Power Of Language Research Paper

Using Language as a Power - How bullies use language to make people feel inferior

Difference boys and girls verbal abuse

Language is used everywhere and by every human being, it is ubiquitous. People use it as a form of communication to be a union, but it also separates us and can create a power relation between two individual, two peoples, two cultures. It is was separates us from animals and although we use it to gain knowledge, the power that comes from using language is indisputable. The power of language is misused when we think of war but also in everyday life it affects individuals such as in form of bullying. This paper is going to discuss the different approaches to language as a misuse of power and how verbal abuse can affect people.

However, hardly ever we hear about people that have been abused verbally although the effects are almost they same as if they have been raped. Verbal abuse is a way for people to barely leave any marks of destruction. Words do not cause bruises or any physical harm as Jarmila Milder explains “verbal abuse is often neglected because it hurts psychologically and emotionally rather than physically and thus remains ‘invisible’” (108, 2005). A definition of verbal abuse is hard to find as many different factors have to be included: gender, age, whether it happens at school or at work, ….These are all factors that have to be included when analyzing language of verbal abuse. Miriam Eliasson wrote her thesis paper on verbal abuse and summarizes verbal abuse as “Verbal abuse includes name-calling, teasing, ridicule, taunts, insults and threats” (11, 2013). The definition of verbal abuse does not only include the language of the perpetrator but also how it is perceived by the target. The perpetrator might also claim that the offensive words should have been meant as joke and not been taken seriously. Eliasson explains that “For instance, while a teaser often considers his or her motives benign, friendly and humorous, the targets instead often see the teasing as hostile and painful, especially when the target is a young child”. At this point the perpetrator has

Kathy Bosch, working at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, put verbal abuse into different categories: countering, withholding, discounting, verbal abuse disguised as jokes, blocking and diverting, accusing and blaming, judging and criticizing, trivializing, undermining, chronic forgetting, ordering, denial of anger or abuse, abusive anger. Since this essay cannot focus on all the mentioned categories and most are self explicatory, only three were chosen for further discussion: Undermining: “Eroding the self-confidence and self-esteem of the person: “If I had an easy homework like this, I would have finished much earlier.” This category can have many variations as there are many ways to make someone feel little only by choosing if - constructions and comparing. This method is about trying to show that the person is worth less than everybody else and deserve therefore to be blamed for the outcome. Furthermore, when considering the homework example, the person might do much worse in future when doing a homework as s/he tries to do it more quickly. Another example of verbal abuse is “Accusing and blaming”: For example the sentence “If you didn’t make me mad, I wouldn’t have to treat you like that.” tries to blame a person for abusing. It gives the fault and origin of the perpetrator’s abuse by calling the victim a perpetrator. Particularly this method makes the person