Blog #3: The Power of Language

  When I think about the power of language, I think back to the popular U.S. American children's rhyme: Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me. Growing up, adults would repeat this saying to me as a way to combat the hurtful messages I received from other kids. I used to repeat this to myself and say it to the bully when I was faced with teasing, harassment, or bullying (yeah that went over well). Looking back, I do not agree with this saying or the advice that I was given in my youth. Words do hurt and can sometimes be more painful than the proverbial sticks and stones. 

The words that we use have power. When we make choices regarding the words and language that we use, we are by extension displaying our social positions. Social positions are defined as "the places from which people speak that are socially constructed and thus embedded with assumptions about gender, sex, sexuality, race, class, age, ethnicity, nationality, region, and religion" (Martin & Nakayama, 2012, p. 245). Through communication we either explicitly, but most often implicitly, note our group memberships and social positions as well as the groups and social positions that others belong to (Martin & Nakayama, 2012). The groups that we belong to hold different positions of power within society and those positions are created and maintained through our communication, through our use of language. 

One way that we communicate social positions, power, and group membership is through the use of labels. We use labels as an efficient way to categorize and make sense of the world around us. We use these labels to not only describe who we are, but to describe those around us (Martin & Nakayama, 2012). These labels are linked to particular aspects of our social identities, many of these aspects we were born into such as sex, nationality, racial/ethnicity heritage, sexuality, etc. While the use of labeling serves an important cognitive function, sometimes labels are used for malicious and hostile purposes. According to Martin and Nakayama (2012) "sometimes people intentionally invoke labels to establish a hostile relationship" (p. 245). These labels are used to intentionally communication messages regarding power, inequality, and social positions. This is where words can and do hurt people.

For this learning unit, I would like to apply the power of language to the tumblr - http://unl-haters.tumblr.com/. According to UNL Haters (n.d.) , "Nebraska is no place for hate! We expose tweets from haters here, especially those which were deleted." This tumblr has gained quite a bit of traction in the UNL community becoming a topic of conversation in classes and even mad the local news.

Your task for this blog post is simple. Read the tumblr and tell us what you think. How do you respond to this linguistic hate that is happening on our campus? How can we as a campus address this hate by creating a truly respectful campus climate?