March 14, 2003

Summary

Language represents information about the world; but it also does much more.

It conveys a perspective, an attitude. Like looking at the world through colored lenses.

It does this through various means:

• Evaluation (euphemism/dysphemism, categories, metaphor): words and expressions refer to things and events, but they can also evaluate them.
  
  
• Identity (style, jargon, slang): every aspect of language organization carries information about the speaker/writer and their relation to the hearer/reader. Style can be used to convey authority (jargon), to convey solidarity (slang), to seduce or intimidate, to include or exclude and control access to information and privileges.
  
  
• Responsibility (agency, evidentiality): through words and grammar, language expresses not just what might have happened, but also whether one should believe it (evidentiality) and who gets the credit or blame (agency).

A language user's choices thus give extraordinary control over both message and meta-message. Meta-messages have great power, since they're "under the radar": difficult to identify and thus to challenge. An awareness of these means allows us both to influence others, and to detect and possibly resist others' attempts to influence us.