Metaphors as Doublespeak - Essay Example

 Metaphors as Doublespeak Figurative language is a tool that an author employs to help the reader visualize what is happening in a story or poem. Some common types of figurative language are: simile, metaphor, alliteration, onomatopoeia, idiom, puns, and sensory language. Language is the only way we have to be able to communicate with each other about the real world around us and the issues that we face as a society and as a nation. The words that we choose will help channel our thoughts and our arguments and our discussions. ("The Language of War", 2007). A multilingual writer, however, even if he has a well developed understanding of English, if he uses figurative language may cause him difficulty. This is because the words he uses are not meant only for his understanding but for the understanding of his audience or his readers. Words must be clear and direct to what they want to say. What he means must be understood by his audience or his readers. Use of figurative language is not without problems. Some have resorted to using them sometimes in order to deceive (“The language of war, 2007”). Metaphor in literature is "an implied comparison between two things of unlike nature that yet have something in common" (Corbett, 1990). Both things are known, and the power of metaphor is in an unlikely or surprising pairing. With the pairing, the author tells us something surprising about what we thought we already knew. Metaphor is a flawed means of communication, however. Lakoff & Johnson (1980) write that metaphor not only emphasizes similarities between two things, but also hides non-similarities, and this is the danger. People tend to speak and think of argument as war: we defend our point of view against our opponent's attacks, and form strategies of our own in order to win the argument. But in thinking of argument in this way, we miss out on the aspects that are not like war. The choice of metaphor has a lot to do with the way we think about things Metaphors, in fact, may come as doublespeak, defined as “language that evades responsibility, tries to make something unpleasant seem pleasant, something common seem uncommon.” Basically, it's language that pretends to communicate when it really doesn't. It is language that's designed to mislead while pretending to lead you someplace (Prof. Lutz in “The language of war, 2007”). As a way of looking at language, there are four kinds of doublespeak. As explained by Prof. Lutz (in “The language of war”, 2007), these are euphemism, jargon, gobbledygook, and inflated language. Euphemism is not designed to mislead but said out of sensitivity for the feelings of another person. "I'm sorry your father passed away," for example, instead of saying dying. Jargon is the specialized language of a trade, profession or group. When a member of the group uses it to talk to a person outside the group, knowing that the person will not understand this language, then it is doublespeak. Gobbledygook is the endless number of words that politicians use when they don't want to answer a question. Finally, inflated language tries to puff-up things, to make something ordinary seem extraordinary. An example given is that in Pentagon, it wasn't a common ordinary steel nut that costs about 16 cents, but it was a "hexaform rotatable surface compression unit," which is why it costs $2043 apiece for them (“The Language of War, 2007). Language can come prefabricated, and they make up an increasing part of our thoughts and expression. Today, it is almost as though we are speaking, and writing, as computers. (Ryan, 2001). From high affairs of state, business and culture, to our everyday speech, our language is governed increasingly by prescription and formula, hence prefabricated. The consequences of this trend spell bad for independence of the mind (Ryan, 2001). Prefabricated language has the effect that so much of what we say, the language we use, and even more importantly, the way we express ourselves, is now governed not by us as individuals, but by some external source, from business to government. Little by little, the words we use with each other every day, are now pieces in a formula created beforehand by somebody else. (Ryan, 2001). Language is a great tool, in fact, by those who want to maintain power, keep power and use power. Accordingly - The great tool of power by those who want to maintain power, keep power and use power is language. It's not terror and violence, it's language. Because through language, you control how people perceive the world, how they perceive reality, how they talk about this reality and how you can structure the -- the whole debate. (Lutz in “Language of War, 2007). In “Language of War, 2007), it is said a US Air Force colonel in Phnom Penh, Cambodia has a new name for bombing. He told American reporters, "You always write it's bombing, bombing, bombing. It's not bombing, it's air support." In the same vein, doing nothing but doing it with style is suddenly "Principles of Dynamic Inaction," (Boren in “Language of War”), "body count “ is a tidy way of saying how many people are killed; peace, in one of the Pentagon documents, was referred to as "permanent pre-hostility." "Damage limitation" means, in essence, being able to attack and destroy opposing weaponry before it can be used to cause damage to your homeland. So, damage limitation really means offensive strikes. As exemplified by these terms, the effect is that the military and government officials sound to have constructed an entire language for themselves. According to Lutz (“Language of War, 2007), such words are taken out and evoked to clothe any kind of actions that those in power want to cloak with legitimacy and also to forestall debate or dissent. The English language has declined, according to Orwell (2007). The language “becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish.” Its slovenliness makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts” (Orwell, 2007). Badly written due to political and economic causes, modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation. To Orwell, it is institutions like corporations or government agencies that use misleading language, and when they do, the false ring is much louder. The flow, according to Orwell (2007) is that the skewed version or the lie enters our language, and then it gets echoed in newspapers and on TV. But to Lutz (“Language of War, 2007), it is the military, and then business that resort of these things. The reason why people in the Pentagon use these expressions is explained as follows - Well, it's the professional way of bubbling to the top. If people say precisely what they think, in terms that everyone can understand, they leave themselves no maneuvering room. But if they fuzzify their statements with multi-syllabic interfacing of wordalogical ideotoxicities, then they in the future can interpret it to be whatever it's best for them to interpret to mean at that time. And it keeps the people from finding out what's going on (Boren in “Language of War”). In his famous essay "Politics and the English Language," George Orwell (2007) said that the English language consists "more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated henhouse." As such, it is inevitable that these ready-made phrases creep into the language. One hears one and then uses it. To change this, we can use honest language ourselves. (“The language of War,” 2007). As viewed by Orwell (2007), only language and a free exchange of ideas can defend the people from an omnipotent government. References "The Language of War," America’s Defense Monitor, Center for Defense Information. September 12, 2007. http://www.cdi.org/adm/Transcripts/345/ Bolinger, D. 1990. Language, The Loaded Weapon: The Use and Abuse of Language Today, London/New York: Longman (cf. cap. 12: “Rival metaphors and the Confection of Reality”). Corbett, E., Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990. Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980. Orwell, G. Politics and the English Language. September 7, 2007. http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit Ryan, M. Speaking by formula. Spiked-online.com. March 8, 2001. September 7, 207. http://www.spiked-online.com/Printable/0000000053A5.htm Read More