The relationship between language and power is one of the central concerns of linguistics — and one of the most intellectually rewarding areas of A-Level English Language. How does language construct and maintain power relationships? How do powerful groups use language to reinforce their position? How do less powerful groups use language to resist? Here’s a clear guide to the key concepts.
Power In Language vs Power Behind Language
Norman Fairclough makes a useful distinction between power in language and power behind language. Power in language is visible in specific interactions: the doctor who uses technical vocabulary the patient doesn’t understand; the teacher who controls who speaks and when; the politician who frames an issue in terms that favour one interpretation. Power behind language is the broader social power that shapes language itself: whose dialect gets called “standard”, whose way of speaking gets called “articulate”, whose writing gets published and studied.
Instrumental vs Influential Power
A second useful distinction: instrumental power operates through language directly (laws, commands, explicit authority), while influential power operates more subtly — through the power to shape opinions, frame debates, and set the terms of discussion. Politicians, media, and advertisers use influential power constantly: they don’t tell people what to think, but they shape the language through which thinking happens.
Language Features That Signal Power
- Interruption and topic control: Powerful speakers interrupt more, change topics more, and hold the floor longer
- Terms of address: Who uses first names and who uses titles? In asymmetric relationships, the higher-status person often uses the lower-status person’s first name while receiving a title in return
- Hedging and tentativeness: Less powerful speakers often hedge more (“I might be wrong but…”, “sort of”) — or are expected to
- Passive constructions: The passive voice removes agency — “mistakes were made” rather than “I made mistakes.” Politicians use this constantly.
- Lexical choices: What something is called shapes how it’s thought about. “Collateral damage” vs “civilian deaths”; “freedom fighter” vs “terrorist”
Critical Discourse Analysis
Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), associated with Fairclough and others, analyses language with explicit attention to power relations — treating texts not as neutral communication but as sites where power is constructed, contested, and reproduced. In exam responses, drawing on CDA means asking not just “what does this text say?” but “whose interests does it serve?”, “what assumptions does it naturalise?”, and “whose voices are absent?”
Language and power — alongside all the other major topics in A-Level English Language — is taught and applied throughout Thorogood English’s programme. Join the waiting list for January 2027.
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