Title: LEXICONS OF POWER: A SOCIO-LINGUISTIC EXAMINATION OF HIERARCHICAL IDENTITY CONSTRUCTS IN POP CULTURE-NOLAN’S THE DARK KNIGHT TRILOGY
Authors:
Syed Mohammad Mashiur Rahman and Mohammad Shamsus Sadekin
Abstract:
This study explores the role of language in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Trilogy. Words become tools for power, identity, and control in Gotham. Focusing on the trilogy’s three main villains—Ra’s al Ghul, the Joker, and Bane—the paper examines how each uses language to challenge Gotham’s social and moral order. Ra’s al Ghul employs a cold, philosophical discourse to frame his destructive actions as part of a grand design for balance. The Joker disrupts social norms with chaotic, nihilistic speech, using language to unravel Gotham’s established rules, while Bane uses rhetoric as a weapon of revolution and domination, blending populist ideals with coercive speech to manipulate the city’s people and power structures. In contrast, Batman uses language as a tool to maintain order. His controlled speech reflects a balance of justice and fear. This black and white comparison shows the villains’ ideological assaults with his own moral resolve. Drawing on sociolinguistic theory and cinematic critique, this study argues that Gotham is built not only of bricks and shadows but also of words. Nolan’s trilogy transforms language into a battlefield where power and identity are continuously negotiated through dialogue, offering a fresh perspective on the films by emphasizing the significance of language in shaping Gotham’s moral and political landscape.
Keywords: Sociolinguistics, Language and identity, Nihilism, Power dynamics, Moral ambiguity, Cinematic language.
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