2 Narrative & Language

Juan Carlos Manlangit

The stories that we tell ourselves establishes meaning from the perception we take from our environment. Using narrative is not the direct cause of action rather it raises the potential for motivated intent. Stories of triumph in the locker room can invigorate morale and embolden the actions of a team, reinforcing the belief to win. Whereas stories of monsters lurking in the dark instilled fear in children, preventing them from leaving the home at night. Narratives capture knowledge and values that reside in the loose and ever-changing realm of ideas and perception, transcending beyond the lifetime of an individual. Traditional values and sets of semantic expressions are the framework of contemporary and historical truths, becoming the principles for the transcendental nature of human knowledge. Euro-centric lineage of power competes in this linguistic habitat to engineer ideology within societies. Truths of our externalities are expressed through the abstractions of spoken and written language. Identifying the essence of an ideological culture through the narrative and language reveals the intention behind the trope. I will briefly explore the shallow end of the ocean that is the dominating spheres of language and narrative that corrupts the soul of our contemporary condition.

A precursor to the domination of euro-centric linguistic tradition is the maze of logistical conventions regarding the exchange of knowledge and goods. Humans have used this tool to communicate ideas for thousands of years. Only in recent history has linguistics taken a role in globalization. Before the monumental global institutions, we experience today, the language used by fragmented neighboring village and tribes were vastly different from one another. Inhibiting an effective way to transcend knowledge between those who are not in the immediate region. Early logistical forms of language contributed to human ability to effectively organize and trade goods. The silk road being the historical upbringing of globalization, it expedited human flourishing throughout the Eurasian continent. The state of language today as we see it, are long traditions of linguistic ideology[i] transcending the test of time, hardly varying within the concerns of the forefront of forming evidence-based knowledge. Justifiably so, being that rigid linguistic conventions are the framework in which science and mathematics are based upon.

Though we still experience the loss of meaning through translation and misuse of language, the hubs of languages are larger, and variability has been reduced to colloquial or formal iteration of language. One aspect of language that has been invariable throughout human history is that there are sets of value principles and rules that display itself implicitly within the semantics. Conversational implicatures are the way in which we derive contextual meaning within our day-to-day conversations without explicitly stating what we mean, becoming a useful tool for socialization. When you ask someone out on a date, and they tell you “I am working that evening”. You can assume that this individual can’t go on a date in that particular evening without explicitly stating they can’t, while providing additional information as to why they can’t. The familiar combinations of utterances and expressions are the lubricant for ideas to transcend from one individual’s perception to another. We experience the detriment of this quick, informal exchange of ideas when our perceiving mind interacts with forms of language that is reduced to catch phrases and symbols. Particularly when a susceptible insecure bald man looks at a Rogaine advertisement with an image of a man with full hair surrounded by women, he will pick up on the implied gesture that if he uses Rogaine, he will grow hair and be more successful with women. This function to engineer ideological culture, the inanimate, seemingly unconscious adverts are optimized for rapid exchange of ideas for the sake of persuading the consumer, to imbue the belief that certain products are contingent with the necessities of living a good life. Viewing ideological culture through a minimalist perspective, you may agree that there are very few things that we actually need to live well. The subject of this view becomes concerning when corporations that are responsible for our means of production, produce products to put on the shelves for it to be disposed of when and if the product is not consumed or when it has been “consumed”. This byproduct of engineering ideological cultures is the rotting unconsumed food found in landfills, and the disposed hardware of products when it has been “consumed”. Waste is common within the business practices of the technological and food industry.

Creating products that is intended to be mass produced or become obsolete in the coming decade, to perpetuate sales of new products, when in fact the new product may not even offer anything “better” than the previous models. But who is to say an individual ought not to enjoy the pleasantries of a consumeristic society, we find it through the fundamental understanding in the vices of overindulgence reveals the wasteful nature of the culture industry. Technocratic corporatism is in the market for production purposes without the consideration of sustainability, bolstering market ideology as priority over the welfare of the human.

Taking this dynamic exchange of ideas back to the individual, the use of ideological linguistics helps distinguish what is acceptable to the presumptive value principles established by the particular tradition of language. What is it to be polite vs. impolite? Or to exude courage vs. cowardice? The rule of language becomes exceptionally concerning when people lose out on individual liberties if language is used improperly. Though modern language has a globalization element, there are many individuals who are marginalized and disenfranchised by their inability to utilize and critically discern forms of language when participating in a particular linguistic habitat. The ability to display congruence of individual morality, self-advocate, know when or how to ask, to know how or when to give, are values that are not inherently present in humans but rather it is nurtured into us. Calling into question where individuals find themselves when they have a loose foundation of educational and traditional linguistic know-how? There is a distinct linguistic cast that permeate amongst professional and casual social spheres of those who are formally educate versus those who are not. They find themselves impotent to situations that require a particular form of language. A particular affirmative to this claim is when the layman is subjected to handling a problem that is out of our profession. Handling business with a mechanic or a lawyer, many will find themselves a mere guest to their jargon and protocol. This impotence is also found in its fatalistic form of police brutality. Individuals who lack the ability to self-advocate will most likely self-incriminate even if no crime has been committed.

We lack equitable knowledge of linguistics for the disenfranchised communities of any country. Leaving the governing state of authority to do what they have always done, even if causes harm to an individual or a community. Particularly in the United States, the dissonance of the users of English is growing, to what end? Tribalism? Violence·? I see participants in the forefront of political and linguistic spheres dominating over those who lack the ability to compete in these realms of truth. Hurrying to distinguish and essentialize the forms of claims being used within structured conventions, without the intention of seeking understanding or harmony, all for the sake of protecting the “integrity” of the specific linguistic ideology. For an idea or perception of an individual to hold ground in political and linguistic habitat is to accept the predisposed rules of the users of ideological language as a means of discerning social membership.

Language playing an important function in the dominating nature of imperialistic cultures, we have a few standing linguistic traditions we can trace to primordial origins. Sadly enough we can’t say the same for a variety of lost inherent, rigid linguistic conventions used throughout the globe. Hubs of native intellect have been quelled with Euro-centric forms of transcending knowledge, particularly in countries that have been conquered by colonialism. Supplementing indigenous languages with imprecise combinations of semantic expression, interlocked by the contradictory translations of the dominating forms of linguistic ideology. Immediately invalidating and excluding a large sum of thinking individuals from the forefront of uncovering theories of knowledge and truth.

Joseph Samuel Nye Jr. coined this peripheral form of power as “soft power”, which is described as the ability to shape the preferences of others without the need of military force through attraction and persuasion. Soft Power as a normative-theory, is pervasive within many western-established governing systems and was used by Nye to combat the idea of the United States losing global political power. Idealistic values of the United States are propagated through the means of the historical narrative of the “American dream”. An idea that holds the belief of prosperity and upward social mobility achieved by hard work with few limiting barriers. As James Truslow Adam defines this ideology with a quote “life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement”. Is this the reality that people face? This dominating cultural narrative and linguistic ideology has permitted the imperialistic character of the American governing system, materializing into the divine sanction of “manifest destiny”. As John L O’Sullivan, an American journalist who coined the term, encompasses the idea by passionately claiming “we are the nation of human progress, and who will, what can, set limits to our onward march? Providence is with us, and no earthly power can … ”

Easily digestible forms of language and narrative propagate normative behaviors within linguistic habitats, and society has borne its poison from which the culture industry precipitates its ideology, down into the mouths of the consumer. Deliberate engineering of narrative and linguistic ideology onto a society can deal insurmountable consequences that many post-modern and continental philosophers have been concerned with since Marx. The epistemic aspirations of native societies have been dissolved and replaced by systematic forms of logic and values that dominate the meaning of their lives. Derivative from the substrate of universal secular values, the sprouts of the supplanted linguistic ideology seem reasonable until it binds the intellectual freedom of those who are assimilated to the euro-centric culture. Determined through the motivated intention of the language used; the ability to distinguish what is the ultimate good for ourselves and our family has been reduced to the value of consumable goods that are on the menu of the dominating ideological culture narrative.

_{[1] The concept of “linguistic ideology” as “sets of beliefs about language articulated by users as a rationalization or justification of perceived language structure and use,” for example, in terms of correctness or beauty, had been developed by Michael Silverstein (1979, 193).}

JC is in the interdisciplinary studies program for University of Baltimore. Born in the Philippines and raised in the United States, he comes from backgrounds rich in culture and values. He’s pursuing his interests in philosophy and law in hopes to develop a better sense of truth and wisdom while looking to leave this earth knowing I’ve done all I could to make it brighter.