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Title: Language Militia Manifesto
Author: Solidarity Federation
Date: Summer 1999
Language: en
Topics: language, Direct Action Magazine
Source: Retrieved on April 7, 2005 from https://web.archive.org/web/20050407003451/http://www.directa.force9.co.uk/archive/da11-features.htm
Notes: Published in Direct Action #11 — Summer 1999.

Solidarity Federation

Language Militia Manifesto

Language is such a major part of everyday life, it gets taken for

granted. But from the day we’re born, our identity is defined by

language. The genders, races and classes we belong to are also thus

defined. Our status and level of living is fundamentally influenced by

the language of power.

But language can also be turned into an important weapon in the fight

against discrimination. This article details two primary concerns; how

language is used to maintain power over us, and how we can use it to

challenge and overcome existing power structures.

Language is vital in developing, maintaining and reproducing all sorts

of power relations. It perpetuates a vast range of myths and stereotypes

based on class, gender, racial, sexual and other feelings of

superiority. From ‘simple’ name-calling and insults to the subtler-end

chauvinistic journalism, verbal attack, in one form or another, is ever

present. After a time, this negative language becomes ingrained, and so

the power structures which language reflects determine our social and

language practices. In turn, these practices contribute to maintaining

the power structures. This cyclical process has helped establish and

reinforce a hierarchy of language styles, used in different social and

institutional situations, which are parallel to the hierarchy of social

and class relations.

The form of language we use with our mates, our families, or in the

school playground differs from that we use with the boss, the police, in

an interview or in the classroom. The ‘telephone voice’ phenomenon

indicates how we change our language to fit with the expectations and

norms of society. In institutional situations, like the police station,

the manager’s office, the classroom, or all sorts of interview

situations, the context is one in which rigid, pre-determined language

roles exist. Power, in these situations, is reflected by the respective

roles of the participants, and is either maintained or challenged

through the ability or willingness of one or other of the participants

to play their expected role. Where the authority figure can assume and

retain control, power relations are reinforced, and regular repetition

of these events throughout society reproduces these power relations.

Before going on to look at the part played by the education system in

this process, let’s deal with a few myths about language.

standard lingo

The form of the English language that is associated with power in

Britain today, is variously known as BBC English, received

pronunciation, southern British standard, or even simply ‘proper’

English. It is no accident that this dialect descends from the merchant

class of London at the end of the medieval period. As this class evolved

into the new capitalist class, so their linguistic influence spread.

Capitalism required improved communication, and therefore a working

class that at least understood the dominant dialect, both written and

spoken, even if they didn’t use it in their own speech. Establishing the

dominance of this dialect was part and parcel of the capitalist class

establishing its dominance over the working class.

It could be said that a language is just a dialect with an army and a

navy. Two points arise. First, it ties prestige forms of language to

capitalism’s favourite form of political organisation — the nation

state. Second, it reflects the reality that ‘standard’ English is no

less a dialect than any other form of English. The difference is that it

is a class dialect, not a regional one. It is held up as something to

aspire to, not denigrated like regional dialects. It is a class dialect

because the capitalist class uses it most, and because it is working

class people who are said not to speak ‘proper’ English.

Not content merely with dominance, there are even those who wish to go

further and develop standard English into a uniform national language

that everyone must use. The latest example to hit the headlines was

Beryl Bainbridge’s bigoted demand for working class accents to be weeded

out at school. To hold such views is a demonstration of crass class

arrogance. It certainly shows no understanding of how we learn language

or what language should be about.

In fact, the majority of language learning is done before we reach

school. Most of us therefore, don’t learn ‘proper’ English, but the

dialect of our families and communities. At school, we learn to read and

write the standard dialect, but we largely ignore the attempts to make

us talk proper(ly). Although people can, and do, change their accents or

dialects, it has rarely anything to do with school. Even so, childhood

dialects remain, as witnessed by their ability to show up, or get

stronger, due to stress, emotion or inebriation. To try to wipe out

regional dialect, therefore, can only be doomed to failure, for children

by and large continue to use the same speech habits as their family and

friends, not those that school attempts to force-feed them.

The elitist, prescriptivist ideology is that standard English is the one

and only truly correct form, that all other forms are lazy, inelegant

and lacking logic. But the truth is that no dialect is any more correct,

elegant or logical than any other. It takes the same level of mental

sophistication to develop the knowledge to speak ‘proper’ as it does to

speak Scouse, Cockney, Geordie, Brummie or anything else.

Prescriptivists like the bigot Bainbridge fear that English is being

infected, debased and mongrelised by regional dialects and ‘sloppy

usage’. But no language remains static. Standard English, like other

English dialects, and like other languages, changes all the time. Such

changes are irresistible, and beyond the control of the self-appointed

grammar police.

back to school

As already mentioned, capitalism needed improved communication, which

led to the spread of literacy through the state education system and

among the working class, who had hitherto been denied access to

education. Of course, the teaching of skills like reading and writing,

even if based on a standard, capitalist dialect, is no bad thing in and

of itself. However, in going about the teaching process, the education

system establishes the social patterns, including patterns of language

use, that we go on to use in our dealings with wider society. School

establishes a distinctive structure with a set of situations (class,

assembly, playtime, staff meeting, etc), a set of roles (head, teacher,

pupil, prefect, boy/girl, bully) and a set of purposes (learning,

teaching, examining, maintaining [social] control), all of which demand

their own distinctive language pattern — controlled roles, controlling

roles, when to take turns, respecting the authority of the head, the

teacher, and so on.

Having downplayed the education system’s ability to affect our dialects,

a more accurate assessment would be that, instead of our childhood

dialects being affected, we are given access to another (standard)

dialect for use in dealings with institutions, etc., which demands a

language style higher up the hierarchy. Thus, to some degree we do

absorb the standard dialect, for use in specific situations. How

successfully we can do this is reflected in how successful we are in

educational and career terms or, put another way, how successful we are

in reproducing society’s values and power structures. Of course, people

from capitalist, ‘middle class’ or professional backgrounds, that is

backgrounds where they learn the standard dialect from birth, have a

head start in this process.

media & ad-‘men’

Another institution which reinforces both language patterns and

capitalist power structures is the media industry, including its

offensive off-shoot, the advertising industry. The media are skilled at

disguising power relations to direct attention away from the powerful

people and the profit-motivated causes that lie behind discrimination,

pollution, and a long list of other social evils.

A sort of simulated egalitarianism, which depends heavily on hiding

surface markers of authority and power, is projected through advertising

and the media, as well as education, government and state bureaucracies.

The language used presents capitalist practices as universal and ‘common

sense’. The power to do this is a significant complement to economic and

political power.

For instance, industrial disputes are reported through the use of

distorting language such as “trouble”, “disruption” or the disease

metaphor. All of the time, it is existing power structures which are

reinforced. The whole point is to achieve consent in the maintenance of

power, which is certainly a lot less risky than ruling through coercion.

free language?

An aspect of language which is just as important as its role in

maintaining power, is the role it can play in challenging and breaking

down power structures. Indeed, over the last four decades, various

social and political movements have adopted various strategies to

‘expropriate’ language in this way. Capitalist society lays great store

in being ‘free’ and ‘democratic’. However, when those at the sharp end

of social power structures claim such ideas in the fight against

discrimination, and re-work their meanings, this is a challenge to

existing power structures.

Another way of fighting back through language is to reclaim ‘insulting’

words. This has been done to a certain extent elsewhere, but has been

most successful within the gay movement. The word ‘gay’ itself is one

which was reclaimed back in the 1970s, while ‘queer’ has recently

undergone the same process. Again, language is being expropriated and

given unexpected and empowering meaning.

In recent decades, there has also been a trend away from the overt

marking of power relations in language, resulting in the hiding or

blurring of language power relationships. Examples include in higher

education, the use of ‘Japanese management techniques’, and the

increased use of indirect requests in everyday conversation, rather than

direct orders. In languages like French, German, and Spanish it is also

seen, in the trend away from using informal and polite equivalents of

“you” to mark power relations, towards their use to express family,

friendship or solidarity relations. Then again, it is seen in the shift

away from “he” and other male pronouns to refer to all sexes

collectively.

Such changes show a response to social struggle. The powerful have felt

the need to exercise power in less open and direct ways. Of course,

there is no question of them giving up any of that power. Power

inequalities in terms of wealth distribution, access to health and

education facilities, and so on, continue to widen, deepen and generally

become more stark. But they are disguised by the ever thicker wallpaper

of subtle language change. This is simply one face of the simulated

egalitarianism referred to earlier.

While such trends may show that the language of power relations can be

challenged and changed, they also demonstrate that capitalist society

can adopt and adapt to such language change without significant change

to the whole hierarchy of power. The ultimate challenge, then, is to

bring down the capitalist system, which is built on that hierarchy. And

language must be a part of this process.

arming the militia

The expropriation of the terminology of the dominant ideology is one way

in which we can immediately intensify our battle against it. For

example, we can set about expropriating that old capitalist favourite

‘free speech’. Since this must be based upon the ability to participate

freely and equally within society, a society that expects the majority

of us to meekly fit into subservient roles and follow orders cannot be

one that encourages free speech.

To be in favour of free speech, therefore, is to reject both the social

and class hierarchy, and the hierarchy of language roles that goes with

it. Now, to take on managers, coppers and other authority figures, to

refuse to accept being controlled, is no easy task. But it is one that

is central to the whole idea of overthrowing the current society to

bring about a better one. It is a task that we must prepare for, through

self-education, backed by solidarity.