Page 218 - Culture Media Language Working Papers in Cultural Studies

THEORIES OF LANGUAGE AND SUBJECTIVITY 207

He who is subjected to a field of visibility and who knows it, assumes
responsibility for the constraints of power, he makes them play
spontaneously upon himself; he inscribes in himself the power relation in
which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his
own subjection. 41

Conclusion
So far, discussion of the place of language within Cultural Studies has largely
been conducted through an exposition and analysis of the major theories which
constitute the field. In conclusion, we feel that it is important to pose questions
of language more specifically: that is, to indicate the possible ways in which the
theoretical works which we have examined relate to the problems encountered in
concrete, historically specific studies of language. We attempt here to outline a
possible framework for a type of cultural analysis which would be more attentive
to the centrality and specificity of linguistic structures.
In the range of work which constitutes the field of cultural studies it is apparent
that language is most often awarded a privileged place in text-based research,
which addresses itself to the structures of signification in literature, film and
televisual discourses. Media Studies, together with developments in literary
criticism and English Studies, is the principal area in which questions relating to
the organization of language, authorship and subjectivity are encountered, and
where theoretical attempts have been made to move away from transparent
readings of texts, using aspects of the semiological theory outlined above. In
other areas of work, where we would insist that questions of language are no less
central, these theoretical issues are often largely ignored. Much social and oral
history, for example, reads language ‘transparently’, as a source of empirical and
factual evidence, with little attention to the structural determinations exercised
historically by specific linguistic forms (though we should be aware of the
exceptional quality of E.P.Thompson’s work in this area). Also, work in the field
of ethnography often takes an unproblematic view of the constituted subjectivity
of individuals who are interviewed, relying implicitly on a phenomenologically
based interactionist theory of individual acts and utterances (though here the
work of Paul Willis on the culture of working-class schoolboys presents a far more
sophisticated approach). Similarly, work examining the operation of various
42
institutional sites—particularly the apparatuses of the state—has, as yet, paid
little attention to the structures of language and modes of signification which
play a crucial role in the construction of official discourses. (For example, in the
analysis of government policy, language is read transparently as the medium
through which particular ideological discourses are constructed.)
The sort of theoretical approaches which have been applied to work on
literature, film and television have included formalist, linguistic approaches, the
denotation/ connotation model and the form of semiology developed by the ‘Tel
Quel’ group as an alternative to holding to an a priori level of denotation. Here,