Power in Communication: revisiting power studies

Topics in Linguistics. 2016. Vol. 17. No. 1. P. 92–110.

Svetlana N. Kucherenko

This paper revisits a range of theories of power in communication and argues that there has been no methodology able to grasp the multiplicity of power in communication as a concept. As a result, the present scholarship on power in communication is characterized by a multiplicity of approaches that a) use the concept of power as a self-explanatory or vague concept in the analysis of several interactional phenomena; b) draw on a particular approach to power, disregarding multiple workings of power; or c) acknowledge the complexity of power and synthesize various approaches to power.

Ключевые слова: общее языкознание, анализ дискурса, власть коммуникации, power in communication, theories of power, multiplicity of approaches, discourse, power terms