Blog #9

One of the amazing things about language, is that it carries power; Power to communicate, discriminate, grant access, and deny it. Although we study language and have gotten some clues as to how it works and made some guesses about where its power comes from, we still don't know jack!

I would argue that what we have learned in this course is that there are no formulas, or magic magnifying glasses which will completely unlock the nuances of language. The tools we have been taught encourage us to look at the speaker and their context in order to understand the message. The power of language is embedded not only in the history and dictionary definition of words, but also in the attitude, opinions and background of the speaker.

How this applies to the gender issues (especially the 'girl' wars) is thus: There is no solution! We can't draw out the rules to what particular words mean, or how they ought and ought not to be used. Words will be used differently by each person who uses them. And they will make their choices of use based on their own experiences, their communicative situation, and so forth.

All that's left for us to do is take this knowledge and make communicative choices responsibly. We can do this by getting to know the people with whom we are communicating, their attitudes and opinions, and making sure that in using language we are being respectful to the other person acknowledging the fact that they are different and have their own unique background.