Online public language policing as a biopower

Enforcing and challenging language norms and language ideologies in Finnish Facebook language discussion groups

Abstract

The pervasive integration of the internet and social media into contemporary society has provided ordinary language users with a far-reaching and ever-vigilant surveillance tool that can be used to monitor, regulate, and control social norms, including language norms. When the target of this regulation is language, the practice is known as language policing. By categorizing and analyzing micro-level, community-based language policing practices in posts and comments from three Finnish Facebook language discussion groups, this article examines language policing as a form of biopower. It serves as a mechanism through which ordinary language users can police written Standard Finnish, control each other's language usage, reproduce dominant language ideologies, and, conversely, challenge them. Using a theory-driven content analysis approach and drawing upon the concepts of shaming types developed by Murumaa-Mengel and Muuli, as well as Foucault's theory of biopower, the analysis reveals two distinct techniques. Firstly, it demonstrates that normation occurs through language policing practices such as denunciatory, recreational, pedagogic, and participative approaches. These practices serve to reinforce established language norms and are in line with standard language ideology. Secondly, the analysis highlights the technique of normalization, in the forms of reflective and normalizing language policing practices. These offer a more critical view of codified language norms and are more accepting of norm-deviations, aligning with more critical language ideologies.