Linguistic Capital and Power Relations in Shark Tank Pakistan: A Bourdieusian Sociolinguistic Analysis

Abstract

This paper investigates linguistic capital and the production of power relations in Shark Tank Pakistan from the perspective of Bourdieusian sociolinguistics. Shark Tank Pakistan is an Entrepreneurial reality television show where language is negotiated as symbolic capital to employ entrepreneurs' credibility in seeking investments and Sharks’ authority in granting investments in their businesses. The study employs Bourdieusian Sociolinguistic Analysis (1991) and conversational analysis (CA) to investigate how persuasive strategies are used by entrepreneurs for legitimacy in investment negotiations and how Sharks assert authority through questioning and interruptions. For this purpose, four episodes are purposively selected from Shark Tank Pakistan season one (2024-2025). The results indicate authority and identity as negotiated with conversational control and turn-taking and the persuasion and negotiation techniques as linguistic capital, which is a combination of the ethical, emotional, market appeals to credibility. The code-switching between Urdu and English is the indicator of social stratification as a sign of cultural embeddedness and professional and financial power. It is also through interactions that a neoliberal meritocratic ideology is reproduced, where success is seen to be based on individual ability and initiative and structural obstacles are kept very private. Altogether, the paper proves the way in which televised pitches perform authority, justify entrepreneurs, and support socio-economic hierarchies in modern Pakistan.