Structuring of Psychological Space and Establishing Hegemony: A Study of Literary and Non-Literary Discourses

Abstract

This paper looks into how various discourses came into being, how linguistic structures started dominating social as well as individual life and how psychological space is created, which is enlarging continuously. It also deals with the question - how language and literature are used as technology to shape the human psyche? At the surface level, there seems to be no use of technology in language and literature, except in printing and production through audio-visual means. However, the reality is very different. All discourses and other forms of art are technological productions because the arrangement of words, utterances, symbols, expressions and various other things require technical skill. A writer or artist produces his works like a technician who produces machines. That is why there is no doubt that humankind has always made use of language and literature to structure the psyche of people. It manifests itself in the processes how a person agrees to become human bomb, why a person self-immolates for some abstract cause, how soldiers are persuaded to fight for the nation, how people are divided into various social classes, and why they give consent for self-exploitation? Advertisers, politicians, and journalists are aware of the reality more than common masses and therefore they use language in an effective way to get desired response from the masses.