Language, Ideology and Point of View

Paul Simpson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• ISBN:
  9781134911080
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Langues et linguistique
• Subtopic: Linguistique

This systematic introduction to the concept of point of view in language explores the ways in which point of view intersects with and is shaped by ideology. It specifically focuses on the way in which speakers and writers linguistically encode their beliefs, interests and biases in a wide range of media. The book draws on an extensive array of linguistic theories and frameworks and each chapter includes a self-contained introduction to a particular topic in linguistics, allowing easy reference. The author uses examples from a variety of literary and non-literary text types such as, narrative fiction, advertisements and newspaper reports.

1
Introduction: analysing point of view in language

Saying what happened is an angle of saying – the angle of saying is what is important.

Seamus Heaney on The South Bank Show, ITV, 27 October 1991.

1.1 INTRODUCTION

The Mexican film director Alejandro Jodorowsky, perpetrator of cult classics like El topo and Santa sangre, tells a germane if characteristically grisly parable to explain his film technique. The parable is about a one-eyed, one-legged, hunch-backed king who commissions a portrait of himself from his court artist. Faced with the obvious dilemma, the artist, trying not to insult the king, decides to paint out any of the deformities which might cause offence. However, the king is appalled by the untruthfulness and inaccuracy of the portrait and, in a course of action consistent with the narrative genre, summarily sentences the artist to death. A second artist is commissioned who, aware of the fate of the first, decides that a straightforward, honest and accurate representation is the best tactic. Yet the grotesque realism of this portrait makes the king furious, and the predictable execution ensues. The third artist does not have an easy task: on the face of it, the two obvious strategies have been tried and both have resulted in death. After a great deal of thought, he decides to paint the king in the role of a huntsman. By getting him to strike the pose of drawing a bow and arrow, the artist is able to paint the king with one leg resting on a log, with one eye closed and with one shoulder raised above the other. This representation of the king ingeniously disguises the disfigurements which led to the demise of the second artist, while avoiding the fabrications which resulted in the demise of the first. The king is delighted, of course, with the ‘likeness’ and rewards the artist with time-honoured commodities like riches, residences and sexual partners. It is the technique of this third artist which, Jodorowsky claims, characterizes his own œuvre.

Transposed to the domain of language, the technique of the third artist will also be the primary concern of this book. The chapters which follow share the common aim of exploring the ways in which things are ‘made to look’ in language. They focus on language as representation, as a projection of positions and perspectives, as a way of communicating attitudes and assumptions. The elusive question of the ‘truth’ of what a text says is not an issue here; rather, it is the ‘angle of telling’ adopted in a text, whether this be an advertisement, a novel or a newspaper report. In short, this book is all about point of view in language.

Over the next five chapters, a package of linguistic materials will be developed to account for this aspect of textual meaning. A ‘toolkit’ will be assembled progressively throughout the book and will draw on an extensive range of research on the structures and functions of the English language. To this extent, the book can be regarded, first and foremost, as a book about language. It provides a broad-based programme of language-study, a programme for textual analysis that concentrates on the ways in which the resources of language are exploited in a variety of texts. Throughout the programme, theory and analysis will be united by the common theme of point of view in language.

Before we embark on this programme, however, we will need to locate the present study within the broader traditions of textual analysis from which it derives. A clearer picture of the theoretical background which informs it and the critical assumptions which underpin it will need to be provided. The following section addresses precisely this issue.

1.2 STYLISTICS AND CRITICAL LINGUISTICS

Two interrelated branches of linguistic enquiry which have flourished over the last two decades are stylistics and critical linguistics. Both disciplines are compatible theoretically in so far as their practitioners use linguistic analysis as a basis for their interpretations of texts. Indeed, this interrelationship has been consolidated further by the recent appearance of textbooks, monographs and collections of articles which bring together the interests and concerns of both disciplines under a single cover.¹

Stylistics, first of all, normally refers to the practice of using linguistics for the study of literature. Exponents of stylistics are quick to point out, however, that stylistic techniques can be applied to texts other than those included in the established literary canon. Indeed, a central axiom of much modern stylistic analysis is that there is no such thing as an exclusively ‘literary language’. While literary communication may be privileged as a site for much experimentation and inventiveness in language, the same type of linguistic innovation can occur in many other discourse contexts. This axiom is what sets stylistics apart from more traditional literary-critical approaches which view ‘literary language’ as a special, ontologically stable language form which is the exclusive property of literary texts. Such approaches thus embrace a rigorous distinction between literary language and the more prosaic, ordinary language which characterizes everyday interaction. Thus, in the literary-critical tradition of F.R.Leavis and his followers, ‘literary language’ is simply what makes up literature and so if a text is to be regarded as a work of literature, then it must be, ipso facto, comprised of ‘literary language’. A typical stylistic approach to this question would, by contrast, prefer to invoke the term ‘literariness’ to account for the linguistic innovation which often occurs in the context of literary communication, but recognizing also that ‘literariness’ is a property of many texts other than those conventionally designated by the label ‘literature’.²

Of course, what also sets stylistics apart from other types of critical practice is its emphasis, first and foremost, on the language of the text. This does not invalidate those other approaches to textual analysis – indeed, many stylisticians have sought to enrich their linguistic analyses by importing ideas from psychoanalysis, structuralism and deconstruction. But what captures the essence of the stylistic method is the primacy which it assigns to language. A text is a linguistic construct and we process it as a linguistic construct before anything else. And, the argument runs, if there is to be any serious attempt to engage with the meaning of a particular text, then there must be some concomitant engagement with the language of that text.

Because of this reliance on the ‘science’ of linguistics, it is often assumed that stylistics claims to be a purely ‘objective’ method of textual analysis. The analyst stands by disinterestedly while the linguistic machine squeezes out of a text whatever meanings have been put there by the writer. Yet few stylisticians claim such objectivity. They prefer to recognize instead that all interpretations are in some sense context-bound and are contingent on the position of the analyst relative to the text. As Toolan suggests, stylistics offers a ‘way’ of reading, a way which is ‘a confessedly partial or oriented act of intervention, a reading which is strategic, as all readings necessarily are’ (1990:11). Where the benefit of linguistics does lie is in the way it offers an established metalanguage which can account systematically for what the analyst feels are significant features of language in a text. When employed in stylistic criticism, linguistic terms have standardized reference; they are not what Fowler calls ‘chameleon adaptations’ which are invoked to suit the needs of the critic (1986:3). Thus, terms like ‘modality’, ‘transitivity’ and ‘deixis’ all have commonly accepted designations. This terminological agreement contrasts markedly with a common literary-critical habit of using terms in a semi-technical, pseudo-descriptive fashion. One of the consequences of more traditional critical practices which employ no shared metalanguage is the tendency to conflate ill-defined grammatical terms with impressionistic value judgements. Here is an example of the type of critical ‘squish’ which I have in mind:

In the fabulous linguistics of the quatrain in question, ablaut is not morphological but moral, the soft fruit of forbearance shrivelling into its own pit.³

This type of explanation, where linguistic terms are merged with affective commentary, renders communication with other critics fortuitous.

The rigour which the use of linguistics brings to textual analysis has another pay-off. Literary texts offer an exciting testing ground for linguistic theories and constructs, often forming a path to clearer formalizations of linguistic knowledge. There is a kind of bivalent heuristic here: linguistic models offer a ‘way in’ to a text, while the text itself allows for a challenging application for those models. It is no surprise, then, that this potential for increased awareness of language structure and function has resulted in stylistics occupying an increasingly prominent place in both undergraduate English-language courses and English-language teaching courses. This increase in interest is also reflected by the publication of textbooks and manuals on language which incorporate substantial stylistics components.⁴

The dependency of stylistics on linguistics means that as techniques in linguistics become more sophisticated, so stylistic models become enriched and revitalized. Stylisticians are thus continually re-assessing their methods in the light of new developments in linguistics. One topic of investigation in stylistics which has been subject to this type of progressive revision is the concept of point of view. In the context of narrative fiction, point of view refers generally to the psychological perspective through which a story is told. It encompasses the narrative framework which a writer employs, whether this be first person or third person, restricted perspective or omniscient perspective, and accounts for the basic viewing position which is adopted in a story. Narrative point of view is arguably the very essence of a story’s style, what gives it its ‘feel’ and ‘colour’. Justification for this stance will be provided shortly when, in chapter 2, clearer definitions along with a detailed review of stylistic approaches to point of view will be provided. Suffice it to say here, this book will offer a way of conceptualizing and exploring this important aspect of a text’s organization. In doing so, it will slot into the ongoing revisionary trend of modern stylistics by taking on board issues of current relevance in linguistics.

Critical linguistics, like stylistics, seeks to interpret texts on the basis of linguistic analysis. This tradition of analytic enquiry can be traced directly to the work carried out during the 1970s by Roger Fowler and his associates at the University of East Anglia. Since the publication towards the end of that decade of two volumes outlining the critical linguistic ‘manifesto’ (Fowler et al. 1979; Kress and Hodge 1979), there has been a steady output of research within the tradition⁵. What characterizes this work, first of all, is the way in which it expands the horizons of stylistics by focussing on texts other than those regarded as literary. Media language has received particular scrutiny, although analyses have been conducted on discourse types as diverse as swimming-pool regulations (Fowler and Kress 1979a) and university guidelines on student enrolment (Fowler 1981:24–45). Despite the heterogeneity of the texts examined, the motivating principle behind these analyses is to explore the value systems and sets of beliefs which reside in texts; to explore, in other words, ideology in language.

There is, unfortunately, a proliferation of definitions available for the term ideology, and many of these are contingent on the political framework favoured by the analyst. From a critical linguistic perspective, the term normally describes the ways in which what we say and think interacts with society. An ideology therefore derives from the taken-for-granted assumptions, beliefs and value-systems which are shared collectively by social groups. And when an ideology is the ideology of a particularly powerful social group, it is said to be dominant. Thus, dominant ideologies are mediated through powerful political and social institutions like the government, the law and the medical profession. Our perception of these institutions, moreover, will be shaped in part by the specific linguistic practices of the social groups who comprise them.

A central component of the critical linguistic creed is the conviction that language reproduces ideology. As an integrated form of social behaviour, language will be inevitably and inextricably tied up with the socio-political context in which it functions. Language is not used in a contextless vacuum; rather, it is used in a host of discourse contexts, contexts which are impregnated with the ideology of social systems and institutions. Because language operates within this social dimension it must, of necessity reflect, and some would argue, construct ideology.

The motivation for a critical linguistic analysis of language could be set out in the following way. First of all, dominant ideologies operate as a mechanism for maintaining asymmetrical power relations in society. As language can be used by powerful groups to re-inforce this dominant ideology, then language needs to be targeted as a specific site of struggle. Analysis for the sake of analysis is not sufficient; instead, the analyst makes a committed effort to engage with the discourse with a view to changing it. In other words, by highlighting insidious discursive practices in language, these practices themselves can be challenged. Nowhere has this ‘consciousness-raising’ element been more apparent than in the work on ‘nukespeak’ carried out in the 1980s (e.g. Chilton 1985). The avowed intent of this research was to expose the obfuscation and dissimulation which typified much of the political rhetoric on nuclear arms. Linguistic analysis became a means of clarifying the terms of the nuclear debate and foregrounding, particularly, the way in which dominant Western ideology masks the potential horror of nuclear confrontation.

The critical linguistic rationale outlined here raises a number of additional issues concerning the interrelationship of language and ideology. One of these is to do with the way in which dominant ideologies become ingrained in everyday discourse. They become rationalized as ‘common-sense’ assumptions about the way things are and the way things should be. A process of naturalization takes place, to the extent that people are often no longer aware of the hierarchies and systems which shape their social interaction. Fairclough offers the following useful illustration of one type of naturalization:

the conventions for a traditional type of consultation between doctors and patients embody ‘common sense’ assumptions which treat authority and hierarchy as natural – the doctor knows about medicine and the patient doesn’t; the doctor is in a position to determine how a health problem should be dealt with and the patient isn’t; it is right (and ‘natural’) that the doctor should make decisions and control the course of the consultation and of the treatment, and that the patient should comply and cooperate; and so on.

(1989:2)

Ideology, Fairclough goes on to argue, is embedded in the language used to structure this type of social encounter. By foregrounding the linguistic code employed in such contexts, analysts can ‘demystify’ and ‘denaturalize’ what normally passes us by as real-time participants in everyday interaction.

Another issue arising from the critical linguistic rationale concerns the apparent ‘pervasiveness’ of ideology. As no use of language is considered truly neutral, objective and value-free, then theoretically critical linguistic analysis may be performed on any form of discourse. This explains the proliferation of analyses of diverse texts taken from a variety of contexts. However, the analyses which result from this pancontextual search for ideology in language have been criticized for ‘going too far’, for seeing features of major ideological significance in inconsequential, prosaic discourse. Consider, for instance, Hodge and Kress’s deconstruction of the word ‘tinnie’, an Australian English term for a tin of beer:

tins of beer, in spite of their phallic shape and association with male drinking and male solidarity, are classified with the ‘ie’ of implicitly feminine solidarity, as safe objects o...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Series editor’s introduction to the Interface series
• Acknowledgements
• 1. Introduction: Analysing point of view in language
• 2. Point of view in narrative fiction: Preliminaries
• 3. Point of view in narrative fiction: A modal grammar
• 4. Encoding experience in language: The system of transitivity
• 5. Pragmatics and point of view
• 6. Gender, ideology and point of view
• 7. Afterword
• References
• Index