How and Why Language is Weaponized
A BU professor of linguistics explains how language is often weaponized, for many reasons
Photo by WRS Photos/iStock
In War, Words Matter. A Lot.
A BU professor of linguistics explains how language is often weaponized, for many reasons
The war between Hamas and Israel is also a war of words.
On TV, on social media, and in ordinary conversation, every sentence about the fighting becomes fraught. Each side has its lexicon and is quick to excoriate those whose word choices, or omission of certain words, are deemed hostile or simply insufficient to their beliefs. News stories (like this one), official statements, and even expressions of support are closely parsed for signs of bias.
This is hardly a new phenomenon. When the United States wanted to clear Viet Cong from rural areas during the Vietnam War, it followed bombing and artillery with ground attacks—and called the effort “pacification.” And after 9/11, when President George W. Bush referred to the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation techniques,” many were angered that it was a euphemism for “torture.”
With language in mind, in the wake of the brutal and deadly assault by Hamas on Israel on October 7, followed by Israel’s deadly airstrike response, we asked Elizabeth Coppock, a College of Arts & Sciences professor of linguistics, to explain how and why words matter so much in times of war.
Q&A
with Elizabeth Coppock
BU Today: In our email exchange, you referred to language as a “second arena” for the conflict—can you give examples of tactics you see at work?
Coppock: Language is a secondary arena for the conflict in the sense that language can be used to advance or thwart agendas in the conflict over how the various actors should be viewed.
One distinction that can be made here is between factual disputes over whether certain events took place and disputes over how individuals are described and referred to, an example like “terrorists.” Both involve language, but the latter is more of an essentially linguistic conflict.
Along with the examples of conflicts in the language arena you mentioned, dehumanizing language is being used by military leadership on both sides, with [Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei calling Israel a “cancerous tumor” to be eradicated, and the Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant saying, “We are fighting human animals.”
BU Today: What purposes does this language serve? Swaying world opinion? Rallying one’s own people?
Coppock: Recent work on the power of language in conflicts talks about presupposing a “practice.” To presuppose something is to speak in a way that takes it for granted; for example, “John stopped smoking” presupposes that John used to smoke. Presupposing a practice is presupposing more than a simple proposition; it’s much more involved.
A practice involves a set of roles, such as victim, perpetrator, hero, and savior, along with actions that take place among these roles, as well as moral judgments. An example that has been discussed is the use of the words “cockroach” and “snake” by the Hutus to describe the Tutsis prior to the Rwandan genocide. In this case, there was quite a specific practice that was associated with the particular choice of dehumanizing language. The Nazis used equally revolting dehumanizing language against the Jews in World War II.
Through the presupposition of practices, language can be used not only to demonize and dehumanize, but also lay the groundwork for actions that reflect that practice. Describing the Hamas attack as “Israel’s 9/11” clearly invokes a whole host of roles, relationships, and actions. It does more than just attribute a property to the referent; it evokes a very complex scenario, one involving a lot of violence.
Describing the Hamas attack as “Israel’s 9/11” clearly invokes a whole host of roles, relationships, and actions.
BU Today: How do we talk to one another when one side’s “terrorist” is another’s “freedom fighter?”
I think we should focus on listening to each other.
BU Today: Is the language of journalism having a role here, positive or negative, in its attempts to embrace factual, sometimes neutral terms, such as saying killed vs. murdered?
The New York Times went from using “militant” to using “terrorist” [to describe Hamas] in the news articles at some point, interestingly. Prior to that, “terrorist” was only used in opinion articles.
One question here is whether the word “terrorist” is an objective descriptor or a matter of opinion. It might be useful to recognize a distinction between two different levels of meaning for the word: the literal definition (its semantics), and the meaning associated with its usage (its pragmatics). Imagine that there are objective criteria for identifying a “terrorist,” in terms of “terrorist tactics,” for example. Regardless of whether that’s possible, it’s clear that the use of the word carries an implication which is very much on one side of the conflict, assigning a role to the referent within a larger practice. The assignment of that role is undoubtedly subjective.
BU Today: And how does this battle over words affect the speech environment on campus and around the world?
To reduce the amount of harm that we do to each other through language, it may help to keep in mind some basic facts: One, language can be used to presuppose practices, to assign roles to individuals within a larger complex of actors and actions. Two, language that may at some literal level be classified as objective may still carry implications that are very subjective. And three, on subjective matters, two perfectly rational agents may disagree completely without either one’s stance being false.
BU Today: Do you see these tactics as a corruption of language or a natural expression of divergent views of conflict?
Again, the conflicts may not necessarily be about the definitions of the words, even if it is about meaning. The conflict may be over the meaning that is associated with the usage of the word. It’s not clear what a “corruption” of language would be; maybe a use of language with an intent that doesn’t match its purpose? I don’t think there’s a corruption of language in that sense. The divergence in usage arises from a divergence in the communicative goals.
I hesitate to even answer this question because as a linguist, I’m trained not to be “prescriptivist” and denigrate usages as “corruptions”; linguistics is a science that describes how language works.
BU Today: Is this time unusual, in that every single word seems to carry so much weight and to be subject to scrutiny that makes some people fall silent?
There is unspeakable sorrow and trauma all around right now.
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