# The Dictionary Is the Exemplary Result of Codifying a National Language by Pierre Bourdieu > “Only when the making of the 'nation', an entirely abstract group based on law, creates new usages and functions does it become indispensable to forge a standard language, impersonal and anonymous like the official uses it has to serve, and by the same token to undertake the work of normalizing the products of the linguistic habitus. The dictionary is the exemplary result of this labour of codification and normalization.” > **— Pierre Bourdieu**, *Language and Symbolic Power, 1991* ## Sources and Context - **Source:** Pierre Bourdieu, [*Language and Symbolic Power*](https://www.miguelangelmartinez.net/IMG/pdf/1991_bourdieu_language_ch1.pdf), ed. John B. Thompson, trans. Gino Raymond and Matthew Adamson (Cambridge: Polity Press; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991), ch. 1, “The Production and Reproduction of Legitimate Language,” p. 48. - **Exact original:** “Thus, only when the making of the 'nation', an entirely abstract group based on law, creates new usages and functions does it become indispensable to forge a standard language, impersonal and anonymous like the official uses it has to serve, and by the same token to undertake the work of normalizing the products of the linguistic habitus. The dictionary is the exemplary result of this labour of codification and normalization.” The Reminder omits the opening connective “Thus,” and capitalizes “Only”; the passage is otherwise contiguous and unchanged. - **Why the fuller passage:** The article quotes only the second sentence. The Reminder restores the preceding sentence because “this labour” refers to the state's forging and normalizing of a standard language; without it the proposition loses its subject. - **Context:** The same chapter states that “the official language is bound up with the state, both in its genesis and in its social uses,” and continues that the dictionary assembles all recorded uses of a word while marking those that exceed the bounds of acceptability. ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/War With Empire|War With Empire]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Simple Reminders|Simple Reminders]] - **Article:** [[articles/war with empire/Authorship of the West|Authorship of the West]] - **Article:** [[articles/war with empire/The Real No Kings Moment and Who Wrote the Super-intelligence Ban|The Real No Kings Moment and Who Wrote the Super-intelligence Ban]] - **Wiki map:** [[wiki/Authorship of the West|Authorship of the West]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/Semantic Jurisdiction|Semantic Jurisdiction]] - [[wiki/Oxford English Dictionary|Oxford English Dictionary]] - [[wiki/Lexicographic Succession|Lexicographic Succession]] - [[wiki/Linguistic Imperialism|Linguistic Imperialism]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “Only when the making of the 'nation', an entirely abstract group based on law, creates new usages and functions does it become indispensable to forge a standard language, impersonal and anonymous like the official uses it has to serve, and by the same token to undertake the work of normalizing the products of the linguistic habitus. The dictionary is the exemplary result of this labour of codification and normalization.” — Pierre Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power, 1991 https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-pierre-bourdieu-dictionary-codification-normalization ```