Language and Power, Norman Fairclough

Chapter four: Discourse, common sense and ideology

The conventions routinely drawn upon in discourse embody ideological assumptions which come to be taken as
mere 'common sense', and which contribute to sustaining existing power relations.
Common sense is at the service of power: ideologies are embedded in features of discourse which are taken
for granted as matters of common sense.
The familiar common sense world of everyday life is a world which is built entirely upon assumptions and
expectations which control both the actions of members of a society and their interpretation of the actions of
others. Such assumptions and expectations are implicit, backgrounded, taken for granted, not things that people
are consciously aware of, rarely explicitly formulated or examined or questioned. The common sense of
discourse, thus, is a contributing factor of a dominant ideology. The effectiveness of ideology depends to a
considerable degree on it being merged with this common-sense background to discourse and other forms of
social action.

IMPLICIT ASSUMPTIONS, COHERENCE AND INFERENCING

What must you do to make sense of a whole text to arrive at a coherent interpretation of it, assuming you already
know the meanings of its constituent parts?
Firstly, you certainly need to work out how the parts of the text link to each other. Secondly, you also need to
figure out how the text fits in with your previous experience of the world: what aspects of the world it relates to, or
indeed what conception of the world it presupposes. In short, you need to establish a 'fit' between text and world.
Norman Fairclough uses the term coherence in a way which brings in both types of connection: (i) between the
sequential parts of a text; and (ii) between (parts of) a text and 'the world'.
The sense or coherence of a whole text is generated in a sort of chemical reaction which you get when you put
together what's in the text and what's already 'in' the interpreter - that is, the common-sense assumptions and
expectations of the interpreter, part of what Fairclough have called “members' resources”.
Both the production of a text and the interpretation of a text have an interpretative character. The producer of the
text constructs the text as an interpretation of the world; formal features of the text are traces of that
interpretation. The traces constitute cues for the text interpreter, who draws upon his assumptions and
expectations (incorporated in frames) to construct her interpretation of the text. Thus text interpretation is the
interpretation of an interpretation.
As regards coherence between the sequential parts of a text, implicit assumptions chain together successive
parts of texts by supplying 'missing links' between explicit propositions, which the hearer/reader either supplies
automatically, or works out through a process of inferencing. Inference is the act of drawing conclusions about
something on the basis of information that you have.
We supply the linking assumption automatically, by a process of automatic gap-filling. It is the reader who is
responsible for bringing all these assumptions into the process of interpretation, not the text. None of them is
asserted in the text.
As regards the relationship between 'common sense' and ideology, the operation of ideology can be seen in
terms of ways of constructing texts which constantly and cumulatively 'impose assumptions' upon text interpreters
and text producers, typically without either being aware of it.

Common sense and ideology

'Common sense' is substantially, though not entirely, ideological.
It is this conception of ideology as an 'implicit philosophy' in the practical activities of social life, backgrounded
and taken for granted, that connects it to 'common sense'.
Ideology may be regarded as essentially tied to power relations.
Ideological common sense is defined as common sense in the service of sustaining unequal relations of power.
This is a matter of degree. Common-sense assumptions may in varying degrees contribute to sustaining unequal
power relations. They also do other things, also in varying degrees, such as establishing and consolidating
solidarity relations among members of a particular social grouping. If one listens to the discourse of one’s family or
friends or colleagues, it is noticeable how many assumptions are taken for granted. Being able to take so much for
granted is also an important sign that one 'belongs'.
Ideology is most effective when its workings are least visible.
If one becomes aware that a particular aspect of common sense is sustaining power inequalities at one's own
expense, it ceases to be common sense, and may cease to have the capacity to sustain power inequalities, i.e. to
function ideologically. And invisibility is achieved when ideologies are brought to discourse not as explicit
elements of the text, but as the background assumptions.
Texts do not typically spout ideology. They give the interpreter cues for him to take and make an interpretation.
For that reason, what I referred to in the last section as automatic
'gap-filling', the supplying of 'missing links' needed for sequential coherence without inferential 'work', are of
particular interest from an ideological perspective. The more mechanical the functioning of an ideological
assumption in the construction of coherent mterpretations, the less likely it is to become a focus of conscious
awareness, and hence the more secure its ideological status.

VARIATION AND STRUGGLE IN IDEOLOGY

There is a constant endeavour on the part of those who have power to try to impose an ideological common
sense which holds for everyone. But there is always some degree of ideological diversity, and indeed conflict
and struggle, so that ideological uniformity is never completely achieved. That is why we are sometimes able as
interpreters to remain distant from assumptions which text producers put across as commonsensical. This can be
illustrated by the example of political ideologies. We can all find political texts whose ideological common sense is
at odds with our own.
There is certainly a great deal of variation in the extent of ideological diversity between societies, or between
different periods in the history of a particular society. What determines the level of diversity? Basically the state of
social relationships and social struggle. In a society where power relationships are stable, one would not expect to
find a great deal of ideological diversity. Furthermore, within a society, there may well be variation between
different institutions.
Ideological diversity sets limits on what I have been calling ideological common sense.
So where do these diverse ideologies come from? They come from differences in position, experience and
interests between social groupings, which enter into relationship with each other in terms of power. These
groupings may be social classes, they may be women versus men, they may be groupings based on ethnicity,
and so on.
Among the various forms which social struggle may take, it is ideological struggle that is of particular concern in
the present context because ideological struggle especially takes place in language. We can think of such
struggle as not only in language in the obvious sense that it takes place in discourse and is evidenced in
language texts, but also over language. It is over language in the sense that language itself is a stake in social
struggle as well as a site of social struggle. Having the power to determine things like which word meanings or
which linguistic and communicative norms are legitimate or 'correct' or 'appropriate' is an important aspect of
social and ideological power, and therefore a focus of ideological struggle.

Dominant and dominated discourse types

The struggle over language can manifest itself as a struggle between ideologically diverse discourse types.
Discourse types refer to conventions, norms, codes of practice underlying actual discourse. Discourse types are
ideologically particular and ideologically variable.
Why then a struggle between discourse types? What is at stake? What is at stake is the establishment or
maintenance of one type as the dominant one in a given social domain, and therefore the establishment or
maintenance of certain ideological assumptions as commonsensical.
A dominated type may be in a relationship of opposition to a dominant one. The linguist Michael Halliday calls one
type of oppositional discourse the anti-language. Anti-languages are set up and used as conscious alternatives
to the dominant or established discourse types. Examples would be the language of the criminal underworld, or
the 'nonstandard' social dialect of a minority ethnic grouping.
Another possibility is for a dominated discourse type to be contained by a dominant one.
Where dominated discourses are oppositional, there will be pressure for them to be suppressed or eliminated;
whereas containment provides them with a certain legitimacy and protection.

Naturalization and the generation of common sense

Naturalization is a matter of degree, and the extent to which a discourse type is naturalized may change, in
accordance with the shifting 'balance of forces' in social struggle.
What is the connection of naturalization to the ideological common sense? Naturalization is the royal road
to common sense. Ideologies come to be ideological common sense to the extent that the discourse types which
embody them become naturalized. In this sense, common sense in its ideological dimension is itself an effect of
power.
But in the naturalization of discourse types and the creation of common sense, discourse types actually appear to
lose their ideological character. A naturalized type tends to be perceived not as that of a particular grouping within
the institution, but as simply that of the institution itself. So it appears to be neutral in struggles for power, which is
equivalent to it being placed outside ideology. An example would be learning how to operate discoursally in the
classroom.
The apparent emptying of the ideological content of discourses is, paradoxically, a fundamental ideological effect:
ideology works through disguising its nature, pretending to be what it isn't.
We can see rationalizations as part of naturalization: rationalizations of practices serve to legitimize them.

IDEOLOGY AND MEANING

One dimension of 'common sense' is the meaning of words. Most of the time, we treat the meaning of a word (and
other linguistic expressions) as a simple matter of fact, and if there is any question
about 'the facts' we see the dictionary as the place where we can check up on them. For words we are all
perfectly familiar with, it's a matter of mere common sense that they mean what they mean.
Thus, the fixed dictionary meanings that present themselves as simple matters of fact to common sense are
always the outcome of a process of naturalization, in so far as the arbitrariness of meaning systems is hidden,
though only in certain cases (ideology but not nose, for instance) is naturalization the outcome of ideological
struggle
Naturalization has parallel effects on words and utterances: both involve a closure or restriction of the plenitude of
potential meanings. In the case of words and expressions thought of as dictionary items, this is a matter of the
fixing and naturalization of their meaning.
Example: Can I help you? uttered by a police officer standing at a reception counter in a police station to a person
who has just entered the station has a closed and transparent meaning within the particular naturalized practice
of this discourse of police/public encounters.

INTERACTIONAL ROUTINES AND THEIR BOUNDARIES

Common sense gives us not only fixed meaning, but also what we might call the 'interactional routines' associated
with particular discourse types ( the conventional ways in which participants interact with each other). For
example, we take part in consultations with doctors or patients, and so forth, without giving a moment's thought to
the conventional routines for relating to other participants. It's generally only when things go wrong that we pay
attention to them.
What happens with word meanings as a consequence of naturalization applies also here: there is no inherent
reason why consultation with doctors should be conventionally structured the way they are.
Another way in which the arbitrariness of naturalized dominant interactional routines becomes apparent is when
they are confronted or contrasted with other non-dominant practices.

SUBJECTS AND SITUATIONS

The socialization of people involves them coming to be placed in a range of subject positions, to which they are
exposed partly through learning to operate within various discourse types.
Subject positions are specific to discourse types, and ideologically variable.
There is a dialectical process in discourse wherein the subject is both created and creative.
People are not conscious of being socially positioned as subjects, and standardly see their own subjective
identities as somehow standing outside and prior to society. Such ideological misperceptions is what ideology is
all about: all ideology is in one way or another to do with positioning subjects.
This applies also to situations of discourse.
Situations do not exist prior to and independently of discourse as we tend to commonsensically assume, but
rather they are the products of discourse that having their own particular inventories of situation types.
Both the subject positions and the situation types of dominant discourse types are liable to be naturalized.
The naturalization of the meanings of words is an effective way of constraining the contents of discourse and, in
the long term, knowledge and beliefs. So too is the naturalization of situation types, which helps to consolidate
particular images of the social order. The naturalization of interactional routines is an effective way of constraining
the social relations which are enacted in discourse, and of constraining in the longer term a society's system of
social relationships. Finally, the naturalization of subject positions constrains subjects, and in the longer term
determines the 'stock' of social identities in a given institution or society. Naturalization, then, is the most
effective weapon of power, and therefore a significant focus of struggle.

'MAKING TROUBLE': FOREGROUNDING COMMON SENSE

Common sense can be Foregrounded if people become self-conscious about things which they unreflectingIy take
for granted.
One situation in which the common-sense elements of discourse are brought out into the open is when things go
wrong in discourse. Instances of communication breakdown and miscommunication, and instances where people
attempt to 'repair' their discourse are ways of highlighting and foregrounding discoursal common sense.
Another situation where common-sense elements are foregrounded is where there is a sufficiently large social or
cultural division between participants in an exchange.
A third possibility is the deliberate disturbance of common sense through some form of intervention in discourse.

SUMMARY
Coherence of discourse is dependent on discoursal common sense. Discoursal common sense is
ideological to the extent that it contributes to sustaining unequal power relations, directly or indirectly.
Ideology, however, is not inherently commonsensical: certain ideologies acquire that status in the course of
ideological struggles, which take the linguistic form of struggles in social institutions between ideologically
diverse discourse types. Such struggles determine dominance relations between them and their associated
ideologies. A dominant discourse is subject to a process of naturalization, in which it appears to lose its
connection with particular ideologies and interests and become the common-sense practice of an institution. Thus
when ideology becomes common sense, It apparently ceases to be ideology; this is itself an ideological
effect, for ideology is truly effective only when it is disguised.
Naturalization takes place in several dimensions of discoursal common sense. In the case of the meanings of
linguistic expressions and meaning systems, naturalization was shown to result in a closure of meaning,
reflected in the fixity of the 'dictionary' meanings of words, and in the apparent transparency of utterance
meanings. In the case of interactional routines, the conventional ways of interacting is an effect of naturalization.
And, finally, in the case of the subjects and situations of discourse, their apparent independence of discourse
are illusory effects of naturalization, for they are both to a significant degree products of discourse. Finally,
ways in which ideological common sense can be foregrounded are discussed.