Power as ideology: Discursive resistance in multilingual Senegal and its theoretical implications

The co-presence of language codes is often analysed in terms of power. In many African settings, only the former colonial language has obtained the status of an official language and is therefore seen as more powerful as other languages. But what does powerful mean?
Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) studies how utterances consolidate power relations between members of a society. Analysts are interested in how language produces domination and inequality. For CDA scholars, patterns of language use create and cement social segmentation. When ideologies such as racism and sexism gain a certain strength among a group of people (a political current, a social class, a linguistic community) they powerfully shape a given social setting. Extralinguistic power as media coverage, financial means, and social class thereby provide the means of a dissemination of ideologies.
In my contribution, I want to question the value of this understanding of power for the multilingual context of Senegalese. With examples from my empirical work, I will illustrate how ordinary speakers do not necessarily adhere to the patterns of speaking suggested by those in power. As I will show, residents apply categorisations from their own repertoires to alter the official language and the governmental jargon. On the one hand, this calls for a reconsideration of power and ideology in discourse. On the other hand, it demands theorising embedded in complex, multilingual settings on the ground.