (about the individual, illness, penalties, languages, etc.) and action (such as resistance), as researchers we must study the multiple sources of knowledge and their power effects, including the knowledge produced about language by our own academic disciplines. Thus, it should be of great interest to examine the knowledge evoked in speakers’ categorization and assessment, and in the regulation of their language practices.

Fourth, in addition to looking into how power relations are negotiated and settled, we need to understand how “power reaches into the very grain of individuals, touches their bodies and inserts itself into their actions and attitudes, their discourses, learning processes and everyday lives” ( Foucault, 1980 : 39). In this respect, not many studies have tacked the technologies of power and how they are applied in relation to language and speakers, when many authors consider that we are experiencing a transformation related to the way power is exercised ( Fraser, 2003 ; Rampton, 2014 ). If forms of power are mutable, we must explore those changes.

Finally, whenever there is a power relation, there is a possibility of resistance, “and yet, or rather consequently, this resistance is never in a position of exteriority in relation to power” ( Foucault, 1978 : 95). If power must be understood as an asymmetrical set of relations in which there exists a multiplicity of nodal points or relations, this multiplicity necessarily also entails the possibility of resistance at each node. Thus, in this chapter I take the forms of resistance against different forms of power as a starting point to understand power relations 1 in which language is somehow involved, in order to examine how power is exercised in the linguistic sphere, by whom, and by what means ( Foucault, 1982 : 211).

From this point onward, I will focus on these five postulates about power and on the conditions that research on power in relation to language should fulfill if it is to take into account those assumptions. In the second section of this chapter I will apply the first and the second postulates to a critique of earlier approaches that, in their study of language and discourse, mainly focused on power as localized in government and the state and in elite sectors of society. In fact, over the past decades, a critical perspective in sociolinguistics has also challenged this localized view of power, and the study of the network of power relations from top to bottom, but also to a certain extent, from bottom to top and laterally at different levels of the social body. In this section, I also refer to critical discourse analysis (CDA), which made a significant contribution, showing how the production of knowledge takes place through discourse and how these social representations of social events and groups, social class, ethnicity, and gender are connected to a particular status quo. In spite of this contribution, in accordance with the third postulate, CDA has mainly focused on the production and circulation of elite discourses through media or in political discourses. As a result, CDA leaves to some extent aside how these discourses are reproduced, assumed, challenged, and defeated by individuals and groups, and correlatively how through these discourses power reaches into the very grain of individuals, and inserts itself into their actions and attitudes. In the third section of the chapter, I present what I consider a second step in a deep understanding of power in relation to language within this frame; in particular, I will study the management of power relations in everyday encounters and their imbrication with other types of relationships (economic processes, knowledge relationships, gender, ethnic relation, among others). Bearing in mind the first and the second postulates, I will focus on the unequal distribution of symbolic resources, which empowers and disempowers social agents, reducing their possibilities of social mobility and compromising their position in the production of knowledge, and the possibilities of resistance. In the fourth section, I examine the power mechanism I consider most significant in producing disciplinary effects on speakers and on their linguistic “conduct.” Considering all the current postulates about power, I will refer to those mechanisms through which the exercise of power in relation to language takes place, that is, normalization, governmentality, and subjectivation. Finally, despite the advances in our understanding of power in relation to language evidenced in this chapter, we still face many challenges, which are examined in the final section, where I review some key unsolved questions and present some concluding remarks.

The First Step in Disclosing Power and Language Relations: From Localized Power to a Multiplicity of Nodal Points

One of the main advances in this disclosing of the productive relation between power and language was the critical examination, made by sociolinguistics in the second half of the twentieth century, of the role played by the deep-rooted language ideologies of early modernity, such as the ideologies of monolingualism and standardization in producing a state of “domination,” that is, a massive, crystallized, and universalizing form of power at the level of the entire body of society (see, for the distinction between power relations and domination, Foucault, 1983 : 226). In fact, the identification of language, culture, and territory, which is taken as the basis for the construction of the national identities that legitimize a nation-state, blocked a field of relations of power, rendering them impassive and invariable and preventing “all reversibility of movement—by means of instruments which can become economic as well as political or military” ( Foucault, 1984 : 114).

The deep-rooted belief that a state must have a single language then laid the foundation of the liberal nation-state during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, supplanting the former regime ( Grillo, 1989 ; Hobsbawm, 1992 ; Pujolar, 2011 ) and questioning the legitimacy of other varieties different from the standard, as well as other languages (e.g., local languages within colonial processes, minority languages in multilingual nation-states). Beneath that ideology there are at least two underlying ideological components. The first is political: the use and prevalence of a single language brings nations cohesion. The second is social: the prevalence of a single language makes access to all spheres of social life easier for the whole social body. Over the past decades, both of these statements have become increasingly controversial, and have been denounced by sociolinguists, who question the imposition of a unified national language as a condition of equality and social integration (see May, 2004 , and May, Chapter 2 in this volume, for a discussion of this issue). The spread of these two ideological components has led to the exportation of the monolingual state model all over the world—as often denounced by postcolonial and indigenous movements today (see, among others, Ukaga and Afoaku, 2005 )—and the homogenization of diversity and the unification of the linguistic national market.

Related to both processes—state construction and linguistic homogenization—the effects of power can be easily identified ( Bourdieu, 1991 ; Duchêne, 2008 ; Heller, 2002 ; Moyer and Martín Rojo, 2007 ). Imposing a language is always a form of domination, and it has meant, on many occasions, that a particular language has become a symbol of the power of the state over the different social classes, regions, nationalities, colonies, and so on. This imposition, which at times has gone as far as to involve bloodshed, has brought about social discrimination and the extinction of languages. We know that the imposition of a language or language variety for many speakers has involved disciplining, even to the extent of corporal punishment, in some schools across the world. 2

However, very often the description of the process that we, as experts, undertake, is very close to a previous understanding of power, concentrated in a single place, such as the state apparatus, and exercised from top to bottom. Such understanding ends up being, nevertheless, misleading. First, the massive, crystallized, and universalizing form of power we find in these cases goes far beyond a mere concentration of power in the state apparatus, but rather is distributed and permeates the entire body of society, with the intervention of a multiplicity of social actors. For instance, if we examine in this light the processes called diglossia, which was considered a neutral functional distribution of languages, what we will see now is a domination process, mediated by a linguistic regime, which impedes the participation and blocks the access of an important part of the population to socially significant social spheres. For example, in the case of Mexico, the imposed, pervasive, and established use of the Spanish language in the field of justice restricts access to justice for members of indigenous communities, as the UN Special Rapporteur has attested, given the absence of interpreters to enable indigenous people to understand proceedings in local courts and the lack of sensitivity displayed by the court system regarding the legal tradition of indigenous communities ( Mexico, 2003 : 5). And, in Guatemala, one of the most frequent complaints made to the UN Special Rapporteur is that courts prohibit the use of indigenous language in judicial proceedings, even when both parties to the litigation are indigenous (see, for both countries, Faundez’s work, 2010 : 93). Thus, in both countries, members of indigenous communities who face trial often do not understand the charges brought against them. As a result, many cases have been denounced by civil rights organizations in the south of Mexico of women who have been convicted after signing confessions they did not understand due to illiteracy and/or unfamiliarity with the official language (Shadow Report to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, 2012).

Thus, we cannot capture the intensity and extension of these processes by focusing exclusively on state policies and regulations. As Bourdieu notes (1991 : 50), the unification of the market is “always exerted through a whole set of specific institutions and mechanisms, of which the specifically linguistic policy of the state and even the over interventions of pressure groups form only the most superficial aspect.” Bourdieu stressed the role of schools in the devaluation of linguistic varieties other than the legitimate language. However, a careful examination of this role shows that it entails not only the introduction of educational qualification, but also the (re)production of knowledge about language, linguistic competences and skills, and so on (for instance, knowledge that dismisses some varieties as dialects or slang), which introduces a principle of asymmetry among speakers, and among languages. Critical sociolinguistics has more recently shown, in this and other similar conflicts, that the imposition of a language (the national or the colonial language) is only possible though the reproductive effect of a thousand encounters, which are framed within different institutions or take place in several social domains. This reproduction results in the marginalization of those speakers for whom access to a language variety is not made easy and who therefore have difficulty accessing public services, greatly limiting their possibilities of social mobility (in Duchêne, Moyer, and Roberts, 2014 , a plurality of examples across the world are analyzed). Thus, in examples such as the previously mentioned case of Mexico, colonial domination has imposed a repertory of dominant languages, which are valued as languages of culture and languages of instruction in the colonies, and thus are an unavoidable requirement for gaining access to education, justice, and so on. This linguistic regime has been often transferred to the metropolis. Thus, this process of domination is also active in situations faced by migrants or refugees when linguistic support and translation services are not available (see, among others, Codó, 2008 ; Jacquemet, 2014 ; Kurvers and Spotti, 2015 ; Piller, 2011 ).

From this perspective, the situation of domination appears as a very complex and crystallized network of power relations, in which the possibilities of reversals are very much restricted. This understanding can give us new insights on liberation and the struggles for liberation, and contributes to avoiding a second misleading effect of an understanding of power concentrated in the power of the state. Thus, research on linguicide and linguistic endangerment, which are part of the struggles of liberation, as are language revitalization movements (see Phillipson, 1992 , 2009 ; Skutnabb-Kangas, 2013 ; Skutnabb-Kangas and Phillipson, 1995 ), if it focuses its action on states and regulation, could be inefficient or even have undesired side effects. As Heller has critically observed, the same linguistic minorities who have often challenged the domination produced by the unequal distribution of linguistic resources rarely challenge the principles and language ideologies on which this domination is based. And as Duchêne and Heller (2007) show in their critical review of the expert discourse on language, these attempts could paradoxically reinforce essentialist views on identity, in which language is still seen as a distinctive and constitutive element in the construction of ethnic and national identities.

In fact, for the revitalization of a language, it is not sufficient to challenge a situation of linguistic domination based on a colonial order, as in the example from Mexico. A decolonizing attempt requires the production and legitimation of new discourses, which recognize the contexts of colonization and raise awareness of the colonized knowledge, including linguistic hierarchies and values, which affirm reformulated individual and collective identities, among other complex processes (see, for instance, Mignolo and Escobar 2009 ) (see later in this chapter the example of the Zapatista movement in the autonomous communities in the south of Mexico).

During the 1990s, another major contribution in disclosing power and language relations was made by critical discourse analysis (CDA), particularly through the study of how power, knowledge, and discourse are imbricated. In fact, this trend has successfully contributed to the micro-analysis of how social representations are built through discourse, in connection with the analysis of the broader socio-political and historical context in which the discursive practices are embedded ( Fairclough and Wodak, 1997 ). However, the view on power, in critical discourse studies, is mainly localized in the state, in the administration, and in elite sectors of society. Thus, in bringing out the linguistic resources and discursive strategies used to construct social categories and their social representation, the perspective applied is mainly top to bottom, and not as performed in a substrate of force relations. It also is focused on bringing out self-categorization processes (i.e., assimilation, comparison, and boundary work), as well as the polarization between “us and them” and the exogenous attribution to social categories. In addition, besides these strategies of construction of categorization and otherness, researchers in discourse studies have focused on how these representations are naturalized and legitimized in discourse ( Martín Rojo and van Dijk, 1997 ). Some of the hegemonic discursive representations of social actors and groups (such as genders, students, immigrants, Arabs, Europeans, and so forth) bias their perception by others and themselves, and intervene in their own (and in others’) identity-building processes (see the discussion of normalization later in this chapter for a deep understanding of these processes).

However, recognizing resistances to linguistic inequality, hierarchization, linguistic domination and exclusion, as well as acknowledging the social effects of essentialization and stereotyping, does not always allow us to understand what mechanisms of power are at play, or to understand how these instances of social and discursive domination take place. Therefore, the interest lies not only in determining whether given discourses generate biased or simplistic representations of persons, groups, events, or identities and how the elites spread those discourses in the media, which has been the primary research goal for CDA. It is also interesting to observe how power forges asymmetries in everyday encounters, within and outside institutions, and how it is precisely there that these representations and the knowledge they generate become naturalized, but are also where they are disputed (see further discussion later in this chapter).

Similarly, if we focus only on laws and policies, we shall be reproducing a conception of power as a force concentrated in the state that is exercised from top to bottom and not as performed in a substrate of force relations ( Foucault, 1978 : 93). The imposition of monolingualism and the standard variety of a language is not only explicable from the state apparatus. To understand how these power mechanisms operate, trickle down, and are transmitted, we should discover the assemblages (or agencements ), that is, the processes of “agencing,” 3 in which different constituent elements (such as discourses, institutions, regulatory decisions, laws, administrative measures, scientific statements, etc.), intersect, fold together, and transform themselves and each other ( Deleuze and Guattari, 1987 ). We reach a more accurate vision of these assemblages when we observe how linguistic and other policies are played out in everyday practices and encounters within institutions (e.g., medicine, education, law, welfare) as localized sites where the state constructs and regulates citizens’ practices, who reproduce or resist this regulation.

In the following sections, I provide an in-depth analysis of the management of power relations and the technologies of power through asymmetrical everyday encounters, in order to gain a better understanding of how power is exercised in the linguistic sphere, by whom, and by what means.

The Second Step: The Management of Power Relations in Interaction and the Unequal Distribution of Resources

In accordance with the five postulates of power previously mentioned, interactions can be seen as the main locus of power and resistance, as we will see in this section. Recently, several authors have precisely recognized the contribution of Gumperz to a fluid understanding of power relations, “in which power resides not on opposing blocks but in myriad asymmetrical everyday encounters” ( Jacquemet, 2014 : 201; also pointed out by Heller, 2014 ). This has paved the way toward understanding how power operates, rather than merely attesting power and demonstrating its existence. Furthermore, Rampton (2014) sees Gumperz and interactional sociolinguistics as approaches that can provide the Foucauldian agenda with a microscope, sharpening its empirical grasp of how “power reaches into the very grain of individuals” ( Foucault, 1980 : 39).

Returning to the previous example of diglossia, schools are one of the more significant institutions through which “ideal standard language” ( Lippi-Green, 1997 ), which excludes vernaculars or other geographically based varieties ( Bourdieu, 1991 ), is established. While the goal of producing homogeneous citizens with equal life chance opportunities through education is still upheld in theory by teachers and educational institutions, what prevails in schools is a diversity of languages, behaviors, cultures, and social groups that are formally unrecognized and even actively suppressed during day-to-day instructional processes (see, among others, Heller and Martin-Jones, 2001 ; Martín Rojo, 2010 , 2013 ). Thus, if we wonder how a monolingual and a standard rule is implemented within an institution such as a school, we must necessarily focus the analysis on the places where power is exercised and the exact way in which this occurs, such as by establishing requirements to use a specific language variety within the lessons, or through continuous corrections, and commands/instructions to students to “say it right” or “say it in the language of the school.” In fact, ethnographic sociolinguistics has often revealed how not only the administration, but also teachers and students, consider the emphasis on normative linguistic behavior part of the role of school in the regulation of differences, and a strategy for guaranteeing social inclusion (see, for example, Martín Rojo, 2010 , for the presentation of monolingualism in Spanish as an advantage for newcomers’ integration in Madrid schools). As I discuss in the next section, only through the “assemblage,” in which different constituent elements intersect and fold together in daily practices and in face-to-face interactions, could a principle of asymmetry among students and teachers be established and its impact on social relations examined.

The following example, extracted from the research I led on multilingual schools in Madrid, and recorded in a Madrid secondary school, in a program of Spanish as a second language for newcomers, can help us clarify how power relations are managed in everyday encounters. Traditionally within sociolinguistics, the exercise of power in school is understood as the effect of the assessment of linguistic and cultural differences. From the so-called difference hypothesis, the unequal status of individuals and groups is projected on the assessment of their linguistic capacities and performance, in such a manner that those who are “different” are valued as not competent, leading to invidious predictions regarding their potential success or failure ( Bernstein, 1975 ; Labov, 1972 ; Erickson, 1987 , 1998 [2004] for a more interactional and critical approach). In this line, the normalizing, socio-political role played by schools within the structures of class domination has been highlighted ( Willis, 1977 ) by focusing on the wholesale negative appraisal by educators of nonstandard linguistic and cultural features that occur in the speech of minority groups.

However, if we look carefully at the following example, we will see that the existence of these educational differences is not an objective fact, nor is it prior to the interaction itself, but it is rather built and assessed at the same time, and even legitimized through the process. This assessment is part of a process of distribution of economic and symbolic resources, which is mediated by the power to act that every participant enjoys and can reach within the interaction. In fact, a detailed analysis of daily encounters in institutional settings shows how social agents struggle for resources. Through these struggles, agents try to reproduce, challenge, or resist the patterns of distribution. I draw on the concepts of capitalization and decapitalization ( Martín Rojo, 2010 , based on Bourdieu’s notion of the convertibility of different forms of capital and social distribution [1986]) to study the roles that participants have in the production and distribution of resources in everyday practices, and in education, as well as other institutional settings. Capitalization and decapitalization refer to acts of conferring and withholding symbolic capital—such as students’ failure in the following example to give value to their own previous schooling, languages, and knowledge—through interactional practices.

In this example, two students with a Moroccan background (Fatima and Nadia) are in the classroom with Alicia and Juan, teachers at this program, and Esther, the ethnographer from our team. They talk with the researcher about their visit to the Initial Professional Training Programme in hairdressing (this is why they refer to chemicals and chemical knowledge). These visits are part of the orientation these students receive to decide how to continue their studies and how to define their academic trajectories. In this extract, they are discussing the difficulty they find in the secondary education vocational program compared with mainstream classes, and what exactly these students find more “difficult.” Fatima starts talking about her impression of the vocational programme (called PCPI). (see Appendix , for transcription conventions).

In this example, we can see that what matters is the unequal social position in the interaction, and not the cultural or linguistic differences per se. The teacher, Alicia, contradicts and constructs Fatima in her first turns (2, 4, 6, and 8) as lacking reason: “yes it’s difficult, but here it’s harder” (especially in 2 and 4). Then she turns to the other teacher present in this conversation for confirmation (in turn 6: “isn’t it/Juan?”), and then she switches the pronoun of her previous addressee, and instead of “you,” the students become a “they,” a third person in plural (in turn 8): “[the funny thing] is that they ’re saying that the PCPI is very hard // they think they have to study a lot/but here it’s harder.” So “they”—the students present in the classroom (i.e., Fatima and Nadia)—become bystanders in conversation while Alicia is talking ( Alcalá and Martín Rojo, 2010 ). Counseling practices take place in this case, as in other similar cases studied by Erickson and Shultz (1982) , within a frame in which asymmetries in the participation framework and in the management of interaction are prevalent. Students’ voices are taken off or taken on by those participants legitimated in the conversation flow (through power relations), and they are judged as unreasonable or incredible. Simultaneously, an assessment of their capacities and of the education in Morocco is imposed. Nadia, empowered by the researcher’s question, decides to give her opinion in turn 31: “[in Morocco I think we study more than here].” Alicia overlaps this intervention, trying to lead the conversation flow, by changing the topic; however, Esther repeats Nadia’s intervention in order to make it explicit again. Nadia approves Esther’s intervention in a low voice first: “(yes)º.” But then, when Alicia asks: “that they study more than here?” (turn 35), showing her skepticism and how incredible what Nadia said is for her, the student seems to feel empowered and answers in a higher tone of voice: “yes” ( Alcalá and Martín Rojo, 2010 ).

Thus, it is precisely the management of power relations in this interaction that produces the difference and associates some knowledge with it. At least one of the participants with a more powerful institutional role disempowers the students. Thus, during the course of the interaction, the students are constructed as lacking: “(1) access to the possibility of self-representation or representing others (turn level); (2) a legitimated voice, as well as credibility, reason or decision (interaction level); and (3) institutional authority and possibilities for moving up the social ladder (socio-institutional level)” Alcalá and Martín Rojo, 2010 ). The articulation at the three levels leads to the disempowerment of the students, and the empowerment of the teachers as representatives of the institution.

The analysis of the management of power also shows that what is at stake is not simply a dissimilar assessment of their linguistic competence and performance, but a complex process of distribution of the linguistic and social resources necessary for educational integration and social mobility. Thus, in the fragment we are examining, it is not only that the students’ prior education and linguistic competence are not valued, and therefore they are being advised to go into a professional program with a low level of consideration; what happens, instead, is that this “recommendation” limits the possibility of having an educational trajectory that would provide them with other resources (academic titles, teaching in other languages, etc.), which would enable them to access better regarded and better paid jobs. So this exchange is a main locus for power, where some young girls are minoritized, their resistance is silenced, their exclusion is justified due to their “deficits,” but especially, they are prevented from accessing or “gaining” more resources or capital.

Focusing our analysis on interaction has shown us a multiplicity of “relations of force” and has prevented us from locating power in the state apparatus, not even as inherent to the institutional functioning. In this example, power is not always exercised in a single direction; different participants can reach different positions, amplifying or reducing their possibilities of resistance. But, in addition, it shows how power relations in everyday encounters are fully imbricated with other types of relationships (economic processes, knowledge relationships, gender, and ethnic relations, among others). The exercise of power is integrated first in a mode of social discipline. In fact, we can easily recognize some of the mechanism that Foucault (1998) identifies as a form of disciplinary power, which is detected in institutions and in particular is associated with individuals’ training, given that in this case discipline comes from a standard that is considered normal (the level and kinds of competences and skills students must have), specifically in education, which is in turn evoked by those running the institution in order to assess and rank students (see discussion of normalizing judgment and surveillance later in the chapter).

Second, this exercise of power is framed in a mode of production and distribution of resources and also produces knowledge on social agents and on the processes in which they are involved (education, immigration, etc.). Finally, the exercise of power favors, or encourages, certain social practices, for instance, in the case analyzed here, hierarchical observation and examination, and subsequently educational tracking.

Thus, in order to take into account the five postulates about power presented in this chapter, our research must be framed within the relation between discourse, knowledge, and power. As we have seen in the analyzed fragment, students are not allowed to produce an alternative representation of themselves, their educational background, and their competences, given the fact that their access to the floor is restricted and their voice undermined. But what is crucial in terms of power relations is that both the standard norms, from which it is possible to measure gaps and determine levels, and the correlative discursive representations that undervalue those who failed are taken as true. Thus, students’ lack of power would not be situational, but rather would be reproduced in other moments within and outside school. Thus, what is at stake is not a matter of representation of a preexisting object, nor even of creating through discourse an object that does not exist. Rather, what is at stake is a set of practices, discursive or not, that makes something enter the “game of truth and falsehood” (regardless of its form, i.e., moral reflection, scientific knowledge, political analysis, etc.) ( Foucault 1994 , Vol. IV: 670). Discourse then becomes a type of action, and becomes inextricably involved in the exercise of power relations, and in the production of discourses that legitimate the forms of power.

The analysis of this and similar encounters reveals the “micro-physics” of power ( Foucault, 1977a ) through the unequal distribution of capital; these kinds of struggles for capital are becoming crucial to survive in global capitalism (see discussion in the following section). However, we need to go further in our understanding of how power is exercised in the linguistic sphere, and by what means.

An Unavoidable Task: The Analysis of the Technologies of Power

One of the key and still unanswered questions is how power reaches into the very grain of individuals, and inserts itself into their actions and linguistic attitudes and practices. In order to answer this question, in this section I examine the means and in particular those processes designed to shape the linguistic behavior of a population ( Rose, 1999 ), as well as individuals’ subjectivities. I call them technologies of power, and I include among them any institution that shapes behavior, such as prisons or schools, and any concept that is considered the “normal” or “natural” way of doing things. In this section I also study the new forms of governmentality linked to neoliberalism and the role of language in current societies. Finally, in order to understand how the impact of both technologies shapes individuals’ subjectivities, I refer to the process of subjectivation.

Linguistic Normalization

Despite its potential interest, there has not yet been a genealogy in linguistic thought that shows in detail how and in what circumstances languages and speakers came to be defined as objects of study (that is, how they were “objectivated”) and to what extent the production of scientific discourses has contributed to a hierarchization of linguistic varieties (legitimate languages vs. other varieties), establishing a space of differentiation between normality and abnormality (e.g., between parallel monolingualism [ Heller, 2001 ] and hybridized language), and making explicit the norms of adequacy.

In this sense, more studies are needed showing the genealogy of the rise and consolidation of the deep-rooted belief that a state must have a single language that laid the foundation of the monolingual nation-state and questioned the legitimacy of other varieties different from the standard, as well as other languages (e.g., local languages within colonial processes, minority languages in multilingual nation-states). In recent decades, some outstanding contributions have been made in different geopolitical areas. For instance, only recently the postcolonial linguistic construction of national and pan-Hispanic identities in Spain and Latin America has been examined by authors such as del Valle ( del Valle, 2007 ). Spain’s contemporary language policies and geopolitical interests in Latin America have been also studied by del Valle (2002) , while Moreno Cabrera’s work explains the cumulative production of the ideologies and myths of Spanish linguistic nationalism, stressing the role of linguistics and language academies in this production ( Moreno Cabrera, 2015 ). Both authors show how globalized capitalism is reinforcing the linguistic hegemony of Spanish.

Another recent development is the recognition of the role of prescriptive approaches to linguistic practices and variation in the recreation of the “good language” and the “competent speaker,” and in affirming the deviant nature of speakers of nonstandard languages, and their “incorrect” and “deformed” practices, such as mixing languages, by speakers lacking competence.

We can easily recognize, in these linguistic norms and rules, the disciplinary procedure called “normalizing judgment,” and the distinct normalizing effects it brings into play. The objectivation of a linguistic norms and standards and/or hierarchies of languages refer individual actions to a whole that is at once a field of comparison, a space of differentiation, and the principle of a rule to be followed. As Foucault states in relation to discipline, these rules “differentiate individuals from one another, in terms of the following overall rule: that the rule be made to function as a minimal threshold, as an average to be respected, or as an optimum toward which one must move” (1984: 197). In similar terms, the negative view of linguistic differentiation introduces a “value-giving measure,” and draws the line between normal and abnormal linguistic forms, between normal and abnormal social dialects, and between legitimate (healthy) and illegitimate (destructive) linguistic tendencies (homogenization vs. heterogeneity). In short, the traditional approach to language variation and linguistic practices normalizes. Furthermore, it allows a second process of appropriation of “language” to take place—only legitimate forces and legitimate social groups have a right to a language. Minorities, like Roma in Spain or Berbers in Morocco, and social and dissenting groups do not; what they speak instead is a dialect, or a dangerous and evil “jargon” ( Martín Rojo, 1997b ).

Despite linguistics itself (and in particular sociolinguistics) having included in its agenda the task of problematizing this knowledge, the truth is that the configuration of the concept of abnormality in linguistic variation and in practices such as linguistic hybridization is still deeply rooted in our societies. These linguistic ideologies are often rooted in a nineteenth-century view of society (especially, social Darwinism and evolutionist theories): social order depends on the balance between a process of differentiation and a process of integration or control. On the basis of this view, we find a radical distinction between the legitimate forces of order (society, integration, control, normality), and the illegitimate forces of disorder (tension, illegitimate violence, abnormality). Social order and languages were considered to be a very fragile entity, threatened by social differences and changes: difference was a permanent cause of disorder, as changes are always a source of tension ( Martín Rojo, 1997b ). A contemporary example of the survival of this knowledge was seen recently when the Real Academia Española included the following definition of “Espanglish”: “(from Eng. Spanglish, a fusion of Spanish ‘español’ and *English ‘inglés’) Variety of speech of some Hispanic groups in the United States of America where lexical and grammatical elements of Spanish and English are mixed and deformed.” Only the pressure of researchers such as Ana Celia Zentella and José del Valle (with the support of the Social Justice Task Force of the Society for Linguistic Anthropology) has managed to modify this definition.

The imposition of a monolingual standard, which establishes a single language of use within institutions and rejects the practices in which speakers use (often creatively) different resources from their linguistic repertoires, has always been discriminatory given the multilingual reality, de facto if not in law, of most nation-states. The power effects of these norms become particularly evident in schools and other institutions, which function as “observatories” of linguistic “normalized” practices, where students are trained and examined in accordance with them.

We can understand now the difficulties that the revitalization of a language entails, particularly in the challenges of knowledge produced by disciplines, and the production of alternative theories and ideologies. One particularly critical and reflective attempt of linguistic decolonization is provided by the Zapatista movement in the autonomous communities in the south of Mexico, where a bilingual and independent education program has been implemented as part of their search for an alternative form of economic development and which allows the communities to learn in their own languages, and for education to be culturally relevant ( Gómez Lara, 2011 ; see also Baronet, 2009 ). The analysis of this and other similar movements in Latin America shows critical discourse awareness and a deep understanding of how discrediting and delegitimizing representations of languages, cultures, and communities have been built and circulate through discourse in colonial and postcolonial regimes, and the extent to which these discourses are deeply rooted in European episteme.

Besides this postcolonial scenario, the imposition of monolingual standards is particularly striking, as the increased mobility and diasporic trajectories of many speakers contribute to the polyglot forms of their linguistic repertoires, which encourage increased hybridization practices and translanguaging ( Blackledge and Creese, 2014 ; Blommaert and Backus, 2013 ; García and Li Wei, 2014 ) as well as the emergence of new identities. The maintenance of linguistic ideologies in institutional settings, such as the ideologies of monolingualism and standardization in schools (see Martín Rojo, 2010 : 221–260, for an overview), entails not valuing the languages spoken by many students, and the rejection of heteroglossic speech practices. The weakening of nation-states may be opening spaces, such as communication through new technologies and social networks, so that these practices of resistance to monolingual norms and separation of languages acquire more visibility ( Blommaert, 2010 ; Rampton, 1995 ). Despite this, in the spaces where an institutional order is imposed, the norms regulating them are maintained.

Concurrently, to the weakening of nation-states and the opening spaces for multilingual practices, new forms of governmentality are emerging within our current neoliberal context (see further discussion later in the chapter). In relation to the objectivation of the speaker, more research is also needed to re-examine the emergence of the native and non-native distinction, which is an artificial construct, and its normalizing effects on speakers. As Bonfiglio shows ( 2007 , 2013 ) the enracination of language and its configuration within the matrix of race and ethnicity was born with nationalism in the early modern period, and it was “articulated in the apparently innocent kinship metaphors of maternality and nativity, as well as in the ideology of a natural connection between national character and national geography” (2013: 56). These organic metaphors, taken from body and nature to construct the myths of imagined congenital communities, still persist today. Their effects also persist in relation to the condition of citizenship, since many present-day examinations for citizenship include language tests, in which applicants must adhere to the stipulated model of a native speaker. As a result of this objectivation, “native speakers” are constructed as both a model and the authority. The examination (for example, the assessment of speakers’ competences in schools) is a method of control that involves hierarchical observation and normalizing judgment, and combines into a unified whole “the deployment of force and the establishment of truth” ( Foucault, 1977a : 184). It both elicits the truth about those who undergo the examination (tells what they know or what their level of language is) and controls their linguistic behavior (by forcing them to study or directing them to special courses or programs). Thus, the introduction of the concept and those in connection to it (native vs. foreign; native vs. non-native; quasi-native; native vs. learner; native vs. second language speaker) could have a clear impact on speakers’ trajectories. By analyzing speakers’ trajectories and life stories, it would be possible to reveal the distinct operations that the hierarchization of languages and types of spearkess (native vs. non-natice, for example) rings into play: it links individual language practices to a whole that immediately becomes a field for comparison; it differentiates individuals from one another; it measures in quantitative terms and hierarchizes linguistic competence and performance, linguistic levels, and the “nature” of individuals in terms of value; it introduces, through this “value-assigning measurement,” the constraints of a conformity that must be achieved 4 . In order to understand the power effect of this knowledge, and these categories and linguistic ideologies, and their impact on linguistic behavior and on speakers’ self-esteem, we need to examine two more technologies of power.

Governmentality and Subjectivation

The question that remains to be answered is how the knowledge produced by linguistic disciplines about language and speakers ends up regulating the behavior of individuals and the population in general. In order to answer this question, we can apply Foucault’s concept of governmentality, which refers to “the conduct of conduct” and ranges from the governing of others in all aspects of life to the governing of the self ( Foucault, 1982 ; see also 2000 ). This concept involves the regulation of populations through multiple institutions and technologies in society.

The observation that I see as relevant in relation to governmentality is this: now that neoliberalism is globally a prevalent economic model, a mode of governance, and a general policy, other significant changes related to languages are taking place. In this line, a clear example associated with the prevalence of this model is the involvement of language in a globalized neoliberal economy, as a source of symbolic added value, and as a mode of management of global networks, contributing to the circulation of good, capitals and people. Correlatively, it has been attested with an increasing frequency of discourses that celebrate multilingualism and present linguistic competencies and skills as a requirement of our times that would guarantee insertion and mobility in the job market ( Duchêne, 2011 ; Duchêne and Heller, 2012 ). We have then to examine the extent to which these social and economic transformations lead to a particular form of governmentality. As Urla (2012) notes, under neoliberalism, the logics and discourse for managing social life, and in this case speakers’ linguistic trajectories, on the one hand, and the logics and discourse of the market, on the other, have fused (see, especially, Rose, 1999 ). As Flores (2013) also notes, in parallel to the production of a neoliberal subject that fits the political and economic context of our current sociohistorical period, new forms of governmentality are emerging, particularly related to the desire for flexible workers and lifelong learners to perform service-oriented and technological jobs as part of a post-Fordist political economy. This change takes place precisely at a time where jobs have become precarious, inequality has risen, and struggles for resources have increased ( Fraser, 2003’ Standing, 2011 ). In this context, the new discourses of language commodification—and the production of knowledge about languages, competencies, the market, and so on—have a clear impact on speakers’ conduct.

Earlier in this chapter, we have seen that school is an institution where linguistic normalization takes place. Students are surveilled, and they have to behave according to linguistic norms. However, within the frame of neoliberal flexibilization and globalization, this disciplining action places language capacities and skills at the core of the institutional action ( Pérez-Milans, 2015 ). Schools must then provide bilingual courses and programs, and also teach the languages of instruction to a diverse body of students who often have had transnational trajectories. Subjects respond to this pressure trying to meet market demands, increasing their linguistic competencies, demanding bilingual teaching courses and programs, and paying for certificates that accredit linguistic training and education; all these responses lead to greater revenues for the language industry. As former inequalities, prejudices, and social hierarchies are still active and even amplified in many apparently liberal societies today, and in spite of increased demands for linguistic competence, access to linguistic capital is not guaranteed ( Martín Rojo, 2017 ; and Martín Rojo et al., 2017 , for a more detailed analysis of neoliberalism and linguistic governmentality). Linguistic competence and skills do not guarantee access to a better job ( Duchêne, 2011 ). Most jobs on offer do not require all those linguistic credentials ( Standing, 2011 ). To present the learning of languages as preparing people for jobs is to set up tensions and frustrations that will give way to disillusion. Considering this, increasing linguistic demands could be seen as a gatekeeping mechanism ( Erickson and Shultz, 1982 ) that does not give but rather constrains access to key educational, employment, legal, and political fields, among others. Thus, speakers’ self-regulation is also connected to the increasing demands for linguistic competences. In the following example of an interview with a student of Romanian origin (Ioana), successfully studying at a university in Madrid, we observe this self-regulation in the ways of using language to avoid discrimination or to increase social and economic mobility. 5 The interviewee focuses on her linguistic trajectory and her “new-speaker” status.

Lilia, the interviewer, poses a first question that already establishes an unattainable goal, “to speak perfectly (line 4),” which is nonetheless shared by the interviewee. For both, their term of reference is the standard variety and passing for a native speaker, which seems to indicate that nation-state models of personhood have not disappeared under neoliberalism, but are still active for diasporic speakers. In the second question, we see how the interviewer has detected the disciplining effort (line 7) and asks Ioana to give reasons for it. In the interviewee’s answer, again, we find the demand of “speaking well (line 21),” and how the knowledge of a hierarchy of speakers and competencies has been internalized. Her effort has been invested out of fear of rejection and of reproducing the experience of people who spend time in Spain without speaking the dominant language (line 28). This shows a superposition of experiences and knowledge regarding dominant language ideologies and immigration. This example shows clearly the permeability of the subject who faces “linguistic surveillance,” reproducing the norm internally. Later in the interview, she explains how she put the greatest effort into the pronunciation of the Spanish “zed”: “It was a goal for me to learn how to pronounce the zed. Once I learned that, it was as if I had achieved everything. (.) And it took me about a year.” This reflects how she has incorporated this as an index that local speakers use to try to distinguish local speakers from nonlocal speakers. Surveillance produces exercise, demands training, and has a general effect on language practices.

The modes of objectivation, which establish the norm, act on individuals to regulate, shape, and/or influence them to conform their linguistic practices into “normal.” However, the effects of the modes of objectivation go even further, becoming modes of subjectivation that are used by individuals for understanding themselves ( Martín Rojo, 1997a ). Thus, human beings recognize themselves as subjects, constitute themselves as objects of knowledge for themselves: they are driven to examine themselves, decipher themselves. Subjectivity is the way in which subjects turn the experience of themselves into a truth game with themselves; and in that game, the legitimated and dominant discourses internalized by individuals play an essential role, provided that the individuals have appropriated them in the process of understanding themselves. This is not merely a question of whether linguistic norms and ideologies are accepted or rejected, but also of how, when they are internalized by individuals, they impact the construction of subjectivity. Taking into account the role of subjectivation, we may ask ourselves what could happen if individuals internalize normalizing discourses that undermine them as competent and legitimate speakers: Could these speakers lower their social and educational expectations or even self - exclude themselves from significant social fields? Could the internalization of this ideology compel non-native speakers to censor themselves, or to place their linguistic practices within an evaluative frame, and to derogate their own linguistic practices?

We have some noteworthy testimonies of the internalization of these ideologies and of the resistance produced. Chicana feminist scholar Anzaldúa (1987) describes how the assimilationist pressure to speak English without an accent, together with the shame felt in speaking Spanish, amounts to a taming of the tongue, to a disciplining and denigration of the subject, which can only be escaped by proudly expressing a hybrid language, a mestizo language blending Spanish and English. This denigration of the subject is reflected in the verses of the Nuyorican poet Tato Laviera in “My Graduation Speech,” “Ay, Virgin Mary, I cannot speak!” Experiences such as those of Anzaldúa and Laviera have been mirrored by other authors in geopolitical areas dominated by the spirit of colonialism. Derrida (1996) discusses those for whom the use of French, the only language they knew, was equivalent to a dispossession, to speaking the language of the colonizer. And this is even more so in bilingual situations, such as the one referred to by Fanon (1952) , for whom the adoption of the language of the colonizers was like wearing a white mask over his black skin.

The construction of subjectivity can be grasped by analyzing the discourses produced by “non-native speakers” (see Cioè-Peña, Moore, and Martín Rojo, 2016 ). Shame (in the sense of Howard, 1995 , and Scheff, 2000 ) for not having achieved enough proficiency, for not being able to speak as a “native” ( Relaño, 2014 ) can be pervasive. In fact, linguistic norms are enforced through the calculated administration of shame. However, discourses also reveal various kinds of resistance: pride in the “native” language, hybridized practices, and “passing for a native speaker” of one or more languages. As a consequence, speakers could discursively present themselves as “split subjects” who reflect the tension between power (that is, exclusion and delegitimization, if they fail to sound like a “native speaker”) and desire for the acceptance and legitimation of their own languages and ways of speaking.

Concluding Remarks and Review of Key Points

This chapter has examined the extent to which shifts in the understanding of power within a poststructuralist frame are compelling researchers to re-examine the relationships between language and power. In the light of current notions of power, such as those developed by Foucault, this chapter has examined the new research questions and objects of study that are emerging. In exploring the relations between power and language, I have also tried to answer the questions concerning who exercises power, in what sphere, and by what means. Ultimately, answering these questions is the first step in the reversal of power and the initiation of new struggles against existing forms of power.

In order to avoid a simplified vision where power appears as a monopoly of the state, exercised from top to bottom, and to capture the complexity of power relationships, according to the current five postulates I have summarized following critically a Foucauldian approach, it is necessary to frame the study of power in the flow of interaction, in all institutions and outside them. Likewise, to capture the generating or productive nature of power, it is necessary to study its relationship with discourse and knowledge. From there, some of the technologies of power have been brought to light, such as normalization, through objectivation and subjectivation, and governmentality. Thus, the exercise of power has been framed within other types of relationships (economic processes, knowledge relationships, gender, ethnic relation, among others), and has been integrated in a mode of production and distribution of resources. At the same time, it produces knowledge about the language and the models of speakerhood that promote self-regulation practices among speakers (for instance, self-demanding requirements to learn a specific language or to adopt a particular accent). In other domains, such as ethnic and gender relations or sexuality, several groups (for example, young people, women, ethnic groups, LGBTs) have spoken against forms of domination and constraint, which respond to a form of power that links individuals with their identity, transforming them and constraining them as subjects. In the linguistic domain, however, the effects of linguistic policies, the knowledge produced by disciplines and linguistic ideologies and norms that question the status of speakers, their competency, and their qualification, have not yet been fully examined. As a result, struggles against these forms of constraint are still incipient.

In order to go a step further, we have explored the main mechanisms through which production of knowledge about languages takes place, and their disciplinary effects on speakers and on their linguistic “conduct.” Finally, we have examined the power mechanisms, such as normalization, governmentality, and subjectivation, and how they are applied to speakers’ trajectories and practices. Thus, studying the forms of neoliberal governmentality, associated with the commodification of languages, allow us to better understand the current forms of control of the population and of behavior, as well as the role that language training plays as an instrument for increasing competency and competitiveness and filling the void of the long periods without employment in a precarious job market. Thus a more critical treatment of the concept of multilingualism is needed to avoid complicity with the promotion of a covert neoliberal agenda ( Duchêne and Heller, 2012 ; Flores, 2013 ). At the same time, the opposition between native and non-native speakers is not a valid instrument to describe people’s experiences in the context of increasing social mobility and diversity of contemporary societies. The analysis of the internalization of the native-speaker model can contribute to increase speakers’ reflexivity and to learn how to resist domination mechanisms associated with this model and to promote self-oriented, liberating techniques ( Martín Rojo, 2017 ).

Appendix Transcription conventions (adapted from Schegloff 2007)

In this text I follow a Foucauldian approach focused on power relations from the antagonistic reactions it produces, and on the contestation of specific objects and impositions of power on subjects.

There are many testimonies all over the world, and also academic reactions against those punishments. In 2014, at the time I was writing this chapter, newspapers reported different cases. In Luxembourg, Portuguese workers denounced that children are being punished and separated from the group if they speak Portuguese in some kindergartens and “maison relais”; http://www.wort.lu/en/luxembourg/shocking-luxembourg-expose-children-punished-for-speaking-portuguese-in-kindergarten-maison-relais-5458e9a7b9b3988708082cb4 ; while Bwesigye bwa Mwesigire denounces different modes of punishment in Uganda, where the most common is wearing a dirty sack until the offender meets someone else speaking their mother tongue and then he or she could pass the sack on to him or her (September 17, 2014).

Bogue (2007 : 145–146)—an active bringing-into-existence of its own agency.

In fact, the use of the concept follows a now established concern about political inequalities within EFL (for example, Canagarajah, 1999 ; Pennycook, 2007 ).

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9.1 Developing a Strong, Clear Thesis Statement

Learning objectives.

Develop a strong, clear thesis statement with the proper elements.
Revise your thesis statement.

Have you ever known a person who was not very good at telling stories? You probably had trouble following his train of thought as he jumped around from point to point, either being too brief in places that needed further explanation or providing too many details on a meaningless element. Maybe he told the end of the story first, then moved to the beginning and later added details to the middle. His ideas were probably scattered, and the story did not flow very well. When the story was over, you probably had many questions.

Just as a personal anecdote can be a disorganized mess, an essay can fall into the same trap of being out of order and confusing. That is why writers need a thesis statement to provide a specific focus for their essay and to organize what they are about to discuss in the body.

Just like a topic sentence summarizes a single paragraph, the thesis statement summarizes an entire essay. It tells the reader the point you want to make in your essay, while the essay itself supports that point. It is like a signpost that signals the essay’s destination. You should form your thesis before you begin to organize an essay, but you may find that it needs revision as the essay develops.

Elements of a Thesis Statement

For every essay you write, you must focus on a central idea. This idea stems from a topic you have chosen or been assigned or from a question your teacher has asked. It is not enough merely to discuss a general topic or simply answer a question with a yes or no. You have to form a specific opinion, and then articulate that into a controlling idea —the main idea upon which you build your thesis.

Remember that a thesis is not the topic itself, but rather your interpretation of the question or subject. For whatever topic your professor gives you, you must ask yourself, “What do I want to say about it?” Asking and then answering this question is vital to forming a thesis that is precise, forceful and confident.

A thesis is one sentence long and appears toward the end of your introduction. It is specific and focuses on one to three points of a single idea—points that are able to be demonstrated in the body. It forecasts the content of the essay and suggests how you will organize your information. Remember that a thesis statement does not summarize an issue but rather dissects it.

A Strong Thesis Statement

A strong thesis statement contains the following qualities.

Specificity. A thesis statement must concentrate on a specific area of a general topic. As you may recall, the creation of a thesis statement begins when you choose a broad subject and then narrow down its parts until you pinpoint a specific aspect of that topic. For example, health care is a broad topic, but a proper thesis statement would focus on a specific area of that topic, such as options for individuals without health care coverage.

Precision. A strong thesis statement must be precise enough to allow for a coherent argument and to remain focused on the topic. If the specific topic is options for individuals without health care coverage, then your precise thesis statement must make an exact claim about it, such as that limited options exist for those who are uninsured by their employers. You must further pinpoint what you are going to discuss regarding these limited effects, such as whom they affect and what the cause is.

Ability to be argued. A thesis statement must present a relevant and specific argument. A factual statement often is not considered arguable. Be sure your thesis statement contains a point of view that can be supported with evidence.

Ability to be demonstrated. For any claim you make in your thesis, you must be able to provide reasons and examples for your opinion. You can rely on personal observations in order to do this, or you can consult outside sources to demonstrate that what you assert is valid. A worthy argument is backed by examples and details.

Forcefulness. A thesis statement that is forceful shows readers that you are, in fact, making an argument. The tone is assertive and takes a stance that others might oppose.

Confidence. In addition to using force in your thesis statement, you must also use confidence in your claim. Phrases such as I feel or I believe actually weaken the readers’ sense of your confidence because these phrases imply that you are the only person who feels the way you do. In other words, your stance has insufficient backing. Taking an authoritative stance on the matter persuades your readers to have faith in your argument and open their minds to what you have to say.

Even in a personal essay that allows the use of first person, your thesis should not contain phrases such as in my opinion or I believe . These statements reduce your credibility and weaken your argument. Your opinion is more convincing when you use a firm attitude.

On a separate sheet of paper, write a thesis statement for each of the following topics. Remember to make each statement specific, precise, demonstrable, forceful and confident.

Texting while driving
The legal drinking age in the United States
Steroid use among professional athletes

Examples of Appropriate Thesis Statements

Each of the following thesis statements meets several of the following requirements:

Specificity
Ability to be argued
Ability to be demonstrated
Forcefulness
The societal and personal struggles of Troy Maxon in the play Fences symbolize the challenge of black males who lived through segregation and integration in the United States.
Closing all American borders for a period of five years is one solution that will tackle illegal immigration.
Shakespeare’s use of dramatic irony in Romeo and Juliet spoils the outcome for the audience and weakens the plot.
J. D. Salinger’s character in Catcher in the Rye , Holden Caulfield, is a confused rebel who voices his disgust with phonies, yet in an effort to protect himself, he acts like a phony on many occasions.
Compared to an absolute divorce, no-fault divorce is less expensive, promotes fairer settlements, and reflects a more realistic view of the causes for marital breakdown.
Exposing children from an early age to the dangers of drug abuse is a sure method of preventing future drug addicts.
In today’s crumbling job market, a high school diploma is not significant enough education to land a stable, lucrative job.

You can find thesis statements in many places, such as in the news; in the opinions of friends, coworkers or teachers; and even in songs you hear on the radio. Become aware of thesis statements in everyday life by paying attention to people’s opinions and their reasons for those opinions. Pay attention to your own everyday thesis statements as well, as these can become material for future essays.

Now that you have read about the contents of a good thesis statement and have seen examples, take a look at the pitfalls to avoid when composing your own thesis:

A thesis is weak when it is simply a declaration of your subject or a description of what you will discuss in your essay.

Weak thesis statement: My paper will explain why imagination is more important than knowledge.

A thesis is weak when it makes an unreasonable or outrageous claim or insults the opposing side.

Weak thesis statement: Religious radicals across America are trying to legislate their Puritanical beliefs by banning required high school books.

A thesis is weak when it contains an obvious fact or something that no one can disagree with or provides a dead end.

Weak thesis statement: Advertising companies use sex to sell their products.

A thesis is weak when the statement is too broad.

Weak thesis statement: The life of Abraham Lincoln was long and challenging.

Read the following thesis statements. On a separate piece of paper, identify each as weak or strong. For those that are weak, list the reasons why. Then revise the weak statements so that they conform to the requirements of a strong thesis.

The subject of this paper is my experience with ferrets as pets.
The government must expand its funding for research on renewable energy resources in order to prepare for the impending end of oil.
Edgar Allan Poe was a poet who lived in Baltimore during the nineteenth century.
In this essay, I will give you lots of reasons why slot machines should not be legalized in Baltimore.
Despite his promises during his campaign, President Kennedy took few executive measures to support civil rights legislation.
Because many children’s toys have potential safety hazards that could lead to injury, it is clear that not all children’s toys are safe.
My experience with young children has taught me that I want to be a disciplinary parent because I believe that a child without discipline can be a parent’s worst nightmare.

Writing at Work

Often in your career, you will need to ask your boss for something through an e-mail. Just as a thesis statement organizes an essay, it can also organize your e-mail request. While your e-mail will be shorter than an essay, using a thesis statement in your first paragraph quickly lets your boss know what you are asking for, why it is necessary, and what the benefits are. In short body paragraphs, you can provide the essential information needed to expand upon your request.

Thesis Statement Revision

Your thesis will probably change as you write, so you will need to modify it to reflect exactly what you have discussed in your essay. Remember from Chapter 8 “The Writing Process: How Do I Begin?” that your thesis statement begins as a working thesis statement , an indefinite statement that you make about your topic early in the writing process for the purpose of planning and guiding your writing.

Working thesis statements often become stronger as you gather information and form new opinions and reasons for those opinions. Revision helps you strengthen your thesis so that it matches what you have expressed in the body of the paper.

The best way to revise your thesis statement is to ask questions about it and then examine the answers to those questions. By challenging your own ideas and forming definite reasons for those ideas, you grow closer to a more precise point of view, which you can then incorporate into your thesis statement.

Ways to Revise Your Thesis

You can cut down on irrelevant aspects and revise your thesis by taking the following steps:

1. Pinpoint and replace all nonspecific words, such as people , everything , society , or life , with more precise words in order to reduce any vagueness.

Working thesis: Young people have to work hard to succeed in life.

Revised thesis: Recent college graduates must have discipline and persistence in order to find and maintain a stable job in which they can use and be appreciated for their talents.

The revised thesis makes a more specific statement about success and what it means to work hard. The original includes too broad a range of people and does not define exactly what success entails. By replacing those general words like people and work hard , the writer can better focus his or her research and gain more direction in his or her writing.

2. Clarify ideas that need explanation by asking yourself questions that narrow your thesis.

Working thesis: The welfare system is a joke.

Revised thesis: The welfare system keeps a socioeconomic class from gaining employment by alluring members of that class with unearned income, instead of programs to improve their education and skill sets.

A joke means many things to many people. Readers bring all sorts of backgrounds and perspectives to the reading process and would need clarification for a word so vague. This expression may also be too informal for the selected audience. By asking questions, the writer can devise a more precise and appropriate explanation for joke . The writer should ask himself or herself questions similar to the 5WH questions. (See Chapter 8 “The Writing Process: How Do I Begin?” for more information on the 5WH questions.) By incorporating the answers to these questions into a thesis statement, the writer more accurately defines his or her stance, which will better guide the writing of the essay.

3. Replace any linking verbs with action verbs. Linking verbs are forms of the verb to be , a verb that simply states that a situation exists.

Working thesis: Kansas City schoolteachers are not paid enough.

Revised thesis: The Kansas City legislature cannot afford to pay its educators, resulting in job cuts and resignations in a district that sorely needs highly qualified and dedicated teachers.

The linking verb in this working thesis statement is the word are . Linking verbs often make thesis statements weak because they do not express action. Rather, they connect words and phrases to the second half of the sentence. Readers might wonder, “Why are they not paid enough?” But this statement does not compel them to ask many more questions. The writer should ask himself or herself questions in order to replace the linking verb with an action verb, thus forming a stronger thesis statement, one that takes a more definitive stance on the issue:

Who is not paying the teachers enough?
What is considered “enough”?
What is the problem?
What are the results

4. Omit any general claims that are hard to support.

Working thesis: Today’s teenage girls are too sexualized.

Revised thesis: Teenage girls who are captivated by the sexual images on MTV are conditioned to believe that a woman’s worth depends on her sensuality, a feeling that harms their self-esteem and behavior.

It is true that some young women in today’s society are more sexualized than in the past, but that is not true for all girls. Many girls have strict parents, dress appropriately, and do not engage in sexual activity while in middle school and high school. The writer of this thesis should ask the following questions:

Which teenage girls?
What constitutes “too” sexualized?
Why are they behaving that way?
Where does this behavior show up?
What are the repercussions?

In the first section of Chapter 8 “The Writing Process: How Do I Begin?” , you determined your purpose for writing and your audience. You then completed a freewriting exercise about an event you recently experienced and chose a general topic to write about. Using that general topic, you then narrowed it down by answering the 5WH questions. After you answered these questions, you chose one of the three methods of prewriting and gathered possible supporting points for your working thesis statement.

Now, on a separate sheet of paper, write down your working thesis statement. Identify any weaknesses in this sentence and revise the statement to reflect the elements of a strong thesis statement. Make sure it is specific, precise, arguable, demonstrable, forceful, and confident.

Collaboration

Please share with a classmate and compare your answers.

In your career you may have to write a project proposal that focuses on a particular problem in your company, such as reinforcing the tardiness policy. The proposal would aim to fix the problem; using a thesis statement would clearly state the boundaries of the problem and tell the goals of the project. After writing the proposal, you may find that the thesis needs revision to reflect exactly what is expressed in the body. Using the techniques from this chapter would apply to revising that thesis.

Key Takeaways

Proper essays require a thesis statement to provide a specific focus and suggest how the essay will be organized.
A thesis statement is your interpretation of the subject, not the topic itself.
A strong thesis is specific, precise, forceful, confident, and is able to be demonstrated.
A strong thesis challenges readers with a point of view that can be debated and can be supported with evidence.
A weak thesis is simply a declaration of your topic or contains an obvious fact that cannot be argued.
Depending on your topic, it may or may not be appropriate to use first person point of view.
Revise your thesis by ensuring all words are specific, all ideas are exact, and all verbs express action.

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Writing a Paper: Thesis Statements

Basics of thesis statements.

The thesis statement is the brief articulation of your paper's central argument and purpose. You might hear it referred to as simply a "thesis." Every scholarly paper should have a thesis statement, and strong thesis statements are concise, specific, and arguable. Concise means the thesis is short: perhaps one or two sentences for a shorter paper. Specific means the thesis deals with a narrow and focused topic, appropriate to the paper's length. Arguable means that a scholar in your field could disagree (or perhaps already has!).

Strong thesis statements address specific intellectual questions, have clear positions, and use a structure that reflects the overall structure of the paper. Read on to learn more about constructing a strong thesis statement.

Being Specific

This thesis statement has no specific argument:

Needs Improvement: In this essay, I will examine two scholarly articles to find similarities and differences.

This statement is concise, but it is neither specific nor arguable—a reader might wonder, "Which scholarly articles? What is the topic of this paper? What field is the author writing in?" Additionally, the purpose of the paper—to "examine…to find similarities and differences" is not of a scholarly level. Identifying similarities and differences is a good first step, but strong academic argument goes further, analyzing what those similarities and differences might mean or imply.

Better: In this essay, I will argue that Bowler's (2003) autocratic management style, when coupled with Smith's (2007) theory of social cognition, can reduce the expenses associated with employee turnover.

The new revision here is still concise, as well as specific and arguable. We can see that it is specific because the writer is mentioning (a) concrete ideas and (b) exact authors. We can also gather the field (business) and the topic (management and employee turnover). The statement is arguable because the student goes beyond merely comparing; he or she draws conclusions from that comparison ("can reduce the expenses associated with employee turnover").

Making a Unique Argument

This thesis draft repeats the language of the writing prompt without making a unique argument:

Needs Improvement: The purpose of this essay is to monitor, assess, and evaluate an educational program for its strengths and weaknesses. Then, I will provide suggestions for improvement.

You can see here that the student has simply stated the paper's assignment, without articulating specifically how he or she will address it. The student can correct this error simply by phrasing the thesis statement as a specific answer to the assignment prompt.

Better: Through a series of student interviews, I found that Kennedy High School's antibullying program was ineffective. In order to address issues of conflict between students, I argue that Kennedy High School should embrace policies outlined by the California Department of Education (2010).

Words like "ineffective" and "argue" show here that the student has clearly thought through the assignment and analyzed the material; he or she is putting forth a specific and debatable position. The concrete information ("student interviews," "antibullying") further prepares the reader for the body of the paper and demonstrates how the student has addressed the assignment prompt without just restating that language.

Creating a Debate

This thesis statement includes only obvious fact or plot summary instead of argument:

Needs Improvement: Leadership is an important quality in nurse educators.

A good strategy to determine if your thesis statement is too broad (and therefore, not arguable) is to ask yourself, "Would a scholar in my field disagree with this point?" Here, we can see easily that no scholar is likely to argue that leadership is an unimportant quality in nurse educators. The student needs to come up with a more arguable claim, and probably a narrower one; remember that a short paper needs a more focused topic than a dissertation.

Better: Roderick's (2009) theory of participatory leadership is particularly appropriate to nurse educators working within the emergency medicine field, where students benefit most from collegial and kinesthetic learning.

Here, the student has identified a particular type of leadership ("participatory leadership"), narrowing the topic, and has made an arguable claim (this type of leadership is "appropriate" to a specific type of nurse educator). Conceivably, a scholar in the nursing field might disagree with this approach. The student's paper can now proceed, providing specific pieces of evidence to support the arguable central claim.

Choosing the Right Words

This thesis statement uses large or scholarly-sounding words that have no real substance:

Needs Improvement: Scholars should work to seize metacognitive outcomes by harnessing discipline-based networks to empower collaborative infrastructures.

There are many words in this sentence that may be buzzwords in the student's field or key terms taken from other texts, but together they do not communicate a clear, specific meaning. Sometimes students think scholarly writing means constructing complex sentences using special language, but actually it's usually a stronger choice to write clear, simple sentences. When in doubt, remember that your ideas should be complex, not your sentence structure.

Better: Ecologists should work to educate the U.S. public on conservation methods by making use of local and national green organizations to create a widespread communication plan.

Notice in the revision that the field is now clear (ecology), and the language has been made much more field-specific ("conservation methods," "green organizations"), so the reader is able to see concretely the ideas the student is communicating.

Leaving Room for Discussion

This thesis statement is not capable of development or advancement in the paper:

Needs Improvement: There are always alternatives to illegal drug use.

This sample thesis statement makes a claim, but it is not a claim that will sustain extended discussion. This claim is the type of claim that might be appropriate for the conclusion of a paper, but in the beginning of the paper, the student is left with nowhere to go. What further points can be made? If there are "always alternatives" to the problem the student is identifying, then why bother developing a paper around that claim? Ideally, a thesis statement should be complex enough to explore over the length of the entire paper.

Better: The most effective treatment plan for methamphetamine addiction may be a combination of pharmacological and cognitive therapy, as argued by Baker (2008), Smith (2009), and Xavier (2011).

In the revised thesis, you can see the student make a specific, debatable claim that has the potential to generate several pages' worth of discussion. When drafting a thesis statement, think about the questions your thesis statement will generate: What follow-up inquiries might a reader have? In the first example, there are almost no additional questions implied, but the revised example allows for a good deal more exploration.

Thesis Mad Libs

If you are having trouble getting started, try using the models below to generate a rough model of a thesis statement! These models are intended for drafting purposes only and should not appear in your final work.

In this essay, I argue ____, using ______ to assert _____.
While scholars have often argued ______, I argue______, because_______.
Through an analysis of ______, I argue ______, which is important because_______.

Words to Avoid and to Embrace

When drafting your thesis statement, avoid words like explore, investigate, learn, compile, summarize , and explain to describe the main purpose of your paper. These words imply a paper that summarizes or "reports," rather than synthesizing and analyzing.

Instead of the terms above, try words like argue, critique, question , and interrogate . These more analytical words may help you begin strongly, by articulating a specific, critical, scholarly position.

Read Kayla's blog post for tips on taking a stand in a well-crafted thesis statement.

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Didn't find what you need? Email us at [email protected] .

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Home / Guides / Writing Guides / Parts of a Paper / How to Write a Strong Thesis Statement

How to Write a Strong Thesis Statement

A thesis can be found in many places—a debate speech, a lawyer’s closing argument, even an advertisement. But the most common place for a thesis statement (and probably why you’re reading this article) is in an essay.

Whether you’re writing an argumentative paper, an informative essay, or a compare/contrast statement, you need a thesis. Without a thesis, your argument falls flat and your information is unfocused. Since a thesis is so important, it’s probably a good idea to look at some tips on how to put together a strong one.

Guide Overview

What is a “thesis statement” anyway.

2 categories of thesis statements: informative and persuasive
2 styles of thesis statements
Formula for a strong argumentative thesis
The qualities of a solid thesis statement (video)

You may have heard of something called a “thesis.” It’s what seniors commonly refer to as their final paper before graduation. That’s not what we’re talking about here. That type of thesis is a long, well-written paper that takes years to piece together.

Instead, we’re talking about a single sentence that ties together the main idea of any argument . In the context of student essays, it’s a statement that summarizes your topic and declares your position on it. This sentence can tell a reader whether your essay is something they want to read.

2 Categories of Thesis Statements: Informative and Persuasive

Just as there are different types of essays, there are different types of thesis statements. The thesis should match the essay.

For example, with an informative essay, you should compose an informative thesis (rather than argumentative). You want to declare your intentions in this essay and guide the reader to the conclusion that you reach.

To make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, you must procure the ingredients, find a knife, and spread the condiments.

This thesis showed the reader the topic (a type of sandwich) and the direction the essay will take (describing how the sandwich is made).

Most other types of essays, whether compare/contrast, argumentative, or narrative, have thesis statements that take a position and argue it. In other words, unless your purpose is simply to inform, your thesis is considered persuasive. A persuasive thesis usually contains an opinion and the reason why your opinion is true.

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are the best type of sandwich because they are versatile, easy to make, and taste good.

In this persuasive thesis statement, you see that I state my opinion (the best type of sandwich), which means I have chosen a stance. Next, I explain that my opinion is correct with several key reasons. This persuasive type of thesis can be used in any essay that contains the writer’s opinion, including, as I mentioned above, compare/contrast essays, narrative essays, and so on.

2 Styles of Thesis Statements

Just as there are two different types of thesis statements (informative and persuasive), there are two basic styles you can use.

The first style uses a list of two or more points . This style of thesis is perfect for a brief essay that contains only two or three body paragraphs. This basic five-paragraph essay is typical of middle and high school assignments.

C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia series is one of the richest works of the 20th century because it offers an escape from reality, teaches readers to have faith even when they don’t understand, and contains a host of vibrant characters.

In the above persuasive thesis, you can see my opinion about Narnia followed by three clear reasons. This thesis is perfect for setting up a tidy five-paragraph essay.

In college, five paragraph essays become few and far between as essay length gets longer. Can you imagine having only five paragraphs in a six-page paper? For a longer essay, you need a thesis statement that is more versatile. Instead of listing two or three distinct points, a thesis can list one overarching point that all body paragraphs tie into.

Good vs. evil is the main theme of Lewis’s Narnia series, as is made clear through the struggles the main characters face in each book.

In this thesis, I have made a claim about the theme in Narnia followed by my reasoning. The broader scope of this thesis allows me to write about each of the series’ seven novels. I am no longer limited in how many body paragraphs I can logically use.

Formula for a Strong Argumentative Thesis

One thing I find that is helpful for students is having a clear template. While students rarely end up with a thesis that follows this exact wording, the following template creates a good starting point:

_____ is true because of _, _, and _____.

Conversely, the formula for a thesis with only one point might follow this template:

_ is true because of ___.

Students usually end up using different terminology than simply “because,” but having a template is always helpful to get the creative juices flowing.

The Qualities of a Solid Thesis Statement

When composing a thesis, you must consider not only the format, but other qualities like length, position in the essay, and how strong the argument is.

Length: A thesis statement can be short or long, depending on how many points it mentions. Typically, however, it is only one concise sentence. It does contain at least two clauses, usually an independent clause (the opinion) and a dependent clause (the reasons). You probably should aim for a single sentence that is at least two lines, or about 30 to 40 words long.

Position: A thesis statement always belongs at the beginning of an essay. This is because it is a sentence that tells the reader what the writer is going to discuss. Teachers will have different preferences for the precise location of the thesis, but a good rule of thumb is in the introduction paragraph, within the last two or three sentences.

Strength: Finally, for a persuasive thesis to be strong, it needs to be arguable. This means that the statement is not obvious, and it is not something that everyone agrees is true.

Example of weak thesis:

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are easy to make because it just takes three ingredients.

Most people would agree that PB&J is one of the easiest sandwiches in the American lunch repertoire.

Example of a stronger thesis:

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are fun to eat because they always slide around.

This is more arguable because there are plenty of folks who might think a PB&J is messy or slimy rather than fun.

Composing a thesis statement does take a bit more thought than many other parts of an essay. However, because a thesis statement can contain an entire argument in just a few words, it is worth taking the extra time to compose this sentence. It can direct your research and your argument so that your essay is tight, focused, and makes readers think.

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How to write a thesis statement, what is a thesis statement.

Almost all of us—even if we don’t do it consciously—look early in an essay for a one- or two-sentence condensation of the argument or analysis that is to follow. We refer to that condensation as a thesis statement.

Why Should Your Essay Contain a Thesis Statement?

to test your ideas by distilling them into a sentence or two
to better organize and develop your argument
to provide your reader with a “guide” to your argument

In general, your thesis statement will accomplish these goals if you think of the thesis as the answer to the question your paper explores.

How Can You Write a Good Thesis Statement?

Here are some helpful hints to get you started. You can either scroll down or select a link to a specific topic.

How to Generate a Thesis Statement if the Topic is Assigned How to Generate a Thesis Statement if the Topic is not Assigned How to Tell a Strong Thesis Statement from a Weak One

How to Generate a Thesis Statement if the Topic is Assigned

Almost all assignments, no matter how complicated, can be reduced to a single question. Your first step, then, is to distill the assignment into a specific question. For example, if your assignment is, “Write a report to the local school board explaining the potential benefits of using computers in a fourth-grade class,” turn the request into a question like, “What are the potential benefits of using computers in a fourth-grade class?” After you’ve chosen the question your essay will answer, compose one or two complete sentences answering that question.

Q: “What are the potential benefits of using computers in a fourth-grade class?” A: “The potential benefits of using computers in a fourth-grade class are . . .”

A: “Using computers in a fourth-grade class promises to improve . . .”

The answer to the question is the thesis statement for the essay.

[ Back to top ]

How to Generate a Thesis Statement if the Topic is not Assigned

Even if your assignment doesn’t ask a specific question, your thesis statement still needs to answer a question about the issue you’d like to explore. In this situation, your job is to figure out what question you’d like to write about.

A good thesis statement will usually include the following four attributes:

take on a subject upon which reasonable people could disagree
deal with a subject that can be adequately treated given the nature of the assignment
express one main idea
assert your conclusions about a subject

Let’s see how to generate a thesis statement for a social policy paper.

Brainstorm the topic . Let’s say that your class focuses upon the problems posed by changes in the dietary habits of Americans. You find that you are interested in the amount of sugar Americans consume.

You start out with a thesis statement like this:

Sugar consumption.

This fragment isn’t a thesis statement. Instead, it simply indicates a general subject. Furthermore, your reader doesn’t know what you want to say about sugar consumption.

Narrow the topic . Your readings about the topic, however, have led you to the conclusion that elementary school children are consuming far more sugar than is healthy.

You change your thesis to look like this:

Reducing sugar consumption by elementary school children.

This fragment not only announces your subject, but it focuses on one segment of the population: elementary school children. Furthermore, it raises a subject upon which reasonable people could disagree, because while most people might agree that children consume more sugar than they used to, not everyone would agree on what should be done or who should do it. You should note that this fragment is not a thesis statement because your reader doesn’t know your conclusions on the topic.

Take a position on the topic. After reflecting on the topic a little while longer, you decide that what you really want to say about this topic is that something should be done to reduce the amount of sugar these children consume.

You revise your thesis statement to look like this:

More attention should be paid to the food and beverage choices available to elementary school children.

This statement asserts your position, but the terms more attention and food and beverage choices are vague.

Use specific language . You decide to explain what you mean about food and beverage choices , so you write:

Experts estimate that half of elementary school children consume nine times the recommended daily allowance of sugar.

This statement is specific, but it isn’t a thesis. It merely reports a statistic instead of making an assertion.

Make an assertion based on clearly stated support. You finally revise your thesis statement one more time to look like this:

Because half of all American elementary school children consume nine times the recommended daily allowance of sugar, schools should be required to replace the beverages in soda machines with healthy alternatives.

Notice how the thesis answers the question, “What should be done to reduce sugar consumption by children, and who should do it?” When you started thinking about the paper, you may not have had a specific question in mind, but as you became more involved in the topic, your ideas became more specific. Your thesis changed to reflect your new insights.

How to Tell a Strong Thesis Statement from a Weak One

1. a strong thesis statement takes some sort of stand..

Remember that your thesis needs to show your conclusions about a subject. For example, if you are writing a paper for a class on fitness, you might be asked to choose a popular weight-loss product to evaluate. Here are two thesis statements:

There are some negative and positive aspects to the Banana Herb Tea Supplement.

This is a weak thesis statement. First, it fails to take a stand. Second, the phrase negative and positive aspects is vague.

Because Banana Herb Tea Supplement promotes rapid weight loss that results in the loss of muscle and lean body mass, it poses a potential danger to customers.

This is a strong thesis because it takes a stand, and because it's specific.

2. A strong thesis statement justifies discussion.

Your thesis should indicate the point of the discussion. If your assignment is to write a paper on kinship systems, using your own family as an example, you might come up with either of these two thesis statements:

My family is an extended family.

This is a weak thesis because it merely states an observation. Your reader won’t be able to tell the point of the statement, and will probably stop reading.

While most American families would view consanguineal marriage as a threat to the nuclear family structure, many Iranian families, like my own, believe that these marriages help reinforce kinship ties in an extended family.

This is a strong thesis because it shows how your experience contradicts a widely-accepted view. A good strategy for creating a strong thesis is to show that the topic is controversial. Readers will be interested in reading the rest of the essay to see how you support your point.

3. A strong thesis statement expresses one main idea.

Readers need to be able to see that your paper has one main point. If your thesis statement expresses more than one idea, then you might confuse your readers about the subject of your paper. For example:

Companies need to exploit the marketing potential of the Internet, and Web pages can provide both advertising and customer support.

This is a weak thesis statement because the reader can’t decide whether the paper is about marketing on the Internet or Web pages. To revise the thesis, the relationship between the two ideas needs to become more clear. One way to revise the thesis would be to write:

Because the Internet is filled with tremendous marketing potential, companies should exploit this potential by using Web pages that offer both advertising and customer support.

This is a strong thesis because it shows that the two ideas are related. Hint: a great many clear and engaging thesis statements contain words like because , since , so , although , unless , and however .

4. A strong thesis statement is specific.

A thesis statement should show exactly what your paper will be about, and will help you keep your paper to a manageable topic. For example, if you're writing a seven-to-ten page paper on hunger, you might say:

World hunger has many causes and effects.

This is a weak thesis statement for two major reasons. First, world hunger can’t be discussed thoroughly in seven to ten pages. Second, many causes and effects is vague. You should be able to identify specific causes and effects. A revised thesis might look like this:

Hunger persists in Glandelinia because jobs are scarce and farming in the infertile soil is rarely profitable.

This is a strong thesis statement because it narrows the subject to a more specific and manageable topic, and it also identifies the specific causes for the existence of hunger.

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25 Thesis Statement Examples That Will Make Writing a Breeze

Understanding what makes a good thesis statement is one of the major keys to writing a great research paper or argumentative essay. The thesis statement is where you make a claim that will guide you through your entire paper. If you find yourself struggling to make sense of your paper or your topic, then it's likely due to a weak thesis statement.

Let's take a minute to first understand what makes a solid thesis statement, and what key components you need to write one of your own.

A thesis statement always goes at the beginning of the paper. It will typically be in the first couple of paragraphs of the paper so that it can introduce the body paragraphs, which are the supporting evidence for your thesis statement.

Your thesis statement should clearly identify an argument. You need to have a statement that is not only easy to understand, but one that is debatable. What that means is that you can't just put any statement of fact and have it be your thesis. For example, everyone knows that puppies are cute . An ineffective thesis statement would be, "Puppies are adorable and everyone knows it." This isn't really something that's a debatable topic.

Something that would be more debatable would be, "A puppy's cuteness is derived from its floppy ears, small body, and playfulness." These are three things that can be debated on. Some people might think that the cutest thing about puppies is the fact that they follow you around or that they're really soft and fuzzy.

All cuteness aside, you want to make sure that your thesis statement is not only debatable, but that it also actually thoroughly answers the research question that was posed. You always want to make sure that your evidence is supporting a claim that you made (and not the other way around). This is why it's crucial to read and research about a topic first and come to a conclusion later. If you try to get your research to fit your thesis statement, then it may not work out as neatly as you think. As you learn more, you discover more (and the outcome may not be what you originally thought).

Additionally, your thesis statement shouldn't be too big or too grand. It'll be hard to cover everything in a thesis statement like, "The federal government should act now on climate change." The topic is just too large to actually say something new and meaningful. Instead, a more effective thesis statement might be, "Local governments can combat climate change by providing citizens with larger recycling bins and offering local classes about composting and conservation." This is easier to work with because it's a smaller idea, but you can also discuss the overall topic that you might be interested in, which is climate change.

So, now that we know what makes a good, solid thesis statement, you can start to write your own. If you find that you're getting stuck or you are the type of person who needs to look at examples before you start something, then check out our list of thesis statement examples below.

Thesis statement examples

A quick note that these thesis statements have not been fully researched. These are merely examples to show you what a thesis statement might look like and how you can implement your own ideas into one that you think of independently. As such, you should not use these thesis statements for your own research paper purposes. They are meant to be used as examples only.

Vaccinations Because many children are unable to vaccinate due to illness, we must require that all healthy and able children be vaccinated in order to have herd immunity.
Educational Resources for Low-Income Students Schools should provide educational resources for low-income students during the summers so that they don't forget what they've learned throughout the school year.
School Uniforms School uniforms may be an upfront cost for families, but they eradicate the visual differences in income between students and provide a more egalitarian atmosphere at school.
Populism The rise in populism on the 2016 political stage was in reaction to increasing globalization, the decline of manufacturing jobs, and the Syrian refugee crisis.
Public Libraries Libraries are essential resources for communities and should be funded more heavily by local municipalities.
Cyber Bullying With more and more teens using smartphones and social media, cyber bullying is on the rise. Cyber bullying puts a lot of stress on many teens, and can cause depression, anxiety, and even suicidal thoughts. Parents should limit the usage of smart phones, monitor their children's online activity, and report any cyber bullying to school officials in order to combat this problem.
Medical Marijuana for Veterans Studies have shown that the use of medicinal marijuana has been helpful to veterans who suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Medicinal marijuana prescriptions should be legal in all states and provided to these veterans. Additional medical or therapy services should also be researched and implemented in order to help them re-integrate back into civilian life.
Work-Life Balance Corporations should provide more work from home opportunities and six-hour workdays so that office workers have a better work-life balance and are more likely to be productive when they are in the office.
Teaching Youths about Consensual Sex Although sex education that includes a discussion of consensual sex would likely lead to less sexual assault, parents need to teach their children the meaning of consent from a young age with age appropriate lessons.
Whether or Not to Attend University A degree from a university provides invaluable lessons on life and a future career, but not every high school student should be encouraged to attend a university directly after graduation. Some students may benefit from a trade school or a "gap year" where they can think more intensely about what it is they want to do for a career and how they can accomplish this.
Studying Abroad Studying abroad is one of the most culturally valuable experiences you can have in college. It is the only way to get completely immersed in another language and learn how other cultures and countries are different from your own.
Women's Body Image Magazines have done a lot in the last five years to include a more diverse group of models, but there is still a long way to go to promote a healthy woman's body image collectively as a culture.
Cigarette Tax Heavily taxing and increasing the price of cigarettes is essentially a tax on the poorest Americans, and it doesn't deter them from purchasing. Instead, the state and federal governments should target those economically disenfranchised with early education about the dangers of smoking.
Veganism A vegan diet, while a healthy and ethical way to consume food, indicates a position of privilege. It also limits you to other cultural food experiences if you travel around the world.
University Athletes Should be Compensated University athletes should be compensated for their service to the university, as it is difficult for these students to procure and hold a job with busy academic and athletic schedules. Many student athletes on scholarship also come from low-income neighborhoods and it is a struggle to make ends meet when they are participating in athletics.
Women in the Workforce Sheryl Sandberg makes a lot of interesting points in her best-selling book, Lean In , but she only addressed the very privileged working woman and failed to speak to those in lower-skilled, lower-wage jobs.
Assisted Suicide Assisted suicide should be legal and doctors should have the ability to make sure their patients have the end-of-life care that they want to receive.
Celebrity and Political Activism Although Taylor Swift's lyrics are indicative of a feminist perspective, she should be more politically active and vocal to use her position of power for the betterment of society.
The Civil War The insistence from many Southerners that the South seceded from the Union for states' rights versus the fact that they seceded for the purposes of continuing slavery is a harmful myth that still affects race relations today.
Blue Collar Workers Coal miners and other blue-collar workers whose jobs are slowly disappearing from the workforce should be re-trained in jobs in the technology sector or in renewable energy. A program to re-train these workers would not only improve local economies where jobs have been displaced, but would also lead to lower unemployment nationally.
Diversity in the Workforce Having a diverse group of people in an office setting leads to richer ideas, more cooperation, and more empathy between people with different skin colors or backgrounds.
Re-Imagining the Nuclear Family The nuclear family was traditionally defined as one mother, one father, and 2.5 children. This outdated depiction of family life doesn't quite fit with modern society. The definition of normal family life shouldn't be limited to two-parent households.
Digital Literacy Skills With more information readily available than ever before, it's crucial that students are prepared to examine the material they're reading and determine whether or not it's a good source or if it has misleading information. Teaching students digital literacy and helping them to understand the difference between opinion or propaganda from legitimate, real information is integral.
Beauty Pageants Beauty pageants are presented with the angle that they empower women. However, putting women in a swimsuit on a stage while simultaneously judging them on how well they answer an impossible question in a short period of time is cruel and purely for the amusement of men. Therefore, we should stop televising beauty pageants.
Supporting More Women to Run for a Political Position In order to get more women into political positions, more women must run for office. There must be a grassroots effort to educate women on how to run for office, who among them should run, and support for a future candidate for getting started on a political career.

Still stuck? Need some help with your thesis statement?

If you are still uncertain about how to write a thesis statement or what a good thesis statement is, be sure to consult with your teacher or professor to make sure you're on the right track. It's always a good idea to check in and make sure that your thesis statement is making a solid argument and that it can be supported by your research.

After you're done writing, it's important to have someone take a second look at your paper so that you can ensure there are no mistakes or errors. It's difficult to spot your own mistakes, which is why it's always recommended to have someone help you with the revision process, whether that's a teacher, the writing center at school, or a professional editor such as one from ServiceScape .

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Language is power: How our words reflect and affect our world

How our words reflect and affect our world. Language is a powerful tool. Discover some of the history behind that power.

This post was originally published in 2017. Many things have changed since then, as global power dynamics have evolved—but the influence of language endures.

How often do you stop to think about the ways in which words affect the world around you? Probably not very often. It’s easy to take language for granted. We see, hear and speak it constantly. We use it to communicate, to understand and to think. It’s the very basis of the complex society in which we live. And yet this immense importance often goes unnoticed, letting language blend into the background precisely as a result of its ubiquity.

Of course, those of us who work in the field of translation have no choice but to pay attention. We make our living by thinking about language—not only in terms of its structure and style, but often also on a much deeper level. Translation is more than just changing words from one language to another . It requires an understanding not only of the literal meaning of each text, but also of its cultural context, its target audience and the intentions behind it. Because of this, translating often brings to light the many ways in which the language we use reflects the world in which we live, as well as its power to influence that world.

A reflection of history

Let’s begin with a broad example. In recent centuries, English has become what many call a “global language.” Some even go so far as to predict that it’s on its way to becoming the “universal language,” meaning that one day everyone across the world will use it to communicate. When it comes to translation, it’s easy to see the traces of these trends. More and more companies, publications and media outlets are making the effort to have their content translated from various other languages to English, knowing that this will allow them to reach a wider audience or clientele.

In other words, English has power: financial power, political power and cultural power . Across the world, people who speak it often enjoy greater opportunities and options than those who don’t. Companies who utilize it are able to expand internationally to an extent that might not otherwise be possible. While we could spend hours discussing the advantages and disadvantages of this reality, the fact is that right now English is arguably the most powerful language in the world.

But why? Why English, and not Spanish, or Swahili, or Cantonese? The answer also has to do with power. Language reflects culture , and in this case the power of English reflects the power of certain countries. Until relatively recently, the United Kingdom held the reins to the world’s largest empire , with colonies scattered across the globe. Their superior industrial capacity meant that they were able to conquer new territories and impose their own cultural norms, laws, religion… and language. As a result, English found its way into nearly every corner of the earth.

Map of the British Empire, helping to explain why the English language is spoken across the globe. Source: Library of Congress

The power of language in the age of globalization

Today, of course, the UK no longer disposes of a global empire. But one of its former colonies has arguably overtaken its one-time ruler as the new world leader. The United States may not be considered an empire by traditional terms, but its enormous political, economic and technological power has given it a similar level of influence .

Editor’s note: Since 2017, the cultural power of the United States has undergone significant changes, and today some people are speculating about the decline of the American “empire.”

It doesn’t take the physical conquest of territory or the intentional imposition of English to change linguistic habits. The forces of globalization, often skewed in favor of the United States, are indirectly influencing people around the world to learn English for their own personal gain.

The power of language shouldn't be underestimated. Discover some of the history behind that power and the ways that translation can shape it.

In other words, the former power of the United Kingdom and the current power of the United States have endowed English with a power of its own, which then reinforces the global influence of the countries where it’s spoken . Whether or not it will one day become truly universal is up for debate, but there’s no denying that it’s powerful.

Every word matters

So we know that language has power on a global scale… but what about the individual level? Every word that we read in a magazine article, on a website or in a company newsletter can affect our perceptions and influence our actions. Translators have a unique perspective not only on how language reflects larger societal trends, but also on its influence on individual people. In fact, this small-scale power is something that translators must consider on a daily basis—it’s an integral part of one of the greatest challenges that we face in our work.

Professional and effective translation requires the maintenance of a precarious balance between preserving original meaning and adapting texts to suit new audiences . As translators, we have a responsibility to understand what the writer wants to communicate; not only the literal meaning of their words, but also the intentions and assumptions behind them.

However, we also have a responsibility to the reader to provide them with a text that makes sense from their own frame of reference. We must consider the pre-existing knowledge and beliefs of the target audience members, who speak a different language from the original writer and therefore exist in a different linguistic and cultural context. In order to create a successful translation, choose localization services that adapt the original text to fit this new context, often changing it drastically or even removing some parts altogether.

The translator’s role

This means that translators not only have enormous responsibility, but also an incredible amount of power . The choices we make when translating have a direct impact on how each text is understood, and therefore on how it influences each individual who reads it.

Language is just one of many lenses that refracts meaning on its way from the writer to the reader, and as translators it’s our job to direct and shape this refraction. In order to do it well, we must simultaneously apprehend, adapt, alter and anticipate the meaning and effects of our words.

So next time you read a sign, scribble a note or verbalize an idea, take a moment to reflect on everything those words represent, and remember: just as the power of translation should never be underestimated, neither should the power of language itself.

You may also like: How social movements and global events are changing language

At VeraContent, we understand the power of language and how it can be used to connect brands with their audience. Get in touch with us to find out if you qualify for a free content consultation.

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How to Write the AP Lang Synthesis Essay + Example

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What’s Covered:

What is the ap lang synthesis essay, how will ap scores affect my college chances.

AP English Language and Composition, commonly known as AP Lang, is one of the most engaging and popular AP classes offered at most high schools, with over 535,000 students taking the class . AP Lang tests your ability to analyze written pieces, synthesize information, write rhetorical essays, and create cohesive and concrete arguments. However, the class is rather challenging as only 62% of students were able to score a three or higher on the exam.

The AP Lang exam has two sections. The first consists of 45 multiple choice questions which need to be completed in an hour. This portion counts for around 45% of your total score. These questions ask students to analyze written pieces and answer questions related to each respective passage. All possible answer choices can be found within the text, and no prior knowledge of literature is needed to understand the passages.

The second section contains three free-response questions to be finished in under two hours and 15 minutes. This section counts for 55% of your score and includes the synthesis essay, the rhetorical essay, and the argumentative essay.

The synthesis essay requires you to read 6-7 sources and create an argument using at least three sources.
The rhetorical analysis essay requires you to describe how a piece of writing evokes specific meanings and symbolism.
The argumentative essay requires you to pick a perspective of a debate and create an argument based on the evidence provided.

In this post, we will take a look at the AP Lang synthesis essay and discuss tips and tricks to master this part of the exam. We will also provide an example of a well-written essay for review.

The AP Lang synthesis essay is the first of three essays included in the Free Response section of the AP Lang exam. The exam presents 6-7 sources that are organized around a specific topic, with two of those sources purely visual, including a single quantitative source (like a graph or pie chart). The remaining 4-5 sources are text-based, containing around 500 words each. It’s recommended that students spend an hour on this essay—15 minute reading period, 40 minutes writing, and 5 minutes of spare time to check over work.

Each synthesis essay has a topic that all the sources will relate to. A prompt will explaining the topic and provide some background, although the topics are usually broad so you will probably know something related to the issue. It will also present a claim that students will respond to in an essay format using information from at least three of the provided sources. You will need to take a stance, either agreeing or disagreeing with the position provided in the claim.

According to the CollegeBoard, they are looking for essays that “combine different perspectives from sources to form a support of a coherent position.” This means that you must state your claim on the topic and highlight relationships between several sources that support your specific position on the topic. Additionally, you’ll need to cite clear evidence from your sources to prove your point.

The synthesis essay counts for six points on the AP Lang exam. Students can receive 0-1 points for writing a thesis statement, 0-4 based on the incorporation of evidence and commentary, and 0-1 points based on the sophistication of thought and demonstration of complex understanding.

While this essay seems extremely overwhelming, considering there are a total of three free-response essays to complete, with proper time management and practiced skills, this essay is manageable and straightforward. In order to enhance the time management aspect of the test to the best of your ability, it is essential to divide the essay up into five key steps.

Step 1: Analyze the Prompt

As soon as the clock starts, carefully read and analyze what the prompt asks from you. It might be helpful to markup the text to identify the most critical details. You should only spend around 2 minutes reading the prompt so you have enough time to read all the sources and figure out your argument. Don’t feel like you need to immediately pick your stance on the claim right after reading the prompt. You should read the sources before you commit to your argument.

Step 2: Read the Sources Carefully

Although you are only required to use 3 of the 6-7 sources provides, make sure you read ALL of the sources. This will allow you to better understand the topic and make the most educated decision of which sources to use in your essay. Since there are a lot of sources to get through, you will need to read quickly and carefully.

Annotating will be your best friend during the reading period. Highlight and mark important concepts or lines from each passage that would be helpful in your essay. Your argument will probably begin forming in your head as you go through the passages, so you will save yourself a lot of time later on if you take a few seconds to write down notes in the margins. After you’ve finished reading a source, reflect on whether the source defends, challenges, or qualifies your argument.

You will have around 13 minutes to read through all the sources, but it’s very possible you will finish earlier if you are a fast reader. Take the leftover time to start developing your thesis and organizing your thoughts into an outline so you have more time to write.

Step 3: Write a Strong Thesis Statement

In order to write a good thesis statement, all you have to do is decide your stance on the claim provided in the prompt and give an overview of your evidence. You essentially have three choices on how to frame your thesis statement: You can defend, challenge or qualify a claim that’s been provided by the prompt.

If you are defending the claim, your job will be to prove that the claim is correct .
If you are challenging the claim, your job will be to prove that the claim is incorrect .
If you choose to qualify the claim, your job will be to agree to a part of the claim and disagree with another part of the claim.

A strong thesis statement will clearly state your stance without summarizing the issue or regurgitating the claim. The CollegeBoard is looking for a thesis statement that “states a defensible position and establishes a line of reasoning on the issue provided in the prompt.”

Step 4: Create a Minimal Essay Outline

Developing an outline might seem like a waste of time when you are up against the clock, but believe us, taking 5-10 minutes to outline your essay will be much more useful in the long run than jumping right into the essay.

Your outline should include your thesis statement and three main pieces of evidence that will constitute each body paragraph. Under each piece of evidence should be 2-3 details from the sources that you will use to back up your claim and some commentary on how that evidence proves your thesis.

Step 5: Write your Essay

Use the remaining 30-35 minutes to write your essay. This should be relatively easy if you took the time to mark up the sources and have a detailed outline. Remember to add special consideration and emphasis to the commentary sections of the supporting arguments outlined in your thesis. These sentences are critical to the overall flow of the essay and where you will be explaining how the evidence supports or undermines the claim in the prompt.

Also, when referencing your sources, write the in-text citations as follows: “Source 1,” “Source 2,” “Source 3,” etc. Make sure to pay attention to which source is which in order to not incorrectly cite your sources. In-text citations will impact your score on the essay and are an integral part of the process.

After you finish writing, read through your essay for any grammatical errors or mistakes before you move onto the next essay.

Here are six must-have tips and tricks to get a good score on the synthesis essay:

Cite at least four sources , even though the minimum requirement is three. Remember not to plagiarize and cite everything you use in your arguments.
Make sure to develop a solid and clear thesis . Develop a stable stance for the claim and stick with it throughout the entire paper.
Don’t summarize the sources. The summary of the sources does not count as an argument.
You don’t necessarily have to agree with the sources in order to cite them. Using a source to support a counterargument is still a good use of a source.
Cite the sources that you understand entirely . If you don’t, it could come back to bite you in the end.
Use small quotes , do not quote entire paragraphs. Make sure the quote does not disrupt the flow or grammar of the sentence you write.

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Here is an example prompt and essay from 2019 that received 5 of the 6 total points available:

In response to our society’s increasing demand for energy, large-scale wind power has drawn attention from governments and consumers as a potential alternative to traditional materials that fuel our power grids, such as coal, oil, natural gas, water, or even newer sources such as nuclear or solar power. Yet the establishment of large-scale, commercial-grade wind farms is often the subject of controversy for a variety of reasons.

Carefully read the six sources, found on the AP English Language and Composition 2019 Exam (Question 1), including the introductory information for each source. Write an essay that synthesizes material from at least three of the sources and develops your position on the most important factors that an individual or agency should consider when deciding whether to establish a wind farm.

Source A (photo)

Source B (Layton)

Source C (Seltenrich)

Source D (Brown)

Source E (Rule)

Source F (Molla)

In your response you should do the following:

Respond to the prompt with a thesis presents a defensible position.
Select and use evidence from at least 3 of the provided sources to support your line of reasoning. Indicate clearly the sources used through direct quotation, paraphrase, or summary. Sources may be cited as Source A, Source B, etc., or by using the description in parentheses.
Explain how the evidence supports your line of reasoning.
Use appropriate grammar and punctuation in communicating your argument.

[1] The situation has been known for years, and still very little is being done: alternative power is the only way to reliably power the changing world. The draw of power coming from industry and private life is overwhelming current sources of non-renewable power, and with dwindling supplies of fossil fuels, it is merely a matter of time before coal and gas fuel plants are no longer in operation. So one viable alternative is wind power. But as with all things, there are pros and cons. The main factors for power companies to consider when building wind farms are environmental boon, aesthetic, and economic factors.

[2] The environmental benefits of using wind power are well-known and proven. Wind power is, as qualified by Source B, undeniably clean and renewable. From their production requiring very little in the way of dangerous materials to their lack of fuel, besides that which occurs naturally, wind power is by far one of the least environmentally impactful sources of power available. In addition, wind power by way of gearbox and advanced blade materials, has the highest percentage of energy retention. According to Source F, wind power retains 1,164% of the energy put into the system – meaning that it increases the energy converted from fuel (wind) to electricity 10 times! No other method of electricity production is even half that efficient. The efficiency and clean nature of wind power are important to consider, especially because they contribute back to power companies economically.

[3] Economically, wind power is both a boon and a bone to electric companies and other users. For consumers, wind power is very cheap, leading to lower bills than from any other source. Consumers also get an indirect reimbursement by way of taxes (Source D). In one Texan town, McCamey, tax revenue increased 30% from a wind farm being erected in the town. This helps to finance improvements to the town. But, there is no doubt that wind power is also hurting the power companies. Although, as renewable power goes, wind is incredibly cheap, it is still significantly more expensive than fossil fuels. So, while it is helping to cut down on emissions, it costs electric companies more than traditional fossil fuel plants. While the general economic trend is positive, there are some setbacks which must be overcome before wind power can take over as truly more effective than fossil fuels.

[4] Aesthetics may be the greatest setback for power companies. Although there may be significant economic and environmental benefit to wind power, people will always fight to preserve pure, unspoiled land. Unfortunately, not much can be done to improve the visual aesthetics of the turbines. White paint is the most common choice because it “[is] associated with cleanliness.” (Source E). But, this can make it stand out like a sore thumb, and make the gargantuan machines seem more out of place. The site can also not be altered because it affects generating capacity. Sound is almost worse of a concern because it interrupts personal productivity by interrupting people’s sleep patterns. One thing for power companies to consider is working with turbine manufacturing to make the machines less aesthetically impactful, so as to garner greater public support.

[5] As with most things, wind power has no easy answer. It is the responsibility of the companies building them to weigh the benefits and the consequences. But, by balancing economics, efficiency, and aesthetics, power companies can create a solution which balances human impact with environmental preservation.

More examples can be found here at College Board.

While AP Scores help to boost your weighted GPA, or give you the option to get college credit, AP Scores don’t have a strong effect on your admissions chances . However, colleges can still see your self-reported scores, so you might not want to automatically send scores to colleges if they are lower than a 3. That being said, admissions officers care far more about your grade in an AP class than your score on the exam.

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Statement by Minister Joly welcoming the nomination of a Prime Minister-designate of Haiti

From: Global Affairs Canada

The Honourable Mélanie Joly, Minister of Foreign Affairs, today issued the following statement: “On behalf of the Government of Canada, I commend the Transitional Presidential Council (TPC) for the nomination of the new Prime Minister-designate of Haiti and for moving toward achieving this important transition of power.

May 30, 2024 – Ottawa, Ontario - Global Affairs Canada

The Honourable Mélanie Joly, Minister of Foreign Affairs, today issued the following statement:

“On behalf of the Government of Canada, I commend the Transitional Presidential Council (TPC) for the nomination of the new Prime Minister-designate of Haiti and for moving toward achieving this important transition of power.

“We encourage Prime Minister-designate Garry Conille and the TPC to install without further delay a new government that puts the well-being of the Haitian people first. We look forward to Prime Minister-designate Conille and the TPC taking the appropriate steps toward reestablishing democratic institutions, holding free and fair elections, advancing good governance, and working with the international community to restore national security and provide much-needed relief to the Haitian people, who have endured so much.

“The ties between Canada and Haiti are strong. As Haiti continues on its path toward the restoration of democracy, Canada will remain a committed partner in providing security, development, and humanitarian assistance to the Haitian people.”

Media Relations Office Global Affairs Canada [email protected] Follow us on Twitter: @CanadaFP Like us on Facebook: Canada’s foreign policy - Global Affairs Canada

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Guest Essay

Jamie Raskin: How to Force Justices Alito and Thomas to Recuse Themselves in the Jan. 6 Cases

A white chain in the foreground, with the pillars of the Supreme Court Building in the background.

By Jamie Raskin

Mr. Raskin represents Maryland’s Eighth Congressional District in the House of Representatives. He taught constitutional law for more than 25 years and was the lead prosecutor in the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump.

Many people have gloomily accepted the conventional wisdom that because there is no binding Supreme Court ethics code, there is no way to force Associate Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas to recuse themselves from the Jan. 6 cases that are before the court.

Justices Alito and Thomas are probably making the same assumption.

But all of them are wrong.

It seems unfathomable that the two justices could get away with deciding for themselves whether they can be impartial in ruling on cases affecting Donald Trump’s liability for crimes he is accused of committing on Jan. 6. Justice Thomas’s wife, Ginni Thomas, was deeply involved in the Jan. 6 “stop the steal” movement. Above the Virginia home of Justice Alito and his wife, Martha-Ann Alito, flew an upside-down American flag — a strong political statement among the people who stormed the Capitol. Above the Alitos’ beach home in New Jersey flew another flag that has been adopted by groups opposed to President Biden.

Justices Alito and Thomas face a groundswell of appeals beseeching them not to participate in Trump v. United States , the case that will decide whether Mr. Trump enjoys absolute immunity from criminal prosecution, and Fischer v. United States , which will decide whether Jan. 6 insurrectionists — and Mr. Trump — can be charged under a statute that criminalizes “corruptly” obstructing an official proceeding. (Justice Alito said on Wednesday that he would not recuse himself from Jan. 6-related cases.)

Everyone assumes that nothing can be done about the recusal situation because the highest court in the land has the lowest ethical standards — no binding ethics code or process outside of personal reflection. Each justice decides for him- or herself whether he or she can be impartial.

Of course, Justices Alito and Thomas could choose to recuse themselves — wouldn’t that be nice? But begging them to do the right thing misses a far more effective course of action.

The U.S. Department of Justice — including the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, an appointed U.S. special counsel and the solicitor general, all of whom were involved in different ways in the criminal prosecutions underlying these cases and are opposing Mr. Trump’s constitutional and statutory claims — can petition the other seven justices to require Justices Alito and Thomas to recuse themselves not as a matter of grace but as a matter of law.

The Justice Department and Attorney General Merrick Garland can invoke two powerful textual authorities for this motion: the Constitution of the United States, specifically the due process clause, and the federal statute mandating judicial disqualification for questionable impartiality, 28 U.S.C. Section 455. The Constitution has come into play in several recent Supreme Court decisions striking down rulings by stubborn judges in lower courts whose political impartiality has been reasonably questioned but who threw caution to the wind to hear a case anyway. This statute requires potentially biased judges throughout the federal system to recuse themselves at the start of the process to avoid judicial unfairness and embarrassing controversies and reversals.

The constitutional and statutory standards apply to Supreme Court justices. The Constitution, and the federal laws under it, is the “ supreme law of the land ,” and the recusal statute explicitly treats Supreme Court justices as it does other judges: “Any justice, judge or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” The only justices in the federal judiciary are the ones on the Supreme Court.

This recusal statute, if triggered, is not a friendly suggestion. It is Congress’s command, binding on the justices, just as the due process clause is. The Supreme Court cannot disregard this law just because it directly affects one or two of its justices. Ignoring it would trespass on the constitutional separation of powers because the justices would essentially be saying that they have the power to override a congressional command.

When the arguments are properly before the court, Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Sonia Sotomayor will have both a constitutional obligation and a statutory obligation to enforce recusal standards.

Indeed, there is even a compelling argument based on case law that Chief Justice Roberts and the other unaffected justices should raise the matter of recusal on their own, or sua sponte. Numerous circuit courts have agreed with the Eighth Circuit that this is the right course of action when members of an appellate court are aware of “ overt acts ” of a judge reflecting personal bias. Cases like this stand for the idea that appellate jurists who see something should say something instead of placing all the burden on parties in a case who would have to risk angering a judge by bringing up the awkward matter of potential bias and favoritism on the bench.

But even if no member of the court raises the issue of recusal, the urgent need to deal with it persists. Once it is raised, the court would almost surely have to find that the due process clause and Section 455 compel Justices Alito and Thomas to recuse themselves. To arrive at that substantive conclusion, the justices need only read their court’s own recusal decisions.

In one key 5-to-3 Supreme Court case from 2016, Williams v. Pennsylvania, Justice Anthony Kennedy explained why judicial bias is a defect of constitutional magnitude and offered specific objective standards for identifying it. Significantly, Justices Alito and Thomas dissented from the majority’s ruling.

The case concerned the bias of the chief justice of Pennsylvania, who had been involved as a prosecutor on the state’s side in an appellate death penalty case that was before him. Justice Kennedy found that the judge’s refusal to recuse himself when asked to do so violated due process. Justice Kennedy’s authoritative opinion on recusal illuminates three critical aspects of the current controversy.

First, Justice Kennedy found that the standard for recusal must be objective because it is impossible to rely on the affected judge’s introspection and subjective interpretations. The court’s objective standard requires recusal when the likelihood of bias on the part of the judge “is too high to be constitutionally tolerable,” citing an earlier case. “This objective risk of bias,” according to Justice Kennedy, “is reflected in the due process maxim that ‘no man can be a judge in his own case.’” A judge or justice can be convinced of his or her own impartiality but also completely missing what other people are seeing.

Second, the Williams majority endorsed the American Bar Association’s Model Code of Judicial Conduct as an appropriate articulation of the Madisonian standard that “no man can be a judge in his own cause.” Model Code Rule 2.11 on judicial disqualification says that a judge “shall disqualify himself or herself in any proceeding in which the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” This includes, illustratively, cases in which the judge “has a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party,” a married judge knows that “the judge’s spouse” is “a person who has more than a de minimis interest that could be substantially affected by the proceeding” or the judge “has made a public statement, other than in a court proceeding, judicial decision or opinion, that commits or appears to commit the judge to reach a particular result.” These model code illustrations ring a lot of bells at this moment.

Third and most important, Justice Kennedy found for the court that the failure of an objectively biased judge to recuse him- or herself is not “harmless error” just because the biased judge’s vote is not apparently determinative in the vote of a panel of judges. A biased judge contaminates the proceeding not just by the casting and tabulation of his or her own vote but by participating in the body’s collective deliberations and affecting, even subtly, other judges’ perceptions of the case.

Justice Kennedy was emphatic on this point : “It does not matter whether the disqualified judge’s vote was necessary to the disposition of the case. The fact that the interested judge’s vote was not dispositive may mean only that the judge was successful in persuading most members of the court to accept his or her position — an outcome that does not lessen the unfairness to the affected party.”

Courts generally have found that any reasonable doubts about a judge’s partiality must be resolved in favor of recusal. A judge “shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” While recognizing that the “challenged judge enjoys a margin of discretion,” the courts have repeatedly held that “doubts ordinarily ought to be resolved in favor of recusal.” After all, the reputation of the whole tribunal and public confidence in the judiciary are both on the line.

Judge David Tatel of the D.C. Circuit emphasized this fundamental principle in 2019 when his court issued a writ of mandamus to force recusal of a military judge who blithely ignored at least the appearance of a glaring conflict of interest. He stated : “Impartial adjudicators are the cornerstone of any system of justice worthy of the label. And because ‘deference to the judgments and rulings of courts depends upon public confidence in the integrity and independence of judges,’ jurists must avoid even the appearance of partiality.” He reminded us that to perform its high function in the best way, as Justice Felix Frankfurter stated, “justice must satisfy the appearance of justice.”

The Supreme Court has been especially disposed to favor recusal when partisan politics appear to be a prejudicial factor even when the judge’s impartiality has not been questioned. In Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co. , from 2009, the court held that a state supreme court justice was constitutionally disqualified from a case in which the president of a corporation appearing before him had helped to get him elected by spending $3 million promoting his campaign. The court, through Justice Kennedy, asked whether, quoting a 1975 decision, “under a realistic appraisal of psychological tendencies and human weakness,” the judge’s obvious political alignment with a party in a case “poses such a risk of actual bias or prejudgment that the practice must be forbidden if the guarantee of due process is to be adequately implemented.”

The federal statute on disqualification, Section 455(b) , also makes recusal analysis directly applicable to bias imputed to a spouse’s interest in the case. Ms. Thomas and Mrs. Alito (who, according to Justice Alito, is the one who put up the inverted flag outside their home) meet this standard. A judge must recuse him- or herself when a spouse “is known by the judge to have an interest in a case that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding.”

At his Senate confirmation hearing, Chief Justice Roberts assured America that “judges are like umpires.”

But professional baseball would never allow an umpire to continue to officiate the World Series after learning that the pennant of one of the two teams competing was flying in the front yard of the umpire’s home. Nor would an umpire be allowed to call balls and strikes in a World Series game after the umpire’s wife tried to get the official score of a prior game in the series overthrown and canceled out to benefit the losing team. If judges are like umpires, then they should be treated like umpires, not team owners, fans or players.

Justice Barrett has said she wants to convince people “that this court is not comprised of a bunch of partisan hacks.” Justice Alito himself declared the importance of judicial objectivity in his opinion for the majority in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overruling Roe v. Wade — a bit of self-praise that now rings especially hollow.

But the Constitution and Congress’s recusal statute provide the objective framework of analysis and remedy for cases of judicial bias that are apparent to the world, even if they may be invisible to the judges involved. This is not really optional for the justices.

I look forward to seeing seven members of the court act to defend the reputation and integrity of the institution.

Jamie Raskin, a Democrat, represents Maryland’s Eighth Congressional District in the House of Representatives. He taught constitutional law for more than 25 years and was the lead prosecutor in the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

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COMMENTS

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Article contents

Introduction

Conceptual Approaches to Power

Language–Power Relationships

Power Behind Language

Language Reflects Power

World Englishes and Lingua Franca English

Power of Language

Language Unites and Divides a Nation

Language Creates Influence

Power of Single Words

Oratorical Power

Conversational Power

Narrative Power

Discussion and Future Directions

Further Reading

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Useful Language for Thesis Statements

Using this resource

Basic sentence structures:

Affirming what you believe:

Challenging an author’s argument:

Complex sentence structures:

Expressing a less obvious claim by challenging commonly held beliefs:

Emphasizing an important similarity:

Emphasizing an important difference:

Providing reasons for your claim:

Providing multiple reasons for your claim:

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4 Language and Power

Introduction

The First Step in Disclosing Power and Language Relations: From Localized Power to a Multiplicity of Nodal Points

The Second Step: The Management of Power Relations in Interaction and the Unequal Distribution of Resources

An Unavoidable Task: The Analysis of the Technologies of Power

Linguistic Normalization

Governmentality and Subjectivation

Concluding Remarks and Review of Key Points

Appendix Transcription conventions (adapted from Schegloff 2007)

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9.1 Developing a Strong, Clear Thesis Statement

Elements of a Thesis Statement

A Strong Thesis Statement

Examples of Appropriate Thesis Statements

Writing at Work

Thesis Statement Revision

Ways to Revise Your Thesis

Key Takeaways

Writing a Paper: Thesis Statements

Being Specific

Making a Unique Argument

Creating a Debate

Choosing the Right Words

Leaving Room for Discussion

Thesis Mad Libs

Words to Avoid and to Embrace

Related Resources

Walden Resources

Centers and Offices

Student Resources

How to Write a Strong Thesis Statement

Guide Overview

2 Categories of Thesis Statements: Informative and Persuasive

2 Styles of Thesis Statements

Formula for a Strong Argumentative Thesis

Chris Manning: How computers are learning to understand language

_____ is true because of _, _, and _____.

_ is true because of ___.