Ideology and language.

In this paper it is suggested that while most theorists of ideology implicitly or explicitly link it to language, the notion of ‘language’ itself is often under-theorized. In particular, discussions of its relationship to ideology often fail to acknowledge that language is not simply a vehicle for other ideological processes but is itself shaped by ideological processes. It is argued that many influential accounts of the ideological and political ‘abuse’ of language (e.g. the political language criticism of Orwell and Chomsky) rely on ideological propositions about how language works, or ought to work, which are (a) culturally and historically specific and (b) subject to contestation in any given time and place. The status of ‘language’ in such accounts should be interrogated by political theorists rather than treated as unproblematic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]