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Doxa

by Elaina Wolfson

Definition: Doxa is ideas and practices in society that are generally accepted as the status-quo and are not discussed. 

Description

Doxa is essential to the study of language and culture because it directly ties language to shaping culture. Doxa is how society permits certain things to be the norm without discussion and no use of language. Doxa being the things we do not talk about, leaves heterodoxy and orthodoxy to be the things we do talk about. Heterodoxy and Orthodoxy are ideas and practices that exist in society that are discussed (living within the realm of discourse). Orthodoxy is discussion to reinforce the ideas and practices that existed in doxa prior. This includes things that are considered the status quo. The difference is that orthodoxy is the actual use of language to discuss these practices and ideas and doxa is how we hold and perform these ideas and practices in society without talking about them. Heterodoxy is ideas and practices that challenge orthodoxy and doxa, they push back against the status quo and try to change or question the norm and things that are generally accepted. Heterodox ideas and practices challenge why and how we do things we do. It includes how we can do things better and calling out things that are not working. Heterodoxy is any voiced disagreement with the status quo. Most often things come out of Doxa (begin to be discussed) with heterodox ideas and practices but are then responded to with orthodox ideas and practices. Because orthodoxy reinforces doxa, it is often not used to initiate discussion because doxa is all of the ideas and practices people and society do and believe without having to think about them as a result of the hegemonic society that we live in.  

Application

Doxa, heterodoxy, and orthodoxy can be seen very clearly in the Me Too movement. For a long time sexual harassment and assault has existed and was allowed, because society ignored it. Everyone knew it happened but it was never taken very seriously unless it was an extreme and violent case. With the Me Too movement, women and survivors of sexual assault, harassment, and rape got to push back against the status quo and bring these issues out of Doxa by sharing their own stories and hearing each others. This started the conversation in heterodoxy because anyone that participated in #MeToo, even by simply sharing the hashtag, was protesting the norm (that norm being allowing sexual harassment and assault). As the masses of people stepped forward talking about their shared experiences our society allowed discourse around these topics, bringing them out of doxa. The issues of rape, sexual assault, and harassment came out of doxa with heterodoxy ideas challenging the status quo by saying that these things were not ok and will not be accepted or tolerated anymore. 

Out of the millions of Me Too stories a very clear example of doxa and heterodoxy is an incident that happened at the University of Texas Austin. Six Female students there protested a professor who had sexual misconduct charges against him. The administration was lacksidasily dealing with the issue and the women were not going to tolerate it anymore. In the video, that you can see here, you can see the students entering the classroom and call out the professor for what he has done. This is a heterodox practice and  immediately brings the issue out of doxa and into the realm of discourse. The whole campus knowing that he is disrespecting female students and disobeying the standards of sexual conduct at the school but not talking about it is the issue existing in doxa. If you watch the video you can see the flow of the issues leaving doxa and coming into the realm of discourse:

1. The professor is teaching his class whilst students sit and learn = Doxa:

Everyone knows that he has committed these wrongdoings but no one is saying anything about it. This is Doxa because his wrong doings are being permitted by society as he is allowed to still hold his position and continue class normally.

2. Students enter the classroom calling him out for what he did = Heterodoxy:

By naming what he has done and explaining how it is unacceptable the issues enter the realm of discourse. You can see the students handing out flyers to students in the class to make sure their heterodox practices are widespread and possibly trying to encourage other students to bring the issues out of doxa within their own friend groups and communities.

The professor himself never responds with orthodoxy or at all. He seems to be trying not to acknowledge their comments perhaps in hopes that this issue will fall back into doxa and allow him to continue his career. Orthodoxy in this case would be people who disagree with these female students. Students or faculty who defend this teacher for his actions or say that it may not be “that bad”. Anyone who has disagreed with the Me Too movement or denounced are trying to reinforce norms that exist within doxa and would be on the end of orthodoxy within the realm of discussion. 

There are many ways we can use these tools of doxa, heterodoxy and orthodoxy, from our knowledge toolkit to understand and better analyze the world. Doxa, heterodoxy, and orthodoxy exist in our world in so many different ways. These concepts are ways to understand everyday interactions, changes in culture, and even our own personal understanding in how we act. The Me Too movement is one example I chose to critically analyze using doxa, heterodoxy and orthodoxy because it helps us understand how these issues are only being talked about now. I encourage anyone reading this to use this new tool to analyze different parts of our society. 

 

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Communities of Practice

by Jada Evora

Definition: A community of practice is a group of people who come together and share the same values and practices while working together to achieve a common goal. 

Description

Within any given society, you’re guaranteed to find smaller communities. However, not every community is a community of practice (CofP). A group living in the same region as each other does not make them a community of practice, you have to look a little deeper than that. Communities of practice are more than people who share the same interests, because that would just be a club. The interactions between people of the same CofP often includes exchanging of knowledge that would help them move through society or somehow make them closer to achieving their shared goal. These interactions can happen consciously or unconsciously. Another identifying feature of a CofP is their shared use of language and language ideologies. It is important to recognize what language can reveal about the cultures of these CofPs. A great example of this is the ancient city of Sparta. The Spartans differentiated themselves from other civilizations by educating and not censoring their women. In doing this, there was more equality between men and women in this CofP. Other civilizations in comparison devalued women and therefore created an overtly misogynistic culture. Anthropologists who study these groups can understand how they learn together and interact with those around them. CofPs are changing today because of the internet making it easier to find and interact with people with shared interests. For example, a fisherman blog can now share information about where to find the most fish in a lake to their readers instantly. These readers can engage in a back and forth interaction with each other without ever even meeting face to face. 

Application

With the emergence of the Internet, forming a community of practice has never been easier. There are two tools that are the most useful for creating a CofP: language and visibility. Visibility means that they have a sense of their numbers, and common language and thoughts gives the group mutual activities to bond over. Most people who find themselves with an unpopular belief find it hard to meet people around them with similar beliefs. The internet breaks the regional boundaries previously set that made it difficult for people to find each other.  For example, if you put together a website for tree hugging activists, it’s only a matter of time before more tree hugging activists from all over the world use that outlet to come together and share their experiences and knowledge. However, while we all shouldn’t have an issue with tree hugging activists, the formation of a CofP online isn’t always a good thing.

Teens, especially white teens, are susceptible to what we call radicalization. Radicalization is the action or process of causing someone to adopt radical positions on political or social issues, which in turn allows them to integrate into an alt right CofP. There are white supremacy websites with the goal of making teens talk and think like them. But most teens don’t jump from normal to radicalized in one sitting. In addition to that most people don’t set out in search of hate groups online. When disgruntled white teen boys go searching online for answers, they almost certainly will find the hate sites or these hate sites will find them. These “alternate rights”  groups are not selling white supremacy online, they are advertising a way of life that can appeal to someone vulnerable. White supremacists most often use chat rooms like 4chan and Reddit to recruit unsuspecting victims, and initiate this slow integration into their CofP. These recruiters slowly begin exposing teens to conservative ideologies through mediums that aren’t too extreme. Teens take to images they are familiar with like memes, but these memes are altered in such a way that spreads racist ideologies. For example, take Pepe. What started off as an innocent picture of a frog would later be manipulated into a caricature of Hitler, and symbol for the white supremacy and neo nazi movement. (see below)

Original Pepe meme (top) Racist Pepe meme (bottom)

On such websites, these teens are given anonymity, so they are free to use whatever language (violent, racial or intolerant slurs etc) they wish, but how does that translate in the real world where there are consequences? In a BBC article, one child shares that “white teen males are afraid of being called racists.” In real life settings outside their CofP, White supremacists adopt a totally different form of language that shapes the thoughts of outsiders. For example, white supremacists resent people who call them Nazi’s because of the bad connotation. Initially when people say the word “nazi”, your mind is flooded with terms that are symbolic of the World War 2 Nazi Regime; words like death, distruction, blatant racism, etc. It is this very reason that these white supremacists have come up with different ways to identify themselves. They prefer to be called “identitarians” which gives them the impression in people’s mind that they are some sort of clean cut, well educated philosophers. These groups also identify with the “alternative right” portion of the political spectrum because it’s better to say than to refer to oneself as a “white nationalist” or even worse “fascist”. This CofP uses language to camouflage themselves from the outside world, but this phenomenon has been present for a while. A very prominent example of this hidden language is the use of dog-whistle politics in around 1954 when lawmakers would use subtle language to pass racist laws. Other racist lawmakers were all fluent in this type of language, however the general public often had no idea what impacts these laws would have on them.

Okay, this all sounded very depressing but there is hope! We live in an age where all of the information we could ever want is at our fingertips, but we must learn to use this resource with caution. There are steps that parents and educators can and should take to stop radicalization before it’s too late. As influential adults, it is time to initiate a discussion about media literacy with children, or even friends who are susceptible to radicalization. Signs of a child being groomed for joining this CofP include asking questions about alt right talking points, sudden passion about political topics, isolating oneself,  or even becoming violent and angry. It is important to discuss with children what they do online and limit how much time they spend there. Radicalization may be overlooked as a danger. Don’t make the mistake of allowing this threat into your home.

 

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Agency

by Honey Laguda

Definition:

The ability to act, or do things, based on societal constraints.

Description:

Based on your social identity, your options on how to act in the world are limited. Certain identities historically have more privilege than others, and as a result, are established as the “norm” by having control of social institutions like government, the justice system, and schools.

People of marginalized identities must adopt the culture of these hegemons, or wielders of major institutional power, in order to get an education, find work or housing, and be taken seriously in any social institution. Studying language can reveal the ways in which historical institutions can create certain paths individuals must follow.

For example, there is a “right” way of talking when speaking in an academic, legal, or business setting, and it this way of talking that dominates all social institutions (for instance, Standard American English). This “correct” way of speaking upholds certain ideologies that prefer white upper-class social experiences and devalues the experiences and linguistic styles of peoples of other social identities.

The concept of Language Ideologies perfectly encapsulates the phenomenon of linking the way one speaks to their socioeconomic and sociopolitical status. Our ideas of what is the “correct” way of talking shapes the way peoples of non-white lowerclass identities must speak and act in order to exist legitimately within society, and it ultimately limits certain people’s capacities to act. 

Application:

We can begin to truly understand the concept of agency with a few potent examples. 

Just recently on the UMass Amherst campus an African American employee of 14 years was reported to the police for seeming “very agitated” on his way into campus. Reginald Andrade had only been getting to work on what he thought was a regular day when he was surrounded and questioned by the police. In an article, Mr. Andrade recounts his frustration with the amount of racial profiling he receives on capus. It limits the way he is able to move around lest he be categorized as menacing. 

Black bodies are laden with meaning and significance, and the dominant culture in America makes little room for their own self interpretation. Since black existence is already linked with criminality, black Americans feel they must act a certain way when participating in mainstream society. In the case of Mr. Andrade, he has been told to “smile more”, to walk slower, and to stop carrying his big gym bags around. While most white Americans do not rouse suspicion by walking quickly with frowns, people with dark skin must take these extra cautions, effectively limiting their capacity to act how they otherwise would.

Many people migrate to America with a functioning understanding of the English Language. However, because of ideologies we hold against people of color, these English speaking migrants get placed in English Learners programs which often hamper their abilities to learn at the same pace as the rest of their peers. Because someone might have a heavy accent, or may not speak Standard American English, they may be labeled as less intelligent or incapable of learning at the same pace as everyone else. Our schooling systems are dominated historically by white hegemons, and this fact dictates who we see as “educated”. These ideologies limit one’s ability to receive quality education and freely practice one’s native tongue and traditions. 

From a young age, black American children are implicitly and explicitly taught to fear the police. Many black Americans can recall tense conversations with parents about what to do when stopped by an officer. Make little eye contact. Hands in sight. Relax the muscles. Speak clearly. Do everything you are told. Before learning the “birds and bees”, many of America’s youth learn the very real dangers their skin color poses. In the back seat of my Uncle’s car, I could hear his usually firm and deep voice tremble in the presence of a white policeman while he bowed his head in the humblest position. Conversely, my heart jumped when a white friend’s parent easily bantered with a police officer and even contested the terms in which he had been pulled over. I witnessed firsthand the separate worlds white and black Americans face. The power relations between police and black bodies in America are tense and historically exploitative, limiting the ways black people can interact with the lawforce. 

Hair holds a deep significance in the black community, with thousands of slang words and cultural references emerging from it. The term “good hair” is one such cultural reference that has rocked the black hair community. Until very recently, the term “good hair” meant fine and straight hair, in direct contrast to naturally black kinky hair. “Good hair” meant attractive hair, professional hair, acceptable hair, and arose from a white standard of beauty.          

These traditional notions of beauty limit the way black women could appear in the world. Black female politicians have never worn their natural hair in the public sphere (until very recently), and the same applies for entertainers like Oprah and Rihanna.                                

Women with kinky hair textures went and still go through great lengths to achieve straight long hair. Girls as young as the age of two use carcinogenic chemicals to “relax” their natural textures. The chemicals in these hair relaxants have been proven to erode skin and numb nerves, and they badly sting during application. Women shell out thousands of dollars a month on straight wigs and weaves, spend significant portions of their paychecks applying extensions, and hours straightening their hair.            

A social tradition has emerged in the black and brown community of going to the salon for hours to form and maintain social bonds as well as achieve “good hair”, as seen in Chris Rock’s documentary.                                              

The natural hair community has combated traditional notions of beauty through oppositional agency, or opposing the traditional hegemonic powers that limit the actions of certain groups. Part of achieving this is reclaiming the term “good hair”. Inspiring natural hair influencers proudly post pictures of themselves wearing their natural hair in public and post hair care videos and blogs to educate black people on how to properly care for and protect their unique hair. Hashtag trends include phrases such as #good hair is healthy hair, and #good hair is kinky hair, in order to reshape negative ideas people hold about black hair. Through practice and emergence, or the changing of language and meaning overtime, the phrase “good hair” has seen a metamorphosis, giving more black women the agency to live unapologetic authentic lives.                            

My mother has remarked at how many more black employees have transitioned to wearing their natural hair at WallStreet. More stores now sell a wider variety of natural hair care products, while chemical hair relaxers that once lined shelves have now been relegated to a single spot on the lowest row. By reviewing and reclaiming what we believe to be beautiful, we give ourselves permission to exist more freely. 

Cultural traditions prove a hard force to change. However, through the rise of social media and global interconnectedness, we become more exposed to the lives and cultures of non-hegemonic groups. This interconnectedness could be a tool in altering our current ideologies by educating us about different cultural practices and legitimizing them in the mainstream. 

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Habitus

by Elsi O. Tutu

Definition:

Habitus refers to how individuals are predisposed to act, speak and think in conditioned environment by social structures.   

Description:

The significance of habitus to language and culture is that habitus is so subtle that individuals don’t notice it due to it being an ingrained habit, caused from cultural influence. People who speak different languages grow up in different cultures and from a very young age, are raised in a unique social structure that shapes them.

Language stems from cultures with different aspects of habitus that influences an individual’s thought processes and behavior concerning gender, race, and other components of society. They learn how to behave, think, and speak in their culture as they engage in everyday conversation with members of their society and are exposed to the actions of other individuals. This concept provides insight on how we can shape and be shaped by our social and cultural surroundings. 

Although we are influenced by our culture, habitus is essentially an intrinsic habit that makes it difficult, but possible, for individuals to change. So many of our habitual ways of speaking – like accents – are shared by habitus and is done automatically by us without thinking. Habitus does however, open up capabilities for change and reinforcement through the old and new generation. A connection can be made between linguistic habitus and language socialization, due to the fact that habitus is used to describe how people socialized in certain ways, often share many values and perspectives, as well as styles of eating, talking or behaving.

Habitus is a circle of cause and effect that predisposes us to act, speak, and think in a certain manner based on our environment. This can eventually lead to a transformation of those conditioned structures as different generations emerge. An example of habitus is how at a young age, young children are taught that girls wear pink and boys wear only blue. You are conditioned to this status quo that it progresses through adulthood where at social events like baby showers, everybody automatically assumes that the color blue represents a baby boy and the color pink represents a baby girl. 

Application:

A current issue that I want to use habitus to illuminate is the ongoing language inequality in the United States of America. An example is the gender inequality occurring through gender binary pronouns, which is used in multiple languages. People of different ethnicities who speak different languages are at times constrained by the grammatical structures of their language but with different generations emerging, they are able to produce different utterances within those constraints. Languages, like cultures, change over time with new things getting added unto it. Because we are predisposed, and not predetermined on how we act, speak, or think, it allows for our behavior to be influenced by social structures, and still leaves room for the possibility to act in opposition to the structures and norms that have influenced us.

In the English language, people unconsciously connect individuals to either male or female pronouns because as young children, we have been taught that an individual who has certain qualities that deem them as females should be immediately referred to using the pronouns, she, her, and hers. Some languages have all male pronouns which suggests that men represent everyone while other cultures, like the Ghanaian Ashanti language, Twi, don’t use gender binary pronouns. By doing so, it doesn’t pit both genders against each other, by making one gender more dominant than the other, and leads one to see the world as a place where all genders are equal and not defined by pronouns. 

In languages with gender binary pronouns, The LGBTQIA+ community and other younger generations are recreating gender binary pronouns by including multiple pronouns that allow for people to identify in whatever manner they wish to. There have been different terms that have been plugged into our language so as to respect the different genders that people identify as. By introducing more gender neutral pronouns into the English language, people’s perspectives of the world around them are changing, therefore causing them to place the importance or irrelevance on certain things.

Take for example Sweden, where a new non-gendered pronoun dropped in the Swedish language in 2012 with a third gender-neutral pronoun hen, proposed as an addition to the already existing Swedish pronouns for she (hon) and he (han). The pronoun hen, similar to the English gender-neutral pronoun they, can be used when an individul’s gender is unknown or irrelevant (to them), and as transgender pronoun for people who don’t identify with any gender binary pronouns.

Research was done where native Swedish speakers were tested to see if they would include the new pronoun into their language, or just identify the cartoon that they were provided with as a male or female. The results showed that people had begun to accept the word and used it frequently. As if now, the Swedish community use the new pronoun instead of  assuming one’s gender, meaning that they have incorporated it and added it to their culture. 

Using appropriate pronouns has become a very popular trend in America, especially in colleges like the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Professors and students who introduce themselves for the first time, attach their pronouns to their introductions, so that others don’t assume and actually learn more about each other. It begins right away at Orientation sessions when different people from different backgrounds are getting introduced to each other, and even on Spire, students have many options for pronouns they want to use (with Professors also having the same opportunity). It creates an environment where individuals are respectful of each other, giving one the ability to control their own identity and causing people to be more conscious of their surroundings.

https://theconversation.com/gender-diversity-is-more-accepted-in-society-but-using-the-pronoun-they-still-divides-101677

The younger generation can continue to apply this in society while also passing along this new language/cultural change to the next generation, which will eventually be embedded into the English language and our vocabulary without any resistance. We could start with the youngest generation, being kids in preschool and kindergarten by incorporating the different pronouns in the classroom, so that they grow up knowing these things. This makes it easier for them to adapt to the new changes and use it in their social surroundings. It will evolve into our social norm without people thinking that it is weird.

The culture in the community, and the way you grow up makes it difficult or easier to adapt to it, especially using pronouns. If we are going to start normalizing gender neutral pronouns, we have to change the societal structures of it, like facebook providing more options for gender pronouns, the census, detectors at airports. Overall habitus does not completely eradicate but simply reforms and adds on ideas in our community, by beginning with language, because it is through that which gender ideas develop and grow.

In conclusion, habitus helps us understand how individuals grow up using certain social norms, like gender binary pronouns, but have the ability to change them.

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Style Shifting

by Carlea Dolcine

Definition: Style-shifting is shifting between two or more different ways of speaking (styles) in an interaction.

Description

Style-shifting is seen between speakers of a non-normative style, who have to switch to the normative style of a given society, like standard American English in America, when speaking to someone that is not in their community. This sheds light on the culture for someone who does not speak the dominant language of the country.

The existence of style-shifting illustrates the experiences of those raised with non-normative styles of any language in any society, as they are forced to devalue their native talking style. People who speak non-normative styles are ridiculed, dehumanized, ostracized in society and subsequently pushed to the bottom of hierarchies. The idea of the linguistic marketplace attaches values to different languages and styles.  Because of language ideologies, the lower value attached to a language or style the less legal, educational and social mobility speakers are awarded. Often times, it is communities of color that suffer from this linguistic devaluation.

Style-shifting is an adaptive technique that is meant to bypass the restrictions of speaking one language or in one style. Overall it allows us to come to conclusions of how language plays into social systems of power in any given society, how we see hegemony encapsulates this.

Style shifting also serves to connect to an audience in a deeper way by relating to them on a linguistic level. Often this is a technique used to phase between communities in a given society in order to make the audience more receptive to their message.

In one of Trevor Noah’s videos entitled “Don’t Lose Your Accent”, he points to style-shifting as a means of communicating more effectively. Since he is a comedian he utilizes comedic anecdotes to get his point across. His overall conclusion that people with normative styles attempting to style-shift may often come across as racist or offensive struck me as important because it brings in the influences of language ideologies on people.

Sometimes without even intending to, dominant groups interpret their view of the culture and its people through their accent by portraying them as ridiculous or unintelligent sounding.

Boots Riley’s 2018 movie “Sorry to Bother You” discusses style-shifting at length with its central theme of “performing whiteness”. In the movie, the main character, Cassius Green, gets a telemarketing job where he at first struggles greatly but learns to use a “white voice” in order to increase his success as a telemarketer.

The “white voice”, also known as verbally performing whiteness, is just a comical representation of the usage of Standard American English. Using Standard American English, in this situation, allowed Cassius to reach a level of success that his non-normative style prevented him from doing in the first place. As is the case with many working people in communities of color who have to style shift to gain those upper status of success.

Commonly, job interviews are places where speakers of non-normative styles of, for example, English are forced to use Standard American English to prove their adequacy to do a job, regardless of what the job calls for. AT McWilliams, in his article on the movie, points out Cassius Green’s style shifting as a tool for social mobility and in some cases a necessity for survival.

Here, I want to explore style-shifting as a means for marginalized people to gain access to, at times, basic necessities. The lack of access people of color with non-normative styles of English have to face is only just gaining media coverage.

For me, I know that when I am in a job interview, or writing a formal essay for a class or scholarship, I have to filter the “regular” voice that I use greatly. And not to just exclude “urban” words associated with youth from my speech, but I have to alter my entire grammatical familiarity so that I may be taken seriously.  Only due to the fact that I have been in public education my entire life with older siblings that have to go through the same experience am I even able to have that luxury of knowledge. Many people I know have been discounted simply due to their style of English, not the breadth of their knowledge.

This becomes problematic because then only one type of voice is accounted into “professional” ideas, and all other voices are silenced unless they have access to learn to style-shift.

Dave Chapelle mentions this in one of his interviews as he states that “Every Black American is bilingual”. While being stated in a comedic way, Chapelle’s words should ring true for Black Americans all over the country. The truth of the matter is that not all Black Americans have access to the education necessary to learn to masterfully style shift, and for some, this situation breeds consequences larger than missing out on getting a job or receiving a funny look in public.

Look at the classic example of Rachel Jeantel who was the star witness in the 2012 Trayvon Martin case. The fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman and was depending heavily on the testimony of Rachel Jeantel. Since Jeantel did not have the ability nor the knowledge to style-shift, necessary in this particular situation, her African American Vernacular English (AAVE) led to jury members and even the court reporter to not understand her testimony. In this case, the fact that Jeantel’s testimony was discounted impacted the case and interrupted the process of justice for Trayvon Martin.

Confrontations with police brutality is another situation in which style-shifting becomes a necessity for an individual no matter what their style of English is in this country. As unarmed Black men are being killed at 3.49 times the rate as unarmed white men, style-shifting becomes a necessity for survival. The idea behind this is suppressing one’s “blackness”, which has intrinsically been linked to danger, through style-shifting becomes a way to convince the police officer of their innocence and in turn, save their own life. Beyond the argument behind police brutality’s inception, acceptance and maintenance, there is something to be said about a restriction for large groups of people partly based on the language or style in which they speak.

Rather than standardizing English and teaching youth to learn the standard or in the very least learn to style shift to the standard, I think it would be more beneficial to accept all languages and styles. In a country founded with so much diversity, it seems a shame that hegemonic systems put into place a strict linguistic hierarchy. Style-shifting is certainly an adaptive technique, but in the perfect world, there should be no need for those placed in bottom tiers to have to adapt to a linguistic norm.

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Framing

by Alexis Edozie

Definition:

How the act of using language in different ways when presenting information can affect how an audience perceives a certain issue or idea.

Description:

The concept of framing is significant because it can be used to study how language use affects human perception. The way a sentence or idea is phrased has the power to sway the audience’s opinion on an issue in different directions (ex. For vs. against). So, changing something as simple as a word or choosing to emphasize a specific phrase when explaining a topic can change how the public understands and/or feels about an issue. It is important to understand how language use does things to people because of how influential it can be towards public opinion. Not only does framing give people a persuasion method, it also gives them the ability to manipulate the beliefs of the audience through language. That is because once a person has mastered the art of deliberately making certain language choices in order to receive a specific reaction from the audience, they can use it to their advantage. This can result in framing being used as a ploy to garner support/attention for a cause. Consequentially, people that use framing as a weapon can also use it to reflect or challenge aspects of society like Doxa and hegemony.

Application:

The topic that I want to illuminate using the concept of framing is one of the main reasons people believe Trump won the presidential election in 2016: his firm stance on immigration and his ability to frame immigration as dangerous in order to gain support. I want to look deeper into this issue by using a YouTube video that contains the final presidential debate on immigration:

In the beginning, the moderator for the debate first acknowledges that Trump has already voiced he wants to build a wall to keep out immigrants that are coming into the US illegally. On the other hand, he states that Clinton “[has] offered no specific plan for how [she] wants to secure our Southern border”. The way that Clinton has been presented next to Trump already puts her at a disadvantage. This is because although Trump’s plans may be extreme, many would view having any plan at all to protect the country as better than having no plan at all. At this point, Clinton has been painted as indecisive and unclear about her intentions through the words of the moderator which would make viewers hesitate in choosing her to be president.

During this debate, Hilary Clinton (Democrat) and Donald Trump (Republican) are explaining why their own positions on immigration is right and their competitor’s is wrong. About thirty-five seconds into the video, Trump is allowed by the moderator to relay his opinions before Hilary which is crucial. With the ability to go first, Trump has the advantage of framing the issue of immigration in a way that the audience will side with him before Clinton even gets the chance to speak. In this analysis, we will be focusing on how both candidates use repetition in order to show their stance on immigration.

While watching the video, pay attention to the number of times that Trump uses a select number of words/phrases to talk about what should be done. His most repeated phrase is “[strong] borders” which he says about 15 times. This is in addition to how he mentions the wall 6 times and the drugs “pouring” into their country because of illegal immigration 6 times. The way he repeats important phrases makes it easier to ingrain the concept into the minds of the public. So, when Trump chooses to use and repeat these specific phrases so frequently, he is implying that the current institution of immigration is a “disaster” (which he says 3 times) the `public should not want to continue.

Using this type of language allows Trump to place a negative light on illegal immigrants in a way that pushes the public to relate it to how water “pouring” in can be dangerous and lead to a “disaster” if they do not have “strong borders”. Trump skillfully uses these terms to gain the support of the audience by framing such a large issue of immigration as something to be feared if not handled correctly. In other words, that he is the right one to fix these problems. So, regardless of one’s political party, it is safe to say that Trump successfully made a bold statement in order to push people to feel they needed him to protect them with the border.

Almost three minutes into the clip, Hilary Clinton is finally allowed to make her statement. The most common phrases that she used to state her stance on immigration were not said as frequently as Trump. She repeated “undocumented” as a replacement for the word illegal 7 times. However, the other repeated phrases were the most telling.

Clinton used the phrase “I don’t want” 3 consecutive times when talking about not wanting to separate families through Trump’s plans of deportation. She also said the phrase “I think” 4 times when talking about what she believed the country should do about immigration. This is where Hilary Clinton dropped the ball.

The Effect of Framing on Hilary Clinton’s Campaign (created by Alexis Edozie)

Her plans regarding the future of our country if she became president were stated as if it were her personal desires rather than what the country itself needed to happen. By using this language when describing her position, Hilary Clinton framed her vision as something necessary for herself rather than the well-being of the country. It would have been better for her to omit the personal pronoun and phrase her beliefs as a statement of fact so that viewers would be more inclined to listen.

This juxtaposition with Trump is made even more apparent because she was made to follow the very strong position of Donald Trump. When Trump connected her idea to that of “open borders” later in the video, she was in trouble. This is because Trump had already iterated the importance of strong borders to protect the people from the flood of dangerous people. So, with Clinton’s name attached to open borders, it is implying that she is going to allow these bad people to flow into the country.

Trump took advantage of framing by using the repetition of certain phrases to paint a picture of immigration that would push the people to vote for him out of fear. This caused Hilary Clinton’s idea of reformed border security to seem inadequate and lackluster in comparison.

https://en-volve.com/tag/2016-election-winner/

So, Donald Trump was able to use framing in order to win the Presidential Election in 2016 though many thought it was impossible. In conclusion, the concept of framing is important to understand because it can reveal how language has the power to do many things.

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Linguistic Market

by Ana Freitas

Definition: 

The linguistic market refers to a symbolic market existing in a particular group, society, or culture where a certain language and or way of speaking is valued above others.

Description:

The linguistic market is important to study due to the implicit ranking system of languages within society, certain ways of speaking are viewed as more valuable than others. There is a profit of distinction or in other words, it’s valuable to speak in a certain way in a social aspect to gain a favorable outcome. The local linguistic market may highly influence the community’s perceived value. This further divides people by race, ethnicity, or regional divisions by the attitudes which are set forth by language ideologies. Symbolic capital refers to the highly valued way of speaking within the context, therefore, using it as a resource. Those who follow this way of speaking can often turn the symbolic capital into symbolic dominance and even eventually into symbolic violence. Symbolic dominance can be seen when a way of speaking has been upheld by institutions and make other ways of speaking as inferior.  An example would be only speaking English in a school with no official federal language. When symbolic dominance turns into symbolic violence, language endangerment or even language death can occur. An example would be when colonizers came to the United States and forced Native Americans to learn English and to forget their own languages. Hegemony plays into the linguistic market which is maintained in the frame of an institution, then is then further upheld by language ideologies. This way of thinking can lead some to dismiss the way a person speaks, only due to the idea that their language is the correct one. 

Application:

Without knowing, the existing power imbalance in the United States is currently being upheld by the linguistic market. The most valued way of speaking is prioritized and taught to children to reinforce the language’s dominance over other, less important ways of communicating. Understanding where these imbalances come from can help us understand the deep-rooted racism that comes with valuing one way of speaking over another. 

The linguistic market is further maintained with the issue of Latin American immigrants speakers coming to the United States, they’re being told to speak English while America has no official national language. Spanish, as well as Portuguese speakers, are being pulled over, ridiculed, and asked for documentation due to the inequality within the country not only involving basic excuses of language, but again deep-rooted racism that hasn’t been challenged until recently. The existing power imbalance is being reinforced with the idea that English is the superior language due to this linguistic market and language ideologies being presented, not as opinions, but rather as facts.

In the United States, the linguistic market is seen with regular occurrences of mainly brown Spanish speakers being asked for their documentation, regardless of a public or private location. Discrimination is widely accepted in the United States and is seen as patriotic and heroic. Immigrants are often valued less than native-born citizens, as seen in the pay gap between them. Not only this, but Spanish is viewed in such a poor light, that it hardly counts as a positive in the job market due to its association with undocumented immigrants portrayed and framed by the media. 

In the case of Martha Hernandez and Ana Suda, the two Hispanic women were pulled over by an officer. When the women asked why they were being pulled over, the officer has admitted it was because they were speaking Spanish in Montana, where it wasn’t common to speak a language other than English. This discriminatory act was then reported and luckily the women sued. Cases like these aren’t rare, what’s rare is that the officer has been blatant about the discrimination. The association with the Spanish language is of brown individuals who are undocumented in the United States. 

Furthermore, the linguistic market has a lot to do with the ways of speaking within a community, but also with race and ethnicity. There are cases where brown Spanish speakers are ridiculed due to their skin color and language, oftentimes within the hands of the government and even the police force. Brazilians who reside in America mostly have fair skin in comparison to the Brazilians in their native country. Brazilians that have a paler complexion often have higher incomes than those that have a darker complexion, therefore, immigration is mainly obtained by the higher income community. A contrast can be seen in the United States where brown Spanish speakers get more discrimination than white Portuguese speakers. This shows that the linguistic market is upheld with more than language ideologies backing it up, but with a silent yet violent racism. 

Often when coming to the United States, foreigners are ridiculed for possibly not knowing all of the English language, while being bilingual. This hatred for immigrants can be seen by the following generation, and for hopes of better opportunities, English can sometimes be the only language taught in a home. The next generation then loses part of its culture alongside the ability to speak their native language. The linguistic market often contributes to language and culture endangerment and even death by reinforcing the idea of a dominant language and culture. 

Overall the linguistic market is upheld by language ideologies and supports hegemony through power imbalances. Institutions further maintain the power imbalance to continue to serve the dominant class whether that be determined by race, ethnicity, socioeconomics, sex or sexual preference. The power imbalance is often that of a binary, where one characteristic is always seen as above the other. This juxtaposition of the linguistic market and the binary shows that the structure is similar, with the dominant being on top while the lesser is on the bottom. Symbolic capital eventually turning into symbolic dominance and then symbolic violence shows and heavily exhibits how intertwined linguistic market and language ideologies are. It’s important to understand the origins of these ideologies held so as not to enforce them in a linguistic market, upholding the most valued way of speaking as the correct one and any other ways are devalued. This is where symbolic violence can destroy a language and everything associated with knowing a language, such as culture and knowledge within that language.  

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Welcome!

Welcome to our Encyclopedia of Linguistic Anthropology in Action.

This is a collective project that works to explain the concepts of linguistic anthropology in an accessible way, while also demonstrating how these concepts can help us understand pressing issues that face our world today.

The entries in this encyclopedia were produced by first-generation college students in the Emerging Scholars Program at UMass Amherst as part of the Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology course with Dr. Lynnette Arnold in Fall 2019.