Art By: Nikita Wong
Charcoal
ENG 100
Lundstrom
As human beings, most of us use language from the age of about eighteen months
until we are ready to die, and from our first cup of coffee in the morning
until we fall asleep at night. We listen, we read, and we talk. Language seems
to be very close to the core of what makes us human. Sometimes this need to
communicate springs from our desire to stay connected to our society, family,
and friends. We don't need to say anything important, or even relevant. But
at times we use our language with other purposes in mind. Language can be used
to entertain, educate, persuade, and manipulate. How are these purposes fulfilled?
How is language used to achieve power?
Power usually doesn't just happen. If we want to obtain and exercise the power
that is possible through the use of language, we need to know the methods of
turning mere words into purposeful communication. If we wish to make an impact
we have to know our audiences; who they are, and what they want to hear. We
need to know the techniques that will be most effective in reaching them and
holding their interest long enough for us to deliver our message. And, of course,
we need to know exactly what we are trying to communicate, and what the desired
responses are.
At first thought, the ability to entertain people may not seem much like what
we usually call power, but, as an example, making people laugh is a very powerful
ability. Some stand-up comedians are able to render their audiences helpless,
gasping for breath, wetting themselves, and falling out of their chairs, just
with words. Of course, the act that is a hit in Las Vegas would bomb at Disneyland.
The parents wouldn't want their children to hear it, and the children, fortunately,
wouldn't get the joke. This is one example of why it's so important for us
to know our audiences. Children can be easily entertained by many different
sorts of humor. It is even possible to make an infant laugh. We just need to
know the audience, and a few tried and true techniques.
Perhaps the most pervasive example of the power of language in the entertainment
area is television. All we need to do is press a button and the TV brings the
world into our living rooms. In the same evening we can listen to a work of
Shakespeare and the latest edition of Saturday Night Live. The television can
make us cry and laugh. It can enrage us and soothe us. It can blot out everything
else in our minds and keep us glued to the screen. There is something for every
audience, and each writer is aiming for a different demographic. But there
is a deeper motive here, the lust for a different kind of power. The larger
the audience that a program has among the people that the advertiser wants
to reach, the more the advertiser will pay the network for each thirty or sixty
seconds of air time. So at bottom, television shows are written to capture
the attention of the audiences that manufacturers, traders, and service providers
want, through their advertising agencies, to sell their goods and services
to.
Writers who want to entertain have many forums, though most do not have so
large a potential audience as television has. The choice of an audience can
rest on what the author wants to write, or the author can choose what he or
she writes in order to reach a particular audience. In either case, the writer
must know the techniques that will draw the reader in. Many people read their
favorite authors, the ones whose works they have read and enjoyed. Some are
guided by word of mouth, and advertisements sway others. Then there are the
people who love to go to the bookstore and browse until they find a book that
they think they will enjoy. But to reach and hold the audience, the author
needs to know how to employ the knowledge and techniques of good writing.
The power to educate is another way to use the power of language. Many writers
want to teach. Their work can range from automotive repair manuals or books
of philosophical theory to magazine articles about the world of nature or books
designed to teach children the ABC's. Obviously these authors need to know
their audiences. The repair manual would be either incomprehensible or just
boring to many of us. But for those who want to be mechanics, a well-written
book of this kind would be a powerful learning tool. Not all students of philosophy
will be reading at the same level or be interested in the same areas of the
subject. Therefore they might not find the same books useful or interesting,
but if the author knows the possible audiences, techniques can be adjusted
to reach them. There are many magazines about various aspects of the natural
world, but they are not all alike. It's common sense that the writer should
know if the publication's audience is made up of environmentalists, hunters
and fishers, biologists, or the general public. All of these works would go
right over four-year-old heads, but the alphabet book would probably be very
educational.
In addition to the basic necessities that all good writing requires, the authors
of these works must know who their intended audiences are, which techniques
should be employed to engage the readers, and what response they are seeking.
The author of the repair manual must decide if it is being written for students,
professionals, or backyard restorers. For all of these audiences the manual
should be written in a well-organized way, and with a straightforward style.
If its intended readers are professionals, the writer could use more technical
language than would be used for students. Clarity and precision would be especially
necessary for the less experienced readers, and if the writer wanted to reach
the backyard mechanic or a more general audience, a touch of the author's own
personality or a bit of humor wouldn't hurt (Miller and Webb, 1992).
The author of a philosophical work would probably have a limited audience because
even though a clear explanation of the subject matter could be made, simplifying
philosophy tends to distort it. One way to make the subject more understandable
would be to put it in the context of its time. Explaining the historical, social,
and political situation surrounding the rise of each school of thought, as
well as the preceding philosophy, makes
this subject much more meaningful (Russell, 1964). While the tone of these
books is usually academic, a writer of Bertrand Russell's stature seems to
be able to inject his work
with quite a bit of wit and humor.
In order to sell an article to a nature magazine, a writer must know the audience
that the magazine attracts, and write to that particular audience. Environmentalists
will probably want to know the latest triumphs and setbacks of the movement,
the status of the places that are considered ecologically important, and the
times, dates, and places for whatever actions are planned for the future. An
out doors person would probably ignore that kind of information. She or he
would be more interested in an expert's method of tying flies, reviews of various
types of cold-weather gear, or stories of hunting and fishing trips. If the
article is intended for a journal aimed at professional biologists, the style
should be more academic, the tone more formal, and the language more technical.
In articles written for the general public, the language should not be too
technical or difficult to read.
Some people think that it is easier to write a children's book than one aimed
at adults, but that is not generally true. Technique is just as important for
those who write for children. The author must use a simplified style and a
tone that will make the audience feel comfortable. Children appreciate repetition,
alliteration, and whimsy. Underlying messages must be checked and sorted carefully.
In the 18 1h century children's' books were written in a didactic style. Most
were brutal efforts to teach "proper" behavior. Now we understand
the fact that our audience is the children, not the adults who buy the books.
Humor is an important element in writing for children, and animals are a favorite
theme (Epstein, 1991). Writing over a child's head or beneath his or her abilities
will result in that child's overwhelming and irresistible desire to go away
and do something else.
Along with its power to entertain, television has a huge potential to be used
as an educational tool. Unfortunately, most of that power is funneled into
the moneymaking machine of commercial advertising. Public Television is the
only entity in the world of TV that tries to make real and meaningful use of
this potential. From Sesame Street to Nova, from Bill Nye to Joseph Campbell,
PBS is a potent source of learning in an entertaining package. The rest of
the 46vast wasteland" is given over to violence and greed, interspersed
with discussions of which toilet bowl cleaner or fast food chain is best.
Somewhere in between education and manipulation is the realm of persuasion.
Kelton Rhodes, Ph.D. (1999), defines persuasion as "inducing a change
in attitude." Every day we are bombarded with attempts to persuade us
to pay attention to something and to change our minds about it, assuming that
we are not already part of the flock. We find booklets in our mailboxes promising
to teach us how to get rich working from home. There are signs promoting everything
from churches to political candidates throughout the city. Speechwriters try
to convince us of whatever they're getting paid to write about. All of these
are attempts at making us change our attitudes.
The techniques of persuasion are fairly easy to see by sitting in front of
the television, observing and doing a little critical thinking. Luxury automobiles
are sold to the people who can afford them by pointing out safety features,
comfort, and electronic do-dads, none of which have anything to do with transportation.
Inexpensive cars for the younger, less settled buyers are sold with promises
of the hip life-style, great financing, and always having three best friends
and four cappuccinos in your life, none of which, again, have anything to do
with transportation. Commercial television isn't called "commercial" for
no reason. It is probably our most potent tool for capitalistic persuasion.
Huge sums of
money are spent on finding the audience and I convincing them that they can't
live another moment without a new kind of plastic food storage bag, or that
their infants will grow up to be junkies if they don't purchase the right brand
of disposable diapers.
Unfortunately, most human beings don't like to think. Cognitive scientists
have measured the brain waves of people who were thinking hard, and found that
they correlated closely with the brainwaves of people asked to submerge their
hands in ice water (Rhoads, 1999). This is one of the reasons that language
is so powerful. We take mental shortcuts. When someone tells us something,
we believe it, just to avoid thinking too much. This can be a convenient way
of conserving tune , and energy, but it also takes our power away and hands
it over to commercial interests.
When a land is invaded by colonizers, the power of persuasion becomes much
more damaging. One of the first things the colonizers use to suppress the people
is language. The Hanging of Myles Joyce, by James Joyce, points out the horror
of what can happen when the accused do not know the language of the colonizers'
courtroom. The English were able to convict and hang for murder three Irish-speaking
men who were later exonerated by the men who had actually committed the crime.
The court's translator, though Irish, was more concerned with his status with
the British than with bringing about justice. It didn't seem to matter whether
the men were guilty or not: After all, it was only an Irish family that had
been murdered. The British wanted to make an example of the accused, and in
the end even those, like Myles Joyce, who understood no English, understood
the meaning of the trial.
Other people have cooperated with their colonizers, never realizing the danger
of giving up their own culture until it was too late. Here in Hawaii the rulers
of the kingdom saw English as the language of the elite. The children were
sent to English immersion schools and the indigenous language was almost lost.
Merle Hodge (1988) writes that the Caribbean underwent much the same thing,
and describes how the culture and Language have suffered as a result. She also
reveals the effect it had on her to be taught that English is somehow better
than Creole. She believes that the nations of the Caribbean can never be free
to follow their own destinies until their culture is restored. Their language
is Creole and their voices must be heard in Creole.
Another power of language is the ability to fuel hatred and prejudice. The
United States, for instance, has a long history of prejudice and the language
to go with it. Some of us have names for different races, nationalities, and
ethnic groups. Others mock those who are lower on the social ladder than we
are, or those who have less money than we do. This is a very potent use of
language. Aside from the obvious harm that this kind of language can cause
to the individuals and groups that it is aimed at, it is also the door to propaganda
and all that comes with it.
Propagandists manipulate our feelings rather than appealing to our ability
to reason (Pratkanis and Aronson, 1991). They find our mental shortcuts very
valuable. They exploit our emotions, use false logic, and lie outright. Name-calling
is intended to lead us to reject and condemn without ever seeking the reality
of the person, idea, or situation (Delwiche, 1995). Glittering generalities
lead us to approve and accept without rational thought (Institute for Propaganda
Analysis, 1938), and is another technique used to further the propagandist's
goals. Another example of the kind of methods that propagandists use is to
find different ways to say the same thing in order to obscure the meaning.
George Carlin noted that after the First World War soldiers came home suffering
from "shell shock." After the Second World War they had "combat
fatigue", and when the soldiers came back from Vietnam they were diagnosed
with "posttraumatic stress disorder."
During the First World War, President Wilson created The Committee on Public
Information (CPI) to control information about the war both at home and abroad.
The CPI used experts in human psychology and the skills of the best advertising
agents, along with journalists, artists, academics, and businessmen to run
a tremendous propaganda machine. It created voluntary guidelines for the news
media and applied enough pressure to keep them in line. It recruited fiction
writers and essayists to turn out newspaper features, movie scripts, and pamphlets.
The CPI made emotional appeals and demonized the enemy (Delwiche, 1995). Of
course, all the same things were going on in Germany.
Language is a powerful influence on every aspect of our lives. Those of us
who know how to use the techniques of good writing can move and inspire our
audiences in many ways. Whether we wish to entertain, enlighten, or influence,
we need to know whom our audiences are and what we want to convey. If we can
tailor our techniques to our audiences, we have a much better chance of reaching
them. If we know the techniques of advertising and propaganda we can resist
the appeals to our greed, fear, and hatred.
Home |
Acknowledgements |
Contents |
Index |