Research Paper on:
Hidden and Public Transcripts/Use of Power

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
one group of people has dominance over another. When discourse is shaped by a subordinate, "out of prudence, fear, and the desire to curry favor," in such a manner as  "to appeal to the expectations of the powerful," this discourse is referred to by Scott as the public transcript (2000, p. 2). However, when subordinates state their true feelings to  their peers, Scott terms this the hidden transcript. Scott makes an excellent argument that this model for considering discourse illuminates the dynamics of social power structures. For example,  Scott refers to Civil War diary kept by a Southern woman, a slave-owner, who noted that whenever the topic of the war was mentioned, her slaves went about their tasks  silently, with no expression. Her diary states, "Yet on all other subjects except the war they are the most excitable of all races" (Scott, 1990, p. 3). As these slaves  were still under the domination of their masters, they dared not show their interest or excitement at the news of Union victories. Their silence was their public transcript, and their  only protection from punishment for having opinions contrary the interests of their masters. While this is a severe example of power disparity, almost everyone has encountered situations in which  they present a public transcript that is the result of a power disparity. When a student agrees with a professor in an attempt to curry favor, or when an employee  falsely complements his or her boss in order to win approval are also examples of power transcripts. Scott (1990) observes that "the greater the disparity of power between dominant and  subordinate, and the more arbitrarily it is exercised, the more the public transcript of subordinates will take on a stereotyped, ritualistic cast" (p. 3). Again, the ideal example is