Why is power an issue in language studies - Essay Example

? Why is power an issue in language studies? Why Is Power An Issue In Language Studies? Introduction Language can be defined as the medium of communication between all living beings, shaped by the social environment that a child grows in (Fairclough, 1995). Language is the first foundation of a child, since at such an age all he would care about is to be fed and to be able to convey about his wants (Berger and Berger, 1976). Language is influenced by where he grows up and the people whom he gets to observe frequently (Yates, 2005). Power relations define the language and its context used for a conversation such that the tone and expressions adopted would be superior for a person having the upper hand and vice versa. Often, verbal cues are demonstrated which can be assessed to identify the hierarchal relationship between the communicating parties. The dominance in turn is a direct function of gender, social status and other demographics. It has been evaluated critically, in this paper, the relationship between power, language and other personality traits including inherited factors. The paper elaborates, with references to different genders and social classes, how power has problematic implications in usage of language and how utmost care should be taken when interacting to overcome obstacles created by power in language studies. Context of language Language can be broken down into subcomponents known as discourses so that same word may be used to indicate different meanings, contingent upon what the context of given discourse is. It is essential to evaluate the discourse thoroughly in order to truly understand what the speaker is trying to attain through his expressions, as this may prove to be adverse incase it changes meanings and gives an entirely opposite picture (Burr, 1995). The book Discourse and social psychology: Beyond attitudes and behaviour has captured variety of conversations between different levels and classes of people to identify how each stream of category differs in language than others (Potter, 1987). A large population of people were interviewed, they were asked about their day to day encounters with people of different genders, ethnicities and social classes and how they see the difference of jargons and linguistics used by each of them (Potter, 1987). It is suggested that comfort level and familiarity with a physical layout of some premises also provide cues to usage of language. These for granted assumptions in background rest in the subconscious of our brains and may cause great discomfort when changed or removed (Slobin & Ervin-Tripp, 1996). Methodologies of linguistics There have been many suggested, tried and trusted ways to incorporate language into a human life, varying according to intellectual level and cultural influences of learner (Richards & Rodgers, 2001). Some common methods include oral approach, which is the most frequently used one, audio-lingual approach whereby teaching is supported with the aid of media and audio contents. Then there are alternative routes including the unspoken way where teacher speaks least giving more room for the learners to speak up their minds, physical approach where gestures and physical activities are utilized and group and community activities where learners are allowed to interact with other participants as much as possible, helping them to develop their interpersonal skills and giving them more comfort level to communicate freely (Richards and Rodgers, 2001). Explanations have been given on how language is a direct function of the culture in which it is spoken. The phrase, ‘turn to language,’ suggests that many events and subject matters seen around in the culture, including customs, rituals, practices and celebrations, eventually become all part of the language, specific terms being coined and added to the vocabulary (Squire, 2000). Social constructionism Every experience for a child is unique for the first time and thus his cognitive process relies greatly on repetition of similar events over the time to help him connect the dots (Parker, 1998). A particular branch of sociology, namely Social Constructionism, focuses on researching and working on identifying how our social lives influence our linguistics and expression modes (Gough and McFadden, 2001). Researchers describe it to be an acceptance of fact that social and publicly shared experiences affect largely the existence of human kind and the world they live in (Gergen, 1985 and 2001). As the name itself depicts, this concept advocates the possibilities of human cognitions to be ‘socially constructed.’ Though it acknowledges that inherent factors play a major role as well in determining the beliefs of a person, it accredits major part to be direct influence of personal experiences. Social constructionism roots from notion that no human comes with innate knowledge and whatever he is acquainted with is a product of events and interactions in his life (Owen, 1995). Researchers have compared past era customs to current social scenarios and argued how culture and social environment has changed over the time and correspondingly, the behaviors and languages have also changed being influenced by these alterations (Billing, 1987). Power relations with respect to genders and social statuses Explanations have been given how a third-person spectator observing interaction between two individuals can easily identify the power relationship between them with help of analyzing expression cues, tone of voice, attitude towards each other, specific words used and body language (Fairclough, 1989). There is a research in this which concluded that the degree of a person’s language being influenced by some power relationship depends on the level of intimacy between the people involved (Berger and Burgoon, 1995). Similarly, social events mark the language to be used so that at a formal occasion, certain terms are frequently used to address each other with respect while at an informal gathering, it is hard to distinguish between high power and low power people since the language being used is of a very casual dialect (Giles and Coupland, 1991). Power relations and attitudes are also dissimilar for opposite genders, different age groups and different statuses in society. Masculine and high status traits are likely to be powerful and dominant and therefore language used shall have elements of rigidity, pride and sometimes humiliation. Feminine or low societal traits are softer and more compromising generally and thus the female sample is more obedient and empathic with better listening skills and her powers might be overshadowed by male’s presence. Moreover, a person’s mindset is also largely affected by his upbringing by specific gender or in high society. It would depend on certain facts including which gender was involved in raising him up, what gender he spent most of his childhood period with, how economically stable his family was and how much hardships he had to face due to lack of necessities and luxuries. Consequently, a person’s power stance would be very upright, practical and determined if he was raised by a male in high society while he might turn out to be emotionally weaker if his caretaker had been a female who couldn’t provide basic necessities of life. (Burman, 1994). There are other readings which emphasized greatly upon fact that almost every area of a human brain is touched by the social environment, culture and society norms. But ultimately, the gender of person will play a pivotal role in deciding how the mentioned aspects will affect the cognitive process: a male’s brain will be affected in an absolutely different manner by the same chronology of events as compared to female’s (Fine, 2011). Dynamics of power in language studies Researchers have laid great emphasis on relationship between language, society, including media, politics, social status, standards of lifestyles and low and high classes and power which in turn are dependent on gender, age and ethnicity. (Mooney, 2011). Language is a direct function of various factors and aspects as mentioned earlier, one of them being power. Languages differ for different power relationships such that the terminology used and the selection of words and tone varies with the change in person(s) being addressed to. Another crucial aspect discussed is bearing leadership traits, either innate or otherwise learnt through social interactions, highly dependent on one’s gender. Majority of key personnel in leadership positions in various enterprises are males since they tend to be better at handling powers and rational decision makers (Haslam, Reicher and Platow, 2011). Female leaders tend to be overcome by their sentiments and end up taking empathic decisions which might be socially rightful but not beneficial or profitable for the organization as a whole. Therefore top notch team of any company should be male-dominated having high social statuses. Many developed countries have a male-centered culture since they work on assumptions that males are less prone to failures, emotional attachments or irrational cognitive processes. Males are more consistent and headstrong in their stances and therefore persistently work to attain the targets set. Male brains have naturally been created to own these traits and are god-gifted to make wiser judgments in critical situations. Males demonstrate the best example of their power feature during pressure handling situations as they do not face nervousness or panic attacks while tackling problems and reaching conclusions. On a different note, people having high societal statuses are more powerful in their tones and languages since they do not have inferiority complexes or fears of unemployment, friction and rejection. He will be a trend setter and not merely a follower and therefore his language shall not be stifled by social or cultural barriers. Countries with better social reputations and stability also have always exhibited powerful stances against less developed and weaker countries and always have held their priorities above all others’. Often, underdeveloped nations especially third world countries would be using language that exhibits inferiority and weakness. Power can be a big hindrance in usage of languages, as discussed further, and therefore utmost care needs to be taken to mitigate its adverse effects. It has some predictable dynamics regarding languages and it is only fair to believe that one can speculate gender, social status, class, race, age and power hierarchy of people engaged in a conversation by assessing closely their verbal and non-verbal languages used. However, at times, there are unexplainable circumstances which might not give correct indicators about power relation between two parties through evaluation of languages and might need knowledge of other factors for identification e.g. at an informal corporate gathering where colleagues prefer to use casual attitudes and informal terms regardless of the existing power hierarchies or chains of command. In another sense prescribed is, language can also been as a tool to demonstrate one’s power and superiority. In a mode of communication between parties, the commanding party might opt to use rigid and aggressive speech to display its relative strength over all the recipients to whom communication is being addressed (Tonkin, 2003). In an office setting, people working in different capacities expect different levels of protocol. A subordinate or employee at lower designation might offend a supervisor if he uses informal language. Such staunch atmosphere creates uncomfortable circumstances within a division and performance might get stifled. Therefore, many American and Japanese organizations are moving towards more informal modes of communication to encourage friendly environment and creativity. Power is a strong catalyst of impoliteness and rude behavior. Powerful people are mostly seen to be discourteous and stubborn in their dealings and communication which destroy their relationships with others. Moreover, people in trance of bearing powers do not demonstrate emotions or soft corner for needy or weaker classes and end up using language that hurts or upsets them. There are certain standard gestures and markers which indicate power or lack of power in any given scenario. Interruption in a conversation depicts power and an upper hand in the given power relation. On the contrary, indirect signals show lack of powers since the person is not entitled to command directly so he instead prefers to use cues to get the work done. Nevertheless, these indicators though helpful, have created a major setback in the world of language and power. It has established biased opinions in minds of independent third person viewers that powerful gestures mostly form part of attitudes of males, people of higher social classes and otherwise people holding stronger senior positions while the weaker language cues pertain to the female or low class categories and vice versa (Talbot and Atkinson, 2003). Another problem is that people often manipulate usage of languages to their own personal benefits or otherwise, loss to others involved. Oral states that people use language and communication and exploit their powerful positions to demonstrate their aggression publicly or on others weaker than them, to highlight flaws of others which might or might not exist in them but no one dares to prevent him from speaking due to their power relationships with him and to misguide, conceal or misrepresent certain information to his own advantage through usage of technical jargons or complex language tactics (Oral). At times, a person might wish to talk on casual or informal terms with a subordinate but at the end of the day, subordinate shall always look up to him to be more powerful than him and thus he shall never be able to communicate freely with him without proper selection of words and tone and biased opinions. These problems created by power dynamics in language studies have had excessive criticism from time to time since they have caused impairment of objectivity and sexual or gender bias by large. These differences have caused to create gaps between different sects of societies and many people suffer from permanent fixation about their social class, gender and extent of power. Consequently, psychological complexes formed will always insist them to use certain style of language thereby increasing the gaps further: weak shall become weaker and powerful shall become more powerful. Hence, power has become a great problem in language studies. Conclusion Power is a joint product of gender and social status and shall always be demonstrated on a higher note by a male or/and person bearing high societal class. Males have powerful attributes embedded in their brains while high class inhabitants socially construct their attitudes to demonstrate power. We commonly observe in our day to day dealings how language of each person differs from other’s and while we fail to notice, the power demonstrated in his words and tone shall always be affected by his social and personality demographics. On entity level, we see that authoritative bodies and legal enforcement authorities use impolite and straightforward language raising show cause or other regulatory notices. Consequently, both powerful categories mentioned use languages accordingly to imply their supremacy. One of the supporting devices which power needs in order to be used in damaging ways is language. But due to psychological fixation of power in minds, people often fail to be careful with usage of language due to their powerful statuses or genders and therefore power tends to be a great dilemma for them in usage of language. Power is a very troublesome for language Out of habit and biased mindsets, these powerful beings stereotype their recipients by their genders or social statuses and thus language gets adversely affected, leading to friction, hostility and ultimately drastic consequences. Without communication of power, power is useless itself and therefore, it is of utmost importance that language should be carefully used while in a powerful position since it is the only differentiating line between exploitation and sobriety for a power relation (Pateman, 1980). Thus, power has become such a catastrophic problem in language studies that it is high time to mend our ways and develop our language studies to circumvent the drastic effects caused by power. References Berger, C. R., & Burgoon, M. (1998). Communication and social influence processes. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press. Berger, P. L., & Berger, B. (1976). Sociology: A biographical approach. New York: Basic Books. Billig, M. (1987). Arguing and thinking: A rhetorical approach to social psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Burman, E. (1994). Deconstructing developmental psychology. London: Routledge. Burr, V. (1995). An introduction to social constructionism. London: Routledge. 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