Co se chce říct mluvením

This book by a prominent French sociologist, whose reflections also had a fundamental influence on aesthetics, literary history and many other disciplines, covers the functioning of a language as a sphere of a symbolic exchange both in broad terms and using examples. This collection of essays, published in 1982, was Bourdieu’s reaction to Saussure and his influential reception among the Structuralists as well as by Austin, Chomsky and other key scholars. The impersonal, seemingly neutral system of language is shown to be a special and quite efficient position of power, thanks to which the means of expression, which in fact belongs only to a select few privileged groups, asserts itself as a standard for thinking and expression for everyone, those individuals, social and ethnic groups, and others who are fatally disadvantaged by the arrangement. This framework includes vocabulary, syntax, style and others only as aspects of the distribution of cultural power and expression privileges. Thus while the Structuralists intended to model sociology according to linguistics, Bourdieu unmasks the linguistic perspective as a strategy within society. However, this is far from being a mere tug-of-war between the two disciplines: his analyses are thought-provoking and very subtle in details, particularly for linguists and literary scientists.