1. Introduction to Linguistics
Lecture 10: Language of the super-powerful

2. Schedule today – Part 1
Language, power and gender (finish up last week’s lecture):
Sex-exclusive linguistic features
Gender-preferential linguistic patterns
Different conversation styles between men and women:
1. The deficit approach
2. Dominance approach
3. Difference approach

3. Schedule today – Part 2 Language of the super-powerful:
Case study – Nazi Germany
Resistance to Powerful language (next week)
Anti-Language (next week)

4. Sex vs. Gender
Basic distinction

5. Example: ‘Burrneshat e Veriut’
See video

6. History of language and gender research
1970s: growth as a major area of linguistic research
Focus on gender differences:
Sex-exclusive linguistic features
Sex- or gender – preferential linguistic patterns

7. 1) Sex-exclusive linguistic features
Communities where men and women share the same language, but distinctive linguistic features occur in women’s speech or in men’s speech only
Example: the language YANA (see next slide)
Extinct North American Indian language
Added suffix to male equivalents

8. Yana

9. 1) Sex-exclusive linguistic features
Communities where men and women share the same language, but distinctive linguistic features occur in women’s speech or in men’s speech only
Example: JAPANESE (see next slide)
Lexical differences in traditional standard Japanese

10. Japanese

11. 2) Gender-preferential linguistic patterns
Communities where men and women use the same language, but variability occurs in the frequency of linguistic features and stylistic patterns in women’s or feminine speech and men’s or masculine speech
Early studies have focused on the stratification of language use

12. 2) Gender-preferential linguistic patterns
When all social factors are held constant women use more standard prestige variants than men do (and men use more non-standard, vernacular forms that women do)
= “in many speech communities female speakers will use a higher proportion of prestige forms that male speakers. In other words, the prestige norms seem to exert a stronger influence on women than on men” (Coates 1993)

13. 2) Gender-preferential linguistic patterns
In other words,
THERE SEEM TO BE CONNECTIONS BETWEEN GENDER AND PRESTIGE, but is this the case in all cultural speech communities in all languages around the world?

14. ANSWER
According to some studies (Labov 1966, Wolfram 1969, Trudgill 1983, Macauley 1978 and Chesire 1982) it is.
“in any society where males and females have equal access to the standard form, females use standard variants of any stable variable which is socially stratified for both sexes more often than men do”

15. Back to our milk example
IN ALBANIAN?

16. 2) Gender-preferential linguistic patterns: explanation
A. Status and prestige:
Women are more sensitive to “overt sociolinguistic values” (Labov 1972)
Women are more status-conscious and susceptible to prestige variants

17. 2) Gender-preferential linguistic patterns: explanation
B. Different pressures exerted on men and women
Men: affected by the covert prestige of vernacular variants, which they associate with masculinity
Women: affected by the overt prestige of standard variants, which they associate with higher social status and power

18. COVERT vs. OVERT PRESTIGE?

19. 3) Differences between men and women in conversational styles?

20. 3) Differences between men and women in conversational styles
Robin Lakoff (1975) – Language and woman’s place (book):
“Women experience linguistic discrimination in two ways: in the way that they are taught to use language, and in the way general language use treats them”
Considers women’s language as inferior and deficient

21. Examples

22. 3) Differences between men and women in conversational styles
The deficit approach:
women’s language is inadequate, deviating from male norms
Women are disadvantaged as language users, lacking authority
The dominance approach:
Language patterns as reflective of patriarchal social order
Male dominance enacted trhough linguistic practice
Women’s language use as a consequence of their lack of power

23. The difference approach
Men and women belong to different subcultures
Children’s socialization in single-sex communities and developments of gender-differentiated linguistic styles

24. Part 2 – Language of the super-powerful
Who are the super-powerful?

25. Part 2 – Language of the super-powerful
GOVERNMENTS!

27. A Mobile army of metaphors: the super-powerful
Three characteristic processes of the semantics of the powerful (acc. To Bolinger, ‘Language: The Loaded weapon)
Euphemism: downplaying one’s own aggression
Dysphemism: exaggerating the bad qualities of one’s opponents
Mystification: the use of jargon to conceal certain activities
TYPICAL IN THE LANGUAGE OF
DICTATORSHIP – ‘MARKETING’
And ‘PROPAGANDA’

28. 1) Case study: propaganda in Nazi Germany
JOSEPH GOEBBELS
Nazi Party
Ministry of Information and Propaganda gained control over mass media, press, radio and film

29. 1) Case study: propaganda in Nazi Germany
“Gleichschaltung” – putting everyone in the same gear
= policy which attempted to transform all aspects of German life according to an anti- Semitic and nationalistic ideology
Nazi propagandists used the words ‘German’ and ‘worker’ as synonyms: all Germans were defined as being workers (intellectual workers and physical workers) – together they formed the ‘German Nation’

30. 1) Case study: propaganda in Nazi Germany
“Jewish work” was defined not as work, but as robbery and money-grabbing
Propaganda and persuasion were the tools for the mobilization of the working class
Used emotional language: the creation of association and connotation – “work” was endlessly repeated day in and day out in radio, films and press, and associated with Germans (and war).
=> Lexical hardening: the word “worker” became directly and positively associated with contexts of war, honesty and religion

31. Nazi - Propanda https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af44Slin7lg
= The power of Nazi Propaganda

32. 1) Case study: propaganda in Nazi Germany – anti-Jew
Study the following anti-Jewish propaganda: What messages and ideas are they trying to convey?

33. Example 1

34. Example 1: Explanation
German handbill dropped from German aircraft flying over Russian territory. Attempted to convince the Russian people that they should not fight the Germans, but rather come over to the German side. Attempted to illustrate the character of a Jew, holding in his hand soldiers of America, Great Britain and Russian, who are put through a meat grinder to obtain money from their hides. The intent of Nazi propaganda was to illustrate that the Jews were responsible for the cause of WWII.

35. Example 2

36. Example 2: Explanation
A poster printed by Der Strumer, a publication within Germany of anti-semitic materials. Julius Streicher founded and edited the most rabidly anti-semitic of Nazi publications within Nazi Germany. Der Strumer specialized in anti-Semitic cartoons, and originated the slogan in 1923 that the "Jews are our misfortune." This poster was designed to dehumanize the Jews who were posed in distorted, humiliating and disgusting positions. Also attempting to give the impression that the Jews were different, less human and pure and not as good as the German people.

37. Example 3

38. Example 3: Explanation
Anti-Jew children’s book in Nazi Germany, comparing Jews to poisonous mushrooms to instill fear and hatred against them amongst children

39. Next week to be continued…
2) Resistance to powerful language 3) Anti-Language