by Laura Ojugbana
Definition: The idea that language, culture, and society all have a preexisting reality and the way we use language changes over time.
Description: Practice and emergence is important since it allows us to understand how and why language transforms over time. The languages that we speak and cultural practices that we inherited come from a pre-existing society. That being said, take the racist history of the United States. It allows us to see the ripple effects language has in society and specifically, the African-American community. White Americans would always remind African Americans about how inferior they were through the use of racial slurs which, over time, caused them to be completely removed from society. White America used language as a means to dehumanize black people to the point where the government did not even recognize them as citizens. Regardless of their legal status, black people were still being targeted, beaten, and murdered because they were seen as less than human. Even after slavery was abolished, Jim Crow laws upheld the racist practices. Language ideologies sustained the notion that black people were inferior due to the way they communicated and, African American Vernacular English which stemmed from slavery was seen as uneducated. As a result, African Americans and White Americans were segregated through schools, neighborhoods, restaurants, etc. The beliefs that existed decades ago are still prominent in American society today in our institutions. Therefore, the more we interact within these institutions, the more we bring these racist norms into being. We can see this through habitus which causes us to be conditioned to behave in certain ways due to these racist structures we have been socialized to. And, as long as humans continue to act within these pre-existing institutions, all languages and cultures are emergent meaning that language will change over time. This also means that it is possible to redefine and reproduce the institutions that we live in.
Application:
The concept of Practice and Emergence sheds light on social issues that we as a society are currently facing. Examples of this concept can be seen throughout the Trump Administration and their consistent use of language that initially had a different meaning. However, as Trump utilized these terms throughout his campaign and presidency, the more stigmatized these phrases became in American politics.
Fake News
Prior to the 2016 campaign, “fake news” was not a phrase heard too often. The term was usually used to describe “actual fabricated news stories from websites that publish hoaxes, as well as from hyper-partisan websites purporting to offer real news”. Initially, labeling websites as “fake news” was an indication for publications not to reference articles that were deemed as “unreliable”. This would prevent the news from releasing information that was untrue to the public. However, roughly after the 2016 campaign, the usage of “fake news” skyrocketed by 365%. During this time, false news articles about Hillary Clinton, Trump’s opponent, began circulating throughout the internet and Trump used this opportunity to call out Western news outlets for doing the same to him.
On his campaign trail, Trump would often attack the news, specifically liberal media outlets, for false reporting despite no evidence that media outlets were becoming more radically inaccurate. Over the next several months “fake news” was popularized by the Trump Administration in order to single out news outlets that Trump himself deemed as unreliable. In other words, if Trump did not agree with what the media was reporting about him, he automatically labelled them as “untrue”. As a result of this, research has shown that “42 percent of Republicans now consider any news critical of a politician to be ‘fake news’” and no doubt, the opinions of other U.S citizens had changed due to his usage.
After the Trump Administration coined the term, a Buzzfeed reporter who had previously used the phrase “fake news” explained that he “kept trying to be clear about [his] definition” of it, but after Trump had turned it into a weapon against the media, he just avoided using the phrase at all. Here, practice and emergence helps us understand that “fake news” which was originally supposed to keep the public from interacting with actual, false articles now has a different meaning which is used to villainize certain media outlets.
Alternative Facts
The Trump Administration has also used the phrase “alternative facts” as a means for the public to perceive Trump in a better light. Shortly after Trump was sworn into office, Sean Spicer, the press secretary at the time, claimed that Trump’s inauguration was the biggest of all time despite photographic evidence that proved otherwise.
Not long after, Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s strategist, took to NBC and claimed that Sean Spicer had simply provided “alternative facts” which Conway later clarified was, “additional facts and alternative information”. The phrase itself became well known all throughout social media though, not in the same way as “fake news”. However, this does not mean that “alternative facts” did not have an impact within society. The term started to be used as a punchline in pop culture and comedians had started to use the phrase in segments and skits. Although the phrase is not being used as often anymore, “alternative facts” will no doubt, continue to hold the same meaning until a person utilizes and redefines its definition over time.