For example: he continually discusses the language of women, particularly women who are part of various dominated linguistic competencies as "docile," "submissive," etc. and often refers to the sexual division of labor, which seems obviously (even here) to be a product of society. However, I'm having difficulty determining if the position of women as he describes them is due to society and the sexual division of labor, or if he sees these character traits that he attributes to them as somehow natural.
Again, the language arts instructor (and by implication the literature instructor/student/producer - which, is by implication all of us as students specializing in literature and literary theory, composition and rhetoric, and or creative writing) is labeled quite clearly as at least the unwitting tool if not the agent of the dominant forces in society (see pages 48 - 49 for the education system in general and, grammarians in particular, pages 55 - 56 for "training" and its implicitly unequal distribution among various classes/competencies, and pages 59 - 61 for the effect/role of not just literature, but the very idea of literary language as a conservative force opposed to popular speech). In fact Bourdieu names "the schoolmaster" a "maitre de penser" or "master[re:teacher] of thinking" whose primary function is to socialize the students to linguistic norms and therefore - how would one say it? - thought norms: "'In teaching the same clear, fixed language to children who know it only very vaguely or who even speak various dialects or patois, he is already inclining them quite naturally to see and feel things in the same way; and he works to build the common consciousness of the nation'" (Davy as qtd. in Bourdieu 49).
Bourdieu makes a compelling case for the symbolic violence inherent in such a situation. In another location (one I cannot find in the text at the moment - alas, the dangers of reading without a pencil!) he refers to the education process inculcating the dominant linguistic form or official language, as a way of killing the mode of expression of those whose linguistic competence is other than the dominant form. And he is right. He indicates that the teacher of language is primarily a socializing influence, working to enforce the strictures of a dead language (in that it is a variant of the living language that exists only in artificiality) in order to banish the undesirable elements of the various varieties (dialects, patois, "popular speech") which are arbitrarily deemed unacceptable by those in the power to determine the strictures of official language. He points to the tying of the linguistic market to the labor market in that the requirements for acceptance into the higher levels of the labor market are limited to those who demonstrate academic (and thus linguistic) proficiency. Thus the educational agenda (re: socializing agenda) is pursued under the guise of promoting the future economic opportunities of those being educated. He even refers to trying to promote the speaking of a given language or style at home in the interests of the children's welfare.
Given his effective and stringent critique of language as a form of capital and of linguistic capital as a good unequally distributed and of the public schools as tools in perpetuating the domination of those with the highest linguistic competencies, what are the alternatives?
I am about halfway through the text and Bourdieu has got me fired up for the presentation of some alternative (other than an anarchic existence in which nationhood is dropped so as not to oppress anyone by enforcing/creating the necessary uniform manner of communication for any basic type of unity) to the status quo, but at this point there isn't any, and in the appendix to part I, it seems that as teachers, the "cult of virility" of the lower classes ensures that we cannot reach them and provide them with the linguistic competencies to advance their situation even if we wanted to.
I guess I'm looking for some practical application of the ideas that would offer an alternative to the status quo. As far as I can see, Bourdieu seems to be indicating that this situation is inherent in the nation state as it exists. Does that mean that we have to achieve utopian anarchy before we can apply these ideas in a constructive fashion? Some hope, please!
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