Analysis Of How Language Reproduces Authority

Language is the basis of human communication as it is a complex system that creates interpersonal and intercultural connections. Language has the power to unite us, however, it also has the potential to divide people through a lack of understanding and miscommunication. In this essay, I will argue that language within institutional encounters such as hospitals and schools reproduces authority and status of Anglo speakers in Canadian and American society, therefore the interrelationship between language and behaviours regulated by societal norms cultivates ethnocentrism by perceiving non-Anglo speakers as inferior and subordinate. Through a variety of ethnographic examples, it will become evident that language causes barriers and how unequal power dynamics emerge through language itself.

Language has a significant impact on daily interactions, however, when language barriers occur, it can cause problems in communication and equality. The principle of linguistic relativism is the idea that language influences the way people see the world. Thus, different cultures have various concepts, thoughts and beliefs that provide alternate perceptions differing from one another. The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis builds upon this concept by explaining how language determines thought and behaviours and that a person's primary language is so strong that it is extremely difficult to fully learn another language and therefore understand another culture, proving that language is tied to ethnicity. Problems arise when foreign languages emerge in Anglo speaking countries because they pose a threat to nationalist ideals of standardized language. Languages also indicate forms of social class through codes - ways of speaking with marked vocabulary and grammar that depend on social position - that imply a hierarchy within society (Davidson, 2019). These codes seem to be restricted to those of the dominant language resulting in ethnocentric views that these newcomers are below those Anglo speaking people on the top of the hierarchy, especially because those on top tend to not be very open to learning about another culture and their language.

Therefore, newcomers are viewed as zealots who will “inevitably appear somewhat foolish and decidedly inauthentic and yet it seems likely that their intrusive presence is a necessary irritant, essential to haloting or slowing the steady erosion of a minority language”. There is a lack of heterogeneity because in order for immigrants to live in a new country they must have “communicative competence in the dominant language,” making it merely impossible for another community and language to establish itself in an Anglo society. Additionally, anthropologist Michael Agar explains in his writing, Language Shock: Understanding the Culture of Conversation, that language surpasses the rules of grammar and that its real impact is that it predisposes people to certain experiences that may include prejudice. I support Agar’s argument because once people hear others speaking in different languages they judge them automatically. According to societal norms, English is the prefered and dominant language in Canada and America, to go against this expectation is perceived as divergent.

In the novel, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman, the Hmong people immigrated to America but continued to use mostly Hmong dialects. When Lia, a daughter in the Lee family became ill, they needed to bring her to an American hospital for treatment. There was a significant language barrier between the Hmong and the American doctors. Due to Hmong practices, beliefs, and the inability to communicate, many negative assumptions started to emerge. The Hmong refused to assimilate into American culture and sustained their practices and language, however, this created an ethnocentric attitude within the hospital as an institution because they did not take the time or effort to really understand and translate important beliefs of the Hmong. Instead, they deemed them incompetent and uncooperative. Simply because the Hmong were not Anglo speaking people, they were treated with less respect and the hospital employees viewed them as subordinate and themselves as superior, retaining greater status and authority. It is evident that a language barrier poses a threat to quality care within the hospital, the lack of interpreters inhibits the ability to bridge these barriers. However, interpreters may be hard to get on the ever changing schedule of patients, in a hospital setting, there may be emergencies while interpreters are not always able to be on hand. Linguistic pluralism - the presence of linguistic diversity - in hospitals needs to be implemented and improved in order to achieve medical pluralism in which the doctors could have understood the Hmong nature of healing, improving doctor-patient understanding within a multicultural society and implementing appropriate health care through clinical medical anthropology. It was through rapport that progress was made superseding the language barrier, proving that when there is cultural relativism, barriers are reduced.

A study conducted by Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, Ontario explains how “persistent language barriers are associated with poor health outcomes”. The research team at the hospital found that of 2323 immigrants that came to Canada between 6-10 years ago, reported low agreement between themselves and their doctors due to persistent language barriers. Similar to occurrences in the novel The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, it is necessary that there are greater efforts to bridge language barriers in order to provide better care for patients through linguistic and medical pluralism.

Sociolinguistics explains how culture and society play a key role in one's social position. Cultural constructionists argue that a person's status shapes the content, form, and meaning of their language. Therefore, culture and language are interactive and reciprocal concepts. Codes are ways in which status is confirmed through the use of language. “To explain how these differences emerged… the social classes socialized their children into different communication codes… among the working class, children where socialized into so-called closed systems of positional authority, and their language use reinforced their identities as members of these fixed, ascribed statuses”. The Critical Discourse Analysis studies the relations of power and inequality in language. There are evident links between language, social inequality and stigma that lead to the presence of authority and power for Anglo speaking people. It is evident that there is a hierarchical ordering of languages where non-Anglo languages are deemed subordinate.

The sustainability of this hierarchy is dependent on the reduction of non-Anglo languages through appropriation. Assimilation was expected of those labeled “Indians” in Canada when the government implemented Residential Schools. The goal of these schools was cultural appropriation of the Indigenous people into Canadian society, however, cultural genocide was the result. The schools took “Indian” children and forbid the use of their Indigenous languages and practices. A lot of abuse occurred in the schools creating an unequal power dynamic between the authoritative figures such as teachers or clergymen and the students; however, the children were dependent on them because they provided basic needs. During their time in the schools, they were stripped of their identities and “left without any memory of their language and culture… many students would return to their communities disconnected… and unable to communicate”. The institutionalization provided power and authority to those in charge by deeming these “Indian” children as subordinates.

A similar ethnographic example is Pohnpei, Micronesia in which status is highly dependent on the language one uses and the title that is given to them, creating a social hierarchy and delegating supreme authority to the chief. In Pohnpei society, language is used in terms of status, there are different suffixes that are attached to words that express the social position of the speaker, for example to indicate movement, a low status person would attach the verb-stem peto, while a higher class person would attach ket. Individuals are also given titles (used in place of names) to indicate status, these titles can be removed by the chief if the individual fails to honor their obligations. This example highlights how language influences social hierarchies and is evident within broader contexts. In Pohnpei culture, individual interactions within institutions such as schools and hospitals are thus influenced by one's title. Therefore, status-marked language contextualizes interactions and shows how people are labeled as superior or inferior which creates an imbalance of power.

Overall, it is evident that language creates barriers and a social hierarchy within society. Contextualizing these barriers within institutions such as hospitals and schools demonstrates how authority and power is ascribed to Anglo speakers in Canada and America. Thus, societal norms have a huge impact on the way we perceive other cultures as inferior to our own on the basis of ethnocentrism. The goal should be to practice cultural relativism in order to reduce the inequalities that language hierarchies produce.