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25Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences 1 (2011 4) 37-49
УДК 801.1; 801.7
The Linguistic Characteristics of the Technologization of Discourse
Uliana V. Smirnova *
Siberian Federal University 82A Svobodny, Krasnoyarsk, 660041 Russia 1
Received 3.01.2011, received in revised form 10.01.2011, accepted 17.01.2011
There has been a certain amount of prominent research concentrated on the technologization of discourse. On consideration of the recent conclusions on technologization, I suggest that the angle of research should be altered to focus on defining the linguistic nature of technologization, the levels (or steps) this procedure implies, and its main source. The nexus between technologization, manipulation and simulacra has not yet been acknowledged and proved. Technologization has also not been related to the elimination of the subject from the postmodernistic discourse. Using examples from the political discourse of G. W. Bush, the following article pertains to the validity of such claims.
Keywords: technologization of discourse, manipulation, discursive technologies, simulacrum, the discourse of the Expert Community, ostrannenie (defamiliarization).
Introduction
It is not a revolutionary new statement that individuals, discourses and the process of communication have been undergoing serious transformations in post modern environment (some indicative publication include Fairclough 2005a, 2005b, 2005c; Morrish 2000; Poster 2001; Simmons 2001; Simulacrum America: The USA and the Popular Media 2000; Spanos 2001; Thurlow 2009; Vannini 2007; Wallin 2006; Ziarek 2002). The changes in the works of philosophers and linguists go under the names of 'synthetic personality' (A. Tolson), 'the death of the author' (R. Barthes, J. Kristeva), 'hyperreality', 'the procession of simulacra' (J. Baudrillard), 'humans as social machines (machines of desire)' (J. Deleuze and F. Guattari), 'a fake society' (D. Anderson, P. Mullen) etc. Technologization of discourse, I
believe, is a widespread accompaniment of these transformations, and it might also be believed to be their main cause.
When we mention transmutations of individuals, we should never forget that in relation to linguistics we speak about the subject of discourse. While 'individuals' and 'personalities' are more appropriate terms for sociology and psychology, we should always keep in mind the famous words of E. Benveniste: 'language provides the very definition of man, in and through language that man constitutes himself as a subject, because language alone established the concept of 'ego' in reality' (Benveniste 1971: 729). This means that within such a view the discourse, which the speaker produces, gives evidence to the unique characteristics of this particular subject, personality, and individual.
* Corresponding author E-mail address: [email protected]
1 © Siberian Federal University. All rights reserved
But at the same time herein lies a serious problem, that could be associated with changes of the episteme of the post modern society: the subject of discourse stops constituting himself through thoughts and ideas generated by himself / herself and articulated in his / her utterances, but rather is constituted by means of discursive technologies that are used to impose a certain language and a certain frame of mind. Although the speaker proclaims himself / herself as the subject in the instance of discourse in which I designates the speaker (ibid: 730), it is only simulative appropriation of the propositions 'I believe', 'I think', 'I am sure'. The subject of discourse is effectively dissolved in the expert language and opinion.
Another point which I would like to emphasise is that although there is a good foundation for technology in philosophy and linguistics (M. Foucault and N. Fairclough have written extensively on technologies), a 'blind spot' related to the linguistic approach to the technologization of modern culture still exists. My main aim is to redefine and broaden our understanding of technology in light of all the theoretical and practical knowledge that has been accumulated during my research of this phenomenon and in view of its practical use not only in linguistics but also in political science, Public Relations, and the studies of culture.
Investigating the technologization of discourse
The notion 'technologization' was coined by Norman Fairclough, who himself was influenced by Michel Foucault's ideas about the synthesis of power, knowledge (technology) and discourse. Following M. Foucault's and N. Fairclough's works, we can come to the conclusion that technologization is the process of exercising power and influence over people's lives and opinions through certain linguistic
tools. However, the exact linguistic definition of the term 'technology', as well as the procedure of generating a tecnodiscourse, is still not very clear.
What seems apparent is that technologization corresponds to the power of an expert / technologist that is effectively realised through the right to generate the discourse, a certain social position from which to address it to the audience, and special knowledge of how to tune the addressees in. Such a reflection points to a wider issue, and that is the need to apply a new notion - the discourse of the Expert Community, which is central to the works of A. Kaplunenko (Kaplunenko 2007). The original idea emerged in J. Swales' Genre Analysis - the discourse community as a sociorethorical network that forms in order to work towards sets of common goals, that produces specific texts and has its own language, and that is open only to those who are able to speak the language (Swales 1990: 9-10). In linking a certain discourse with a certain expert community, it is not simply a question of a particular group of experts having an ideology (as a common sets of goals) and a language. It is what the experts want and know how to impose on the audience. From the standpoint of narrative theory, we can say that the 'wielders of technology' establish power over their technological creations or discoveries (Worthington 2009). This allows us to take a perspective on the expert techniques that are used to inculcate ideological ideas unnoticeably for the addressers of the discourse and highlight the linguistic aspect of technologies presented in scientific studies.
When discussion takes place as to how technologization is put into practice we can underline the following: 'two expressions are 'textured', textually constructed, in a relation of equivalence' (Fairclough 2006: 42); a 'doubling' is created by means of certain terms (Foucault 2003: 15). In the context of his studies N. Fairclough
speaks about semantically and pragmatically different signs equaled to each other (for example, globalization and economic liberalization in the speech of the US under-secretary Stuart Eizenstat) (Fairclough 2006: 42). M. Foucault concentrates his analysis on psycologico-ethical doubles of the offence, which are introduced in the discourse of psychiatric expertise by a whole series of terms, which happen to be unique discourse characteristics of a member of this particular Expert Community (for example, 'psychological immaturity', 'poorly structured personality', 'bovarysme', 'Herostratism', 'Alcibiadism' etc.) (Foucault 2003: 3).
Having briefly looked at the starting points of studying technologization, it is worth approaching the observation of technology from another angle. I believe that the term 'technology / technologization', originally borrowed from mathematics, loses neither its original content nor its volume when it is introduced into philosophy and linguistics. Technology is a sequence of actions that is repeated within a definite set of procedures. In other words technology is characterised by a reproducible chain of elements and an algorithm that is recurrent until the final result has been reached. It's a fact that researchers have already found similarities between the process of constructing a technology and the following of an algorithm, and it could be proved by the terms they use when describing the technological features of post modern discourse. For example, we meet such expressions as 'technical exercises that serve to de-contextualize and de-politicize the terrain of well-being' (McManus 2009) or 'operating structures of storytelling in post modern fiction' (Jackson 2007).
In semiotic terms, technology could be described as a set procedure of manipulation with signs. When speaking about competent operations with signs it would be logical to suppose that the nature of technology lies in
the syntax. With regard to technologization, the definition of 'syntax' - 'formal relations of signs to one another' (Ch. Morris), could be determined as an order of signs constructed and established by an expert.
I relate technologization to manipulation for a reason. Manipulation in western discourse is widely associated with media and the coined term 'media manipulation'. Although there exist many more terms which describe all different sorts of exertion of social influence to the advantage of the manipulator such as coercive persuasion, brainwashing, re-education, thought-control, mind control, thought reform, indoctrination, propaganda etc, the term 'manipulation' serves best to explain the very nature of the persuasion process. The etymological origin of the term 'manipulation' - skilful handling of objects -prompts that the origin of 'handling' of objects as well as minds lies in the expert operations with signs to create specific orders (chains) of signs with a view to imposing a certain 'world view' (in the original Leo Weisgerber's interpretation it is reality structured in a certain way).
The connection between manipulation and technologization is obvious - it's encoded in their reliance on syntactical operation with signs. But while manipulation denotes a process of breaking down the phenomenological integrity of the individual with regard to inculcated values and with regard to motivation for actions, which contradict individually perceived ideas of them, technology is a means of effecting this process.
Levels of technologization
Apart from the fact that a direct link between manipulation and technology seems quite appropriate, another feature of technologization needs to be mentioned. I believe that there are three levels of the technologization of discourse and I shall illustrate the steps of constructing a technology referring to the discourse of George
W. Bush produced in mass media after the tragic events of September 2001. This discourse generated the keywords 'September 11' or '9/11' and an atomic-era military idiom 'war on terror', that 'has provided the official gloss for so many acts of US state violence' (Redfield 2007). The significance and impact of this particular discourse arose from the standing of the speaker (president of one of the most influential countries in the world) and the context of crisis for 'fighting for freedom' that America started in the wake of the hijacked planes intentionally being crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre in New York City on 9/11.
It is remarkable to note that the process of technologization, that has been influencing discursive practices, only demonstrates the ongoing process of technologization in culture. Using Philippe Bonditti's opinion as an example, the fact that politicians now focus on new technological tools to fight terrorism after 9/11, is a clear indication of the 'increasing practices of surveillance and the globalization of control' (Bonditti 2004).
The first level of technologization.
I claim that the fundamental basis of constructing a technology is expert technological syntax, by which I mean alliteration, rhythm, reiteration and rhyme. This formal syntactical level of technology has long been exploited by experts. In this respect K. Levi-Strauss' study of the shamanistic curing procedures in primitive cultures can be quite indicative of the importance of the expert syntax. The anthropologist doesn't answer the question why the healing techniques are successful but his evaluations help reveal the underlying principle of the shaman manipulations. It appears to be reiteration or shadowing of both the speech patterns and actions: 'The (sick) woman speaks to the midwife: 'I'm indeed being dressed in the hot garment of the disease'. The midwife answers her (sick woman): 'You're indeed being
dressed in the hot garment of the disease, I also hear you say so' (Levi-Strauss 2006).
The same fundamental technique is widely applied in G. W. Bush's discourse: 'They would have seen the mighty United States of America retreat before the job was done which would enable them to better recruit... In my judgment, defeat - leaving before the job was done, which I would call defeat - would make this United States of America at risk to further attack (G. W. Bush, 07 April, 2007).
This example illustrates the process of the syntactical construction of meaning very well. The first important feature of this utterance worth mentioning is the rhyme constituted in the double 'retreat-defeat'. The repetition of the sound [eet] in the two words is designed to suggest that these words put together don't only have phonetic equivalency but also equivalent meanings - withdrawal of the American troops from Iraq is the total failure of the American mission in Iraq. The expert's other syntactical choice only cements the idea. Reiteration - 'before the job was done', 'would have seen - would call - would enable - would make', 'the mighty United States of America - this United States of America'; alliteration 'mighty United States', 'enable them to better', 'retreat - recruit - risk', 'United States - further attack', and the general rhythm of the construction that creates gradual motion to a higher pitch - magnify the effect of conveying the expert's meaning - the retreat of the American troops is America's defeat.
My principal reason for reproducing the next extract is because it provides a clear parallel between the way the shaman curative song is constructed in primitive culture and the way the manipulation effect is technologically reached in George W. Bush's discourse.
'The government has a responsibility to protect our citizens, and that starts with homeland security... After September the 11th,
our government assumed a new responsibility to strengthen security at home and track down our enemies abroad. And the American people are accepting new responsibilities as well. I recently received a letter from a fourth grade girl that seemed to say it all. «I don't know how to feel», she said. «Sad, mad, angry. It has been different lately. I know the people in New York are scared because of the World Trade Center and all, but if we 're scared, we are giving the terrorists all the power».
In the face of this great tragedy, Americans are refusing to give terrorists the power. Our people have responded with courage and compassion, calm and reason, resolve and fierce determination. We have refused to live in a state ofpanic or a state of denial. There is a difference between being alert and being intimidated, and this great nation will never be intimidated... Life in America is going forward, and as the fourth grader who wrote me knew, that is the ultimate repudiation of terrorism' (G. W. Bush, Nov. 8, 2001).
Needless to say that the fourth grade girl, even if she existed in reality, is reproduced in this extract as a 'narrative girl' and is used in the process of technological meaning making. The girl's narration starts with characteristics of the intentional state of ordinary Americans - sad, mad, angry, but, more importantly, scared. The word 'scared' is repeated and emphasised in light of the cause-effect relation that is established between Americans being scared and the terrorists being powerful.
But the speaker draws a line under the emotion of fear and states the fact that Americans are refusing to give terrorists the power, which logically means that Americans are refusing to be scared. This idea is duplicated further - this great nation will never be intimidated.
And indeed, the initial horizon of interpretation of Americans' feelings (scare,
panic, denial, intimidation) is technologically redirected: the speaker repeats the refrain with the verb that negates the meaning - Americans are refusing to give terrorists the power and sets the new horizon of interpretation of inner feelings and outer behavior - courage and compassion, calm and reason, resolve and fierce determination.
Let me now turn to even more important features of this discourse which I think might be involved in constructing a technological chain -the alliteration in the words refuse, respond, reason, resolve, repudiation. I am not a specialist in the phonemic qualities of sounds taken from a cognitive perspective and can't provide an acoustic analysis of the suggestive effect of the sounds (but I would wager that it is a very powerful and influential area of study which would be of great use for development of the theory of linguistic manipulation). But even before taking into consideration the innate phonetic associations that the use of the sounds might project on the idea of the message, I can claim that these words are alliterated for a reason. The chain constructed by a repetitive sound [re] can be used to send the subliminal idea: Americans refuse to respond with fear ^ they choose reason, resolve and repudiation of fear. The plausibility and resonance of this message rests upon the claims that are explicitly asserted in the discourse. In addition to this chain of meaning it is crucial to mention the sign 'responsibility' which alliterates with the ones mentioned above and is repeated a number of times - responsibility to protect, responsibility to strengthen, responsibility to repudiate terrorism.
I would suggest that the narrative girl was introduced in the discourse to create an overwhelmingly powerful individual horizon of interpretation that blends with experiences and feeling of ordinary citizens. The fourth grade girl's horizon sets the point which is then technologically shifted in the direction necessary for the expert. The gist of the message is the signs
that start and finish the technological circle: We are not giving he terrorists all the power - We choose the ultimate repudiation of terrorism. I would like to draw attention to the fact that verbs to give, to refuse initiate the matrix of the discourse and are linked to a quite identifiable object - the terrorists. The pattern is finished with a noun phrase with very abstract categorisation repudiation of terrorism. It is a shift toward blurred meaning. But we will return to this when we describe the third level of technologization.
The general rhythmic successions that are organized in the discourse - sad, mad, angry; courage and compassion, calm and reason, resolve and fierce determination pulsate in the discourse and make it very suggestive.
Furthermore, we witness the duplication of signs. By 'duplication' I mean the manifestation of the same identity in different guises. It is realized through signs which might be claimed to be linear transformations of the same idea. For example, resolve (strong determination to achieve sth, OALD 1292) and fierce determination stem from 'determination'; protect and homeland security (protection, OALD 1372) from 'protection'; intimidated (frightened, OALD 815), scared (frightened, OALD 1354), panic (a sudden feeling of great fear, OALD, 1096) from 'fear', 'frightened'. The operation of duplication involves slight modifications in the form of renaming one variable and is aimed, in my opinion, at masking the replication of the meaning. This redundancy is intentional and creates a magnified suggestive effect.
The phenomenon of the duplication of meaning reiterates M. Foucault' fundamental ideas about 'doubles' which are created 'to shift the level of reality' (Foucault 2003: 16) and reflects the concern in postmodern philosophy with questions of simulacra.
Simulacrum as a building block of a technological chain.
Analysing Haruki Murakami's books, Michael Seats comes to the conclusion that the author employs the structure of the simulacrum in his narration (Seats 2006). 'Simulacrum' has become quite a 'fashionable' term. It originates from the works of the French post structuralism (J. Baudrillard, J. Derrida, G. Deleuze). The philosophical background for the ideas can be found in the works of Plato, who in his famous dialogue 'Sophist', speaks about imitations preoccupying the world of art - imitations as signs which are not the exact copies of the original but the copies of the copies, distorted intentionally in order to make the copy appear correct to viewers.
From a semiotic perspective, simulacrum is a sign in which the natural relations between the signifier and the signified is deformed. In the natural process of semiosis, the signified (the object and its qualities) determines the choice of the signifying and rules its usage in the discourse. When the connection between the signified (which could be defined as structural knowledge linked to the sign in the semiotic process and accepted by an individual as gained knowledge) and the signifying is ignored, any interpretant could be associated with the sign. The interpretant becomes manipulative when it starts distracting the interpreter from the object and is constructed discursively, that is without reference to one's personal experience but out of the building blocks which refer to each other within a certain discursive matrix. As Anna Free puts it, 'the simulacrum concerns the surface of things' but 'the realness' of the surface is deceptive (Free 2008).
For example, in the utterance A lot of people are working really hard to protect America, but in the long run, the best way to defend our homeland, the best way to make sure our children can live in peace, is to take the battle to the enemy and to stop them (G. W. Bush, Nov. 8, 2001) the
actions behind the sign 'to protect America' are interpreted through a technological chain of infinitives: to protect America - to defend our homeland - to make sure our children live in peace - to take the battle to the enemy and stop them. The rhythmic pulse created in the discourse has two crucial points: the tension at the beginning 'to protect America' and relaxation at the end 'to take the battle to the enemy and stop them'. As a result, protection can be construed as taking the battle, although in relation to the actions in 'the real world' they have nothing to do with each other and are interconnected only in the technological chain. The processes involved in the manipulative interpretant construction are salient when considering the next level of technologization of discourse.
The second level of technologization.
Apart from being a kind of subliminal message which could be compared to the effect of the 25th frame, a technological chain is built to exploit archetypal meanings and culturally established interpretations. Reviving the term of the Russian formal school 'ostrannenie', I would call this level of technology 'technological defamiliarization'.
Victor Shklovsky is credited with formulating the important literary concept 'defamiliarization'. He is concerned with familiarization of object perception: "We see the object as though it were enveloped in a sack. We know what it is by its configuration, but we see only its silhouette. The object perceived in the manner of prose perception, fades and does not leave even a first impression; ultimately even the essence of what it was is forgotten... Art removes objects from the automatism of perception in several ways". The familiar can be presented as unfamiliar by the description and / or by the proposal to change its form without changing its nature (Shklovsky 1965: 11-15). The literary understanding of defamiliarization implies dehabituating
automised perception by providing another point of view on the object. In other words, the object (or the sign referring to it) is removed from the familiar context of its perception and put into a new one.
The essence of 'technological defamiliarization' lies in the same fundamental principle of the syntactical change of the surroundings of a particular sign but with one significant difference. Relying on a very well-known context, the expert exploits its pragmatic power and generates new meanings by introducing a new order into relations between signs within the context familiar for the addresser. The key effect involves creating an expert vision of the object that might be inadvertently absorbed by the addresser on the wave of intentionality and the interpretation horizon characterizing the original context.
I now propose to illustrate the process of 'technological defamiliarization', and consider its generic features, in a brief examination of what is perhaps one of the most illustrative examples: 'We see a day when people across the Middle East have governments that honor their dignity, unleash their creativity, and count their votes. We see a day when leaders across the Middle East reject terror and protect freedom. We see a day when the nations of the Middle East are allies in the cause ofpeace' (G. W. Bush, 31 Aug. 2006).
The expert relies on the well-known configuration of signs formed in the discourse of M. L. King 'I have a dream' with one dramatic difference. He alters the order of signs to achieve a special manipulative effect: with all the emotions and feelings coded to the new day of M. L. King when all men are equal, there is a brotherhood of whites and blacks and no racial justice, the speaker targets a shift of meaning linking the new bright day of the Americans with democracy, freedom, peace in the Middle East. We can claim that the interpreters of the
discourse perceive the new horizon and the new interprétant as personal and don't question the grounds on which they are based, because their hermeneutical efforts are blocked on the first formal level of technologization.
I would also like to add that the effect of déjà vu, in the sense of how the déjà vu phenomenon is approached by the researcher of media culture and digital history Peter Krapp, plays a crucial role in the effect of defamiliarization. The reference to a culturally well-known event / thing / figure disturbs the cultural memory, but when it's turned into a 'decontextualized familiarity' it might be acknowledged to be 'a kind of memory without a memory' (Krapp 2004: x)
Defamiliarization is widely used in media manipulation, and it encompasses lots of tricks used by experts. Thus what Robin T. Lakoff calls 'deliberate misinterpretations' (Lakoff 2001) or George Lakoff - 'a smart technique of stealing the other side's language' (Lakoff 2004: 21-22) is clearly ostrannenie because the parallel is apparent: the signs are taken out of context, which enables the expert to misconstrue the speaker's original meaning whereas the misconstrued meaning is verified. It may be verified by the very fact that the speaker produced this utterance, as in the case of Hilary Clinton, when media create her image and determine what the speaker intended by her words ignoring what she really intended to say. Or by the exploitation of the intentionality generated in the original context, as when Bill Clinton used the words 'the big government' to describe the welfare reform. He removed the signs from the context of the ideological line of the Conservative party and set the opposing direction of intentionality - 'the age of big government is over'.
The third level.
The final aspect of a technology is to intentionally refer the addresser to objects and events, allegedly existing in the context of his /
her personal experience, which in fact function only in the forms constructed within a simulative world. This corresponds with the words of Plato: 'imitation is a kind of creation of images and not of real things'; 'imitations of real existences' (Plato 2004: 102, 101).
Reference is widely acknowledged to be the way language is connected with the objects in the world (although I must admit herein lies a very important philosophical problem whether the world of objects exists or not and more deeply where the meanings are - in signs themselves, in the embodied mind, in the embedded mind). So pseudoreference (a new term which I would like to introduce) is an intentional action of referring to objects and events, allegedly existing in the context of our personal experience, which in fact function only in the forms constructed within a simulative world. At this point it's worth mentioning that pseudoreference will work most effectively at critical moments of culture. 'A subject needs reference, it provides stability. If he or she is unable to immediately establish a frame of reference, it triggers a response of dread' (Marzec 2002). So a subject is prone to accept whatever is imposed upon them if they have never experienced this particular thing or event. This is what happened in America on 9/11.
A good example of pseudoreference is 'the enemy of freedom' - a term coined in American political discourse, the extension of which is so wide and vague that it can refer to an unlimited number of objects - Nazi Germany, Soviet Union, Iraq, Sudan, Taliban. But the special features of these simulative objects are constructed beyond physical experiences - beyond the boundaries of personal phenomenological worlds, and are restrained to images recreated within the context of values. If we refer to the notions introduced by Alfred Whitehead, we should speak about the World of Value and the World of Activity that are interdependent: 'The reality inherent in the
World of Value involves the primary experience of the finite perspectives for realisation in the essential multiplicity of the World of Activity' (Whitehead 1968: 89). Still we can see that there could be constructed a wide technological gap between the two Worlds.
If we look at the Value 'Freedom' in American culture, and the realisation of this Value in the World of Activity, then we may see the shift between 'Freedom', and its properties (which primarily imply 'individual freedom'), and its realisation in a number of concrete actions. The latter are a) beyond the experience of ordinary Americans, b) beyond the values of the people where this value is being implemented, c) the Value 'Freedom' is clearly substituted by the realisations of values 'Expansion', 'Dominance', 'Power'. Here we can proceed to a very serious issue of constructing worlds that are beyond people's personal experiences and that are technologically imposed on them.
Turning the subject of the discourse into simulacrum
While most researchers acknowledge the fact the individuals are changing rapidly, their opinion about the nature of these changes differs drastically. While some of them support the idea of the distinction between human and machine being lost and the fluidity of gender identities (Haraway 1991), the others express opposing views about the binary oppositions being intensified (Mullany 2004). Whereas many hold a very pessimistic view of the increasing control of information and communications technologies (e.g. Finlay 1987), a few have argued that modern technologies bring genuine, productive and transformative changes (Poster 2001).
Without claiming the changes to be good or bad, I would simply like to recognise that they exist and are well demonstrated in language use. A very interesting example is contained within
the article by Samira Kawash, who contemplates her confusion over the meaning of the fragment of conversation "So there I was on line, when this kid started pushing me from behind, practically knocked me down..." (Kawash 1997). The wide use of new digital technologies has caused shifts in language use: 'to be on line' is no longer commensurable with physical activity because the automatic assumptions would be 'to go on line', 'to shop on line', 'to work and play on line'.
In my article I aim to concentrate more on the transformations of the subjects of discourse and the investigations of the problem within the nexus between manipulation, technologization and simulacrum. The key explanation to their integrity lies in the fact that the main aim of manipulating people happens to be alienation of the subject from the ideas and meanings he / she utters. 'Alienated subject' is virtually a nonexistent subject of the discourse which reproduces but does not produce utterances.
This point is extensively proved and illustrated by media researchers who write about personalities constructed as 'certain types of subjects' (Tolson 1991: 195). There can be no doubt that it is true about TV presenters who are represented as constructions, even fabrications for the game which is 'good television' (ibid: 187), and public leaders, whose political persona is definitely a crafted one, based upon calculations of what will work, fed by focus group research (Talbot 2003: 71). But this may also be a very clear case for ordinary people. Thus Mary Talbot writes about call center workers, who are 'imposed with a demand to present themselves in a way the company determines, down to the last detail'. This makes individuals a particularly extreme case of institutional control over individuals' self-presentation (ibid: 130).
I claim that this technological process of the alienation of the subject, which in linguistic terms would be better to formulate as the elimination of
the subject, involves a wider audience in the post modern era and could be determined as creating a synthetic personality or, in terms widely used in this research, turning the subject into simulacrum. The main emphasis which I would like to lay here is on the thought (which is reiterated in the works on synthetic personalisation and synthetic personality): 'personality' is no longer reducible to 'people as they really are' but is revealed through their skills of 'public verbal game' (ibid: 185). All these clarify a newly emerged process in semiosis with a reversed direction of the vector: it is not the identity that generates its own discourse and reveals itself through it, but the discourse, which the identity adopts under pressure, or inadvertently, consumes and exterminates the subject of the discourse leaving the pronoun I to exist only as a pure form.
In essence the idea of the elimination of the subject and constructing him as a simulacrum, although in another ideological sense, was expressed by the linguist credited with the term and theory dubbed 'the death of the author' -Roland Barthes. 'Writing is that neutral, composite, oblique space where our subject slips away, the negative where all identity is lost, starting with the very identity of the body writing. No doubt it has always been that way. As soon as a fact is narrated no longer with a view to acting directly on reality but intransitively, that is to say, finally outside of any function other than that of the very practice of the symbol itself, this disconnection occurs, the voice loses its origin, the author enters into his own death, writing begins. Linguistically, the author is never more than the instance writing, just as I is nothing other than the instance saying I: language knows a subject, not a person, and this subject, empty outside of the very enunciation which defines it, suffices to make language hold together, suffices, that is to say, to exhaust it' (Barthes 1977).
Interestingly, whereas Barthes speaks about the death of the author as the absence of the dominating center that sets the only possible interpretation of the text, I see a vivid parallel between his ideas and the ones expressed in this article in relation to the transformations of the subjects under the influence of technologies. When the production of the discourse turns into 'the very practice of the symbol itself' or, in other words, the discursive practices start to overwhelmingly control the subjects of discourse (whether this process is conscious or unconscious for the addressers of the discourse), the subject is lost as it is dissolved in the flow of speech introduced from above. But I admit that these are only preliminary conclusions not supported by serious research. However I am sure that this particular aspect of technology will be proved true after thorough investigation with a special emphasis on the discourse presented from above (the Discourse of the Expert Community) and the effect it has when it is perceived below (the ideas of the discourses introduced from above and below belong to N. Fairclough).
Resume
Technologization is a universal mechanism of covert control and persuasion effectuated in the Discourse of the Expert Community. The basic nature of the technology rests on special syntax when an expert follows a three step technological algorithm: 1) to construct a chain of signs relying on four key principals of suggestive influence -rhythm, reiteration, rhyme, alliteration (the formal level); 2) to impose a certain interpretation of the event / object with reliance on a pre-directed intentional state of the addressers of the discourse; 3) to lock the addresser inside a discursive world created with pseudoreferents.
There is a relation between manipulation, technologization and simulacrum and it could be clearly determined: manipulation is a technology
used for the practical purpose of constructing a subject of the discourse as a simulacrum. This means that the subject of the discourse, which manifests itself the moment it appropriates the personal pronoun I, stops producing ideas but begins to reproduce discursive blocks that have been inadvertently consumed under the influence
of expert technologies. I remains as a devaluated 'pure' form that marks the presence of the speaker but doesn't indicate the subject, because the latter is lost. Thus technologization is a process that communication undergoes in modern times and it goes hand by hand with manipulation and simulacrum.
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Лингвистические характеристики технологизации дискурса
У.В. Смирнова
Сибирский федеральный университет Свободный пр. 82а, Красноярск 660041, Россия
Об интересе к технологизации современного дискурса свидетельствует ряд проведенных в последние годы работ в этой области. Принимая во внимание все сделанные учеными выводы, я предлагаю изменить угол исследования данного феномена и сконцентрироваться на лингвистической сущности технологизации дискурса, уровнях реализации технологий и источниках ее возникновения. Связь между технологизацией дискурса, манипуляцией и симулякром до настоящей статьи не устанавливалась и не доказывалась. Также как и не говорилось о прямом отношении, которое имеет технологизация дискурса к проблеме исчезновения субъекта высказывания в эпоху постмодерна. Указанные вопросы освещаются в данной статье и иллюстрируются примерами из анализа политического дискурса Дж. Буша-мл.
Ключевые слова: Технологизация дискурса; манипуляция; технологии воздействия; симулякр; дискурс экспертного сообщества; остраннение.
