Abstract
The study of “voice” in writing presents a conundrum. On the one hand, we use this term to signify our ability to project an identity into a piece of written discourse: the characteristics of its creator, its spirit, and its ethical bearing. On the other hand, a serious look behind this construct suggests that this presence is deeply fictional, an idealized representation of a self or an identity that cannot exist outside the system that makes it possible: a language. When we consider that language is a social institution, we understand that voice is socially inscribed and only recognizable as a product of that institution. Institutions, in this sense, are comprised by dense groups of individuals who are bound together by common purpose. With that definition in mind, the central question arises: to what degree can individual members of such a group—a society, a network, a social class—distinguish themselves from the whole of which they are inextricably a part? More importantly, how much privilege is derived from this membership, and can that privilege be extracted and made portable?
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Schmit, J.S. (2022). Identity and the Levers of Power. In: The Sociolinguistics of Written Identity. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09563-4_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09563-4_4
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