Language Abuse and Human Consciousness
Keynote: The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
'Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society. It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of communication and reflection. The fact of the matter is that the "real world" is to a large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group.'
This passage from the American linguist and anthropologist Edward Sapir (1884-1936)'s 'The Status Of Linguistics As A Science', written in 1929, is what has come to be known as the 'Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis'
Related Quotations
This is but a world of illusion (Guatama Buddha)
'He gave man speech, and speech created thought, which is the measure of the universe'
(Prometheus Unbound, Shelley)
'...misleading symbols were everywhere treated with a wholly unwarranted respect...' (Aldous Huxley: introduction to 'The First and Last Freedom'
'Hear, and understand; not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.' (Matthew 15;11)
'The description is not the described.' (J Krishnamurti)
Politics and the English Language by George Orwell
I have not here been considering the literary use of language, but merely language as an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought. Stuart Chase and others have come near to claiming that all abstract words are meaningless, and have used this as a pretext for advocating a kind of political quietism. Since you don't know what Fascism is, how can you struggle against Fascism? One need not swallow such absurdities as this, but one ought to recognize that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language, and that one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end. If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy. You cannot speak any of the necessary dialects, and when you make a stupid remark its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself. Political language—and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists—is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable. and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one's own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase—some jackboot, Achilles' heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno or other lump of verbal refuse—into the dustbin where it belongs.
Language Abuse: Historical Examples
Language Abuse Part 3; Historical Examples
Footnote on the power of the spoken word: Hitler supposedly spoke before 35 million people in his lifetime (excluding broadcasts). His self declared objectives in speaking were the elimination of thought, suggestive paralysis and the creation of a receptive state of fanatical devotion. Since, in his view, 'the masses are like an animal that obeys instincts,' he prescribed 'maximum primitiveness, simple catch phrases, constant repetition, the practice of only attacking one opponent at a time as well as the dogmatic tone of the speeches, which deliberately refused to give "reasons" or to "refute other opinions".' (Joachim Fest: The Face of the Third Reich)
Prevention and Cure
Language AbusePart 4 : Identification and Rebuttal
Given that the majority of the language patterns used by human beings are employed subconsciously, there is no need - nor benefit - in starting a crusade. A gentle, questioning means of approach whereby various forms of abuse are casually, even humorously, pointed out will be more than sufficient. As with most subconscious behaviour, the simple mechanism of pointing it out brings it into consciousness: once it is brought into consciousness, the subconscious mind, instead of carrying on the way it always has (it learned the majority of these patterns back in childhood and had no choice), slowly and automatically re-assimilates the behaviour into a new pattern. The correspondence is like telling someone they have a hair sitting on their shoulder: once they are made aware of the fact, they brush it away effortlessly.
The power and politics of English
Abstract: The issues related to power and politics of the English language are presented specifically in relation to the unprecedented global spread of the language. Several perspectives—linguistic and non-linguistic—used to conceptualize the relationship between language and power are considered, particularly that of Michel Foucault. The power-related issues, and their manifestations and implications, are seen in terms of various control-acquiring strategies resulting in political manipulations and language conflicts. The interplay of power and politics within the three Concentric Circles of English (Kachru, 1985a) is shown in issues related to sociolinguistics, linguistic innovations and language pedagogy. It is claimed that the most vital power is that of the 'ideological change' which has been attributed to the knowledge of the English language and literature in the Outer and Expanding Circles. The paper aims at providing a blueprint for the study and conceptualization of selected issues related to the power and politics of an international language.
The Limits of Clear Language
There are really two distinct kinds of bad political writing: the overcomplicated, unclear kind, and propaganda. The first kind is dangerous because people in power can use it to fuzz up what they are doing and thus avoid accountability—think of a word like “rendition”—but it is usually not persuasive, because persuasion is not its intent. Propaganda, on the other hand, is often quite beautifully and clearly written. When it works, it works by virtue of being simple and memorable. What is dangerous about propaganda is that it is misleading. But its success seems to disprove Orwell's implication that all bad ideas must be clumsily expressed. Consider the following extract from President Bush's speech to a joint session of Congress on September 20, 2001, in which he unveiled the “War on Terror”:
On September the eleventh, enemies of freedom committed an act of war against our country. Americans have known wars—but for the past 136 years, they have been wars on foreign soil, except for one Sunday in 1941. Americans have known the casualties of war—but not at the center of a great city on a peaceful morning. Americans have known surprise attacks—but never before on thousands of civilians. All of this was brought upon us in a single day—and night fell on a different world, a world where freedom itself is under attack.
This would strike many people today as practically the locus classicus—as Orwell surely would not have put it—of the kind of language we call “Orwellian.” (At the time, it struck almost nobody that way.) Bush was responding to a successful terrorist attack by declaring war, not against the attackers themselves but against unspecified “enemies of freedom.” Thus, as in 1984, the United States was in a war without a definite beginning or end point, against whomever Bush wanted it to be against. Still, the speech wasn't exactly Newspeak—its rhetoric was neither purposely obscure nor flat and simple to the point of meaninglessness. It was meant to have a genuine, persuasive emotional effect, and it did. Neither, except in its violation of Orwell's proposed ban on the word “freedom,” is it representative of the kind of rhetoric “Politics and the English Language” was aimed against. It was vivid and (to quote Orwell) “all its words are those of everyday life.” The one exemplar of good writing Orwell singled out for praise in “Politics and the English Language” was the King James version of the Bible—a text that Bush and his chief speech writer at the time, Michael Gerson, obviously also admired and tried to use as a model. The challenge that “Politics and the English Language” puts before us today is in determining how far we can get politically through linguistic reform.
Language, Politics, and Composition
Noam Chomsky interviewed by Gary A. Olson and Lester Faigley
Chomsky's views on ideology, propaganda, and indoctrination are also of interest to compositionists. He claims that intellectuals are “ideological managers,” complicit in controlling “the organized flow of information” because intellectuals are by definition those who have “passed through various gates and filters” in order to become “cultural managers.” In effect, “the whole educational system involves a good deal of filtering towards submissiveness and obedience.” By definition, those who are subversive or independent minded are not called intellectuals but “wackos.” In fact, Chomsky is quite critical of the distinction established between intellectuals—those in the universities—and non-intellectuals. Arguing that often non-intellectuals have a richer cultural life, he speaks disparagingly of the principal activity that sets academics apart from others: “From an intellectual point of view, a lot of scholarship is just very low-level clerical work.”
In examining the media's role in indoctrination, Chomsky says that “the media's institutional structure gives them the same kind of purpose that the educational system has: to turn people into submissive, atomized individuals who don't interfere with the structures of power and authority.” Similarly, democratic governments use propaganda and “the manufacture of consent” in place of violence and force to control the masses. “Indoctrination is to democracy,” he philosophizes, “what a bludgeon is to totalitarianism.” This atomization of individuals, this breakdown of independent thought, and this general depoliticizing of society together create the perfect environment, in Chomsky's view, for a charismatic, fascist dictator to seize power. “I think that's one of the reasons why I'm very much in favor of corruption.... A corrupt leader is going to rob people but not cause that much trouble.... Power hunger is much more dangerous than money hunger,” he argues.
Terrorism: The Politics of Language - Noam Chomsky, 1986
excerpted from the book Stenographers to Power - media and propaganda
David Barsamian interviews
DB: Perhaps it's like George Orwell said in his essay "Politics and the English Language," that in our time political speech and writing is largely the "defense of the indefensible."
NC: Yes, he gave interesting examples which are now classic, like the term "pacification." It is used for mass murder; thus we carried out "pacification" in Vietnam. If you look at what the pacification programs were, they were literally programs of mass murder to try to suppress and destroy a resisting civilization population. Orwell wrote long before Vietnam, but he already noted that pacification was being used that way; by now it's an industry. Orwell had pointed out early examples of this kind of usage. A standard example is "defense." In the United States, up until 1947, we used to have something called the "War Department." Since 1947, we haven't had a War Department; we've had a "Defense Department." Anyone who had his head screwed on realized in 1947 that we were not going to be involved in defense any more, we were only going to be involved in war, and that's why the War Department has to be renamed the Defense Department-because "defense" means "aggression." By now this is a sophisticated operation. It's the same with every term you can think of. Take the term "conservative." Conservative is supposed to be a good thing, and this is supposed to be a conservative administration. A true conservative like, say, Robert Taft, would turn over in his grave to see what's being called conservative. Everything the conservatives have always fought against is being advanced by this administration. This administration is in favor of extending the power of the state and increasing the intervention of the state in the economy. State power has increased faster under this administration than under any since the Second World War. It's also interested in protecting the state against its citizens, cutting down access to the state, controlling thought, controlling expression, attacking civil liberties, attacking individual rights. It's the most lawless administration we've ever had. All of these things are anathema to conservatives. Conservatives want the opposite in every respect, so naturally they call the administration conservative, and if you like it you're supposed to be conservative. These are all ways of undermining the possibility of independent thought, by eliminating even the tools that you can use to engage in it.
DB: It seems in recent years, certainly starting in the 1970s, through the 1980s and for the foreseeable future, the term "terrorism" has become a dominant issue, a theme and focus for the media and politicians, I wonder if you could talk about the word itself; it seems to have undergone a curious transformation in the last couple of centuries.
NC:It definitely has, it's a very interesting case. The word "terrorism" came into general use at the end of the 18th century, and it was then used to refer to acts of violent states that suppressed their own populations by violence. Terror was the action of a state against its own citizens. That concept is of no use whatsoever to people in power, so, predictably, the term has come to be changed. Now it's the actions of citizens against states; in fact, the term "terrorism" is now almost entirely used for what you might call "retail terrorism": the terrorism of small, marginal groups, and not the terrorism of powerful states. We have one exception to this: if our enemies are involved in terrorism, then you can talk about "state terrorism." So there are really two things that define terrorism. First, it's done against states, not by states against their citizens, and it's done by them, not us. So, for example, take Libya. Qaddafi is certainly a terrorist. The latest edition of the Amnesty International publication, Political Killings by Governments, lists Qaddafi as a terrorist; he killed fourteen people, Libyans, mostly in Libya, in the 1980s. There may be a handful of others, but even taking the most extreme estimate it couldn't be more than several dozen, probably less. That's terrorism, and he's therefore the "Mad Dog of the Middle East" and the "King of International Terrorism." That's because he meets our criteria: he's them, not us, and the terrorism that one talks about is carried out generally by small groups, not by one of our major states.
Gender, Transnational Feminism, and Politics of Self-Terms of Abuse: Regimentation of Heterosexism and Heteronormativity in Language
Language has the ability to persuade, compliment, and even abuse. Words themselves provide the ammunition for such acts. Focusing on the terms of abuse used when referring to homosexual men demonstrates how the power of language excludes these individuals from the privileges afforded to their heterosexual male counterparts. The dichotomy of masculinity and femininity has an interesting relationship to the power of language. Michele Foucault highlights that "discursive formations are defined as much by what lies outside them as what lies within".2 By definition, the feminine falls outside of masculinity. One can see that what is important is not where the feminine is located, but where it is not located.
Poetry and Politics
Poems also create their own state of mind, and politics does that as well. Paul Valery defined a poem as a "kind of machine for producing the poetic state of mind by means of words." The politician produces the political state of mind by means of words. Each does an act of hypnosis by persuading its audience that reality is the world that the poet or politician has constructed for them. In that, the two are equally imaginative. The world they create is an unreality. Yet that world must be grounded in reality, in facts -- the real toads in imaginary gardens that Marianne Moore prescribed for poetry -- or else the audience will not believe it.
Still, if poetry and politics are bedfellows in certain ways, the bed is rarely comfortable. Poetry has none of the active power that politics has. It can protest or commemorate a war but cannot cause one. Assessing the poet's responsibility in the world, Allen Tate derided the romantic notion that if poets "behaved differently . . . the international political order itself would not have been in jeopardy and we should not perhaps be at international loggerheads today." Poets do not have that sort of influence, and undoubtedly would abuse it if they did.
The power poetry does have, however, is staying power. It outlives politics mainly because the language of poets outlives the language of politicians
THE POLITICS OF LANGUAGE
And it has long been established that language is the singular most important component of a people's culture, since culture itself is defined as the " ideas, customs and art of a particular society or civilization at a particular period in time". This is why cultures ascribing superiority to themselves usually impose their languages on cultures perceived as inferior. An example readily comes to mind: Immigrant Italians or Ukrainians residing in the US or Canada have been so assimilated that even their thought processes, I mean their minds, are anglicized. The only thing left of their originality is the Italian or Ukrainian blood in their veins and their food culture. This example applies to all societies that have been colonized or have submitted themselves to cultural imperialism to the extent that Nigerians in this gathering generally think first in English before conveying a Yoruba, Igbo or Fulani thought, or the thought of some of the other 247 ethnic nationalities that make that great African giant, Nigeria.
If you want to destroy a people's self -esteem, all you need to do is to destroy their language; make it impossible for them to discuss amongst themselves in a language incomprehensible to their new captors their masters. Thereafter, put your own language into their mouths, and then let them grow up as your caricatures.
The Politics of Persuasion: Communist Rhetoric and the Revolution
One of the essential ingredients of the Chinese Communist party's (CCP) revolution in China was propaganda. Convincing people of the rightness of the cause, bringing them into the fold, and forging programs of acceptance were all impossible without propaganda. To Communist leaders, propaganda was more than the promotion of certain ideologies particular to their interests. It was a means to educate and mobilize a mass of people in the real or perceived benefits of Party programs. The constant state of crisis, first with Guomindang (GMD) and foreign suppression, then with the Japanese invasion, and finally with the civil war, made it doubly important not only for cadres to know and understand the goals of the Party but also for the masses to understand them. "Once the masses know the truth and have a common aim," said Mao Zedong, "they will work together with one heart."(1)
In our world, the term "propaganda" has negative connotations, but in the Chinese context, the term xuanchuan means more to publicize or make known than to manipulate for a specific purpose. The importance to the CCP hierarchy of "making known" its policies cannot be overestimated. It was so important, in fact, that all levels of Party hierarchy from the Standing Committee down to the district committees and branches had their own propaganda committees.
Propaganda can be conveyed in many ways, but in the world of the CCP between 1927 and 1949--a world of illiterate peasants and workers; a world where constant danger made mobility vital; and a world where such things as printing presses, ink and paper were luxuries--it was essential to deliver the message in the simplest, most direct way possible. That meant devising an understandable and appropriate message that could be related verbally, or through slogans and stories. Language became the critical tool cadres used to disseminate information to the masses. Nevertheless, the words themselves were not as important as the way in which they were made understandable and appropriate to the targeted group.
Roberts, Caroline. "The Politics of Persuasion: Measure for Measure and Cinthio's Hecatommithi."
Rhetoric in Shakespeare's plays has been well canvassed, [1] but as Brian Vickers points out in '''The Power of Persuasion': Images of the Orator, Elyot to Shakespeare," there have been fewer studies of the nature of persuasion in Shakespeare's plays, of "the attempt of one person to change the way another person thinks or acts" (PP 423). The aim of this paper is to examine the nature of persuasion in Measure for Measure and in one of its probable sources, the story of Epitia in Cinthio's Hecatommithi. In Cinthio's story, rhetoric functions as the basis of women's power. Rhetoric has a similar function in Measure for Measure, but in Shakespeare's play, whatever power Isabella's rhetoric lends her is stripped away by a competing rhetorical mode. In Measure for Measure one sees the copresence and interaction of different kinds of rhetoric: forensic rhetoric, the language of the law courts, is delimited and controlled by deliberative rhetoric, or hortatory rhetoric, which is inappropriately used by Angelo but ultimately monopolized by Duke Vincentio. Deliberative rhetoric ultimately dominates in Cinthio's story as well, but it does so in Epitia's usage, rather than in the Emperor's. Shakespeare departs from Cinthio's assignation of deliberative rhetoric to a female character. Instead, Angelo and Duke Vincentio battle for control of the deliberative style, reflecting a political struggle in James I's government at the time when Measure for Measure was written.
[ ... ]
In her opening appeal to Juriste and in her first suit to the Emperor, Epitia's rhetoric is forensic: in her first appeal she defends her brother; in her second she accuses Juriste of wrongdoing. Faced with the prospect of Juriste's postconnubial execution, however, Epitia's rhetoric switches to the deliberative mode. The purpose of deliberative rhetoric is to exhort or to dissuade: the deliberative orator advises about things which may or may not happen, but which are within our control. Considerations such as justice and injustice are "accessory" to the deliberative orator, whose hortatory aim is instead the expedient or good, and whose dissuasive end is the bad or harmful, the general principles of either the good or the bad being established by the orator (Aristotle 35).
Language and Persuasion and Bush's War
Persuasive speech or writing consists of communication with the intent of reinforcing beliefs, changing beliefs, or adding new beliefs. Ads for specific deodorants are surely designed to cause users of that deodorant to stick with it, as well as getting some to change from another brand to the one being promoted. But there was a time before people started using them that such ads were intended to convince nonusers that if they didn't use them they would stink and therefore drive their friends away. Deeply implanted in my brain is a pair of sentences I got from ads for Dial soap, a deodorant soap, "Aren't you glad you use Dial? Don't you wish everyone did?" As a site for the Dial Corporation notes, in 1953 Dial became the leading anti-bacterial soap partially because of this line. This ad pissed me off back then which is probably why I remember it. Coincidentally, when I last ran out of bar soap, I looked in our cabinent and found a bar of Dial going unused (probably for years) and I am using it now. I smell as sweet as a spring flower. In a nutshell we can say that the purpose of persuasive communication is to affect belief formation whether or not what is communicated is true.
George Bush and Mrs. Malaprop
It is difficult to listen to George Bush speak and not think of Mrs. Malaprop, a very memorable character in Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The Rivals, who had the habit of substituting contextually inappropriate words that often bear a certain (usually phonetic) similarity to an appropriate one. Another word that springs immediately to consciousness when thinking of characters in novels and George Bush is "falstaffian," which originated from the name, Sir John Falstaff, who was a character in Henry IV, Parts I and II, and The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare. This character is famous for saying, "Discretion is the better part of valor" (because it saves ones life). President Bush definitely took heed of Falstaff's advice when he joined the National Guard during the Vietnam War. Let's focus, however, on possible accounts of President Bush's propensity to use contextually inappropriate words. I can think of four. Bush is a Nitwit; Bush is an Ignoramus; Bush is a Sociopath; and Bush may have some sort of speech disorder, perhaps a mild case of anomia.
George Bush has come up with some fairly amazing malapropisms, some of which are presented at the web site, Fun-With-Words, which provides examples from others as well.
(1) "I am mindful not only of preserving executive powers for myself, but for predecessors as well."
(2) "Natural gas is hemispheric... because it is a product that we can find in our neighborhoods."
(3) "The law I sign today directs new funds... to the task of collecting vital intelligence... on weapons of mass production."
(4) "Oftentimes, we live in a processed world, you know, people focus on the process and not results."
Emotional persuasion and politics
My friend Dave pointed me to the Frontline interview with Frank Lutz to find out how he uses persuasion to sell both products and politicians. A fascinating interview that discusses the architecting of the Republican strategy for persuading Americans. This excerpt cuts to the heart of this strategy that uses language to persuade:
What matters most in politics is personality. It's not issues; it's not image. ... My job as a pollster is to understand what really matters. Those levers of importance -- sometimes they're called levers; sometimes they're called triggers. What causes people to buy a product? What causes someone to pull a lever and get them to vote? I need to know the specifics of that. And in politics, more often than not, it's about the personality and the character of the individual rather than where they stand, and that's exactly the opposite of what your viewers will think.
THE LEGAL HYPOCRISY
The usage of a third person, like the undersigned counsel, the affiant, etc. were indicators of departing from themselves to sound as if they were separate entities from the real person. This is hypocrisy no.3
The personification of the court, like “this Court rejects that motion” “the Law does not allow that“. In the legal construction, the law is just a matter of interpretation and concept by its enforcers; but the interpreters and enforcers of law would distance themselves from the concept to appear as if they were separate from the court or the law. This is hypocrisy no.4
After 500 years of progress, we're still waterboarding people and stoning them to death for adultery
The problem is, Bradbury won't tell the House Judiciary what are the differences between American 21st century waterboarding, and the Spanish Inquisition's. Bradbury's reason is that the information is classified, even though the committee members have the highest possible security clearances, and even though, as Bradbury acknowledged, Congress has a Constitutional duty of oversight.
[ ... ]
Of course, there's no comparison between actually stoning someone to death, and merely convincing them you're drowning them. But drawing out subtle distinctions of “time limits” and “medical oversight” sounds a lot like Scholastic angel-pinhead-dancing more appropriate to 12th or 16th century Spain than modern-day America...
also see:
The Language of Politics: England and the French Revolution
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