Emblematic gestures (or emblems) have several denominations in the literature (for instance autonomous, quotable, semiotic, folkloric or symbolic gestures). Emblems are culture-bound gestures; they differ interculturally and intraculturally, both among different cultural and linguistic areas, and among individuals and social groups within the same culture. These gestures are easily translated into verbal language, they are quotable; they are equivalent to utterances, and in many cases, they have names. Typical emblems are used – alongside or without words – for greetings, insults or mockery, to indicate places or people (deictics), to refer to the state of a person (to be drunk, to be asleep …), to give interpersonal orders or to represent actions (to eat, to drink, etc.). Many emblems show a clear perlocutionary component (to offer, to threaten, to promise or to swear …). The tradition in the study of emblems has always emphasized their autonomy from speech (they are interpretable with a high level of context independence). Moreover, emblematic capacity can be regarded as associated with illocutionary force, which is one of the most characteristic features of these units.

This chapter builds on Cha[ter 4 to discuss how symbolic power does violence to others through the power of suggestion. Drawing on Bourdieu and Foucault, it shows the paradox of symbolic violence that can only be exercised if it is seen as something natural and benevolent. Even such a well-intended utterance as “I love you” can put the recipient in an awkward obligation to respond in kind – whether that was the intended perlocutionary effect of the speech act or not. I discuss the reciprocity imperative that regulates the gift-giving rituals in everyday life and the individual violence it exercises on social actors. I then discuss the institutional violence exerted by the educational system that at once empowers students to acquire knowledge and enables them to make meaning of people and events, but at the same time imposes its own discrimination and stratification among students that replicates the structure of the society that upholds educational institutions. Finally I discuss another case of communicative violence, namely the conversational inequalities that emerge across turns, topics and tasks in conversational exchanges, particularly in instructional settings between teacher and students and among students.