LANGUAGE, POWER, IDEOLOGY

by

MADHUSHREE BASAK     18BEE1064

 AASTHA MALHOTRA        18BEE1095

MUSKAN KARIRA              18BEE1062

 VIDYA SRI                          18BEC1093

DONGARI SAI SREE          18BEC1267

A project report submitted to

Dr. GOVINDARAJAN P 

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the course of 

FRE1001: FRANCAIS QUOTIDIEN

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

We are extremely grateful to Dr. GOVINDARAJAN P. Professor of  VIT Chennai, for extending facilities of the towards our project and for his untiring support. 

We wish to express our sincere thanks and deep sense of gratitude to our project guide, Dr. GOVINDARAJAN P, Associate Professor, for his consistent encouragement and valuable guidance offered to us in a pleasant manner throughout the course of the project work.

We also take this opportunity to thank the faculty of the school for their support and their wisdom imparted to us throughout the course.

We thank our parents, family and friends for bearing with us throughout the course of our project and for the opportunity they provided us in undergoing this course in such a prestigious institution.

LANGUAGE , POWER, IDEOLOGY

 

INTRODUCTION:

The topic of Language and Ideology has increasingly gained importance in the linguistic sciences. The general aim of critical linguistics is the exploration of the mechanisms of power which establish inequality, through the systematic analysis of political discourse .The concepts of power and ideology occupy a central place in the areas of critical studies of language. It implies that every social institution has its own set of commonly held or common sense assumptions called its ideologies and that any use of language in that institution invariably embodies its ideology. Ideologies are closely linked to power and language. Firstly, language is the common form of social behaviour. Societal differences are constituted and legitimized through the forms of language use. Secondly, following Althusser it is learnt that the power relations, by their very character, are always asymmetrical. These asymmetrical power relations, which are part of its ideologies, are negotiated and perpetuated through its discourse. Therefore, it is argued that the study of the discourse of advertising is the study of its language, ideologies and the ways through which it constitutes or naturalizes the existing power relations. Adverts reproduce these favourable attitudes and manners by acts of what Althusser calls actions. Interpellation is a hail, an address that constructs subjectivities. It is by constituting concrete individuals as 'subjects' that adverts spread their ideologies. 

LANGUAGE:

 

French language:

French primarily originated from Vulgar Latin and it is a romantic language. The early forms of French include: old French, middle French.

Vulgar Latin:

The people of Gaul adopted Latin due to Roman rule and developed a local character which was different from Latin spoken in other places. This local language evolved into Gallo-Romance tongues.

Old French:

Due to German invasion in Gaul, the French started to evolve. The invasion had a great impact on the northern part of Gaul and thus a language divide decided to grow. Old French spanned from 8^th century to 14^th century. Old French and Latin had many similarities.

Middle French:

During the middle French period (14^th-17^th century) the Francien dialect continued and thrived. Grammar changed drastically in the middle French period and began to standardize rules.

Modern French:

During the 17^th, French replaced Latin as the most important language of diplomacy and international relations. This role was retained till the middle of the 20^th century and it was replaced by English when United States became the global power after the second world war. During the second world war under powerful leaders such as Cardinal Richelieu and Louis XIV, France enjoyed a period of prosperity and prominence among European countries. Richelieu tried to protect the French language.

At the beginning of 19^th century, the French government made provisions to eradicate other minority and regional languages from France. After public education was made compulsory, use of any other regional language was punished. French teaching teachers were specially sent to regional language speaking areas.

French language or langue Francaise is a romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. A French speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is an official language in 29 countries across multiple different continents. French is the fourth most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union. Approximately only one-fifth are able to speak French as a second language. French is also the second most taught foreign language. French is also the eighteenth most natively spoken language in the world, sixth most spoken language and the second most studied language worldwide.

Being the second most taught dialect globally after English, and having a leadership and after which are sympathize with the quantity of its understudies, French is doubtlessly the dialect to know nowadays. French is the main other "global" dialect, being talked in 5 mainlands. French is taught in universities around the world, and is one of the world's most influential languages because of its wide use in the worlds of journalism, jurisprudence, the academy, and diplomacy.

French is a morphophonemic language. French is a moderately inflected language. French is one of the official languages of such major international and regional courts, tribunals, and dispute-settlement bodies as the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights, the Caribbean Court of Justice, the Court of Justice for the Economic Community of West African States, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea the International Criminal Court and the World Trade Organization Appellate Body. It is the sole internal working language of the Court of Justice of the European Union, and makes with English the European Court of Human Rights' s two working languages.

 

POWER:

 

One of the most critical part of being in a society is communication and this is where a language comes to play, to be able to express our words and our feelings. A language is in itself one of the most important activity in our day to day life and in addition being bilingual as its own supremacy. 

French is one of the most important languages in the world. On the internet it is the third most spoken language and is considered an official language for not only many countries but numerous international organizations and for official scholarly work too. Moreover, it is an official or a main second language in 55 countries worldwide, and is reputed to be the foreign language which is most widely used in international communications, after English. This means that almost 300 million people speak French as their native language or as a second language.

The language, French has been spoken in areas like history, arts, and even in business . one of the World’s Greatest literary masterpieces are made in French. Due to this several historians and scholars tend to learn French . Even In business knowing French, a widely spoken and respected language has its own perks. France is home to many rich art collectors and business tycoons themselves consider knowing the language. Interestingly, French is always an official language used to announce events, winners, and medals at the Olympic Games.

Since the Middle Ages, France has enjoyed an exceptional position in European intellectual life. Though its literary culture has no single figure whose influence can be compared to that of Italy’s Dante or England’s Shakespeare, successive periods have seen its writers and their language exercise an influence far beyond its borders. In a way, French is also a language for the romantic. It’s essence captures the beauty and elegance. The rhythmic sounds of the words justifies it being called dreamy.  In fact, France has won more Nobel Prizes for literature than any other country. the language is a home to many great names in history - names such as Descartes, Pascal, Rousseau, Voltaire, Camus, Satre ,Molière Zola, Hugo, Monet, Rodin and Chopin - have been French, and their heritage remains an integral part of European culture to this day. This richness and authenticity in the language French has earned its name and fame in today’s world making it a powerful language.

Be it the 19th century or the 21st century, the language French has impacted the world in its own creative ways bringing the country France has been a superpower. Its magnificence surely leaves an everlasting imprint.

IDEOLOGY:

 

 It was and remains a system of ideas that are usually goal- directed. Thus, it is a theoretical explanation of the world's situation and a prescription for improvement or radical change of that situation. In this sense, ideology is rooted in historical consciousness, in an awareness of mankind's progress through time and how that progress might be redirected toward an alternate objective. Most ideologies are, therefore, fundamentally political, bright descriptions of the means and methods by which the instruments of revolution, party, or government ought be used for the purpose of social change.

Ideology is, in a way, the secular equivalent of theology. It directs the believer's attention to a perfected future when present woes will have dissipated and social harmony will reign. The future, therefore, holds the promise for the ideologue that heaven holds for the devout, religious-minded individual.

The introduction of ideology into the modern world was one major effect of the new secular spirit of the eighteenth century. Once society was deemed to be man- made--and here the influence of the Enlightenment is noticeable--then it could be changed. Ideology was the prescription for that change. And the force of ideology was felt throughout the modern era.

Napoleon Bonaparte came to view ‘ideology’ a term to abuse, which he often hurled against this liberal foes. According to Karl Mannheim’s historical reconstruction of the shifts is the meaning of ideology, the modern meaning of the word has born when napoleon used it to describe his opponents as the ideologues.

Psychological research increasingly suggest that ideologies reflect motivational processes, as opposed to the view that political conditions always reflect independent and unbiased thinking. It is proposed that the ideologies may function as prepackaged units of interpretations that spread because of basic human motives to understand the world, avoid existential threat and maintain valued interpersonal relationships. Such motives may lead disproportionately to the adoption of system justifying world views psychologists have generally found that personality traits, individual difference variables, needs and ideological believes seem to have a common thread.

Edmund Burke was one of the first to suggest that the philosophers of the French Enlightenment were somehow responsible for the French Revolution, and his argument was taken up, and elaborated on, by many historians, including Tocqueville and Lord Acton. The philosophes undoubtedly provided the ideas. It may well be that the collapse of the old regime was the consequence of other factors – economic problems, social unrest, conflicting ambitions of groups and individuals – but in the unfolding of the Revolution, what was thought, what was said, and what was advocated, was expressed in terms and categories that came from political theorists of the Enlightenment.

                                         

 

CONCLUSION

 

Learning another language enriches the mind and opens up new horizons, both personal and professional. Learning language helps to develop  international communication, introduction to new culture and society.

It simply feels great to be indulged in a different culture and learns its values. Each and everyone are more inclined towards English than any other language ,eg French. English is everywhere . And it is also predicted that at the end of the century ,   almost ol of the language that exist now will no longer be spoken . so why to learn French or any other language?

Language channels our thoughts so does French , for example- in French word for ‘table’ is  feminine ,  but for others its not . so as to encourage different mindset we need to have different languages to learn . language channels the culture