  We investigate the correlations between optical and radio isophotal position
angles for 14302 SDSS galaxies with $r$ magnitudes brighter than 18 and which
have been associated with extended FIRST radio sources. We identify two
separate populations of galaxies using the colour, concentration and their
principal components. Surprisingly strong statistical alignments are found:
late-type galaxies are overwhelmingly biased towards a position angle
differences of $0^{\circ}$ and early-type galaxies to $90^{\circ}$. The
late-type alignment can be easily understood in terms of the standard picture
in which the radio emission is intimately related to areas of recent
star-formation. In early-type galaxies the radio emission is expected to be
driven by accretion on to a nuclear black hole. We argue that the observed
correlation of the radio axis with the minor axis of the large-scale stellar
distribution gives a fundamental insight into the structure of elliptical
galaxies, for example, whether or not the nuclear kinematics are decoupled form
the rest of the galaxy. Our results imply that the galaxies are oblate
spheroids with their radio emission aligned with the minor axis. Remarkably the
strength of the correlation of the radio major axis with the optical minor axis
depends on radio loudness. Those objects with a low ratio of FIRST radio flux
density to total stellar light show a strong minor axis correlation while the
stronger radio sources do not. This may reflect different formation histories
for the different objects and we suggest we may be seeing the different
behaviour of rationally supported and non-rotationally supported ellipticals.
