The York Research Database

Simon Susen's paper "Bourdieusian reflections on language: Unavoidable conditions of the real speech situation" gives us a provocative account of the shortcomings of a Bourdieusian approach to language. For Susen, Bourdieu's own assumptions have led to a series of blind spots which lead to an over-emphasis on power, domination and their reproduction as well as to an under-emphasis on the liberating, creative and transgressive potentialities of language. I argue that Susen overlooks the locatedness of language within the bodily hexis of social actors and that, furthermore, his optimistic argument relies on eclipsing these classed bodies. Hence, I question his claim that language can escape its social determinants and transform social relations.