Language and Globalization

Norman Fairclough

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9781134369980
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sprachen & Linguistik
• Subtopic: Sprachwissenschaft

Language and Globalization explores the effects of language in the processes of globalization. Norman Fairclough adopts the approach of combining critical discourse analysis with cultural political economy to develop a new theory of the relationship between discourse and other dimensions of globalization. Using examples from a variety of countries such as the USA, Britain, Romania, Hungary and Thailand, Language and Globalization shows how the analysis of texts can be coherently integrated within political economic analysis. Fairclough incorporates topical issues such as the war on terror and the impact of the media on globalization into his discussion. Areas covered include:

• globalization and language: review of academic literature

• 
  
  

• discourses of globalization

• 
  
  

• the media, mediation and globalization

• 
  
  

• globalization, war and terrorism.

• 
  
  

This book will be of interest to students and researchersin applied linguistics, language and politics and discourse analysis.

1
Globalization and language: review of academic literature

There is a vast and ever-growing academic literature on globalization. I shall begin this chapter by differentiating in broad terms four positions within this literature on discourse as an element or facet of globalization: objectivist, rhetoricist, ideologist and social constructivist. The objectivist position treats globalization as simply objective fact, which discourse may either illuminate or obscure, represent or misrepresent. The rhetoricist position focuses on how various discourses of globalization are used for instance by politicians to persuade publics to accept certain (sometimes unpalatable) policies. The ideologist position focuses upon how particular discourses of globalization systematically contribute to the legitimation of a particular global order which incorporates asymmetrical relations of power such as those between and within countries. Finally the social constructivist position recognizes the socially constructed character of social life in general and forms of globalization in particular, and sees discourse as potentially having significant causal effects in processes of social construction.

I shall then discuss in more detail a selection of work which adopts the social constructivist position, which I have already committed myself to in the Introduction. I shall on the one hand be using the existing literature as a source for ideas on and approaches to discourse, as well as discussing how it has added to the range of contemporary discourses of globalization, and on the other hand arguing that the significance of discourse as a facet of globalization has generally not been adequately appreciated and needs to be addressed more systematically. This will lead into the presentation of my own approach in Chapter 2.

Discourse in globalization: four positions

One can find various classifications of approaches within the academic literature on globalization (Held et al. 1999, Hay and Marsh 2000, Cameron and Palan 2004). Since my own is specifically concerned with orientations to discourse, I shall begin this section by briefly summarizing the three approaches distinguished on broader grounds by Held et al. (1999): ‘hyperglobalist’, ‘sceptical’ and ‘trans-formationalist’. Hyperglobalists see globalization as the emergence of a single global market which is supplanting the nation-state as the primary economic and political unit. Some (neo-liberals) see this positively as human progress, others (radicals and neo-Marxists) see it negatively as the triumph of global capitalism. Sceptics on the other hand argue that contemporary levels of economic independence are not new, that the level of global economic integration was higher in the late nineteenth century, and that the contemporary evidence indicates regionalization (with Europe, East Asia and North America as the main (‘triadic’) economic blocs) rather than globalization, and the continuing economic power of nation-states. Transformationalists agree with hyperglobalists that contemporary globalization is unprecedented though they argue that it is much more complex and multidimensional than the emergence of a global market (it has for instance political, cultural, military, as well as economic dimensions), that the character of nation-states (and much else) is radically transformed but they are not being supplanted, and that the outcomes of globalization are contingent and unpredictable.

This very generalized classification of a highly diverse literature indicates some of the main points of controversy. One is whether globalization spells the end of the nation-state as the primary economic and political unit. Another is whether globalization is a phenomenon specific to the last few decades, or a cyclical phenomenon over several centuries. A third is whether globalization is a primarily economic phenomenon, or a diverse set of phenomena (economic, political, cultural, military, ecological) which are substantially autonomous, though certainly interconnected. A fourth is whether globalization amounts to homogenization, or whether on the contrary, globalization is consistent with diversity within all the different phenomena it encompasses.

There is no direct match between the four positions on discourse as a facet of globalization I distinguished above (objectivist, rhetoricist, ideologist and social constructionist) and the hyperglobalist, sceptical and transformationalist approaches. But there is a tendency for hyperglobalists to be objectivists; sceptics tend towards the rhetoricist or ideologist positions, and the social constructionist position tends to be more prominent amongst transformationalists. But these are, let me emphasize, very rough correlations.

Objectivist position

I use the term ‘objectivist’ (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992:7–9) because those adopting this position treat globalization as simply objective processes in the real world which it is the social scientist’s task to describe. They do not see globalization as also having a significant ‘subjective’ aspect, in contrast for instance to Robertson (1992:8) for whom globalization is ‘both the compression of the world’ (‘objective’) and ‘the intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole’ (‘subjective’). Recognition of discourse as a facet of globalization is one way of addressing its ‘subjective’ aspect—consciousness of the world, after all, implies representations of the world, and therefore discourse.

A sophisticated example of objectivism is the influential work of Held et al. (1999) which I have already referred to. It is not that discourse is entirely absent from their account of globalization: they refer for instance (1999:1) to ‘the popular rhetoric of globalization’, and to globalization as an ‘analytical construct’ and ‘historical narratives’ of globalization in academic literature (both of which imply the discursive character of academic theorizing and analysis). Yet when they set out their analytical framework (14–16), discourse is not referred to as a facet of globalization, and the book as a whole does not recognize discourse as a significant aspect of globalization.

Here for instance is the way they define globalization (1999:16):

a process (or set of processes) which embodies a transformation in the spatial organization of social relations and transactions—assessed in terms of their extensity, intensity, velocity and impact—generating transcontinental or interregional flows and networks of activity, interaction, and the exercise of power.

Globalization is defined in an objectivist way as (just) a ‘set of processes’, and the opening comments on page 1 of their Introduction suggest if anything that discourse is likely to get in the way of social scientific analysis of them: globalization is ‘in danger of becoming a cliché: the big idea which encompasses everything’, and ‘although the popular rhetoric of globalization may capture aspects of the contemporary zeitgeist, there is burgeoning academic debate as to whether globalization, as an analytical construct, delivers any added value in the search for a coherent understanding of the historical forces which…are shaping the socio-political realities of everyday life’. Where for Robertson ‘consciousness of the world as a whole’ is an irreducible part of globalization, we find a clear divide here between ‘popular rhetoric’ and the ‘zeitgeist’ (which presumably subsumes ‘consciousness of the world as a whole’) on the one hand, and the social scientist’s ‘analytical concepts’ for understanding what are represented as real (objective) processes.

Rhetoricist position

Generally speaking, those who focus on rhetoric are concerned with how representations of globalization are used to support and legitimize actions and policies within particular arguments. An example is Hay and Rosamond (2002), who claim that ‘there is plenty of evidence…of actors deploying particular rhetorics of globalization in the attempt to justify often unpalatable social and economic reform’. For instance, globalization is often invoked ‘as non-negotiable external economic constraint’ which imposes ‘market-conforming deregulation’ on individual states, as in Tony Blair’s statement that ‘the key to New Labour economics is the recognition that Britain…(has) to compete in an increasingly international market place’ (speech to the Confederation of German Industry, 1996). The ‘international market place’ is presupposed, taken as fact, as is also the consequent policy priority for states of making their countries (Britain in this case) competitive in this ‘market place’. The ‘unpalatable’ reforms which follow from this include reducing the ‘safety net’ of the welfare system.

Hay and Rosamond actually draw a distinction between ‘globalization as discourses’ and ‘globalization rhetoric’. The former refers to the ‘way in which globalization has come to provide a cognitive filter, frame or conceptual lens or paradigm through which social, political and economic developments might be ordered and rendered intelligible’. What is in focus here is the effect of globalization on the ‘repertoire of discursive resources’ available to people. ‘Globalization as rhetoric’ by contrast refers to ‘the strategic and persuasive deployment of such discourses…to legitimate particular courses of action’. The authors go on to show interesting differences between major EU countries (France, Germany and the UK) in their globalization rhetoric, as well as differences in the case of the UK between domestic and European contexts (where globalization is presented as inexorable) and international contexts (where globalization is presented as contingent, and in need of defending from its detractors).

Notice that they view ‘globalization as discourses’ in terms of the effects of globalization in delimiting (and changing) the repertoire of available discourses. There is a discussion of the difference between the ‘effects of globalization itself’ and the ‘effects of having internalized popular constructions of globalization’, and the authors suggest that policy-makers ‘may well serve…to bring about outcomes’ consistent with the discourses they have internalized, ‘irrespective of their veracity’. This points to the social constructionist position that discourse can be implicated in causal processes producing the real processes of globalization, but the position is not clarified, and it is not the main focus of the paper.

Ideologist position

Those who focus on ideology are concerned at a more systemic level with how discourses contribute to achieving and sustaining the dominance or hegemony of particular strategies and practices, and the social forces who advocate them and whose interests they serve. An example is Steger (2005).

Steger sees globalization as both a set of material processes and ‘a system of ideas circulating in the public realm as more or less coherent stories that attempt to define, describe and evaluate these very processes’. The most influential of these ‘stories’ is what he calls ‘globalism’ (which I referred to briefly in the Introduction). This is a neo-liberal story which represents globalization as, and reduces it to, the global spread of the ‘free market’ which neo-liberals advocate. (I discuss globalism more fully in Chapter 3 as a discourse which constitutes part of the strategy pursued by powerful governmental and non-governmental agencies.) This is an ideology in Ricoeur’s (1986) sense of this highly controversial term—it distorts reality (globalization cannot be reduced to the ‘free market’), legitimizes the action and policies of powerful social agents, and contributes to the integrative effect of ‘integrating and holding together individual and collective identity’. It is (some would argue rather that it has been, because it is now increasingly challenged, Gray 1999, Saul 2005) in Gramscian terms (Gramsci 1971) a hegemonic ideology, an ideology which has achieved a measure of consent or at least acquiescence across social groups and social fields and international boundaries.

Those who focus on the ideological character of discourse as a facet of globalization differ, in accordance with different understandings of ideology, on whether they see ideology as a significant aspect of social construction. For some, it is the distorting effects of ideology which are highlighted, and ideologies produce a ‘false consciousness’ of the reality of globalization, without any sense that they change that reality. Steger however does see the hegemonic position of globalism as producing real effects and changes in the character of globalization. He refers to Butler’s observation that the constant repetition, public recitation and ‘performance’ of an ideology’s core claims frequently have the capacity to produce what they name (Butler 1996:112).

Social constructivist position

Finally, the social constructivist position places a more explicit emphasis on the socially constructed character of social realities, and the significance of discourse in their social construction. I should make it clear that I am not discussing here ‘social constructionism’ (Gergen 1999) as a particular philosophy of science which ‘in its strong form claims that objects or referents of knowledge are nothing more than social constructions’ (Sayer 2000), implying that reality does not have properties which exist independently of our knowledge of them (of whether we know of them, or how we represent them). Recognition of the socially constructed character of social realities is common across many positions within social science, and it is often consistent with realism (Sayer 2000)—as I explained in the Introduction, I adopt a version of realism in this book.

As I have indicated, there is some recognition of the significance of discourse in the social construction of globalization amongst those who primarily adopt other positions on discourse as a facet of globalization, which indicates that one sometimes finds a combination of the positions in academic work. Indeed Cameron and Palan (2004) argue that there is a covert acknowledgement of globalization as discursively constructed even in some of the ‘objectivist’ literature, in the sense that academic narratives which purport to merely describe the reality of globalization are used to ground advocacy for changes in globalization—for ‘cosmopolitan democracy’ in the cases of Held et al. (1999). I shall focus here however on researchers who see discourse as primarily significant in the social construction of globalization.

Discourse in the social construction of globalization: a selective review

Cameron and Palan (2004) themselves argue that narratives of globalization have constructive effects on the real processes and institutions of globalization. Narratives which are plausible for enough people and which they can come to believe in lead them to invest (their time, energy, money and other resources) in the imaginary futures which these narratives project, and through their commitment to an investment in them (‘investment’ in the widest sense), they can bring them into being. (This is reminiscent of the claim of Bourdieu and Wacquant (2001) that neo-liberal discourse is ‘endowed with the performative power to bring into being the very realities it claims to describe’.) There are two important provisos. First, not every narrative will be plausible for people, and narratives are subject to a ‘reality check’ (Cameron and Palan 2004:8). Cameron and Palan don’t really clarify their position on this matter, but what is suggested is that to be seen as plausible and to be taken up and invested in, narratives need to resonate with (Fairclough et al. 2004) people’s experience of the world as it actually is. This is a corrective to strong forms of social constructionism, for it suggests that ‘intransitive’ properties of the real world (that is, properties which exist independently of our theories or narratives or d...