Language and Hegemony in Antonio Gramsci

“If those in charge of our
society - politicians,
corporate executives, and
owners of press and
television - can dominate
our ideas, they will be
secure in their power.
They will not need
soldiers patrolling the
streets. We will control
ourselves” (Howard Zinn,
historian and writer)
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•The
NEOGRAMMARIANS
(Karl
BRUGMANN, Hermann OSTHOFF,
August LESKIEN): an influential school
of ‘young grammarians’ teaching at the
University of Leipzig in the late
nineteenth century
•Graziadio Isaia ASCOLI (1829-1907):
socialist, professor of linguistics (Milano),
founder of the substratum theory
•Matteo BARTOLI (1873-1946):
professor of linguistics (Torino), a student
of Ascoli, Gramsci’s teacher, founder of
Neolinguistics (also called ‘spatial/areal
linguistics’)
•Benedetto CROCE (1866-1952):
philosopher and critic, founder of Idealist
Linguistics
•Ferdinand DE SAUSSURE (1857-1913):
Swiss linguist, founder of Structural
Linguistics.
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


•
•
Born: Sardinia (1891)
Died: Rome (1937)
1911-15: Studied linguistics at
the university of Torino
(with Prof. Matteo Bartoli)
1924-26: represents the Communist Party as an MP
1926-36: confinement to prison
(Quaderni del carcere - prison notebooks)
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
The Neogrammarians (inspired by
‘comparative philology’ and the natural
sciences):


sound change is regular and exceptionless (laws
of sound change)
language-internal (‘mechanistic’) view
 actual speakers cannot resist language change
(emphasizes passive role of speakers)
 ‘language contact’ disregarded

Language is a-political; language changes are
‘natural’
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5


Standard English (or Standard French,
German…) has a ‘natural’ history/evolution
that historical linguists can trace/describe.
To be a ‘historical’ linguist means to ignore the
historical-political-ideological dimension of
languages/varieties and their histories

Alternative histories of English (Watts & Trudgill
2002)
 However, if the non-standard varieties of English are
treated by the linguist as having ‘natural’ histories as
well, this does not help the Marxist cause embraced by
Gramsci.
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
M. Bartoli’s Neolinguistics (inspired by
‘dialectology’ and the historical sciences)

language-external approach
 language conflict as the reason for linguistic change

Speakers as agents: they ‘choose’ a certain
pronunciation or a language (prestige and identity
as driving forces)
 This is a model of linguistic change that can provide
politically relevant explanations, e.g. of how Standard
varieties of a language arise and spread/diffuse to other
(more remote) areas.
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


B. Croce: Idealist linguistics
 language only exists as part of individuals’
expressions
 language only exists in the here-and-now
F. de Saussure: Structural linguistics
 language as a self-contained system (langue)
 the ‘speech community’ as the point of reference
A. Gramsci opposes both Saussure’s and the
Neogrammarians’ abstract objectivism as well as Croce’s
individualistic subjectivism:
 Gramsci’s insistence that social thinkers need to step
outside the self-contained abstract language system
(Saussure’s synchronic linguistics happens outside of
linear time; ahistorical)
 Gramsci’s belief in parole as deeply ‘social’ (rather than
individual), as opposed to Saussure
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

a concept that has been used to describe the existence
of dominance of one social group over another, such
that the ruling group acquires some degree of consent
from the subordinate (‘subaltern’) groups, as opposed
to dominance purely by force.
the capacity of dominant classes to persuade
subordinate ones to accept, adopt and internalize their
values and norms
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

The performative (or ‘symbolic’, ‘didactic’) function of
language (the view perpetuated by social thinkers)

meaning is produced in language; values are inherent in
language

language creates the world
The descriptive (or ‘communicative’) function of
language (the view diffused by the governing classes
via education, law, Church, etc.)

language and the real world are separable (language describes
what is already given)

Language is a means of conveying information
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
‘What is grammar? In all the countries of the
world, millions upon millions on textbooks on
the subject are devoured by specimens of the
human race, without those unfortunates
having a precise awareness of the object they’re
devouring.’ (Gramsci, 1927)
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
the alliance between Northern capitalists and the
local elites in the South

the failure on the part of the subaltern groups to
unite and develop a ‘consciousness of themselves’
(by setting up their own subaltern normative
grammar)

the creation of a Standard Italian language (which
was a ‘foreign’ dialect to most Italians)
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•
•
•
the exclusive (rather than unifying) nature of Standard varieties,
which possess conscious normative grammars, in which it is
costumary for speakers to clarify/question intentions and
meanings of what they/others say, and in which one’s grammar
and pronunciation are constantly monitored by parents,
educators, etc.
Non-standard varieties, in turn, have not developed beyond the
stage of unconscious immanent (or spontaneous) grammars,
which lack the institutionalisation of a linguistic meta-level.
Gramsci’s (hegemonic) ideal: A truly ‘democratic’ Standard
national language (in which all dialects are represented), reflecting
the ‘national-popular collective will’, which is equally
foreign/genuine to all its speakers.
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