Mind your language – words have the power to change the world

In the aftermath of a mass shooting in the United States, Republicans are 25 per cent more likely than Democrats to describe an African American, Hispanic or Middle Eastern shooter as a “terrorist”.

If, on the other hand, the shooter was white, the statistic is inverted. In this scenario, it is Democrats who are 25 per cent more likely than Republicans to use the same descriptor.

Such disparities in vocabulary across political affiliation were detected in a study by scholars from Stanford University and Brown University in 2019, which examined 4.4 million tweets in response to 21 mass shootings across the US.

These stark rhetorical differences are symptomatic of a growing degree of ideological polarisation between Americans along party lines. How they used language and what words they chose were a reflection of their beliefs and values. For instance, Democrats were more likely than Republicans to use words like “should”, “must” and “need to” to call for political change.

Words are not only a reflection of one’s identity, they also have power to lock people into systems of thought.

So the ideological differences between Democrats and Republicans are also exacerbated by social media algorithms, which are designed to flood users’ timelines with content that confirms what they are already predisposed to believe.

These online spaces become what scholars Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Joseph N. Cappella term an echo chamber, which they define as “a bounded, enclosed media space that has the potential to both magnify the messages delivered within it and insulate them from rebuttal”.

The charged language of “terrorist”, of course, appeals to a reader’s pathos or emotions. Pathos, alongside logos (logic) and ethos (authority) form the three rhetorical strategies that the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle set out in his study of persuasive speech.

There is a common misconception that language simply describes the world and that we can dismiss people’s choice of words as “mere” rhetoric. But linguists and philosophers have shown that language is not just descriptive but also “performative”, and has an effect in the real world.

In How To Do Things With Words, British philosopher J.L. Austin offers the example of how utterance of the words “I do” in a marriage ceremony literally legitimises the union between two people.

In the political sphere, too, language does not only describe, but can create, a political reality – for better or for worse.

‘Metaphors can kill’

In Metaphors We Live By (1980), scholars George Lakoff and Mark Johnson argue that metaphors – rather than a poetic flourish reserved for extraordinary writers – pervade everyday life and speech.

Consider, for example, how everyday language for argument and debate is couched in the metaphor of war. An intellectual “adversary” might “attack every weak point” and “shoot down” every argument in his “opponent’s arsenal”.

Metaphors appeal to the listener’s pathos by relating an abstract concept (for example, argumentation) to a concrete and sensory stand-in (in this case, war).

While it might be easy to dismiss this as language that people use unconsciously, without malice or harm, the duo argue that “in the area of politics and economics, metaphors matter more, because they constrain our lives. A metaphor in a political or economic system, by virtue of what it hides, can lead to human degradation”.

On the eve of the Iraq War in 2003, Professor Lakoff warned that one of the central metaphors of American foreign policy was that “a nation is a person”.

By conflating the nation of Iraq with a single “tyrant” Saddam Hussein, US President George W. Bush used metaphor to disguise from the American public that going to war would necessitate a bombing campaign that would have casualties beyond a single person.

Prof Lakoff writes in Metaphor And War, Again (2003): “The 3,000 bombs to be dropped in the first two days will not be dropped on that one person. They will kill many thousands of the people hidden by the metaphor, people that according to the metaphor we are not going to war against.”

In other words, as Prof Lakoff puts it – quite literally – “metaphors can kill”.

But why do metaphors have so much power over the public imagination?

Dr Gene Segarra Navera, deputy director and senior lecturer at the Centre for English Language Communication at the National University of Singapore, considers this question in his research on the allure of the war metaphor in Philippine presidential speeches.

He tells The Straits Times: “The use of war metaphors is particularly prominent in (former Philippine president Rodrigo) Duterte’s speeches, primarily because war metaphors are simple. It’s an us and them metaphor, it’s binaristic.”

He adds: “It’s a cognitive shortcut and people – because they don’t want to think, because they are too busy – latch on to them.”

Mr Duterte, whose “war on drugs” is estimated to have killed more than 7,700 civilians between 2016 and 2021, crafted speeches where – according to Dr Navera’s analysis in his essay, Belligerence As Argument – “the government is rendered as the combatant that aims at protecting individuals and communities from the threat brought about by illegal drugs”.

But metaphors work best in social contexts which are receptive to such rhetorical strategies.

Mr Duterte’s appeal, says Dr Navera, might lie in the fact that Filipinos “like to compete and win competitions” – from beauty pageants to boxing – or in the historical fact of multiple wars in the country’s history.

After all, the Philippine national anthem, too, contains a rather belligerent line: “Sa manlulupig, di ka pasisiil”, or “You shall never be oppressed by conquerors”.

‘There is now a cult for everyone’

People may be tempted to think they are impervious to cognitive shortcuts and simplistic rhetoric by political leaders. But American linguist and writer Amanda Montell argues that no one is immune to the language of fanaticism.

According to the author of Cultish: The Language Of Fanaticism, cultish language is a type of rhetoric used by charismatic leaders which “convinces people to act in ways that are completely in conflict with their former reality, ethics, and sense of self”.

Cultish language – from the cult of fitness to the Church of Scientology – can take many forms, including “euphemisms, secret codes, renamings, buzzwords, chants and mantras, ‘speaking in tongues’, forced silence, even hashtags”.

Citing a New York Times expose written in 2015, Ms Montell examines instances of cultish language across society, especially in seemingly unlikely places – such as Amazon’s workplace.

According to Ms Montell’s book, a new employee, for example, has to commit to memorising all 511 words of then Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos’ Leadership Principles – including nebulous aphorisms like “think big” and “have backbone”.

She cites John E. Joseph, a professor of applied linguistics at the University of Edinburgh: “Without language, there are no beliefs, ideology, or religion... These concepts require a language as a condition of their existence.”

Ms Montell – whose father was raised in Synanon, a drug rehabilitation programme-turned-violent cult – says: “Without us even noticing, our very understanding of ourselves and what we believe to be true becomes bound up with the group. With the leader. All because of language.”

While acknowledging that specialised jargon is required in any professional field to communicate ideas clearly, Ms Montell argues that “in a cultish atmosphere, jargon does the opposite: Instead, it causes speakers to feel confused and intellectually deficient. That way, they’ll comply”.

Rhetorical citizens

But ordinary citizens are not mere vessels of rhetoric.

They are also active producers of rhetoric and discourse that can influence and change society, an idea known as “rhetorical citizenship” developed by Danish scholars Christian Kock and Lisa Villadsen.

In response to discourse by politicians and other leaders, citizens can practise rhetorical citizenship by writing letters to the editor, commenting on online spaces like Twitter and Threads, lobbying the government, or participating in public consultations.

Dr Navera says: “Part of the citizen’s role is to actually look for the rhetorical practices that they can mobilise for their own work as citizens.” He emphasises that “rhetorical practices are not bad in themselves, they are there to be used”.

“Part of rhetorical citizenship is actually listening and acknowledging these diversities that pervade society,” says Dr Navera. A core question of rhetorical citizenship, he says, is “to address the question of how do we co-exist peacefully, even if you do not necessarily agree on fundamental issues”.

The point is not to be cynical about language as a deceitful weapon but view it also as a tool in building communities and movements. In fact, humankind lives in language and cannot avoid using it.

For Ms Montell, the rise of cultish behaviour might also not be completely negative. She writes: “Modern cultish groups also feel comforting, in part because they help alleviate the anxious mayhem of living in a world that presents almost too many possibilities for who to be (or at least the illusion of such).”

The key is to remain vigilant about how language works and to be open to a vast array of experiences and languages.

She writes: “As long as you hang on to that, I think it’s possible to engage with certain cultish groups, knowing that at the end of the day, when you come home or close the app, strip off the group’s linguistic uniform, and start speaking like yourself again, you’re not all in.”

About The Straits Times-Ministry of Education News Outreach Programme

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