Power and the role of language

Luisa Martín Rojo
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Table of contents

Two research questions are addressed in this chapter. Firstly, what role do knowledge and discourses we have accumulated about languages and their speakers play in the production and justification of the political rationalities with which the population is governed, individuals domesticated and societies securitised. Secondly, the extent to which this knowledge has led to the enactment of specific techniques of power, integrated within the same political rationalities – techniques often aimed at controlling and guiding the population and at obtaining consent (and suppressing resistance) to power relations that, among other consequences, limit people’s capacity for action or subject them to conditions of domination or exclusion.

Full-text access is restricted to subscribers. Log in to obtain additional credentials. For subscription information see Subscription & Price.

References

Anzaldúa, Gloria
1987 Borderlands/La frontera: The new mestiza. San Fracisco: Aunt Lute Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bonfiglio, Thomas Paul
2013 “Inventing the native speaker.” Critical Multilingualism Studies 1 (2): 29–58.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre
1986 “The forms of capital.” In Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, ed. by John G. Richardson, 241–258. New York: Greenwood.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1991 “The production and reproduction of legitimate language.” In Language and Symbolic Power, ed. by John B. Thompson, 43–65. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cabanas, Edgar, and Eva Illouz
2019 Happycracia. Cómo la ciencia y la industria de la felicidad controlan nuestras vidas [Happycracy. How the science and industry of happiness control our lives]. Barcelona: Planeta.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Castillo-González, Marta
2020 “Precariedad cool: La trendinización discursiva de la precariedad juvenil en la prensa digital español [Cool precariousness: The discursive trendinization of youth precariousness in the Spanish digital press].” Revista Mediterránea de Comunicación 11 (2): 155–168. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Del Percio, Alfonso, Vivian Sze Wan and S. W. V. Wong
2019 “Resetting minds and souls: Language, employability and the making of neoliberal subjects.” In Luisa Martín Rojo & Alfonso Del Percio, Language and Neoliberal Governmentality, (pp. 162–189). New York: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Duchêne, Alexandre
2008 Ideologies across Nations: The Construction of Linguistic Minorities at the United Nations. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2011 “Néolibéralisme, inégalités sociales et plurilinguismes: L’exploitation des ressources langagières et des locuteurs [Neoliberalism, social inequalities and multilingualism: The exploitation of language resources and speakers].” Langage & Société 136: 81–106. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2019 “Multilingualism: An insufficient answer to sociolinguistic inequality. Items-insights from the social sciences.” Social Science Research Council. October 8, 2019. bit.ly/3fRpLyL.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Duchêne, Alexandre, and Monica Heller
(eds) 2012 Language in Late Capitalism: Pride and Profit. New York: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eley, Louise, and Ben Rampton
2019 “Everyday surveillance, Goffman and unfocused interaction.” Surveillance and Society 18 (2): 199–215. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fanon, Frantz
1952 Peau noire. Masques Blancs [Peau noire. Masques Blancs]. Paris: Les Éditions du Seuil.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Flores, Nelson
2013 The unexamined relationship between neoliberalism and plurilingualism: A cautionary tale. Tesol Quarterly, 47(3), 500–520.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel
1977a Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. London: Allen Lane.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1977b “Intellectuals and power.” In Language, Counter-Memory, Practice, ed. by Donald F. Bouchard, and Sherry Simon, 205–217. New York: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1978 The History of Sexuality, an Introduction, Volume I. New York: Random House, Inc.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1980 Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977. New York: Pantheon.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1982 “The subject & power.” In Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism & Hermaneutics, ed. by Hubert L. Dreyfus, and Paul Rabinow, 208–226. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1984/1987 “The ethic of care for the self as a practice of freedom: An interview with Michel Foucault on January 20, 1984.” Philosophy & Social Criticism July 12 1987: 112–131.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1988 “Technologies of the self: Lectures at University of Vermont Oct. 1982.” In Technologies of the Self, ed. by Luther H. Martin, Huck Gutman, and Patrick H. Hutton, 16–49. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2007 Security, territory, population: lectures at the Collège de France 1977–78 Springer.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fraser, Nancy
2003 “From discipline to flexibilization? Rereading Foucault in the shadow of globalization.” Constellations 10 (2): 160–171. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gao, Shuang and Joseph Sung-You Park
2015 “Space and Language Learning under the Neoliberal Economy.” L2 Journal 7 (3): 78–96. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
García, Ofelia
2009 Bilingual Education in the 21st Century: A Global Perspective. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving
1963 Behaviour in Public Places. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1971 Relations in Public. London: Allen Lane.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1981 Forms of Talk. Philadelphia, PA: Pennsylvania University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2009 Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grillo, Ralp D.
1989 Dominant Languages: Language and Hierarchy in Britain and France. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gumperz, John
(ed) 1982 Language and Social Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heller, Monica
2002 Éléments d’une sociolinguistique critique. Paris: Hatier.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2011 Paths to Post-nationalism: A Critical Ethnography of Language and Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2014 “Gumperz and Social Justice”. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 23 (3): 192–198. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hobsbawm, Eric. J.
1992 Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hook, Derek
2004 “Governmentality and technologies of subjectivity.” In Critical Psychology, ed. by Derek Hook, 239–271. Cape Town: Juta and Company.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jacquemet, Marco
2014 “Transidioma and Asylum: Gumperz’s Legacy in Intercultural Institutional Talk.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 23 (3): 199–212. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kraft, Kamilla
2019 “Linguistic Securitisation as a Governmentality in the Neoliberalising Welfare State.” In Language and Neoliberal Governmentality, ed. by Luisa Martín Rojo and Alfonso Del Percio, 29–48. New York: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lemke, Thomas
2001 “ ‘The birth of bio-politics’: Michel Foucault’s lecture at the College de France on neo-liberal governmentality.” Economy and Society, 30: 190–207. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Martin Rojo, Luisa
2010 “Jargon”. Variation and change: Pragmatic perspectives (Vol. 6). ed. by In Mirjan Fried, Jan Ola Östman & Jef Verschueren, 155–170. John Benjamins Publishing.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Martín Rojo, Luisa
2016 “Language and Power.” In The Oxford Handbook of Language and Society, ed. by Ofelia Garía, Nelson Flores and Massimiliano Spotti, 77–102. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2018 “Neoliberalism and Linguistic Governmentality”. In The Oxford Handbook of Language Policy and Planning ed. by James W. Tollefson and Miguel Pérez-Milans, 544–567. Oxford: Oxford Univerity Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2019 “The ‘self-made speaker’: The neoliberal governance of speakers.” In Language and Neoliberal Governmentality ed. by Luisa Martín Rojo and Alfonso Del Percio, 162–189. New York: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2020 “Michel Foucault: Discurso y política.” Anuario de Glotopolítica, 35–56.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2020 “Sujetos hablantes”. In Claves para entender el multilingüismo contemporáneo ed. by Luisa Martín Rojo & Joan Pujolar, 165–198. Zaragoza: Prensas de la Universidad de Zaragoza.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Martín Rojo, Luisa and Alfonso Del Percio
2019 “Neoliberalism, language, and governmentality.” In Language and Neoliberal Governmentality ed. by Luisa Martín Rojo and Alfonso Del Percio, 1–25. New York: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Martín Rojo, Luisa and Rosina Márquez-Reiter
2019 “Language surveillance: Pressure to follow local models of speakerhood among Latinx students in Madrid.” International journal of the sociology of language, 257: 17–48. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Martín Rojo, Luisa and Lilia Rebeca Rodríguez Torres
2016 “Muda lingüística y movilidad social. Trayectorias de jóvenes migrantes hacia la universidad.” Discurso & Sociedad, 1: 100–133.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mignolo, Walter
2000 Local Histories/Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges, and Border Thinking. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Moustaoui Srhir, Adil and David Poveda
2022 “Family Language Policy and the Family Sociolinguistic Order in a Neoliberal Context.” Sociolinguistic Studies, 16 (1).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Moustaoui Srhir, Adil, Gabriela Prego Vázquez and Maria Luz Zas Varela
2019 “Translingual Practices and Reconstruction of Identities in Maghrebi Students in Galicia.” Languages, 4 (3): 63. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Moyer, Melissa & Luisa Martín Rojo
2007 “Language, Migration and Citizenship: New challenges in the regulation of bilingualism.” In Bilingualism: A Social Approach ed. by Monica Heller, 137–160. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ortega, Ane, Jacqueline Urla, Estibaliz Amorrortu, Jone Goirigolzarri and Belen Uranga
2015 “Linguistic Identity Among New Speakers of Basque.” International Journal of the Sociology of Language 231: 85–105. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Park, Joseph Sung-Yul
2021 In Pursuit of English: Language and Subjectivity in Neoliberal South Korea. Oxfod: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pérez-Milans, Miguel and Guo Grace Xiaoyan
2020 “Hoping for success, becoming a spiritual subject: Converted returnees in China.” Language, Culture and Society, 2 (2): 197–226. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Piller, Ingrid
2002 “Passing for a native speaker: Identity and success in second language learning.” Journal of sociolinguistics, 6 (2): 179–208. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pujolar, Juan
2011 New Speakers, New Identities: Linguistic Practices and Ideologies in the Post-National Era (research project NEOPHON; ref. FFI2011 24781).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2019 “Linguistic Entrepreneurship: Neoliberalism, Language Learning, and Class.” In Language and Neoliberal Governmentality ed. by Luisa Martín Rojo and Alfonso Del Percio, 113–134. New York: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ramallo, Fernando
2021 “Neofaliantismo y el sujeto hablante.” In Claves Para Entender El Multilingüismo Contemporáneo ed. by Luisa Martín Rojo and Juan Pujolar, 229–265. Barcelona/Zaragoza: Editorial UOC/Prensas de la Universidad de Zaragoza.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rampton, Ben
2016 “Foucault, Gumperz and Governmentality: Interaction, Power and Subjectivity in the Twenty-first Century.” Sociolinguistics: Theoretical Debates, 303–328. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2020 “Neoliberalism, Language and (In)securitization”. Plenary Conference at the conference. Madrid: UAM, June 2020.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Said, Edward
1978 Orientalism: Western Concepts of the Orient. New York: Pantheon.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Santiago Muñoz, Ana
2017 “La sociedad de control. Una mirada a la educación Del siglo XXI desde Foucault.” Revista de Filosofía, 73: 317–336. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sokhi-Bulley, Bal
2011 “Governing (through) Rights: Statistics as Technologies of Governmentality.” Social & Legal Studies, 20 (2): 139–155. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stoler, Ann Laura
1995 Race and the Education of Desire. Durham: Duke University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sunyol, Andra and Eva Codó
2019 “Fabricating Neoliberal Subjects through the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme.” In Language and Neoliberal Governmentality ed. by Luisa Martín Rojo and Alfonso Del Percio, 135–161. New York: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Urla, Jaqueline
2012 Reclaiming Basque: Language, nation, and cultural activism. University of Nevada Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wacquant, Loic
2010 “Crafting the neoliberal state: workfare, prisonfare, and social insecurity.” Sociological forum, 25 (2): 197–220. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yeung, Steven and John Gray
2022 “Neoliberalism, English, and spoiled identity: The case of a high-achieving university graduate in Hong Kong.” Language in Society, 1–22. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yuval-Davis, Nira., Georgie Wemyss and Kathryn Cassidy
2019 Bordering. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
 
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue