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Interpellation

Philosophy
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

The process by which social language calls a person into a recognized identity or role.

Detailed Definition
A poem can dramatize interpellation whenever a speaker is hailed as citizen, child, worker, stranger, sinner, or lover and must decide whether to answer. The call may come from law, family, media, ritual, or an internalized voice. Poetic address makes this process especially visible because pronouns and imperatives stage the pressure of being named. A resistant poem may repeat the imposed label, distort it, or invent a new response outside its available roles.
Example
Example in poetry:
Interpellation is the process by which ideology addresses people as particular kinds of subjects, as when a poem’s “you” assigns the reader a role; A patriotic poem may interpellate its audience as loyal citizens through commands, shared pronouns, and heroic history; Claudia Rankine’s work often exposes how racialized language calls a person into a hostile social identity; A poem can resist interpellation by interrupting labels and allowing the addressed speaker to answer in an unexpected voice
Additional Notes
Interpellation describes how language, institutions, and social practices address people in ways that invite them to recognize themselves as particular subjects. A greeting, law, classroom rule, or stereotype can interpellate someone as a citizen, student, worker, or outsider. The concept is strongly associated with Louis Althusser.
Also Known As
Hailing Ideological Hailing
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