Bells Hook Blog Post

Blog Entry - bell hooks

• The following quote was abstracted from Bell Hooks “ The Language of power”. The third paragraph states the quote “Reflecting on Adrienne Rich’s words, I know that it is not the English language that hurts me, but what the oppressors do with it, how they shape it to become a territory that limits and defines, how they make it a weapon that can shame, humiliate, colonize. Gloria Anzaldua reminds us of this pain in Borderlands/La Frontera when she asserts, “So if you want to really hurt me, talk badly about my language.” We have so little knowledge of how displaced, enslaved, or free Africans who came or were brought against their will to the United States felt about the loss of language, about learning English. Only as a woman did I begin to think about these black people in relation to language, to think about their trauma as they were compelled to witness their language rendered meaningless with a colonizing European culture, where voices deemed foreign could not be spoken, were outlawed tongues, renegade speech.

• The quote discusses the power language can bring. Moreover, it discusses the way language is used by the oppressor, and the way it transforms language to achieve things such as limiting and defining the speaker, in addition, the author emphasizes on this claim by adding descriptive ways such as shaming, humiliating and colonizing. The reader does this to demonstrate that language is now used for other aspects and can be perceived in two ways; either as a tool that hails the speakers as an educated individual which falls under the ability to speak properly, automatically allowing them to be accepted and to fall under the impression of the individual as a member of “prestige dialect” or “standardised education” which immediately does the opposite of what the author states some oppressors do. In contrast, the second way that language is used is a tool that can be a determining factor for what an individual is perceived as in the eyes of the public. The author specifically refers to oppressors limiting and defining speakers and using language to do so. This can relate to the way these individuals are limited in the world of certain occupations and this is known as received pronunciations, which is a term used to describe a prestigious accent and dialect which is required to work in public broadcasting.Furthermore, it can define the individual as simply uneducated and is not up to the educated standard, a defining term. In addition, the author also mentions that language is being used a weapon, insinuating that it is a forced aspect among everyone, despite it being forced, it can still be seen in the hegemonic light as it is generally understood to mean domination by consent. Fundamentally, hegemony is the power of the ruling class to convince other classes that their interests are the interests of all.