Abstract

The article deals with social influence of neoliberal discourse on privatization of schools and school canteens in Warsaw. In the light of social analysis of discourse, the term means social activities situated in the area designated by ‘understanding, communicating and interpersonal interactions, where the above mentioned phenomena are being a part of a wider context constituted by social and cultural structures and processes’. In Teun A. van Dijk’s understanding of the term, a discursive social activity takes place, when ‘the language users take part in communication not only as entities, but also as members of various groups, institutions and cultures’, whereas through their statements they create, they confirm or question the social and political structures and institutions. The city council and district councils are places where the speech not only mirrors relations of social ascendancy (the councilors are always first to speak before the inhabitants), but also this ascendancy is being ‘performed’ by ‘constituting’ their recipient at the moment of enunciation (for example the figure of ‘homo sovieticus’ often mentioned by the councilors). Councils are places, where the enunciated social structure mentions and preserves the ascendant’s position. The aim of the article was to show how some of the macro-scaled problems (neo-liberalism, crisis of the representative’s democracy) reveal its violent nature in the micro-scale (Warsaw councilors’ policy towards schools and school canteens).