Culture and Power Relationships

Several articles recently have dealt with associations between language and power, often in association with culture. Philologist Juan Luis "Conde looks into this kind of relationship between employers and employees, doctors and patients, and sellers and buyers in a paper on 'Power and Power Relations.'" He says that in any relationship, language causes one party to dominate over the other, whether the subordinate party is aware of this or not. Also, in some cases, such as those where companies do not bother to translate their slogans into foreign languages, "it is not only the product that is being advertised, but also the very language used to advertise. The English language adds prestige to the product endorsed and its endorsement in English adds to the value of the English language."

An article in the Sydney Morning Herald considers the languages which children make up and speak to each other. This includes widely spoken "languages" such as Pig Latin and Double Dutch, but also includes languages which only a few children together have made up to communicate with each other in secret. The author of the article suggests that children create their own languages to gain some control over the world. "Perhaps when you are 10 or 11 the world of language seems like a meticulously built maze - it's been constructed by adults, well before your arrival on the scene, and your only role is to learn how to navigate your way through." Rather than simply following the rules constructed by adults, some children use language as a way of gaining some power of their own over the world.

Yet another article considers the effects of language in interpreting and listening to music sung in a foreign language. The author concludes that "we retreat, without really meaning to, into a type of appreciation that's probably less earthy and more superficially aesthetic than that of the musicians. They sing about their daily hopes and fears, and we listen to their nimble guitar work and exotic tunes." Being unable to understand the lyrics sets the listeners on a power level both above and below the musicians. The listeners are subordinate because they are unable to understand the full significance of the tunes; the musicians subordinate because they are unable to convey their tunes' full meanings.