LANGUAGE AND POWER IN SOCIAL CLASS, POLITICS AND ADVERTISING

1. Rationale Language and Power is about how language works to maintain and change power relations in contemporary society, and how understanding these processes can enable people to resist and change them. Both of these terms are closely link to each others. The language used by some people can show the power of them and the person who has power will influence the society by his/her language. For example, the second precident of Indonesia Soeharto using “ken” on his language, he prefers to say “menekanken” instead of saying “menekankan”. People then follow his way of saying the syllable “ken” because Soeharto has a power. The power of Soeharto influence the society. 2. Discussion. Language and Power in relation to the Social Class The main topic that will be explained is the relation between language and power and the social class and the dimensions of the power of language. The social class is economic or cultural arrangements of groups in society. In the social sciences, social class is often discussed in terms of 'stratification’. Further, the most basic class distinction is between the powerful and the powerless. The more upper classes have the more power. Social classes with a great deal of power are usually viewed as "the elites" within their own societies. Cody (2002) distinguished social class by inequalities in such areas as power, authority, wealth, working and living conditions, life-styles, life-span, education, religion, and culture. The social class here is about the hierarchical arrangement of individuals of a culture that is divided into the division of powers within a society. According to Weber, social class can be divided into three classes, those are upper class, middle class, and lower class. The upper class is the group of people at the top of social hierarchy. The member of this class is commonly having a great power to control the society and also can influence the policy among the society. Having power means that they have access to power through the state, religious orders, etc. Middle class is the people in the middle of a societal hierarchy (falls between the upper and the middle class). The measurement of this class varies significantly between cultures. For example, in United States, a person whose primary income is employed in a blue collar job is considered as middle class. In United Kingdom, people having a good education, owning a family house, and holding a professional post are considered as middle class. Further, the lower class can roughly be considered as those employed in lower job (can be measured in skills, educations, and incomes). Often, the term is used to refer to the unemployment. This people in this class also can be considered as those who spend money primarily for sustenance rather than for lifestyle. In Bali society, the social class is appeared as a custom for the society. The social class in Bali is based on the theory of Varna which means people stratification based on their professions. The concept of Varna is expanded into the concept of Wangsa. The Wangsa in Bali is not about profession. Instead, it is just used as the “marks” of family heredity. Wangsa can be divided into four: Brahmana, Ksatria, Weisya and Sudra. In relation to power, social class among a population results different powers. It means that, every class in a society (upper, middle, and lower, or Wangsa in Bali) has its own degree of power. The upper class tends to have greater power compared to the lower one. It happens because the upper is hierarchically the highest “rank” in the society. The power is also related to the language use in the community. It is a tendency that people in “lower” class will use the more polite language if they speak to the people in “higher” class. It is done to show the respect to the person in “higher” class. An example can be taken from the use of language in Balinese community. As stated before, the Wangsa in Bali is taken as a custom. So that, the language used is also influenced. There is a custom that the people in Sudra, Wesia, and Ksatria will use the more polite language if they speak to the Brahmana. If, for example, a Sudra talk to the Brahmana, he has to use the Bahasa Alus Singgih (the most polite Balinese language) and it is culturally allowed that the Brahman replies it by using Bahasa Kepara (Language used in daily informal conversation). For example: There is a Sudra (Wayan Degeg who are younger than Pedanda) comes to Pedanda’s house asking a good day to build a house. Wayan Degeg : Om, Swastyastu. Ratu Pedanda, niki titiang tangkil wenten sane pacang tunasang titiang. Pedanda : Mai, mai malu negak. Uling dija ragana? apa ane lakar tunasang? Wayan Degeg : Titiang saking Banyupoh. Titiang jagi nunas galah becik santukan titiang jagi negakang kubu. Pedanda : O ne ada dewasa melah anggen negakang kubu … According to the example, it can be said that the language used by the Brahmana is allowed culturally. It is because the Brahmana (who is considered having the highest “rank” in Balinese culture) has the power to do so and he has a role and status as the pries, and also his age was older than the Sudra. It means that, the Brahmana has right to talk in Bahasa Kepara to Wayan Degeg. In contrast, the Sudra has the obligation to talk politely to the Brahmana since he has no power to talk using the “impolite” language. Interestingly, the power in Bali is not always affected by the level of Wangsa. It also appears with the level of intimacy, the age, relation, etc. for the example, there is a Ksatria (Agung, 29.) do a conversation with a Sudra (Kadek Che, 33.) they are close to each other, and they have known each other since they were teenager. Agung : Bli Dek, kengken kabare? Kadek Che : Nah amonean dogen Gung kanggoang, men Gung kengken, seger?mara ya inget mlali mai... Agung : hehehe, biasa Bli dadi nak sibuk hehee, seger Bli, ne mlali kejep dogen nak lakar ka Alasangker mli poh, kadonga ngelewatin singgah dadine. Kadek Che : o...men nyen to kajak? Mai kunden negak malu dini, pang sing ditu jangkak-jongkok. Agung : Pang ba Bli, kejep gen ba, kar ka Alasangker be jani, nyan dimulihne singgah bin. Kadek Che : nah, adeng-adeng gwen Gung... The common understanding about Wangsa and language use in Bali is that the Sudra will never use the Bahasa Kepara to talk to the Ksatria. However, in this conversation, Kadek Che used the Bahasa Kepara to Agung. From this example it can be said that, the power and the language used appears in the conversation is not only restricted by the social class of the participants. There are some other factors that affect the use of power and language in the conversation. The power and the language used is also appears in different conditions or context in which it can be related to Hymes theory that he refers it as S-P-E-A-K-I-N-G Models. (1) Setting and Scene: the physical circumstances of a speech act. Meanwhile, Scene is the "psychological setting" or "cultural definition" of a scene, like the range of formality and sense seriousness. (2) Participants: The participants are the audiences or those who involve in the speech situation. (3) Ends: It is the purposes, goals, and outcomes of the conversation. (4) Act Sequence: It is the order or plot of the event in which the conversation appears. (5) Key: Cues that establish the "tone, manner, or spirit" of the speech act. It can be establish through the intonation, some emphasizing of telling something, or the gesture and movement. (6) Instrumentalities: Forms and styles of speech. Using the many form dialect features or the use of standard grammatical form. (7) Norms: Social rules governing the event and the participants' actions and reaction. (8) Genre: The kind of speech act or event or the kind of story. In accordance to powers, the S-P-E-A-K-I-N-G model can be used to explain the appearance of power in language. (1) Setting and scene: The different setting of the speech can result the different power. For example, a teacher speaking in front of the class may have “power” since he is a teacher for his students. However, in the house he cannot use the power as the teacher for his children. (2) Participants: the teacher may speak to the students in high tone. However, if the teacher talk to the principle, it is impossible for him to use high tone since the principle has the higher power than him. (3) Ends: the purpose of why to use the language and how the power influences the language because of the purpose of using the language. (4) Act sequences: ones may remains silent in a discussion since he has no right to talk about the discussion. However, as the sequence runs and it turns into a discussion that he expert in, then the power can appear since he has right to do so. (5) Key: key is about the intonation, person who has power may talk in high intonation to his subordinate and his subordinate has no right to speak in high intonation. (6) Instrumentalities: people in the “lower” class tend to use the more polite form of language when talking to the “higher” one since he has no power that allows him to use the less polite one. (7) Norm: it is related to the culture of how the power can affect language. For example, the culture in Bali allows Pedanda to speak in Bahasa Kepara to speak to his fellows. (8) Genre: people will use his power if the genre of the conversation allows them use it in an appropriate way. Language and Power in relation to the politics Besides the social context, language and power also occupied in the politics that the command of language becomes a means of power: as political rhetoric and demagogy, as ideology and bedazzlement, as seduction through words, as “persuasion”. For instance, the first president of Indonesia, Soekarna, on his speech about attacking Malaysia ” Kalau kita lapar itu biasa Kalau kita malu itu juga biasa Namun kalau kita lapar atau malu itu karena Malaysia, kurang ajar! Kerahkan pasukan ke Kalimantan hajar cecunguk Malayan itu! Pukul dan sikat jangan sampai tanah dan udara kita diinjak-injak oleh Malaysian keparat itu Doakan aku, aku kan berangkat ke medan juang sebagai patriot Bangsa, sebagai martir Bangsa dan sebagai peluru Bangsa yang tak mau diinjak-injak harga dirinya. Serukan serukan keseluruh pelosok negeri bahwa kita akan bersatu untuk melawan kehinaan ini kita akan membalas perlakuan ini dan kita tunjukkan bahwa kita masih memiliki Gigi yang kuat dan kita juga masih memiliki martabat. Yoo...ayoo... kita... Ganjang... Ganjang... Malaysia Ganjang... Malaysia Bulatkan tekad Semangat kita badja Peluru kita banjak Njawa kita banjak Bila perlu satoe-satoe!” This power of language extends from large political contexts, from the manner of speaking and thus also of thinking that dictatorships and totalitarian orders force upon dominated people. Language and Power in relation to the advertising Not only in social context and politics, language and power has also a deal with advertising that language also affect to the small scenes of everyday life, to the arts of seduction of advertising, the sales tricks of telephone marketing, or the menacing undertones at the workplace or in the family. For example, “apapun makanannya, minumnya teh botol sosro” Sosro advertisement “Lead your Life" (TelkomSpeedy) “Impossible is Nothing" (Adidas) From these three examples it is very clear that language has power on seduction the reader about persuasion. Without a doubt, the power of language consists in the fact that it can be used for rhetorical persuasion. Every attempt to persuade others with and through language is always also an effort to make oneself understood. And regardless of how rhetorically skilled the speaker may be, in the end he inevitably places his words, as language, under discussion. This first interpretation of the “power of language” already shows two things. On the one hand, that language and speaking must be distinguished in the exercise of power. The possibilities of language from the way in which language is actually used in spoken words. On the other hand, the interpretation also gives a presentiment that the power which is exercised through language always already bears within itself the germ of its counter-power. For the language of political demagogues and tyrants can be seen through as language. And by means of language itself. So that language conveys the power of violence or domination and at the same time undermines it. For everyone can take possession of the power of language and in this way see through and unmask the power exercised through language. Seen clearly, the “power of language” is thus not the fraternisation of language with command and obedience; this uses language for goals other than those which are inherent in it. The genuine, inner power of language is rather to undermine this other kind of power. Since ursurpatious and violent rule as well as legitimate rule must ultimately rely on the power of language in order to be exercised, to command and to assert itself, precisely language is the vulnerable spot of the commanding power. For the concealed intentions of a command can be seen through. The command can be obeyed, but it can also be refused; above all, it can be understood and so interpreted or re-interpreted quite as those might like who are supposed to obey it, but who for their part possess the infinitely divisible and epidemically disseminating power of language. The Dimensions of the Power of Language As it is cited on http://www.goethe.de/lhr/prj/mac/msp/en1253450.htm about the dimensions of the power of language concern on some aspects; - The power of language shows itself not only, and not primarily, in the language of power, of overpowering and repression, but also in its emancipatory potential, in the opening of other and new possibilities of speaking, and so also of thinking and acting. All speech ineluctably refers to a possible contradiction, every “yes” to a possible “no”, every assertion to a possible doubt. A comparable dialectic may also be found where language serves not repression and compulsion, but rather founds, illuminates and corroborates comprehensive and cosmological meaning in aesthetically pleasing, well thought-out forms. This is done above all by mythic or ritualised speech, by means of which man envisages and satisfies himself of the existence of a transcendent and sacred order. Even when in this way a certain social or ruling order is sacralised, mythic and ritualised speech is not another, possibly especially massive, instance of overpowering through language. Man needs the foothold provided by order and social institutions which are established and sustained mainly by linguistic symbolisation. But precisely here the rendering into language has always opened the possibility of the variation and change of given interpretations, and to the extent that mythic grounds are themselves interrogated about their grounds. Sooner or later, the language of myth presses beyond itself to logos: that is, to word and reason, the language of reason, reasonable and accountable speech. - After a long and eventful history, the rule of logos, the reason seeking, reason and counter-reason Weighing Reason, reaches it fulfilment in modern science. This science now speaks with the highest, universally binding authority, world-wide and about everything in the world. Its language is the real lingua franca of the developing world society. Its authority is fundamentally egalitarian and democratic; for it and with respect to it, nothing counts but “the non-violent force of the better argument” (Jürgen Habermas). In fact, however, the language of the sciences is, at least to a good degree, comprehensible and accessible only to the relevant experts. For the bulk of people, on other hand, it is a secret language – also when it is not expressed mathematically but in a very reduced English. In this certainly lies considerable possibilities for the abuse of power, of which many representatives of science, often together with those who hold political or economic power, avail themselves. But the deeper problem consists in the fact that scientific language, as helpful and indispensable as it is for rationally revealing and taking hold of the world tends at the same time to an enormous narrowing of man’s perception of reality. Not only recently but as long as there has been science, people have observed and criticized the extent to which our experience of the world and of ourselves is stunted when it is restricted to what can be expressed in scientific language. - Ludwig Wittgenstein, to whom precisely this restriction seemed imperative, later set against it the insight into language as a “form of life”. A very similar insight, if a different philosophical goal, has its source in Martin Heidegger’s speaking of language as the “House of Being”, where the language here meant is the historically developed, living language in its great and wondrous particularity and variety in general, and the language of poetry, which draws on, extends and goes beyond the historical language, in particular. “Man dwells poetically” (Dichterisch wohnet der Mensch) says, or better hopes, Friedrich Hölderlin, and this sentence brings the power of language to expression in its most important and deepest, at any rate in its most beautiful and freest, sense. Those who speak the same language not only can make themselves understood to each other; the capacity of being able to make oneself understood also founds a feeling of belonging and belonging together. This identity-forming power of language is not a secondary effect through which individuals can form themselves into small or large social groups or with whose help the social cohesion of societies or state and supra-state unions can be fostered; it takes hold much earlier than these. In his process of growing up, in the formation of his person and personality, language is not an element that the individual acquires at a certain point, but rather the acquisition of language is precisely this process in which the individual constitutes himself, not only as individual but also as an independent subject. By means of language he attains to a consciousness of himself and his surroundings. He acquires competencies to act and to make himself understood; in a word, he not only learns to interpret his world, but he also receives his world through and as language. 3. Conclusion - Language and Power is about how language works to maintain and change power relations in contemporary society, and how understanding these processes can enable people to resist and change them - Social class can be divided into three classes; those are upper class, middle class, and lower class. - The language itself becomes a means of power: as political rhetoric and demagogy, as ideology and bedazzlement, as seduction through words, as “persuasion” - Language also affect to the small scenes of everyday life, to the arts of seduction and of advertising. - The dimensions of the power of language cover some important point, namely, first is the power of language shows itself not only, and not primarily, in the language of power, of overpowering and repression, but also in its emancipatory potential, in the opening of other and new possibilities of speaking, and so also of thinking and acting. Second, the language of the sciences is, at least to a good degree, comprehensible and accessible only to the relevant experts. And the last is those who speak the same language not only can make themselves understood to each other; the capacity of being able to make oneself understood also founds a feeling of belonging and belonging together. References Class.html. retrieved on Sunday, December 4, 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell_Hymes http://www.goethe.de/lhr/prj/mac/msp/en1253450.htm Hymes, D., "The Ethnography of Speaking", pp. 13–53 in Gladwin, T. & Sturtevant, W.C. (eds), Anthropology and Human Behavior, The Anthropology Society of Washington, (Washington), 1962. Language in Culture and Society (1964) Social_classmmmm.htm. retrieved on Sunday, December 4, 2011.