THE POLITICS OF LANGUAGE

 

 

Language has too often been examined in isolation from the social and political conditions in which it is used. (John E Joseph, 2013)

Joseph’s statement regarding the political component of the functions of language highlights the important role that language can play in maintaining the equilibrium within society. Whether this is a good or bad thing depends on how you see the world but my own assertion is that it gravitates towards the latter. Big picture stuff is not really a commodity in 2018 and current language reinforces that.

One of the strongest forces in recent language development is ‘mutation’. By this I refer particularly to meaning and the two standout examples are communism and democracy. Both words have evolved meanings which are now directly opposite to those when they were originally formulated. Communism has become a descriptor for tyranny, dictatorship and elites while democracy enjoys quite a different profile when compared to its initial ‘by the people, for the people’ mug shot. The fact that democracy still reigns supreme as the ‘go to’ political system for the stars while communism is viewed as the ugly, aged relative should have us all wondering about how language can be manipulated.

The appropriation of words and phrases to order and transform meaning (whether magically or not) is another important process. The notion of free trade as proposed in the developing Pacific Free Trade Agreement is far removed from the Adam Smith and David Ricardo versions from the 19th century. That corporations and trans-national companies will be in a position to sue sovereign countries for ‘breaches’ of the still secret agreement poses more questions than can be answered. Question- When is free trade not free trade? Answer- When it’s part of a free trade agreement. Any fool should be able to recognise that.

The wrangling of language into groups and sub-groups has long been part of the modus operandi of the media. Whether this is because bite-sized chunks are easier to ingest or that Peter Punter is just a bloody fool is harder to gauge. I’ve noticed that the undeserving poor has recently been resurrected in the Oz press. My research points to the early 1900s as the birth of this term at a time when welfare functions were gradually becoming a part of the ‘political’ geography in countries. Of course, the content sample has expanded over the decades to include team-mates like dole bludgers, single mums, welfare cheats, big TVs and deadbeat dads to further secure a population’s true understanding of the social scene. And too many of us buy into it.

But it’s not just ‘class’ that is subject to this process. Nationalism realises a podium position often with a pyramid base of stimulus words like respect, immigrants, values, tradition, Anzac, queue-jumpers, boat people, Islam, illegal and national security. The concept of a golden age looms large in this subset and the mirage of the monoculture is singled out and beatified. You can almost set your watch by the beating of nationalist drums around Australia Day or when some miscreant primary school decides to abandon an Easter hat parade.

Luke Foley’s gaffe when mobilising white flight to describe the demographics of Sydney’s western suburbs demonstrates just how important language can be. The real surprise for me was that reaction to his profiling actually made the news given mainstream media’s fears of an imminent black planet.

PC language attracts similar reactions in the political sense. While a small section of the PC world is silly and unnecessary, its basic premise that language should minimise bias related to race, gender, religion, sexual orientation and other stuff shouldn’t be forgotten. Yet the default reaction to the politically correct is routinely its supposed nibbling away at freedom of speech. It has always seemed odd to me that some punters bemoan PC but insist that one of the system’s most easily recognisable indicators of inequity, prejudice and discrimination (i.e. language) should remain untouched as we head towards Nirvana. I have to admit that I just don’t get that.

Consideration of the social media’s place in the politics of language has been covered in a few of my previous blogs but I will include this nugget….

…….. the constraints of virality demand we speak without saying much. We chant slogans and deploy buzz words. We mindlessly share withering memes and oddball GIFs. We like articles without actually reading them and settle debates with retweets. In short, we have become over reliant on second-hand discourse. (Tom Syverson, 2017)

Now if only I could have said that.