Introducing elite discourse: the rhetorics of status, privilege, and power

This introductory paper offers a framing of elite discourse as the way elites and/or eliteness are depicted in language and communication, and the way language and communication are deployed for two elitist ends: the production of status and the maintenance of privilege/power. We sketch three orienting principles which have structured our special issue – targeting elitism, centring discourse and critical reflexivity – before presenting an overview of the individual papers. We end by listing some of the prominent motifs and questions to have emerged through this interdisciplinary collaboration, concluding with the synergetic politics of representational acts and redistributive actions.