Engaging the stuff of words: language materiality and symbolic power

A contribution from multimodality studies, this paper offers a practice- and teaching-oriented approach to the stuff of words. I start by introducing <i>language materiality</i>, a heuristic framework proposed by linguistic anthropologists, but grounding it in four allied precedents: <i>cultural studies</i>, <i>dispositif analysis</i>, <i>mediated discourse</i>, and <i>social semiotics</i>. Then, drawing on illustrative case studies from my own work, I demonstrate a two-part framework for working with students. In Part 1, the focus is on <i>little "m" materialities</i> and the transmodal interplay between words and things. In Part 2, the focus is on <i>big "M" materialities</i> and the more structural effects of language - specifically, symbolic violence. By using banal, everyday examples students can be helped to pinpoint the multimodality of words; how words function as material artefacts in their own right; and the way words materialize societal structures. In this way, students also learn to engage the stuff of words as more than just an analytical curiosity, but rather as an explicitly political-critical consideration.