What is the language of power
Author(s)
Date Issued
2022
Type
book
Abstract
What Is the Language of Power? reflects on the concept of power from a linguistic perspective, giving it both specific and universal interpretations. Within the global Italian linguistic space, the language of power gave the social power of symbolic expression to Italian immigrants who lacked the linguistic means to face the new world. For example, the Italian Canadian community found in Italiese—yesterday considered a mongrel koine, today a paradigm of creative rule-changing—the means of semiotic determination. In Italy and abroad, there are diverse languages of educational, cultural, and economic power, as well as languages of general attraction for foreigners, representing criteria of socio-economic and cultural development. In historical contingency, the languages of power are many and always different. This volume traces the idea of the language of power in Ontario, comparing the dynamics of contact among Italian, dialects and other foreign languages, which may become languages of power themselves. At the universal level, the language of power is that which determines the power of language; that is, the power to solve social problems of communication through linguistic expression. The power of language gives the individual the possibility to say one thing in infinite ways and achieve countless goals. The language that allows these possibilities will always be the language of power.