RCA
FIQWS 10103
Prof. Rodwell
The Power In Language, The Power of Words
Language as a tool can be utilized to inform, expand, empower and translate, but what messages and ideologies are put out with such language has become a rising concern in need of further examination. How we came to use the english language predominantly and how we were taught to use and understand the meanings of the language and its terminology, who benefits from such a language and who it puts at an advantage and disadvantage will be investigated. Society favors individuals who speak the dominant tongue, and those who are not fluent are victims of societal stresses such as criticism, isolation, and exclusion. Language opens a door for people to exploit and oppress others. Oppression happens when one party or individual has power over another to exploit. Merriam-Webster defines it as “unjust or cruel exercise of authority or power”. Language productions can create oppressive ideologies that can contribute to unbalanced power and privilege within society.
One must consider the history of language and oppressive ideologies. Sociopolitical power of a group usually correlates with their language position within civilization. A consequence of colonization is the reality that vast numbers of individuals globally speak languages, not native to their own nations, but rather to former colonial powers. Studies show that the colonizers’ society and language overthrew indigenous cultures and languages. Translation functions both as a knowledge device and as a control mechanism, and this is seen when converting languages and when individuals are changed or translated by altering their perception of position in the society (Anderson, 14). Language is an abode, it is something that cannot be totally dominated, notably as we embrace language as an inheritance (Monteiro,2). People are born into a language that predates us and in a sense, causes us to evolve inside it as a part of its structures of philosophy, culture and identity. Language isn’t an unintentional development. It consists of a vast and diverse network of norms and standards that not only encompass individuals and their generation, but also characterize them. In most situations, language is the first boundary which, like many other boundaries, often represents the place where we coexist in our discrepancies or aids to divide worlds in a hostile and definitive way (Monteiro,2). Therefore, language and oppression develop an apparent link because, aside from one’s overall lack of extra situational context, and incorrect understanding of culture, devaluing perceptions of the other are developed as a means of describing differences.
According to Zuzana Klimova’s B.A thesis English as a Language of Oppression, she states that speakers of native languages were deemed to be “savages” who could not adequately understand the language of their masters. “For a very long time the speakers of native languages themselves saw their language as something inappropriate and imperfect” (Klimova,10). Anyone who wanted to progress economically would then have to master the language of the oppressors. After the abolition of slavery, and particularly after emancipation, the language of the former masters and colonialists started to be objected. “Part of the slave system of the plantations was to keep the slaves speaking the same language away from each other to prevent a possible rebellion. (Klímová,10). Colonizers used their dialect as well as their culture as a means of regulating the region. Xabi Odriozola tackles this point in her work Language Liberation is Crucial. She states that languages have been and still are used to perpetuate classism, misogyny and racism. Some individuals play an authoritarian role; others play an exploited role. “ In general, the people who play the oppressor role are monolingual and speak “principal” languages. Speaking these languages can make them feel superior, better, more intelligent, developed, interesting, current, modern, and so on (Odriozola). On the other side, speakers of “non-principal” languages are usually omitted and forced to feel embarrassed, inferior, not as intelligent and competent as the list goes on. As with other oppressions, it is impossible for those trapped in the oppressor’s position to be conscious of it; marginalized people realize it far more clearly and rapidly.
Language reflects thoughts and principles as well as forms of expression. If one agrees that our prevailing white society is racist, one might presume our language; an essential carrier of culture, to be racist. Whites, as the majority race, are not exposed to our language’s same abusive portrayal that minority groups endure. A big argument that arises from this information is the concept of race itself. The ideology of race is argued to be developed as a human classification aimed at granting supremacy to white people and legitimizing white people’s superiority over non-white people (Rogers & Bowman, 2). Race has no genetic origin. Yet our persistence and trust in race as genetics, underline the socially created essence of race. People’s race groupings are focused on assumed physical similarity (color of skin, hair texture,etc.). Aside from the construction of the word race, there is a variety of oppressive terminology in the English Language.
In Robert B. Moore’s, Racism in the English Language, he discusses his desire to change the use of language to stop oppressive and racist ideologies. He refers to the expressions “Culturally deprived,” “economically disadvantaged” and “underdeveloped”, while adding on that they confuse our understanding of reality. The white European viewpoint circles around these concepts to distort reality and to explain Euro-American conquests over Native American territories. ‘Discovery’ as used in the Euro-American sense means the freedom to grab what we may find and to disregard the interests of others who still exist in what is ‘discovered’ (Moore). It is part of the mechanism by which Euro-conservatives excuse or prevent the persecution of third world populations. Africa, as a witness to the ubiquitous “darkest Africa” picture, has been especially insulted by this dynamic (Moore). The widespread implementation of the tribe to Africans and the refusal to consider the religious, cultural and social plurality of African citizens is a certainly racial dynamic. Instead of distorting views, Moore says, people should stop utilizing terms that disrespect individuals by language expressing a radical outlook.
Oppression is described in psychology as states and processes that include psychological and political components of victimization, agency, and resistance where power relations produce domination, subordination, and resistance. “The oppressed group suffers greatly from multiple forms of exclusion, exploitation, control, and violence. The literature on the psychological impact of oppression suggests that the erasure and removal of intrinsic cultural identities influenced by oppressive practices can lead to negative outcomes such as ‘internalization of negative group identities and low self-esteem’” (Anderson,9). These are psychological effects of oppression as it occurs everywhere, i.e Institutional Racism.
Institutional racism is a form of racism expressed in social and political institutions. Different from racism by individuals, it reflects the disparities regarding criminal justice, employment, housing and education. According to the University of Minnesotas’ Mapping Prejudice, they address the significance of racial covenants, their significance, their language use and how it affects oppression. During the twentieth century, racially-restrictive deeds were a prevalent part of real estate transactions. It illustrates that covenants were embedded in property deeds nationwide, in order to keep people who were not white from purchasing or owning properties. The purpose being to prevent the settling of non-whites in specific regions with the aim of keeping the population of those regions dominantly white. This practice was known as redlining. The site illustrates pictures and examples of racial covenants, one of them state: The parties hereto and executing this instrument and the several like instruments relating to their several properties here by mutually covenant, promise, and agreed each with the others that no part of land owned by them shall ever be used or occupied by or sold conveyed least rented or given to Negroes or any person of negro blood. “Most of the deeds we’ve noticed seem to represent the predominant white view”, says the article. Racial covenants are the results of a destructive invention that turned property law resources into segregation and oppressive tools. Although these covenants still exist in the deeds of current homeowners, they are no longer enforceable.
Haig A. Bosemajian’s book, The Language of Oppression, reflects on the connection between language and different types of oppression: anti-semitism, white bigotry, misogyny, and cruelty. He further illustrates how different oppressors manipulate words for their vile intentions. It is stated that when the Nazis could mark Jews as “parasites,” “vermin,” and “bacilli,” they were able to therefore alienate, and exterminate millions of them. He states how control derives from naming people, whether they be individuals or groups. Through this power, individuals and groups can be defined as something favourable or unfavourable. He further illustrates that naming can influence an individual or group’s existence. Bosemajian uses the saying from human rights defender Stokely Carmichael : people who can define are masters. When an individual has the power to distinguish and alter one’s identity, they possess the powers of a master, and are, in other words, superior. Writer Hugo Monteiro further illustrates this point. If the ability to describe someone is a linguistic characteristic, this same power to decide is not fairly dispersed. Not everybody has the same ability to identify and be identified, the product of structural and symbolic differences that pervade culture, and the right to identify anyone without giving someone a say in the process clearly manifests as an imbalance. For example, the educator describes : the “strong” or “poor” student; the dominant categorizes the subordinate. In any scenario, there is disproportionate control. . “It is always the dominant element – the hegemonic subject – that which controls the word and is able to define and objectify the other” (Monteiro, 6). These texts have illustrated a desire to end oppressive language, therefore wishing to eliminate the unbalanced power within society.
In Katherine Marcoccio’s Identifying Oppression In Language: The Power of Words, Marcoccio’s aims to clarify the role of language and literacy in furthering oppression. How can one identify racist, sexist, homophobic or socially distinguished languages? What are the effects on underprivileged people’s respective situations? Such questions are raised as they possess critical significance in the area of social work practice, since language is the foundation of the profession, whether it be in policy documents, communications, or in the education itself. Marcoccio delves deeper into such significance through the focus of socio-linguistic projects, while including anti-racist and feminist writings, principles and approaches to examine oppression. She takes a look into other authors and their dissimilar perspective of the alliance between language and behavior. They have instead addressed the oppression implemented into remarks that define or exclude the relation to a class in a way that is humiliating, distorts, or conceals their experience (Marcoccio,149). She proceeds to define what she refers to as Verbal Violence and describes it as the center of oppressive ideologies. Oppressive ideologies are defined as the stereotypes, assumptions, and biases that conceptualize the idea of being different and impose this image on people through slurs and degrading comments. Verbal violence is itself, a form of oppressive activity. An embedded view of language requires the acknowledgment that a good deal of the meaning of an utterance or a phrase is derived from the context within which it is made or produced (Marcoccio, 150).
There are at least three types of context that are being referred to here: the Linguistic Context; the Situational context; and the “Extra-situational” context. Linguistic context refers to not only a single expression, but also the interaction between or the ordering of linguistic elements within an utterance, phrase or sequence within a document; it is how meaning is implied or produced. I.e “when explicit reference made to the status of someone who is considered elderly or an adolescent (but not to an adult); to a woman or women (but not a man or men); to Blacks, Jews, and Asians (but not to whites)” (Marcoccio, 150). In evaluating their meaning and ideological basis, not just terms and phrases, but the interaction between them must be recognized. Therefore through careful observation of the linguistic sense, an awareness of how oppression is manifested and replicated in language is intensified. This is particularly relevant as speakers or authors try to silence a vulnerable group’s overt identity. Situational context applies to the environment, the people, the communicator’s, the addressee’s, the listener’s and their attributes, unlike linguistic context. Therefore the “situation” contains elements that organize interactions between people and help them to identify and reflect on what is occurring in a specific encounter. But to prevent assumptions, or oppressive ideologies, the following questions contain significance : Who is composing or speaking the message? About whom (potentially) were these remarks addressed? What would we discover about the relationship between the two? In what sense and by what social reason was the conversation or document constructed? (Marcoccio, 152). Whereas, extra-situational context includes addressing language’s effect on an individual or group’s background and historical situations. Appropriate comprehension of language requires “background knowledge that extends far beyond the local talk and its immediate setting”, involving contextual details and socially acquired assumptions regarding cultures and interactions between different communities. Extra-Situational context poses concerns such as: Who, both material and ideological, exercises greater or lesser privilege? Based on whose identities have been socially constructed? What are the effects of the above statements for the person or group of people associated? And will this use of language diminish or strengthen the relative power possessed by the community of speakers addressed? (Marcoccio, 153) Overall language is shown to be oppressive when expressing ideological qualities or indications of a community’s lower status and whether it reshapes or adds to the struggles of people identified and perceived as unequal.
The production of language as a collective activity, both representative and fundamental of human relations, allows one to explore in depth, the ideological content of spoken and written language, but to also analyze the effects, such as linguistic actions, on the individuals or groups addressed. On the road to equality, language can be seen as a means of unification, while on the other hand it can be viewed as a means of oppression. From taking on english as our dominant language, some may argue that everyday, people are speaking the language of the oppressor. In a different sense to the power that this inherited language creates, it amplifies and pluralizes itself within the diversity of whoever is involved in the process of communicating and continuously reinventing it. If we agree that racism, misogyny and other manifestations of discrimination occur inside language, we must therefore understand that it is by language or languages that oppression may be revealed and rectified. Research has shown that language productions may be seen both as transcending and supporting oppressive ideologies enabling oppression, and explicitly adding to, or reproducing significant associations of hierarchical power and privilege within society.
Works Cited
Anderson, Amy J., et al. “Oppression and Power.” Introduction to Community Psychology, Pressbooks, 21 June 2019, press.rebus.community/introductiontocommunitypsychology/chapter/oppression-and-power/.
E.J.R. David, Ph. .., and PhD Annie O. Derthick. The Psychology of Oppression. Springer Publishing Company, 2017. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e000xna&AN=1615664&site=ehost-live.
Hooks, Bell. Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routledge, 1994, pp.167-175. https://newlearningonline.com/literacies/chapter-7/hooks-on-the-language-of-power
Klímová, Zuzana. “English As a Language of Oppression.” Theses.cz, Oct. 2007, theses.cz/id/ibirpa/?lang=en#panel_text.
Marcoccio, Katherine. “IDENTIFYING OPPRESSION IN LANGUAGE: The Power of Words.” Canadian Social Work Review / Revue Canadienne De Service Social, vol. 12, no. 2, 1995, pp. 146–158. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41669593.
Monteiro, Hugo. “Language and Power: Oppressions within the Word.” Buala, 15 Aug. 2015, www.buala.org/en/to-read/language-and-power-oppressions-within-the-word.
Moore, R. B. (Robert B.). Racism In the English Language : a Lesson Plan and Study Essay. N.Y. :The Racism and Sexism Resource Center for Educators, 1976.
Odriozola, Xabi. “Language Liberation Is Crucial.” International Commonality Reference Person for Translations and Languages, no. 157, 2009.
Rogers, David, and Moira Bowman. “A History: The Construction of Race and Racism.” Racial Equity Tools, 25 July 2013, pp. 2–14., https://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/Western%20States%20-%20Construction%20of%20Race.pdf
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