Althusser and Foucault's View on Language - Essay Example

Althusser and Foucault View on Language Is Always Already Ideological, in relation to Language as Constituting the and As an Expression of Power By Subject Instructor University City, State Date Althusser and Foucault View on Language Is Always Already Ideological, in relation to Language as Constituting the Subject and As an Expression of Power Introduction Language has always been closely associated with ideology and power, since it is serves as prominent as a symbol of distinctiveness and national integration (Wodak, 1989, p. 137). In particular, language has constantly been used as a tool of affirming ethnic identity, in addition to ensuring wider mobilisation. Althusser’s definition of ideology is based on his questioning of how capitalism reproduces itself. He defines ideology as an arrangement distinct from science, and having its own logic and rigor in terms of representation of images, ideas and myths, but depending on the scenario capable with an historical existence of a given society (Ferretter, 2012, p. 76). Althusser’s then considered that class is never inherent but instead culturally created, and individual desires, attitude, behaviours and choices are creation of ideology. Furthermore, he argued that ideology controls people via despotic state machineries built in ideological state devices, and as such, it is impossible to conceive a structure of images plus objects whose connotations can exist separately of language. Althusser’s observes that ideology interpellates existing individuals as material subjects through pre-existing classes comprising the subject (Montag, 2003, p. 45). Foucault, on the other hand observes ideology as an intolerable concept of universal judiciousness, which are based on subjectivity (Mills, 2012, p. 64). Foucault scepticism on ideology is based on his belief that dissimilar rationalities are composed in historical structures. Thus, he mystifies power due to its emphasis on universal truth. Foucault asserts that, subjectivity is the validation of a progression, and it is rather provisional leading to subject(s) (Ransom, 2008, p. 4). To Foucault subjectivities are rather multiple instead of being unified even as it fluctuates instead of being fixed, per se, subjects are socially constituted. Hence, subjectivity possesses a permanent provocation to the discourse or conversation which defines it (Strozier, 2002, p. 21). On the other hand, Althusser’s defines subjectivity as the roles, characteristics or subject possessed by individuals, and willingly undertake in response to an ideology. Thus, according to Althusser’s, subjectivity is the hub of initiatives, an author of, along with being responsible for its actions. Therefore, an individual is for all time a subject, even before he or she is born (Ferretter, 2012, p. 88). The aim of this paper is to discuss the statement that language is always already ideological, but in relation to language as constituting the subject and as an expression of power in reference to Althusser’s and Foucault. Discussion Language changes normally mirrors social transformations, and this makes language to acquire power in the hands of those who are powerful. In most instances, a particular language signifies a group or an individual in power (Brock, 2005, p.10). Language is not just of linguistics, but instead, it is an extensive fragment of dialogue referring to items or events whose denotation inspires ideology, even though they cannot exist autonomously of each other (Blackledge, 2005, p. 1). Althusser’s asserts that, ideology mirrors the imaginary connection of people to their actual situation of existence (Ferretter, 2012, p. 76). Therefore, to perceive what an ideology or substance signifies, is unavoidably to retreat on individualization of language, since there is no implication which is not selected by language. The manner in which individuals formulate things, and the means in which the selection of a certain formulation rules out other formulations or experiences, is based on exertion of ideological influences on language (Burley, 2004, p. 635). The key roles of language include identifying the role of instituting social identities. For instance, the Nazis acquired power due to the makeover and re-articulation of ideological outlines which already existed in then Germany (Wodak, 1989, p. 130). This is also true when it comes to fascism, since its sphere of ideology is defended by fascists who observe it as a subject of activities in articulating their social experience. That’s why propaganda is aimed to a desired ubiquity, as well as pervasion in the restructuring of language experiences. Foucault argues that this power of language is not forced, but given since individuals are not compelled to believe things are true or false, but are within an arrangement of possibilities and admission to power, conviction, and fear (Simpson & Mayr, 2010, p.3). Thus, individuals come to give definite speaking positions to the authority, so as to generate truth. Most frequently, subject status are not taken to be subjective as such, due to lack of objective declarations with no reference to authors, or scientific truths. According to Althusser’s, ideology often exists within an apparatus, and particular ideologies do possess an account of their own. Thus, every ideology applies language which is conveyed through it, in addition to being manifested in the language itself (Harpham, 2002, p. 120). In the political sphere, the supremacy of language is based on the notion that language can be applied in rhetorical persuasion, and whoever articulates it, it all comes down to language, since even the most talented speaker cannot hog the influence of language. For instance, linguistic preferences normally decipher the point of view taken by news media organizations, such as writers with similar events being differently reported depending on the fundamental ideology of the news organization. Althusser’s as a critical linguistic argues in support of the notion that ideology is not phony conscious, or ideology does not distort reality. He reasons that ideology is a particular society implicit collection of beliefs and rational principles (Therborn, 1999, p. 9). Thus, the dominion of language by itself is a resource of power in form of political oratory and demagogy, and which effects ideology in form of seduction by words or persuasion. While Althusser observed discursive performances are ideologically advanced as far as the interpretations they convey enhances the shifting power relations, Foucault build on the concept that language articulates through people, and it is not something that they control or build, but instead the forms as well as connotations of language already exist (Eccleshal, 2003, p. 228). Thus, Foucault insists that people use the already present forms of language to project their control, since it is not just language but the whole discourses offer the confines to what can and cannot be said, or even be understood. Althusser observes that language permits hegemonic power and authority to replicate itself through obscuring of conventional forms of subjugation, evident through integration of individuals into the entire power arrangement (Barker & Galasinski, 2001, p.66). Furthermore, ideology operates as an arbitrator between structures of power and people, and discourse approaches used in covering events, serve to justify and defend ideologies or policies stipulated by most establishments of power. Foucault notes that in all societies, generation of discourse is right away controlled, decided on, prearranged and then redistributed based on certain amount of measures, and whose function is to prevent power and its perils. Foucault further remarks that creation of an ideological discourse is aimed at coping with likelihood events, escaping grand materiality while trying to make sense of the universe through languages (Talbot, Atkinson, & Atkinson, 2003, p. 36). Foucault observes that language unlike ideology, mystifies social along with economic relationships, and it is helpless of identifying the resolve to truth that pervades it. Hence, the determination to truth has been imposed on individuals for along time, such that, the reality it seeks to make known cannot be unsuccessful in masking it (Mills, 2012, p. 65). Althusser’s observes that language is what constructs ideology into portions comprising ideological practices, such that if one aspect of a discursive occurrence is an example of social observance, then another aspect is its text (Ferretter, 2012, p. 78). However, language and ideology need to be distinguished in the context of exercising power, since interpretation can provide a feeling that the power exercised via language bears inside itself the bug comprising its counter-power. This power of language extends from large political contexts to even the manner of speaking, in addition to that of thinking which dictatorships and totalitarian orders force upon their dominated people. Therefore, to argue that language is always already ideological implies that discourse functions through rules and convention of exclusion, especially regarding what is proscribed (Fairclough, 2000, p. 76). Language enables power to command, by speaking where others ought to only hear and comply with. Such an understanding of authority of language is a subject of mechanism of language for the rationale of applying power. Althusser notes that the ideological status of language reveals itself not just primarily through the language of power based on overriding repression, but through its emancipatory probability, especially in opening to others and new potential of speaking, thinking or acting (Ferretter, 2012, p. 80). Therefore, discursive transformations take place due to contradictions involving long-established subject standings, into which they were amalgamated along with the fresh relations about institutional and community levels. Foucault observes that such a discursive power makes the highest truth not to exist in what language was, or what it achieved, since it rests on what was said (Mills, 2012, p. 70). Such form of language is generated through the determination to knowledge, coupled with the resolve to power. This sketches a representation of probable, apparent, reckonable along with classifiable objects. It is imposed on the perceptive subject by taking preference over every experience or certain viewpoint (Fairclough, 2000, p. 30). Therefore, the will to knowledge, truth and power, possesses a history comprising a group of subjects to be cultured. As such, it is never in actual fact truth or deception which is at stake, or right or wrong, but the justification of the stakes, since fixity is prized more over transformation. Specifically, every ideology exists to articulate particular truths. That’s why after individuals learn how to believe and converse based on the terms and truths of ideologies, they mislay the views of the reality because, such truths are build on a language, and which exist autonomous from the insights and restrictions of the words that shaped them. Althusser by abandoning unstructured notions of cohesion, in support of more physical concept of the roles of ideology, in particular the reproduction of present relations of invention, reveals that language as an ideology needs a great deal more than the conventional metaphor of superstructures (Fairclough, 2000). Nevertheless, the conception of a subject should not be alienated from that comprising its object, or from the relation detained to exist between them. This is because, subject together with objects, are created for each other ideological beliefs, particularly the social practices which relate to power, ethics and beliefs, and that they are uphold through language practices (Woolard & Schieffelin, 1994, p. 60). In consequence, language becomes the location of and risk of class struggle, not only representing but aiding the creation of certain social relations, or social identities, but also the creation of certain structures of knowledge plus convictions. As such, ideologies entrenched in language and discourse practices turn out to be more effectual when they are naturalized, even they dynamic and can result in ideological disparities between dissimilar discursive practices which are in use in a particular domain or institution. Therefore, ideological contrasts establish the ideological struggles when trying to restructure discursive practices, at a more wide-ranging level. For this reason, the unconscious is planned similar to a language, whereby the acquisition of language creates the subject, in form of ego, and goes together with the repression of the concealed discourse of imagination and unconsciousness (Fairclough, 2000, p. 48). Ideology is a matter of acquiring the symbolic through language rules and semantics, and given that syntactical components differentiates people from others, it offers people certain power to direct the humanity of others through symbolic manipulation of sentences (Eccleshal, 2003, p. 58). Such a notion is evident from language, to behaviour, to crimes and even in science. For instance, in crime, the victim is presumed to be able to converse, and as such, a person cannot be deemed a victim except when he or she is able to communicate their victimhood. In particular, unless an individual can converse, he or she cannot readily and easily testify to their personal victimhood. Accordingly, even though trauma cannot be presented via signification, the victims are obligated to talk about it. Foucault asserts that, even though education is right as an instrument in which every person in a particular society can attain access to any form of ideology in language, when it comes to its distribution and in what it can allow or prevent, language pursues a well-compacted battle position of social divergences and conflicts (Mills, 2012, p. 66). On the other hand, Althusser’s argues that a whole lot of things ranging from knowledge to subjectivity are brought to a halt as being existent instead of potentially transforming. Hence, people study things so that they can discern them, and after they know them, there is mostly a sense of that is it, and that there is no need of rethinking about them (Ferretter, 2012, p.76). Accordingly, all education systems serve as political means of preserving and modifying misappropriation of language, especially the ideology in terms of the knowledge plus powers it conveys with it. Althusser’s notes that there is an unending conflict involving the unconscious or insensible as well as the self-image or ego, and it is a continuing process of incongruities between the authentic or desires, the figurative, as well as the imaginary. Consequently, subjects of an ideology are not as unifying whole as expected, since human beings are fundamentally ex-centric to themselves (Ferretter, 2012, p. 67). Given that ideology is a dissimilar order as well as being a different mode of language from technical knowledge, Althussers notion of recognition or misrecognition cannot be matched up to the knowledge along with ideology of scientific observations. Foucault on the contrary notes that, language rules of power define the grounds for existence, in addition to observing existence as infinite. This creates reality and practices based on plain logic that the privileged few observes, even as it needs a definite language outside the on the daily basis language which ought to be learned. Therefore, this indoctrinates the constituents into a system of thinking, whereby senior constituents are authorised and even valued within the society (Harpham, 2002, p. 30). Foucault explains that the founders of ideologies, in particular the structures of thoughts, tend to manipulate the unfilled structures of a given language with their objectives (Mills, 2012, p. 89). Hence, they grasp spontaneously the meanings underlying the languages and its sets of meanings, while ensuring that history will make them to be explicit enough, such that, their own version of propositions, knowledge, science, as well as deductive, eventually find their own version of foundation. They even create fellowship of language such as universities, so that they can preserve and reproduce their ideology within the discourse, and in the end to circulate inside the closed community based on strict regulations (Fairclough, 2000, p. 20). Ideology through doctrine is supported through a single collection of discourse in language, whereby individuals can define their give-and-take allegiance. The doctrines connect the people to certain forms of utterances, and at the same time, barring them from others, by implementing a dual subjection, based on speaking subjects to dialogue, and the subjection of dialogue to the grouping of speakers (Fairclough, 2000, p. 50). According to Althusser’s, such a hole is predicated on the variations involving language belonging to the unconscious on one hand, and the symbolic arrangement of society on the other hand (Ferretter, 2012, p. 80). This is then intensified through the existence of indistinctness between the signifier and the signified nature of every language. Language is a mover of profound culture of societies regarding their beliefs about truth defined as natural, ordinary, moral, good or bad, and enviable or evil. The power or influence of language is not its fraternization with domination and submission but for the objectives. Any person can take tenure of the supremacy of language, and in the end, be able to perceive through and then debunk the clout exercised via language. However, language can communicate the power of violent behaviour or dominance and all at once undermines it. For instance, the language used by political demagogues or tyrants can be observed through as verbal communication, and certainly as a means of language itself. The authentic, internal power of language is instead meant to undercut other forms of power, when violent rule and legitimate rule in the end depend on the supremacy of language to control and to assert themselves (Eccleshal, 2003, p. 40). For example, the silencing or phrasing of an injustice through language diversion, such as in genocide, child exploitation, rape, and exploitation of women, has no principles or agreed guidelines concerning the grievances. Thus, language can be very vulnerable in commanding power, since command issued through language can be acted upon, refused and even understood and interpreted or re-interpreted by those who possess substantially divisible and endemic intent in disseminating the influence of language (Brock, 2005, p. 40). Language is not just an implement to be dispensed by power, but also a counter-power that cannot be constrained nor repressed. Notably, power rest on numerous factors, such as weapons or money, but unlike language they are restricted in availability, since some have them while others do not. Thus, such scarcity sets up the supremacy of some people over other men. This reveals the ubiquitous social relationship between power and inequality. Any person can conquer the control of language exclusive of disputing any other person right to it, since language is constrained by hierarchical collection of conventions that are attached to ideological contestation. For instance, as Foucault puts it that there are no real differences between truth and fictive discourses in language, since by giving power instead of taken it, people empower certain individuals to speak on their behalf, in the belief that they speak for them and describe the circumstances of their own realities (Mills, 2012, p. 23). Conclusion Both Althusser and Foucault have formed discourses which enable them to brand and identify language as being always already ideological in which individuals and their sources of power are subjected. However, Althusser observes that this subject-hood is twofold, since it subjugates the people as rather passive beings who have been involuntarily defined under particular ideological scope discourse. Foucault observes that language as an ideology concurrently and counter-intuitively, acts as a threat to self-sufficiency and resistance. Language as a relatively self-directed linguistic foundation may be apathetic to political struggles, and that every discursive route is emblazoned into an ideological group relationship. That is why words, terminologies, and propositions change their denotation based on ideological positions being held by those who utilize them. In the end, power or influence arising from language does not lie with the presenter, but with the language itself, and as such, this authority belongs to anyone who uses language, and has a command of it. Therefore, empowerment should be through the authentic authority of language, and not via exact contents and organization of knowledge conveyed via power.   List of References Barker, C., & Galasinski, D. (2001). Cultural Studies and Discourse Analysis: A Dialogue on Language and Identity. SAGE. Blackledge, A. (2005). Discourse and Power in a Multilingual World. John Benjamin’s publishing. Brock, B. L. (2005). 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