12Q - Language and Power Homework - Mr Skirrow's Example

 

For your homework, I'd like you to embed a YouTube video onto your blog featuring two characters/speakers who have an asymmetrical power relationship - these should be on your blogs for Wednesday 27th November. There's a button in the 'Post' section of your blog that allows you to insert a video from YouTube! Here, I've gone with the climax of The Empire Strikes Back (apologies for spoiler alerts...) and I've produced three paragraphs on the language and power in this text. (BE CAREFUL TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT YOUR TEXT IS REPRESENTED)


Star Wars - The Empire Strikes Back

In this scene, Darth Vader is battling Luke Skywalker and trying to convince him to join the Empire rather than continue to side with the rebels.

Darth Vader's firm use of declaratives in the scene help him to assert power over Luke - firm statements like "you are beaten" and "it is useless to resist" with their indisputable nature give him power over Luke at this moment. As this is a represented speech, perhaps the screenwriter gave Darth Vader these lines to help him appear more forceful - the use of "beaten" and "useless" help to portray him as confident and arrogant to the film audience.

When Darth Vader is trying to convince Luke to join him, he presents this as an ultimatum, with the line "Join me and I will complete your training" - the use of the strong modal verb "will" here shows the certainty of what Vader's proposing happening, and his use of the first person plural pronoun "we" helps to convince Luke that they are already a team. Having injured Luke gives Vader power here, and he offers his hand as a way of convincing Luke, who appears to be in an impossible scenario.

Finally, Darth Vader's use of imperatives at the end of the extract are also an attempt to exert  power over Luke with "Search your feelings" commanding Luke to follow Vader's instructions. The screenwriter here again presents Vader as a commanding and confident presence, who ignores Luke's attempts to gain power through declaratives and instead continues to give orders to Luke.