Violence in Language

Language is both a blessing and a curse. Without it, we couldn't share and receive information vital to our existence. Language not only develops in conjunction with society’s historical, economic and political evolution, but also reflects that society’s attitudes and thinking. It surrounds us, shapes our thoughts and is being shaped in turn. But are we its masters or its slaves? Whether we like it or not, we live our lives under the spell of language. Language is how we communicate and understand the world around us. The possession of language is powerful and unconscious in the human brain. We wield the power of speech with nothing more than mere nonchalance. Even thousands of years after we discovered language, we still unconsciously feel that if a thought is spoken or put in print, it somehow assumes greater significance (Sletto).

In Tony Morrison’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech, “she explains her work as a writer within the context of a well-known African folklore about a wise women who is confronted by two children wanting to know whether a bird that one of then holds in their hands is living or dead.” In all of her interpretations, the bird represents language, the old women a writer, and the children represent members of a culture that the writer addresses (Austin). The response that the old woman gives to the children, “It is in your hands,” points out the great responsibility that we have to language that has been entrusted to our care.

Morrison declares, that “oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence.” (541). It is the language that drinks blood, laps vulnerabilities, tucks it fascist boots under crinolines of respectability and patriotism as it moves relentlessly toward the bottom line and...

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...al interference in lives of Black people, the African peoples were reconditioned through severe techniques. The European, white people, carried these definitions and symbolism with them when dealing with this race. It lead to a sense of superiority in the European race, which also led them to justify their violence with their race. Carina Ray notes that, “colonial regimes were quite astute at creating and then institutionalizing "tribes" out of groups of people who were externally perceived as sharing fundamental attributes that warranted their being lumped together. Maulana Ron Karenga observed, "Only slaves are defined by or in relation to their masters." Therefore, Black Americans unconsciously fostered a slave master mentality in White Americans and a slave mentality in themselves in allowing, for one day, such a degrading designation to be continued (Wright).