Language

The people (including corporations) that have the most power in society work to maintain that power.  Through social control, hierarchy systems are maintained and those without power will remain there.  This process exists seemingly invisibly as social control employs third party structures (education, health care, the criminal justice system,etc).  The way we interact with one another and these social structures on a daily basis serves to reinforce or change the current system of power.  Language is an interesting social structure as ultimately it too is maintained and developed by those in power.  There is a "correct" way to speak, which, if you want to succeed in a traditional way you are required to utilize.  Different social groups develop their own dialects, which serve to create their own identity, while also separating themselves from those in power and maintaining the power hierarchy.  In result, those speaking in dialects other that that considered to be correct are less likely to obtain well paying jobs and less likely to be in positions of power, George Bush aside.  

In the United States there is a politics to language.  How you say something reflects to others how you feel about it.  For example, if I called a black person a 'nigger', on would assume that I had negative feelings about black people.  During my MSW program much attention was paid to how to correctly refer to different individuals and populations.  For example, a person is not a 'schizophrenic', they are 'a person with schizophrenia' (This is referred to as 'person-first' language.  People with schizophrenia are people before they are a diagnosis).  The emphasis placed on correctly referring to different populations and individuals served not only to respect those people, but also create social change.  By using person first language, I am in fact reinforcing how I wish individuals and populations to be viewed, as people.  By using 'schizophrenic", "nigger", etc. I am reinforcing oppression upon those individuals and groups.  An interesting socio-linguistic  side note here, may oppressed groups have taken the words used by their oppressors, and made them their own.  For example, black people began to refer to themselves as niggers, so as to take the sting from the word and he power from their oppressors.  The same is true for the Indian Red Power Movement and the GLBTQ's use of the word queer. 

The reason for this dissertation: In Spain, the politics of language and discussion of oppressive language does not exist.  One is to know what you think or how you feel about something by the tone in which you say it.  According to my teacher, the only discussion that has occurred and is occurring is in Feminist Theory.  In Spanish nouns are identified as being either masculine or feminine.  For example, 'ellos' is a group of males and 'ellas' is a group of girls (translated as the word 'they').  In an attempt to create more gender neutral language, some Spanish speaking individuals may write 'ell@s' or 'ell*s'.  Samuel, my teacher, as only encountered this in scholastic type journals or in articles written by some editorialists in newspapers. 

Does this make Spain more or less socially conscious of their oppressed groups, I don't know.  In some ways, I feel as though this focus on language may be distracting people from the actual problems.  Just because an individual is referred to as a person with schizophrenia as opposed to a schizophrenic does not mean that they are any less oppressed or poorly served in this country.  Ultimately, I suppose it doesn't matter, so long as oppression is bring identified and fought against.