| This project explores authority and resistance in language using ideas of three contemporary French thinkers--Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, and Jean Baudrillard--as these ideas relate to the specific example of language use in the French-speaking Caribbean.;The principal resource for the first part of my text is Foucault's I, Pierre Riviere . . . which points out that social realities are linguistic constructs. Here I argue that there is no one "authentic" voice or "authoritative" discourse, that there are, in fact, alternative systems of representing facts, and that what we end up with instead of Truth is truths (medical truth, legal truth, media truth, and so on).;Next, I use Bourdieu's writings on authoritative discourse to show how this kind of language works, how the authority of, say, an institution like the school system is delegated to certain "authorized" examination of the situation in the French West Indies where there is an official language of authority which represents an official culture. I suggest that the authority of French is not located in the language itself but in its function, in its social use--that is, I argue against the inherent power of the Word but rather argue in favor of the power of position. I maintain, in addition, that access to the position is not equal.;Finally I look at ways in which certain discourses resist authority. I consider Baudrillard's proposition that saying what should not be said or saying too much is improper, even indecent, and also his contention that everything, including language, is subject to sudden and unpredictable reversibility. In other words, language can be turned around and used against authorized spokespersons. Here I talk about Creole and a number of other forms of inverted language and subverted meanings, among them ritual discourse and joking. The most extreme example I discuss is resistance by silence. |
