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chapter 2 ‘‘I don’t know the words’’ institutional discourses in adolescent literature A vi’s Nothing but the Truth ends with the statement, ‘‘I don’t know the words’’ (177). Nothing but the Truth is a postmodern novel about a ninth-grader named Philip Malloy who gets expelled fromHarrisonHighSchool for creating a disturbance during a broadcast over his school’s public announcement system of ‘‘The Star-Spangled Banner’’ (177). His admitting that he does not know the words to the anthem provides an ironic twist to the story’s resolution because his suspension has created a national media frenzy. Ostensibly, he has been suspended for trying to sing the national anthem during morning announcements in his homeroom. Local politicians have asserted the boy’s right to salute his country, but Philip’s teacher asserts that he was intentionally creating a disturbance because she recently gave him a failing grade that led to his suspension from the track team. During the course of events, she is forced to resign . Philip ultimately transfers to another school, where he finally admits that he has never known the lyrics to the national anthem. His admission, ‘‘I don’t know the words,’’ serves as a metaphor for adolescents’ position within many institutional cultures. Philip knows there are words — he knows that the language he needs to navigate within the institution exists — but he does not always have the capability of accessing those words. He is effectively silenced by three institutions that purport to empower people: school, family, and local government. Yet despite being denied full access to the language of institutional discourse, Philip has remarkable authority over his own destiny and the destiny of his teacher. He has access to the national media. He has access to the local school board. He can get a teacher fired. Yet he cannot communicate effectively enough with his own parents to stop the chain of events that follows when he first hums along during the broadcast of the national anthem. Foucault would note how Philip operates within a ‘‘domination-repression’’ model of institutional structure. The boy is invested in succeeding in the school — he wants to run track there — so he cares enough to test the limits of his power, but when he finds that limit, he is himself disempowered . If Philip loses in his institutional struggle, it is because he misperceives what power he has within the economy of his culture. His father, who claims to lack ‘‘a position of power’’ at work, urges his son, ‘‘Don’t let them push you around’’ (56–57). As Philip tries to defend himself, one series of miscommunications builds upon another, demonstrating how institutions derive their power from the discourse people use. Social institutions are determined by discourse, and they exist for the purpose of regulating social power, which is why Althusser refers to them as ‘‘Ideological State Apparatuses’’ (155). They use language simultaneously to repress and to empower their constituents ; they gain power from the very people whom they regulate . As isas, social institutions also use language to regulate one another. In the case of the U.S. government, the Constitution designates three institutions to provide a system of checks and balances: the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the government both sustain and regulate one another in a series of written and verbal interactions. Humans grow to maturity trained in the ways of such institutions; families, schools, and religious institutions all take an active role in educating children how to engage the institutional power afforded to individuals. The training invariably depends on language of some sort. When we investigate how social institutions function in adolescent literature, we can gain insight into the ways that adolescent literature itself serves as a discourse of institutional socialization . Because institutions are myriad in number, I have chosen to focus on four that recur often in ya novels: government politics, schools, religion, and identity politics. As institutions with clearly defined goals of training children and adolescents, both schools and religion serve as sites of empowerment and repression for many adolescents. The role of politics in adolescent literature appears more subtly: relatively few novels deal directly with the role of the state in regulating teenagers’ power. But many novels deal with this concept either metaphorically or by demonstrating the 22 : Institutional Discourses ways that teenagers are affected by government policies or are socially constructed by identity politics, including race, gender, and class. Virtually every adolescent novel assesses some aspect of the interaction...

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