The Discourse of M: Managing British Intelligence in James Bond Movies
The Discourse of M: Managing British Intelligence in James Bond Movies

Author(s): Anna Majer, Piotr Mamet
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Keywords: Institutional discourse; discourse analysis; the discourse of M; the language of James Bond
Summary/Abstract: The Discourse of M differs from the books written about the 007 series so far. It is not the main character – James Bond – who is the matter of concern for the authors, but M – the head of MI6 and Bond’s supervisor. Three actors (Bernard Lee, Robert Brown, Ralph Fiennes) and one actress (Judith Dench) impersonate M, and each of them makes a unique creation of the MI6 head, representing different management styles, which are reflected in language. This becomes the subject for investigation – the discourse of M. The book is of scientific character. A sociolinguistic and pragmatic analysis of the corpus (M’s utterances) is preceded by theoretical background concerning institutional discourse, critical discourse analysis, the concept of power and selected pragmatic aspects – speech acts and politeness. The research part begins with an analysis of M’s position in MI6 throughout years based on the characters’ encounters in various configurations – M-Bond, M-supervisors or M about him/herself. Then, one can observe how the discourse of M changes in particular episodes of the series. As a manager, M orders, assesses and cares for the highest standards and the operatives. The book presents how each of Ms realises their managerial duties, what the specificity of their language is, and how they pursue their goals and the goals of MI6 by means of language.

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