Darrel Ocampo

Disempowering the powerful: a critical pragmatic analysis of political discourse using brown and levinson’s face theory

• Authors Details :  
• Darrel M. Ocampo

367 Views Original Article

Power and dominance exist everywhere and occur at the macro and micro levels. Being powerful and domineering are factors that serve as emblems for the people in the realm of politics. Power relations are overtly exercised in such discourse. But what is interesting is how power and dominance exist between or among those people who are branded as “powerful;” thus, using the Face Theory of Brown and Levinson (1978), this discourse analysis paper analyzed the power relations that transpired in a senate hearing and its relationship with the Face Threatening Acts (FTAs) used by the people involved in the discourse. A Philippine Senate hearing excerpt served as the primary corpus for analysis. Results showed that the people in the discourse were all powerful, creating tension when they projected their dominance on one another. Each member threatened and challenged their positive and negative faces. The power play evolved into a "pass-theball" effect, and no one has absolute power because it weakens once the person wielding its face is threatened. Hence, to disempower the empowered, a person must learn how to play and use FTAs such as insulting, disagreeing, disapproving, provoking, commanding, and demanding against the powerful to strike a social balance.

Article Subject Details

• Education and social science
• Education and training
• Research
• Research
• Research methodology

Article Keywords Details

• Critical Pragmatic Analysis
• Face Theory
• Political Discourse
• Disempowering

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