Linguistic Ideology & the Enervation of American Society
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Over the course of the past century of Western Discourse, Linguists, for the first time, began to call into question the vast epistemological systems (that in the Standard of the time would be understood likely as a single system) of assumptions that the West has held as truth statements. This fallacious societal modality has carried with it an interpretation of the nature of language that is not only misleading but produces an imagined communal reality that necessarily propagates various social conflicts. These conflicts themselves produce a psychological effect that inevitably creates a rift between the individual and the imagined community that represents these linguistic ideologies.
At the University of Geneva between 1906 and 1911, Ferdinand de Saussure essentially invented modern linguistics with his introduction of semiotics. Central to the idea of semiotics is the understanding of a word as a sign. These signs are composed of two things: a signifier and signified. A signifier is any sound (“door”, “inane”, “happy”) that is associated with something and represents orally or textually that something that can be understood as the signified. It is this causal relationship that comprises any word.
What is of primary importance to Saussure in this relationship is its arbitrary quality. A signifier is unquestionably arbitrary in its nature and relation to its respective signified. There is nothing intrinsically representative of the animal we call “dog” in the word itself. Nor is there anything inherent in the number of letters that make up the word, though western grammarians might make such a spurious claim.
One might attempt to question this with the mention of the onomatopoeia. But, over various cultures one finds a strange lack of parallelism. This is due to the subjective construction of words both in sound and content. The signified itself is purely dependant upon the subjective constructive processes of the individual laying claim to an understanding of any signifier/signified pairing. More specifically, signification is dependant upon context. That is, one understands the “meaning” of a word through former contexts with signified referents. These contexts produce a system of signification for the individual that provides meaning. The signified is the production of former contexts that are identified as relating to the sign referred to. The meaning produced here, the “content” of a word is never a simple thing and might be best understood as a causally related system of incidents of context that together frame what one works with as the substance of signification.
The fact that one might read Faulkner and note the unique way in which he uses the word “mellow” not only indicates these claims but also reproduces them. Speaking for myself, the word appears to have quite a bit more “meaning” after the case. This is one example among truly countless others (i.e. every word one operates with.) Word meaning is a unique, inimical process for every individual engaged in any linguistic activity.
I might say the word even resonates in a particular way because of this reference point in my perception. The fact that a word might resonate in any particular way implies some broader system of signification beyond that word. It even sounds mellow nowadays. But such a statement itself is purely dependent upon the contextual reference of my English language. It is constructed through relation with other words and auditory/textual patterns. Yet the content of these patterns is already shown to be arbitrary. One produces systems of signification for signifiers, and considers the networking of these significations to have some truth-value, to be reliable.
Semiotics understands language as a system of causally related signs, or symbols. Intuitively one understands that even meaning of a single word is variable depending upon various contexts. What is held to be reliable is the system of meaning that one understands in the ability to use a word in various contexts, which can only suggest that meaning is not fundamentally stable. It seems easy to say that these are communal rules of a linguistic community. This is held despite the clearly subjective construction of any system of usage for a word.
Signification of a word is dependant upon reference to other words. It is intuitively obvious that the meaning of word changes dependent upon what words it is placed around. Without this context of interdependence of words, one is left only with the lexical status of a given word. Yet the distinction in denotation and connotation does is not always represented in a given words lexical status. Yet, there is the common assumption that there is in fact a lexical status for a given word that contains some sort of transcendental truth-value in respect to the meaning of a given word. The lexical collection of language is comprised of these conventionally true values for words. The fact that a dictionary of the English language contains these various lexical objects in isolation can lead to the irresponsible assumption of a language that exists removed from context.
This assumption of a language’s existence out of context, and the objective accuracy of a language is the basis for Western language ideology. America clearly represents itself through a monoglot of Standard English. This Standard English is one that produces the conception of an ideal codification of usage through which, as Silverstein puts it, the “best” speakers in a linguistic community will approximate most closely. There is a proper, perfect English that is removed from the dialectical, mutative usage that one encounters day to day. These day-to-day forms are considered lower than the elevated status given to the Standard, as framed through lexical statuses.
The fact that the contents of any dictionary receive any sort of elevated status is itself arbitrary. One is want to think that these are the objective definitions, the true definitions of the words comprising the dictionary. This is false. Consider how a dictionary came about. Already with the subjective construction of the individual’s vocabulary in mind, one can imagine the historical process through which the “objective” status of a language is produced.
A language can be looked upon temporally through two forms, the synchronic and the diachronic. A diachronic consideration of language operates over time and works through this change over time to look at the changes, the mutative properties, of a language over time. Yet, a Standard language, or a lexical language, has the elevated standing of being removed from these diachronic processes, it appears to be frozen in time, or rather exists out of time. But this is a hasty consideration of language.
The synchronic state of a language is that state of a language as it exists at one point that is distinct from former linguistic states. Both of these interpretations of language can have value if handled with care, but one would be well served to question the transcendental, objective status of a standard language as existing over and above daily linguistic modes.
If each individual constructs his or her own vocabulary and language over the course of their own former encounters with signifieds then one can understand a linguistic community as a polyglot community with as many languages as there are participants in the broader community. Yet these various languages, these private dialects with their own private poetics, are able to communicate. This is due to approximate (not definite) crossover in meaning between various individuals.
Bahktin understood language, in part, in regards to diachronic movement through two central processes: centripetal forces and centrifugal forces. The centripetal forces of a language are those that attempt to maintain the language as it is used with some Standard that has already been established. These forces are generally institutional hegemonic structures such as government. In contrast, centrifugal forces are the inherent mutative properties of a language-over-time that move away from the removed Standard. It is this Standard that is at the root of language ideologies. One can understand a language in synchronic terms in light of modern linguistics. But to conceive of a language as a complete system in any given moment distinct from former instantiations of the very “same” language was a stretch for a society believing in an imagined linguistic community dominated by centripetal forces that conceived of a single removed asynchronic consideration of language through a Standard.
These centripetal forces operated with a standard that they understood to presuppose the language the social context of their current environment yet somehow fundamentally embodied their linguistic community. This singular conception of language in asynchronic terms is entirely a product of language ideology. It conceives of language in an abstract, as though it were not the production of millions of former speakers operating with an approximately communal language. The production of a Standard language, instantiated through a standardized lexical status is merely the product of centripetal forces formalizing the approximate word values of a historically official language that itself is the product of various subjectively constructed significations that one can agree to agree upon.
This is made more apparent when one considers the affect that a single individual may have upon the meaning of word. The word “quixotic” has a lexically firm status as meaning that is held with no less esteem than the word “arrogant” yet without Cervantes there to write “Don Quixote”, there would be no word “quixotic”. In this way one can see how individuals with their own subjective considerations of a Standard language might themselves transform the language despite the vain attempts of various centripetal forces. Individuals, eras, periods, episodes, all of these work as centrifugal forces upon a Standard language and the fact that the Standard language might embrace various words and instill them with some sort of elevated, detached-from-context status, does not change the fact that they are themselves subjective productions.
With this in mind it might seem clear how absurd the notion of a standardized tongue might be. Already the elevated, atemporal status of a Standard is compromised by the fact that languages do not stand still. Yet the centripetal forces that impose linguistic hegemonic ideologies necessarily cling to the notion of a Standard existing over and above the daily linguistic discourses, that these are derived and delineated by this standard.
But, this Standard is merely a synchronic moment of a language removed from the moment(s) of its construction and considered objective. This assumption of the objectivity of a Standard makes it easy to ignore the hegemonic intentionalities inherent within any standard.
The West, historically, is known for a strong sense of self and faith in the ability of that self to accomplish “reason.” This capacity for reason, for an involved logical process is fundamentally a subjective process. It is fundamentally dependent upon perspective. Yet, there is the assumption that the inquiries accomplished are natural truths, that they can be removed from the perspectives that produced them. Just as the West considers the language that it has standardized to be able to be removed from the historical perspectives that constructed it and the contemporary perspectives that operate in reference to it. This assumption of objectivity is based upon a dualistic, binary mode of inquiry.
In “Language and Logic”, Whorf discussed the tendencies of Western inquiry to break things down into discrete units. The segmentation of nature is not an absolute truth. Nature is in fact wholly interconnected, all matter and energy interpenetrate (as is increasingly being shown to be true through study such as quantum mechanics), there is no necessity to break it down into separate units is a matter of a perspective of self in opposition to all else. The fact that one can construct a language of logic does not mean that that logic is somehow pure and objective.
As has been shown, language frames reality, it defines the objects through which one understands reality. This interpretation of language is a subjective process and the structure and nature of ones language frames how one understands the reality of ones particular perspective. In a broader sense, the fact that there is an approximate sharing of language means that a linguistic community shares (approximately) an interpretation of language and reality distinct from other linguistic communities.
The tendencies of what Whorf called Standard European produce a world broken down into distinct, discrete units that are processed through binary reason. This fact accounts for how one might come to believe that the symbolic logic produced by Western Reason might appear to be objective, being a collection of abstract Boolean expressions that fit naturally within the Western linguistic modality that processes information in such a distinct way. But, this does not mean that the language of Western logic has absolute truth-value, its roots still lie in a dualistic impression and expression of reality that is inherent in the structure of Western languages. Such a language may seem intuitive for someone operating through these linguistic modes, but that which is intuitive is dependant upon former contexts of knowledge and this knowledge is, again, a subjective construction. For a Hopi speaker, for example, the insistence upon breaking reality down from the fluid nature through which these speakers are familiar, may not seem intuitive or natural at all, and there may in fact be another form of logic that seems far more suitable for the unique discursive inquiry of this particular linguistic community.
It is in this way that America is able to establish an overarching Linguistic Ideology that ignores the implausibility of its own claim towards objective status. Yet, there is necessarily a rift between the actual situation the individual finds himself and the expectations set up by such ideologies. If language frames consciousness and how one perceives and processes the world, then there is an imagined normative consciousness through which one is expected to operate within America. As this normative linguistic mode and the psychology it attempts to propagate come into contact with actual personally constructed linguistic modes, there is inevitably a gap between the two. But, inherent in western ideology (and its interdependence with western linguistic ideologies) is the infallible reason and objectivity of its own standards. One does not meant to call into question these standards. What is seemingly accomplished with a removed standard and the ideology attached to it is that one can communicate perfectly with anyone else within the American monoglot linguistic community (and if such is not the case, it is only due to a non-standard usage of the Standard.) This assumption between two speakers is one that inevitably causes rifts in communication. Since the language with which ones speaks is specific to the individual and only approximate in its ability to communicate accurately, there is an implicit miscommunication that occurs whenever people attempt to communicate. But, being in a community that conceives of itself as operating in a stable monoglot language, this imprecise communication and the natural capacity of such a situation for miscommunication cannot very well be acknowledged or understood.
This can lead to a psychology within America that is constantly reinforcing the remoteness of the individual from the community. This ideology perpetually distances one individual from another due to the speaker producing sentences that contain information that is not stable as it is transferred from speaker to listener. We operate within a world of symbols constructed through language and presented as truth statements and integrated into moral hierarchies that are promoted as truth over other, external hierarchies. The fact that these hierarchies are presented as truth exacerbates the situation because one has an intuitive familiarity with these hierarchies and the language that constructs them, the Standard that represents and promulgates them. This constant stream of miscommunications over time leads to a lack of faith in the ability of the individuals within our society to correctly convey themselves. This accumulation of failures is problematic further because the event of any given miscommunication is not explicit and therefore not only is the individual reluctant after time to express him or herself but social dynamics are based upon incorrect premises. The effect can be seen in the artistic/social movements of the past century. The 19th century came to a close with Enlightenment reason and its infatuation with its own presumed objectivity. This assumption, which still lies at the core of western thought and American ideologies, held a total faith in the possibility of human reason and did not find human reason to be a subjective process so long as it was carried out in the realm of a standard language.
Yet, as was discussed earlier, there is inevitably a rift between the individual and the whole, and this rift, exacerbated by war and various other societal events that might call into question this voice of reason, was heightened as modernism began to become prominent. With modernism was the era of the alienated individual, the solitary mind. Modernism though was still thoroughly entrenched in its own models of objective possibility through reason. Modernism believed in the potential for transcendental art that achieved aesthetic perfection based upon theoretical and practical considerations of aesthetics that were esteemed to be objective. This is most explicit in architecture, where forms were boiled down to what was perceived as potentially perfect compositions of perfect shapes. These assumptions are not seen to be based upon social contexts. Modernism still presumed that Western aesthetics were not historical and cultural products, that western language and its presumed objectivity itself was not a historical or social product.
Modernism, therefore, shows itself to be the first step in the questioning of Western ideologies as they are made firm through the practice of linguistic ideologies. But it is still entrenched in notions of a potential objectivity even if that objectivity may be removed from what one has available. This is evident in literature and cubism in art, where there was an attempt to make up for the limitations of ones own perspective through the offering up of multiple perspectives that reflected upon the “same” object.
But, as events within America and the western domain continued to create further rifts between not only the individual and his imagined linguistic community with its idealized objective standard, there occurred a rift between the imagined community and the possibility for objective reason. This imagined community became questionable and subjective.
With the advent of postmodernism, an entirely new conception of language occurred where there was no serious acceptance of the standard. But this was, and still is, an academic admission. Post-modernism embraces the subjectivity of any given perspective, or rather has given up on objectivity of a human position. Here is where America finally finds itself in the position of a perpetually enervated and incommunicable psychology. What is increasingly problematic is the manipulated nature of linguistic ideologies. Hegemonic forces manipulate language for their own interests (Axis of Evil, Just doin’ it, etc). What is increasingly problematic is the rift between the formerly static Standard, and this now manipulated standard. But, the historically instantiated western linguistic ideology of this Standard still resonates. So there is not only a rift between the individual’s language and the standard, but so too is their a rift within the standard itself.
America, with its fast paced consumerism, is a world of presumed global symbols. These symbols find their reference points culturally and linguistically. They are everywhere, plays on words, placements of value of one object over another, etc. These symbols have lifespans of varying lengths as well.
What can occur, as the psychology of the individual removes itself and grows reticent of anything other than basic factual exchanges, simple statements, is an inability to interpret the linguistic signs that are thrown around so liberally. These signs, being causally related are dependant upon one another to function. What is more that one cannot say that one’s own language is not necessarily invested in the language of the imagined community’s language.
If this world of signs ceases to be one the individual can interpret, then the individual has trouble understanding the world around them. This world becomes foreign. As one frames oneself through context and former contexts, the sense of self one might garner from this context too comes under attack. As the causal relations of the Standard language break down from the perspective of the individual and the individual’s language is dependent upon the standard as a frame of reference then the individual begins to have difficulty understanding what is signified by their own language. There can occur a breakdown in the ability of an individual to interpret themselves.
This schizophrenic state is one that seems to be redolent within the American psychology as well as the more modernist anti-social tendency towards depression. These two states vary mainly in their ability to rely with any measure of faith upon the standard linguistic ideology. What I have laid out here seems rather extreme, but there are varying extents with which individuals process these effects. America is the most medicated country in the world and there must be reasons behind this and one would do well to question these reasons.
Linguistic Ideologies inherently distance the individual from the community while creating a paradoxical sense of solidarity. But as America perverts these linguistic ideologies for its own profit, there becomes an irreconcilable rift between the individual, the culture and the possibility for successful communication. Perhaps through the acceptance of non-standard English and its explicit mutability, there may be a means through which individuals can communicate in a way that is both accepted as compromised from the start and less susceptible to unspoken miscommunications.
