Language can be such a fucker, sometimes
Jan. 21st, 2010 08:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nnyReally linguistically interesting post: The Deal with Disability and Sexuality by Eva Sweeney. Although obviously compressing a world of issues into a certain subset of physical differences is problematic, and equating 'disabled' with 'person who uses a wheelchair' is reductionist and simplistic and deliberately obtuse, the way that the article chooses (or doesn't choose, which is part of the problem of course) to verbalise the fight for equality illustrates the way that language can be so insidiously harmful.
Within the first paragraph we have 'stand up for themselves'; 'This stance' - referring to taking up the fight; 'stood up'; 'great strides were made'. The first paragraph refers to the women's liberation movement. However, the language is echoed later: What would happen if people with disabilities stood up and took direct action to improve our lives?
This equation of 'standing up' with power and agency is a problematic metaphor, but it's difficult to think of an equivalent alternative. It obviously demonstrates the privileged position that the able-bodied hold, but the question of whether language illustrates or perpetuates the hegemony is an interesting question that I've really not found a satisfying answer to.
When I was investigating homophobia in my training school - the essay that I was shut down on directly and then apologised to because apparently it was a relevant and important and appropriate investigation after all, blimey! - I investigated Sapir and Whorf's linguistic mould theory. Now Sapir and Whorf are problematic, since Whorf was prone to making sweeping statements that had no basis in reality, investigating poorly, and propounding theories that really lived more in fantasy than in the people he studied. He makes for a creatively interesting study, suggests things that would be fascinating if explored in fiction, but his work can't really be used as a basis for constructing an argument.
He said “[w]e cut nature up, organize it into concepts, and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement to organize it in this way - an agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is codified in the patterns of our language.”
It's an interesting theory, and to my mind it holds true to an extent, but only when combined with de Saussure's (♥) work on the arbitrary nature of linguistic signs. You're going to have to bear with me here, for a bit. I promise I'll get back to the point eventually.
Now, de Saussure's work was concerned largely with observations on the arbitrary nature of linguistic signs. There is nothing concrete that links the physical tree with the idea of tree, and nothing that links the idea of tree with the utterance 'tree', and nothing that links the utterance to that particular combination of arbitrarily defined shapes that make up the 'tree' that links the word to the sound to the idea in your mind. This is pretty obvious when you think about it, because if there was anything more than arbitrary in the nature of the sign, different languages wouldn't actually exist. With me so far? (I really hope so.) The result of this thought process of de Saussure's is that there is no inherent meaning tied to any linguistic event, and that communication takes place within a cooperatively constructed sphere of meaning, a sphere that is constantly changed and renegotiated between those undertaking the acts of speech and writing.
In other words, you cannot ever be sure that what you're hearing is what the other person's saying, not at all.
It's actually one of the reasons that I'm so fond of the internet as a medium of collaborative communication, because the meanings of our words are constantly questioned and discussed and rethought. A lot of it ends in wank, yes, but that in turn can have a positive effect, leading us to question assumptions that we had made about the words that people have used and the way in which their thoughts support or undermine their use of language, coming closer - provided people are willing to talk it out - to an accurate assessment of their point of view.
So anyway, within the context of my essay I was using mould theory to support my assertion that using the word 'gay' as an insult was more than simple use of slang, a non-homophobic event since they weren't thinking about it in that way, they weren't being deliberately offensive. It's something I'll talk further about elsewhere, because there are thoughts I want to articulate more clearly about frames of reference and the difficulty of sharing a state of mind if for one party that state of mind doesn't exist... like I say, that's another post. What I'm trying to work my way around to here is that there are ways in which language is used that are cooperatively constructed, and the metaphors we use illustrate pretty precisely where the power lies.
When you related de Saussure's work to Whorf's, then - yes, we're getting back to that, because I've remembered what I was talking about at last - the suggestion is that in theory we're constantly renegotiating the world through linguistic acts, and cooperatively creating meanings, but those meanings are flawed by the fact that our language use is often thoughtless. We make efforts to be more careful about how we use language that is pointed out to us to be offensive and demeaning, or unhelpful to what we're trying to do, but without deliberately reworking the way that we structure our speech events and the way that we use turns of phrases that are not even thought about, we're agreeing to a language in which progress is measured in the steps you can take.
I think, in summation, my point is that we can think outside the box, and I am lucky enough to be part of a community that often makes a point of doing so, but without care and clarity we can be assumed to be a part of a speech community whose thoughts do reflect their casually used words, because they haven't thought their way into anything different.
...I think that made sense?
Edited for ablist language, my apologies.
Within the first paragraph we have 'stand up for themselves'; 'This stance' - referring to taking up the fight; 'stood up'; 'great strides were made'. The first paragraph refers to the women's liberation movement. However, the language is echoed later: What would happen if people with disabilities stood up and took direct action to improve our lives?
This equation of 'standing up' with power and agency is a problematic metaphor, but it's difficult to think of an equivalent alternative. It obviously demonstrates the privileged position that the able-bodied hold, but the question of whether language illustrates or perpetuates the hegemony is an interesting question that I've really not found a satisfying answer to.
When I was investigating homophobia in my training school - the essay that I was shut down on directly and then apologised to because apparently it was a relevant and important and appropriate investigation after all, blimey! - I investigated Sapir and Whorf's linguistic mould theory. Now Sapir and Whorf are problematic, since Whorf was prone to making sweeping statements that had no basis in reality, investigating poorly, and propounding theories that really lived more in fantasy than in the people he studied. He makes for a creatively interesting study, suggests things that would be fascinating if explored in fiction, but his work can't really be used as a basis for constructing an argument.
He said “[w]e cut nature up, organize it into concepts, and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement to organize it in this way - an agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is codified in the patterns of our language.”
It's an interesting theory, and to my mind it holds true to an extent, but only when combined with de Saussure's (♥) work on the arbitrary nature of linguistic signs. You're going to have to bear with me here, for a bit. I promise I'll get back to the point eventually.
Now, de Saussure's work was concerned largely with observations on the arbitrary nature of linguistic signs. There is nothing concrete that links the physical tree with the idea of tree, and nothing that links the idea of tree with the utterance 'tree', and nothing that links the utterance to that particular combination of arbitrarily defined shapes that make up the 'tree' that links the word to the sound to the idea in your mind. This is pretty obvious when you think about it, because if there was anything more than arbitrary in the nature of the sign, different languages wouldn't actually exist. With me so far? (I really hope so.) The result of this thought process of de Saussure's is that there is no inherent meaning tied to any linguistic event, and that communication takes place within a cooperatively constructed sphere of meaning, a sphere that is constantly changed and renegotiated between those undertaking the acts of speech and writing.
In other words, you cannot ever be sure that what you're hearing is what the other person's saying, not at all.
It's actually one of the reasons that I'm so fond of the internet as a medium of collaborative communication, because the meanings of our words are constantly questioned and discussed and rethought. A lot of it ends in wank, yes, but that in turn can have a positive effect, leading us to question assumptions that we had made about the words that people have used and the way in which their thoughts support or undermine their use of language, coming closer - provided people are willing to talk it out - to an accurate assessment of their point of view.
So anyway, within the context of my essay I was using mould theory to support my assertion that using the word 'gay' as an insult was more than simple use of slang, a non-homophobic event since they weren't thinking about it in that way, they weren't being deliberately offensive. It's something I'll talk further about elsewhere, because there are thoughts I want to articulate more clearly about frames of reference and the difficulty of sharing a state of mind if for one party that state of mind doesn't exist... like I say, that's another post. What I'm trying to work my way around to here is that there are ways in which language is used that are cooperatively constructed, and the metaphors we use illustrate pretty precisely where the power lies.
When you related de Saussure's work to Whorf's, then - yes, we're getting back to that, because I've remembered what I was talking about at last - the suggestion is that in theory we're constantly renegotiating the world through linguistic acts, and cooperatively creating meanings, but those meanings are flawed by the fact that our language use is often thoughtless. We make efforts to be more careful about how we use language that is pointed out to us to be offensive and demeaning, or unhelpful to what we're trying to do, but without deliberately reworking the way that we structure our speech events and the way that we use turns of phrases that are not even thought about, we're agreeing to a language in which progress is measured in the steps you can take.
I think, in summation, my point is that we can think outside the box, and I am lucky enough to be part of a community that often makes a point of doing so, but without care and clarity we can be assumed to be a part of a speech community whose thoughts do reflect their casually used words, because they haven't thought their way into anything different.
...I think that made sense?
Edited for ablist language, my apologies.
