Analysis Of Language And Symbolic Power By Pierre Bourdieu

The flexibility of language is a highly controversial topic in the field of linguistics. How easily does language acquisition occur and in what ways may it be limited? Through his text Language and Symbolic Power, French linguist Pierre Bourdieu introduces a market metaphor in order to explain the ways that communicative exchanges relay both messages contained in words and nonlinguistic information about a person’s social status. He explains that in the process of “linguistic exchange,” speakers are able to gain “symbolic profit” and ultimately, societal advancement. Within this metaphor, Bourdieu coins the terms “linguistic competence,” a person’s ability to anticipate the requirements of and communicate effectively in certain contexts, along with the term “legitimate language,” which is the language of the elite and powerful. Acquiring this new (often more elite) language involves a change in “linguistic habitus,” that is, the individual experiences that determines how a speaker interacts with others. Although Bourdieu believes that acquisition of new language is limited by the habitus, he …show more content…
Bourdieu highlights “their especially keen sensitivity to the tension of the market, and by the same token, to linguistic correction in themselves and others” (Bourdieu 509). Bourdieu seeks to convey that the petits bourgeois are able to adapt their language so that they can achieve maximum symbolic profits from a linguistic exchange. This capability relates to Smith, because it is exactly what she lost. Once her native language left her, she was no longer able to shift her voice to achieve maximum “symbolic profits,” only the “lettered” voice was