Fairclough’s Language and Power argues that language is not a neutral communicative tool, but a decisive site where power, ideology and social inequality are produced, sustained and contested. His project of critical language study seeks to reveal hidden connections between language use and unequal relations of power, especially where domination appears natural through “common-sense” assumptions . Unlike approaches that treat language as an abstract system, Fairclough defines discourse as social practice: language is shaped by social structures, yet it also helps reproduce or transform them. A key example is institutional interaction, such as a police interview, where question patterns, interruptions and minimal acknowledgements position the officer as authoritative and the witness as subordinate . Such linguistic details are not accidental; they encode wider social relations. Fairclough’s case study of ideology shows that power often works less through physical coercion than through consent, as ordinary forms of speech make hierarchy, expertise and authority seem self-evident. This is why discourse analysis must examine not only texts, but also the processes of producing and interpreting them, including the socially shaped assumptions readers and speakers bring to communication. Ultimately, Fairclough presents critical discourse analysis as an emancipatory practice: by exposing how language manufactures consent and naturalises domination, it enables individuals to question, resist and potentially transform unequal social relations.