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GUIDE
TO: Fowler R, Hodge B, Kress G and Trew T (1979) Language and Control,
London: Routledge Kegan and Paul.
Chapter five (Hodge, Kress and
Jones) 'The
Ideology of Middle-Management', 81 - 93
Language expresses ideologies in the form of
particular categories
rather than universals. This study is about how one particular category
of individuals responds to ideological conflicts and problems -- the
middle manager -- and how language orders their social world. The study
arose in the context of a management training course.
One concern seem to be who is called what and who does what. These are
interdependent. There seemed to be no actual names for roles, and
participants identified themselves using terms such as 'part of
our management', rather than a specific manager. This leaves a certain
useful ambiguity.
The abstract noun 'management' is actually used in a number of
constructions (with more detail on page 83), for example:
(a) to deny a 'syntactic agent', to permit the use of passive
verbs, to imply that a team plays a part rather than nominated
individuals specifically; (b) to permit individuals to locate
themselves relationally rather than in terms of a specific job
function, alluding to all sorts of practices to establish consensus
rather than to reveal any sometimes messy politics of
decision-making; (c) to dehumanize or reify procedures, into the
extent of talking about 'X that does Y 'rather than 'X who
does Y' (87).
Thus managerial newspeak has rules which govern certain linguistic
formations and in particular ensure that 'the spatialization of
the ideological problem pervades the syntax' (88). Activity is recoded
in spatial terms, and matter of who reports to whom. This produces for
example the 'line-management' metaphor, which avoids any notion
of division between managers and others. Management appears as a group,
and much of its activity focuses on cohesion and identity rather than
any internal divisions.
This is seen in the way the questions are answered, for example about
the precise role of middle managers and what makes them different from
other employees. What happens is that there is an elaboration and
transformation, for example into lines of responsibility and groups. In
these activities, 'ideological and linguistic processes are...
acting together': the construction of new metaphors for the
organisation can produce new possibilities for such ideological and
linguistic transformation [compare this to the wonderful account
of what managers do in the HEA Change Academy, where they seemed to be
insisting that changing metaphors and narratives actually changes
organizations, not just ideological and linguistic transformations of
existing divisions of power].
Pronoun usage is also important. It is common to talk about 'our'
management, rather than 'my' or 'their' management. There
is a common shift in terms from 'they' to 'we', as a
'covert attempt [by middle managers] to gain power'. When senior
management employ these devices it is to conceal their dominance.
There is the use of 'modal verbs', such as 'can'. When managers
say they can do things, there is a useful ambiguity involved, referring
both to the ability to do something and permission to do it. [As in
'I'll do what I can'] There are mental process verbs such as
'think': this can be used to soften a decision, to offer an opinion
rather than a fact [such as 'I think I can see a way forward']. There
are also distancing devices such as 'that would be difficult',
or 'if you look...'. And there are stalling devices, which gives
the speaker time to think ('errm') [and I also like the
strategic stutter, which also has the benefit in the UK of implying an
early prep school education -- as in 'I, I, I, can see what you
mean, but, but, but,...']. Stalling devices also alert the interpreter
that 'an extra amount of editing was [allegedly? ] applied by the
speaker to the bit of speech that follows' (92).
There is equivocation in the use of the present tense, which implies
certainty, and a common 'complex weaving of uncertainty'.
This 'linguistic equivocation mirrors the tension of the real
situation... the reality and actuality of uncertain status and
function' (92). [It would need a lengthy example to demonstrate
this, but anyone listening to a middle manager and trying to get a
decision from them will be familiar with the general tendency, to want
to appear confident and authoritative, while simultaneously realizing
that they need to cover their back and not promise anything too
specific].
Thus ideological problems can be seen as affecting speech, and once
they are put into spoken form, some kind of resolution becomes
possible. It requires a certain skill to do this [I have known many
academics who have had to withdraw for a week or two before they have
come back as fully fledged managers and fluent management bullshit
speakers -- sometimes they have to go off for training, of course].
Middle managers have to learn, for example, to reclassify labels, to
fit general labels to specific contents and contexts. They have to be
able to manage 'syntactic potential', so that, for example,
descriptions somehow substitute for activities [as in 'I am
your programme leader'... which leaves open the question 'But
what do you actually do? What are your responsibilities, and what are
my rights?']. Reclassifications like this often occur as responses to
specific threats, which can include new management enthusiasms, such as
a wave of 'human relations or job enrichment' approaches. Since
middle managers are always open to these threats, there is a constant
need for them to reclassify [which certainly explains the furious
pace of change from one job description to another, from
line-management to matrix management, to the creation of new posts and
so on].
[Trew, in the next chapter, is going to suggest that this linguistic
strategy is common to theory as well as to ideology. This reminds me of
Lyotard and his argument that even science does not actually have any
external goals these days, but spends quite a lot of its time in
'parology'-- attempts to generate something new]
Chapter six (Trew) 'Theory and
Ideology at Work'
(94 - 116)
It is important to be have to deal with 'awkward facts 'or
anomalies, especially in terms of social ideologies. Common strategies
involve denial, suppression or reinterpretation [including at
hominem suggestions that anomalies arise from the personal motives of
troublemakers].
A particular kind of discourse is required to manage such anomalies,
and examples can be found in areas such as the law, or the media and
how they manage to transform a story [as in realism]. Discourses
like these proceed by categories involving agents, processes, effects
and circumstances (100). One tactic is used different verbs or
adjectives to show developments, such as leaving out the agents The
example here is a news story about policemen shooting black protesters
in what was then Rhodesia; the follow up simply switched the agents
from policemen to Africans [suggesting that African protest was
what led to the events, that the protesters had somehow deserved to be
shot]. There is also an example of 'denominalization' in the next
chapter]. Much depends on the angle of the story, the words used, and
the tenses of the verbs.
Chapter 10 (Fowler and Kress)
'Critical
Linguistics'
This is the name for the general approach which attempts to link
linguistic forms and social forms, through the use of the term
discourse. Critical linguistics does not just focus on the formal
characteristics of language and its social uses, as in Chomsky, but
tries to develop a theory of communicative competence. The argument is
that social context is coded in language -- for example, in other
languages like French, there are both polite and familiar uses of words
such as 'you', and using the familiar term to a stranger can indicate
power over them.
Critical linguistics looks especially at five areas of actual
language: '(a) events/states, processes, grammar of
transitivity; (b) interpersonal relations between speaker and
hearer, and the grammar of modality; (c) the manipulation of
linguistic material, including transformations; (d) linguistic
ordering, such as the grammar of classification; (e) the
coherence, unity and order of the discourse' (198).
Particular grammatical features are then highlighted. Transitivity
refers to the use of active or passive linguistic forms and agents.
Modality refers to interpersonal relations between speakers and others,
indicated by matters such as the user for more or familiar names,
pronouns (where 'we', or 'you' can refer to anyone, or an
assumed addressee -- such uses occur to refer to indirectness and
distance, and thus code power relations). Transformations involve in
particular nominalizations and passivizations (207)
Nominalization is indicated by a part of the sentence rather than
expression, 'involving a verb or adjective' (208), for
example 'French moves in international dispute'. Such a term
depersonalizes and demodalizes, and loses its tense. It also
objectifies. Passivization displaces agents, as in terms such as 'black
demonstrators were shot', rather than 'policemen shoot black
demonstrators'.
Transformations can also include 'raising', where a constituent
from a subordinate clause is lifted to be a constituent in the main
clause. For example, negatives can be raised as in 'we do not
want to say more', or noun phrases, such as 'miners are expected
to return to work' (rather than 'the Prime Minister expects
miners to return'). This helps gain attention [and adds
emphasis?]. Another transformation is extraposition, as in 'it is
now clear that x had left', rather than simply 'x had left'.
Here, the subject noun phrase is moved or extraposed behind the
verb [I'm not clear what effect this is supposed produce, except
to dramatize again or to claim some expert overview?].
Classifications can include neologisms [management-speak is full
of these, of course, with terms like 'drivers', 'rolling
out initiatives' and the like. Presumably, these neologisms have the
function of indicating who is 'in' and who isn't, and justifying
management control by appealing to some esoteric vocabulary which is
allegedly more precise and specific, and alludes to some powerful
management theory].
Finally, attempts to make discourses coherent also give the impression
of 'an implementation of the conception of the inner order of
materials' (212) [a way of avoiding responsibility for events that have
their own logic and development sequence, or possibly another claim to
expertise, that policy is based on some expert grasp of how events
actually work?]
contents page
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