Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech By Toni Morrison

Language and Freedom

Language is at the heart of what makes us human. We have the capacity to use language to express ourselves and communicate with others. Language helps us form social movements, it can be compelling enough to bring about action. In Toni Morrison’s Nobel Prize Acceptance speech, she tells a parable that illustrates the importance and power of language. In my paper, I will analyze Donald Trump’s candidacy speech with attention to his use of language. Studies have been done on Trump’s language before to determine he speaks at a fourth grade reading level, while the effects of that fact are that he is understood by many people, it does not necessarily mean that he makes clear and concise points. He employs many tactics that appeal to people linguistically and thematically making him stand out from other politicians. I will focus on what his definition of freedom is and how his language serves to counter freedom as defined

Morrison establishes a distinction between dead and living language. A language that is alive is one that grows and changes and is conducive to freedom. Freedom depends on living language, a language that can still change and grow. She goes into further detail about the qualities of a dead language and its limitations it is “effective for it actively thwarts the intellect, stalls conscience, suppresses human potential. . . it cannot form or tolerate new ideas, shape other thoughts, tell another story (Morrison, Acceptance Speech, 2).” For Morrison, dead language is one that restrains freedom by limiting expression to ideas that preserve the status quo. It limits expression to a single narrative, therefore silencing other points of view and standing in the way of freedom. In Morrison’s speech she defines a dead language as a language that not only is not in use but one whose purpose is to censor and police the people who use