# 15. Linguistic manipulation ## 15.1. Definition Language is not a neutral medium as most of us prefer to believe. It is actually a potent method for delivering concepts and values which are not expressly mentioned in the main text but are communicated by means of a linguistic "sub-text". This sub-text uses language itself to deliver subtle manipulative messages to a victim. These linguistic tricks present an opportunity for a manipulator to influence a victim whilst actually delivering what seem to be neutral facts. More potently, a manipulator can use language to demonstrate a point or deliver a long-lasting impression which is actually untrue, irrational or in some other way manipulative to the victim. Linguistic manipulation may be defined as the exploitation of a victim by means of one of the following techniques: - **[[Biased Vocabulary]]** - **[[Restrictive Vocabulary]]** - **[[Topical Deprivation]]** - **[[Syntactic Manipulation]]** ## 15.2. Persistence Short - Medium - Long. Depending on the type of linguistic manipulation, the effect can last between a few seconds to several generations. ## 15.3. Accessibility High - We are all capable of using linguistic tricks. Some of us are better at it than others. Some do it unconsciously whilst others consciously use language to manipulate. ## 15.4. Conditions/Opportunity/Effectiveness The following is an analysis of linguistic manipulation: ### 15.4.1. The Pen is mightier than the Sword However much we may ridicule or cast aspersions upon the words of mistrusted politicians and leaders the fact is that words do mediate between the underlying motives of a politician or party or company and the actions they advocate. We ignore their effect at our peril. So, language should not, on any account, be dismissed as immaterial in the overall manipulative landscape. Many millions of people have died in the last century alone, because powerful individuals have stirred ordinary people into a frenzy of blind hatred and bloody revenge through the medium of rhetoric and linguistic manipulation of the spoken and written word. Indeed, the use of language in contemporary politics is one of the most potent weapons in the armoury of the manipulator, both in government and commerce. ### 15.4.2. History, incidence and spread of linguistic manipulation Playing games with language and laying linguistic traps are popular pastimes of politicians and politically motivated media outlets. The use of linguistic manipulation has been around for a very long time, but tends to proliferate at times of conflict, or severe political polarisation or radicalisation. The increased use of linguistic manipulation is quite noticeable in recent years, ever since the United States declared its so-called "war on terror", and started on a round of foreign military adventures. The global political polarisation this triggered off led to very obvious attempts at linguistic manipulation by both politicians and the press, leading to hostile reactions from the public at times. When France refused to enter the Iraq war, Bush and his GOP political operators attempted to discredit French people by inventing and releasing racially laden slurs, as with the word "French fries" substituted by "freedom fries", and French people being referred to as "Cheese-eating surrender monkeys" in parts of the US press. In hindsight it was a ludicrous reaction from a supposedly serious government, but it did give vent to the anger felt by extreme right-wing groups and the GOP in the United States, and indeed it did appear to endorse Bush's bellicose behaviour in Iraq and Afghanistan when contrasted with France's apparent indecision and more reticent approach to the invasion. Oddly, the US right-wing did not apply the same linguistic insults against Germany, another NATO ally which refused to join the attack on Iraq. Could this be because France has no US air-bases in contrast to Germany? It would appear so. ### 15.4.3. How does it work? Most people regard language as a sort of neutral conduit, through which ideas flow - pure and uncorrupted from the mind of the speaker or writer to the listener and reader. But this is a grave and naive mistake. Language is actually the means by which concepts and impressions are stored in the "information bins" of our memory and then retransmitted and many personal interpretations take place between the hearing and the repetition of a piece of information. These interpretations cannot be treated as neutral or independent of our own moral concepts, emotional and cognitive and social biases. We all use language to persuade others, from the market stall holder urging the public to buy his wares to the speeches of US presidential candidates vying for the job as the world's "most powerful person". Because language is finite and personal, it is a very effective constraining factor in human thought and behaviour. It is commonly used either to restrict the moral views of other individuals or groups, or to spur them into action by inducing them with new moral imperatives. ### 15.4.4. Why is language important to how we think? We can understand this easily when we recognize that our own language embodies words reflecting the social regime or environment in which we live. Eskimos, for instance, have ten different words to describe snow. Indians in Calcutta are said to have forty-one ways of describing a policeman and even more ways of describing a bomb. The Russians have three hundred ways of expressing or implying kinship. Thus linguistic conditions may either help or restrict our ability to translate concepts into suitable language. In addition, linguistic restrictions may also reduce our ability to easily conceptualize certain ideas. We may just have no easy way to describe something in our own particular language. This is not a recent theory by any means. Alexander the Great reported that he had found some indigenous African languages unsuited to the discussion of "modern" institutional politics. It's not surprising really because the concepts he wanted to discuss were totally alien to the peoples he was describing. Some scholars would go as far as to ask us to believe that Marxism didn't become popular in English-speaking countries because the English language isn't cut out for Marx's brand of Teutonic metaphysics. This may be going a bit too far, but at any rate language can be restrictive, or as Wittgenstein puts it: "The limits of my language are the limits of my world". ### 15.4.5. How is language used to manipulate? The question which we must really address in the context of manipulation is: to what extent does our language exist because of our environment (like the Eskimo's many words for snow)? Or conversely, does a certain social regime exist partly because of limitations in our language and thinking? Or are both of these concepts true? Certainly linguistic distinctions bolster certain social regimes and are specially used to maintain social differentiation, like social and class roles. Take the words "nurse" and "patient". As soon as an individual enters a hospital with some medical condition, they become a "patient" and are thus assumed to be virtually helpless in all things. They are stripped of much of their personal freedom and choice and become the responsibility of "the nurse". On the street the two persons may previously have regarded each other as having an equal social status, but once the words "patient" and "nurse" have been introduced, a differential in status is determined by both parties. The nurse is charged with the patient's well-being. The patient is effectively no longer in control of their physical health and thus consigns themselves to the care of the nurse. Even outside the hospital, and well after the patient's treatment, the nurse will still regard and describe the individual to others as an "old patient". The nurse does this not merely as a matter of historical fact, but also because their concept of the individual has changed as a result of a new linguistic label being applied in new circumstances. Ask any nurse or patient. ## 15.5. Methodology/Refinements/Sub-species *See Child Pages:* - [[Journalistic Techniques]] - [[Abstract Avoidance]] - [[Concealment]] - [[Distortion]] - [[Falsification]] - [[Intensification]] - [[Personification]] - [[Polarisation]] - [[Sharpening]] - [[Simplification]] - [[Control/Control via Language Manipulation/Linguistic Manipulation/Journalistic Techniques/Stereotyping|Stereotyping]] - [[Syntactic Manipulation]] - [[Active or Passive Voice]] - [[Initialisation]] - [[Innuendo]] - [[Modality]] - [[Nominalisation]] - [[Permutation]] - [[Transitivity]] - [[Utterance Context]] - [[Aesopian Language]] - [[Biased Vocabulary]] - [[Cage-Linguistic Traps]] - [[Context Dropping]] - [[Inventing Words]] - [[Lexico-Semantic Manipulation]] - [[Linguistic Deprivation]] - [[Metaphors]] - [[Restrictive Vocabulary]] - [[Topical Deprivation]] ## 15.6. Avoidance and Counteraction Whilst these techniques are in common usage and often achieve their desired effects, linguistic manipulation is something of a blunt instrument. A manipulator tries to put the victim in unknown linguistic territory by either depriving them of a valid "linguistic roadmap" or by providing them with a manipulated version of it. Once this is detected it can be quite rapidly overturned. Eventually most victims discover they are being tricked and can discredit the perpetrator's intentions, but this can take a long time during which the objectives of the manipulator may well be achieved. We all know now that Goebbels was a linguistically manipulative psychopath. But his linguistic tricks cost millions of lives in war and the death camps before his linguistic manipulations were finally revealed. So what can we do to detect, avoid and counteract linguistic manipulation now? ### 15.6.1. Check multiple versions The cost of detection may deter us, but the only way linguistic manipulation can be absolutely discovered is when information is available from multiple independent sources about the same event. By reading different reports of the same event it should be possible to detect a deliberate linguistic manipulation. ### 15.6.2. Look for symptoms of linguistic tricks All of the linguistic games above leave telltale signs and with some practice it is possible to spot them: look for the use of passive voice, unreasonable abbreviation of critical details, emotive language, the use of metaphors, over-simplification etc. All will indicate that there is a manipulative payload hidden somewhere in the report. ### 15.6.3. Linguistic traps and restrictions Don't allow restrictions to be placed on the use of language or the subject matter of a discussion. Any attempt to limit the language or terms of reference of a conversation is an attempt to manipulate. Refuse to participate unless such linguistic pre-conditions are removed. Refuse to discuss or consider issues or reports which use analogies - just ignore them. At best analogies are invalid and more than likely they are manipulative. Challenge the language being used directly and denounce it if it is manipulative. It's much better to walk away than to be dragged into a linguistic trap. If linguistic manipulation is detected in the public press, we should do what we can to expose it to the rest of the public, although there is little chance that we will ever be able to stamp out linguistic manipulation. It is now completely embedded in the popular media. ### 15.6.4. Detection is half the battle Once linguistic manipulation has been detected, avoidance and counteraction can soon follow. Generally it should be easy enough to find the payload in a linguistic trick. Once this has been isolated, the victim can either confront the manipulator or play the trick back to the manipulator by demanding clarification of the intentions of the manipulator's statements and reasons for their phraseology, line by line. By suggesting more rational alternatives to the manipulator, the linguistic trick can be painstakingly dismantled. A manipulator will always claim lack of time or resources to re-write a text and so it is wise for a victim to have one or two alternative versions ready to go in advance so that this tactic is also neutralised. If a manipulator accepts an alternative storyline, then the case is won. If a manipulator refuses the alternatives, then the victim can legitimately demand the reasons for this refusal using the same arguments as the manipulator did when they were discovered.