The Language War
Robin Tolmach Lakoff
2001
Robin Lakoff is a Linguist trained as a humanist-interested in the hermeneutic potential
of TGG (Transformational Generative Grammar-Noam Chomsky). Wanted to determine
from their superficial form what sentences really met at a deeper level, why people made
the choices they made and what those choices signified about ourselves. Very interested
in the connection between language and thought. Linguistics is seen as the window into
the mind.
Meaning becomes visible in discourse
Defines discourse as connected language use for a purpose
It can take several forms
 a conversational turn
 a how to manual
 a court-room cross examination
 a novel
 or any of the innumerable linguistic action we engage in
regularly
The book focuses on the social and political construction of narratives. Who makes our
stories, and how do they develop over time and through an assortment of media venues
Defines language as the transference of meaning from mind to mind. We use language to
make and change public and private meaning. Lakoff discusses who certifies the
interpretation of meaning (the speaker/writer, the hearer/reader or an objective
uninvolved interpreter) concludes that without some form of participant observation the
meaning is lost. The greater the objectivity the greater the unreliability.
It is almost never true that an utterance has only one meaning
Interpretive community- is a model for the way speakers participate in discourse. We
understand what we encounter based on shared context and experiences. When
competent speakers engage in any kind of discourse, they form ideas in their mind about
what it means and respond accordingly. Meaning is made by consensus: the original
speaker contributes form, the original audience response, the analysis an explanation
linking the two. There is seldom a need for or a possibility of complete overlap of
intention and understanding-general sense of cohesion suffices for most human purposes.
In a literary society – meaning is negotiated through a wide array of communicative
channels: written language and oral; public and private; formal and informal;
spontaneous and constructed; direct and mediated. All of these together create our
identity.
The book focuses on several stories that pass the UAT (Undue Attention Test). Each of
these stories is different but they share the similarity that we hate to let them go. In
addition they are about language; who has the ability and the right to make meaning for
everyone. Language based controversies are about who gets to make the meaning for all
of us, to create and define culture. (Culture is the construction of shared meanings)
 The fight over Political Correctness
 The Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings
 The David Mamet play Oleana
 The role of Hilary Rodham Clinton
 The O.J. Simpson saga
 The Ebonics controversy
 The death of Princess Diana
 Sex (or whatever) in the oval office
Language makes Reality
Utterances
Constative- descriptive of reality “the sky is blue.” “I like artichokes” Judge by
either true or false
Performative- declarative in form but do not describe an externally determinable
reality. By their utterance they bring into being or perform the situation they represent.
Must all contain a first-person, present-tense verb of linguistic activity “I order you to
leave; I promise to pay you within a week” Not subject to verification procedure
J. L. Austin – concludes that performative sentences have world-changing properties and
declares that all utterances are performative, even those that look constative Battles over
language are fought over performatives: who can use which ones to whom, under what
conditions.
Apologies are an example of perfomative: it changes the world for the participants
in terms of their relative status (power differences) and their future relationship. Since
apologies are painful, they are bound to be made indirectly. When an ambiguity is
uttered and it involves either positive or negative interpretation, the literal surface reading
is generally the positive interpretation.
The Identity Crisis
Recent discourse fad
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
The use of the third person for self-reference- successful use
seems to be confined to those in power
The erosion of our trust in personal memory, that creator of the
cohesive ego that we confidently refer to a I. The culture as a
whole has a problem with gray areas. Memories are suspect.
Increasing nervousness within a diverse society about who
“we” are is there really a “we” and if so how is it created. The
right to interpret any one of us as an individual includes
o Cohesive entity
o Collective past
o Similarities of outlook
o A common language
o Common interest
We can never expect to understand fully one another. Words don’t mean the same thing
under all conditions for everyone. Context- where, by whom and in what tone words are
uttered---count. Language is not just words. It enables us to establish our selves, and
ourselves, as individuals and as members of groups; it tells us we are connected to one
another, who has power and who doesn’t
Gender is a grammatical category subject to marking.
Masculine are unmarked, feminine are marked “women doctor” not “male doctor”
The choices a language has available to its speakers, the distinctions and markings it
imposes on reality, must affect the speakers perception of reality. For example English
requires all verbs to be assigned a tense- this encourages time to be seen as crucially
important as compare to Native American languages which encourages its speakers to see
time as fluid.
Frame- defined as a body of knowledge that is evoked in order to provide an inferential
base for the understanding of utterance. The ability to recognize the frames in which we
find ourselves is comforting, reframing is traumatic.
To communicate is to share meaning make them common to all participants in the
discourse. To express ideas obscurely is to fail to communicate except to those who are
already adepts in the arcane. So obscure communication is either pointless or redundant
except as a power play.
Commonsense- what is commonsense is also mainstream and therefore moderate. All
these words describe a position well within a predefined frame, away from the marked
periphery.
Class difference, race and gender affect rhetorical style- hence commonsense rules of
credibility might reach false conclusions. (Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, Kathleen
Willey)
Most people have a desired to be in the majority, to exist in the unmarked we
Speaking the standard reinforces the feeling of being one of us and their not speaking it
gives us a good reason to ignore them. Worrying about how people talk allows us not to
worry about what they say
Language both creates a message through devices like framing and presuppositions and
uses that message winning the uncommitted by assuming the normality and neutrality of
the speakers position
Since wars are at the forefront of our persuasive efforts, controlling meaning brings
victory in the continuing war for hearts and minds by defining our cultural values and
personal identities. Many contested words (addictive, baby, fetus, sexual harassment) are
associated with frames representing controversial or problematic attitudes or behaviors.
The greater the power of the issuer to make good on the threat, the greater the likelihood
it will be expressed indirectly. The speaker knows the target will be able to derive the I
will from context.
When lines are crossed, when the properties of two kinds of discourse are confused
problems arise.
Woman are readily generalized. It is easy to see them en masse, without the individual
traits that evoke empathy and understanding. Because they are not us, we make sense of
them and not vice versa. As a woman speaking in public Anita Hill is marked—anything
she sounded odd and inappropriate. Clarence Thomas was permitted more gap length
before the end of his statement and the next utterance by a committee member. Question
to Hill took the forms of a tag more frequently. A tag is a sentence type that has the form
and function of a combined declarative plus question
John’s your brother, isn’t he?
You didn’t eat that, did you?
Most of the remaining questions to Hill were declarative functioning as question. Like
tags they signal the power of the speaker over the addressee. Thomas was permitted a
number of authoritative devices that Hill was not. Thomas was asked more questions that
permitted terse response and Hill was encourage to go on at length. This led to over
interpretation of her performance which took language out of her control
Mad, Bad or Had – are ways of characterizing a woman who is peaking out of turn,
where she has no right to be.
Hillary Rodham Clinton- shares many traits with the stereotypical male. She is direct and
precise. She is nonspontaneous. She plans (or schemes); she is carefully controlled and
seeks to control her environment. Hillary has become a symbol of all our fears: social
change, intellectual indeterminacy, loss of national purpose, loss of individual initiative
and morality, loss of parental control over children and male control over female.
Narratives can be subjected to analytic techniques analogous to those used for lower
levels of language. We can look at choices of words, at sentence structures; at the
presuppositions and frames assumed; at the speech acts that are chosen; at the levels of
directness or indirectness, the narrator chooses; at what is said, what is implied and what
is absent. All of these and more make the story what it is and allow maker and hearer to
collaborate in a coherent meaning