INTRODUCTION
Bourdieu holds that language is part of the way of life of a social group and serves essentially practical ends. In this he stands opposed to ‘the intellectualist philosophy which makes language an object of understanding rather than an instrument of action’ (1977b:645). The origin of Bourdieu’s view lies in the European philosophical tradition which, since Kant, has been concerned more with human activity than with human theorising. In this chapter, then, Bourdieu’s position will be discussed within this European tradition and contrasted with the ‘intellectualist’ tradition so familiar to philosophers in the Anglo-Saxon world, the broad outlines of which will first be sketched in.
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NOTES
The author wishes to thank Dr Tom Bestor for helpful criticisms of an earlier draft. He is in no way responsible for any weaknesses in this version.
The brief account of Nietzsche and Wittgenstein is not meant to imply a conscious amalgamation of their themes in Bourdieu’s work. Its implication, rather, is that while Bourdieu uses Wittgenstein for support, his interpretation is moderated by the Nietzschian stress on power which he has, perhaps unconsciously, absorbed. As a result, relating the themes of Nietzsche and Wittgenstein helps, I believe, to illuminate Bourdieu’s notion of ministerium.
Bourdieu frequently acknowledges the importance of Wittgenstein’s insights concerning the unconscious nature of linguistic rules. He believes that this point is crucial for sociology. Thus, he argues that sociologists must learn to recognise that while ‘the unconscious is not a useful construct, it is important to recognise that a similar idea can be expressed by the phrase “the subjects use signs without realising it”’. In this way, he says, sociological language will gain in rigour and precision what it loses in magic and charm (1973:152).
Bourdieu’s major analysis of Austin is to be found in Actes 1975d. For an analysis of the law as a symbolic struggle, see Actes 1986b; Bourdieu 1987.
On this particular point, a seminal article is to be found in Actes 1983. Here Bourdieu applies his general model of linguistic habitus to the question of popular speech in order to attack naive notions of what constitutes everyday discourse, and to show how ‘the popular’ can be misused politically.
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© 1990 Richard Harker, Cheleen Mahar and Chris Wilkes
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Snook, I. (1990). Language, Truth and Power: Bourdieu’s Ministerium. In: Harker, R., Mahar, C., Wilkes, C. (eds) An Introduction to the Work of Pierre Bourdieu. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-21134-0_7
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