The Power Of Language

This month started with an engaging online session with Yaron Matras from Manchester City of Languages. We explored the theme of language as a landscape for both connection and disconnection, and our rich and diverse conversation is now available on Youtube

Our follow-up in-person meeting also covered a wide array of topics, from the nuance of gestures to the humour and frustration of miscommunication, and the universal reach of music. It reminded me of the power and limits of language to convey complex human experience and the deeper, quest for authenticity and truth of which language is a part.

In this blog post you will discover the thoughts and perspectives from our gatherings, demonstrating the various ways in which language brings us together, presents us with obstacles, and enhances our comprehension of one another.

Janet Isherwood

Language

Useful or useless, 
helpful or a waste of time,
Ignoring emotion or conveying it,
Hypocritical or a way of finding the truth.

Mark Taylor

Dictionary

I know what you mean
When you say ‘scringly’.
Sometimes I feel scringly too.

And I know what you mean
When you say ‘approbation’.
You mean ‘opprobium’.
(I don’t correct you.)

And I know what you mean
When you say ‘September’.
I learned it from primary school,
And that old song,
And what happened to us.

And I know what you mean
When you say ‘together’.
It makes me feel all scringly.

Large language model 

When something talks, we start to think it human:
Grant it thoughts and feelings and dreams;
Look forward to all it might achieve—

Just as long as it speaks our language
And says the things we say
And remembers to call us ‘sir’.

Phrasebook

The plugs are different here
And I’m scared this adapter
Might start a fire.

Tony Goulding

This month saw the group return to a theme we have looked at before, but it is such a rich and diverse subject that many fresh aspects were revealed.

I began by reflecting on the importance of language and how it enables one human being to convey to another

• an emotion
• an instruction
• knowledge

This ability made it possible for humans to form social groups of increasing complexity.

Other animals can convey emotion such as a dog wagging its tail when pleased or barking when it feels fear or senses danger, and some can pass on simple patterns of behaviour. However, it was the intricacy of human speech and especially the development of a written language which led to the progress of mankind.

As is the nature of things, all is not good. Emotions can just as well be negative ones of hate as positive ones of love. Orders and instructions can have good or evil intent. “Knowledge” passed on may be a distortion of the truth.

More worrying is that with the coming of mass communication and the advent of social media it is much more possible for powerful and / or nefarious individuals to spread malice and disinformation. Language itself is being distorted by the sensational hyperbolic reporting in the tabloid press. Powerful words are losing their full impact through frequent over-use.

Barry Taylor

The flat A.

Born in Ashton (Dad) and Gorton (Mum) in the nineteen twenties, my parents met on Merseyside at the end of the war and headed south, on the run from pasts scarred by deprivation and abuse. Their new life around the Home Counties was fugitive and anonymous, founded on denial of their Mancunian roots and connections. By the time I was at Junior School in the early ’60s, the facade was in place, but holding it up was a nervous, shaky performance. One give-away sign of their Northernness that they could never shed was their flat As – they walked along paths, not parthes, and had baths, certainly never barthes. So this was a flaw in their new identities, something that could have betrayed them, but it was also something they clung onto, as one last fragment of the world that had shaped them, and still held them, for better or worse.  I remember coming home from school one early summer afternoon and Dad asking me what I’d been up to. “They let us play on the grarss” I said, like the assimilated refugee kid I was. “On the what?” he asked, “There aren’t two R’s in grass, are there?” And so I came into my divided identity, talking like an educated southerner, with the vowels of a Mancy lad. Sixty years later, fifty of them lived in the South and Midlands, I run over a poem I’ve written in my head and it only sounds right if all the As are flat.

Pauline Omoboye

The beauty of language (Patois)
 
Language de important
Eh allows wi tuh bi open an express
Eh cyaah bi used tuh segregate people
Eh nah eva deh deh fah di best
 
Language de bout communication
Dialect an slang used by sum
Eh cyaah reveal weh yu live or even where yu accent cum fram
 
Languages a different an conventional
Wi use different accents, dialect an style
Some taak usin signs an fi dem bodies
Words cyaah bi recorderd pan files
 
Language cyan class and profession
Often by the jargon that’s used
Eh cyaah also bi targeted an belittering
Sum times eh deh lef people bemused
 
Mi mum she did cum fram Jamaica
Shi chat patios like most ah ar peers
Shi did tell tuh taak’Queens English’
As eh wud dispel alla ar fears
 
Mum di cum fram a poor famblily
Daily lessons in eena language shi did taught
How tuh pronounce all her p’s and q’s
An education did bought
  
Deh did so meni words related to language
Speech, articulation an prose
Style, words an dialect
Im sure yu have hear she sum a dem
 
Suh luk at di transulation of language
Di words eena patios different buh de same
Dis poem come out tuh demonstrate
Dat language a more dan ah name
 
© P.Omoboye

The beauty of language
 
Language is important
It allows us to be open and express
It can be used to segregate people
It’s not always there for the best.
 
Language is about communication
The dialect and slang used by some
It can reveal where you live or even where your accent comes from.
 
Languages are different and conventional
We use different accents, dialect and style
Some speak using signs and their bodies
Words can even be recorded on file.
 
Language can show class and profession
Often by the jargon that’s used
It can also be targeted and belittling
Sometimes it is leaving people bemused.
 
My mum she came from Jamaica
She spoke patois like most of her peers
She was told to speak the ‘Queens English’
As it would dispel all her fears.
 
Mum came from a poor family
Daily lessons in language she was taught
How to pronounce all her P’s and Q’s
An education was bought.
 
There are many words related to language
Speech, articulation, and prose
Style words and dialect
I’m sure you have heard some of those.
 
So, look at the translation of language
The words in patois different but the same
This poem comes out to demonstrate.
That language is more than a name.
 
©Pauline Omoboye

Jean Thompson

To me language is about communicating by the use of words and sounds, as opposed to the study of linguistics. You might learn a foreign language but at the end of the day you have to be understood in conversation otherwise it is just an academic exercise. Even in your birth language it sometimes comes as a surprise that you may say something that you think is clear, but the other person interprets it in a very different way. Communication becomes blurred. How can it be that using words that you think have one meaning are understood by someone else to have a different meaning?

Even the language of poetry which might have a beautiful cadence should to me also convey a meaning at some level. Other people I know would just enjoy the sounds of the words but always I go back to my thought that language is about communication.

But communication is not just about language. That’s the anomaly. We can communicate by body expression and gesture. Some people never develop language, or lose it at some point in their lives, for whatever reason but are still able to communicate. So there is a difference too between spoken language and communication.

Language is a living and evolving thing. People from another country often speak the language they learned as a child whereas in the country of their birth language has moved on, so their language can be seen as out-dated by the people still living in their birth country.

If you walk behind a group of teenagers you could be forgiven for thinking they were not speaking English. Their language has moved on, evolved but understood by their peers. It is almost as if they have to learn two languages. The one of their peer group and the more formal one that is understood by the rest of the population. Moreover the language of peer groups is not universal either, so young people from one community may have a different peer language from those of another community. If you are old and try to emulate the language of the young, it does not work! You can never get it quite right as it moves on so quickly.

Endlessly fascinating this entity called language! And that’s not even touching on what constitutes bad language!

Annette Bennett

Language, a power.

To communicate
Is a fundamental
Human need.
Indeed is throughout
The animal kingdom,
Plants and trees
Send signals
To each other too.
Sending messages
They understand
And effect a reaction
A botanical wonder
Of nature.

Words
Whatever language
They are spoken in,
Signed
Or written
Have amazing power
To impact us
Positively
Be kind
Helpful
Lifting us up,
Negatively
Hurtful
Crushing us down
And general
Somewhere in between.

The language
Of touch
That physical connection
Between one individual
And another
Is vital
In exploring our world
Environment around us,
Each other
To form relationships.
People with limited
Or no vision,
Certain disabilities
Rely so much
On touch
To orientate
Their lives
Feel connected.

Body language
Or posturing
Is a universal
Form of expressing
How we feel
Whether conscious
Or not.
How we present ourselves
To others visually
Can speak volumes,
Show emotions,
Moods
Intentions.
Animals posture
A good deal
And are quite
An amusing sight
To observe
At times.

Music
And the spectrum
Of sound and rhythm
Resonates powerfully
In our daily lives,
Can reach
Convey
Teach us
Ideas and feelings.
It is fascinating
How music
Can change lives
For the better.

Taste and smell
Can tell us a language
Not necessarily visible.
We can eat
Foods that taste
Different to how
They look
Making it difficult
To tell
If we will like them,
Be deceptive.
Smells and fragrances
Send us other
Information.
A pleasant
Pleasing sensation,
Go ahead enjoy
Or a repellent
Unpleasant one
Saying don’t bother
Leave well alone.

Our language
And its powers
In all varied forms
You could say
Are our tools
Concepts
For communication,
And are to be celebrated
Embraced
Fully
Wisely
And with sensitivity.

Shane Murray

Less is More

Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These tells the story of Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant, who discovers a barely hidden secret in the town of New Ross, which leads to a decision that may cost him and his family their future happiness. It is a moral tale, illuminating the injustice and horror that flourishes when power is unchallenged.

Keegan’s writing is contained and understated. We learn that Bill has come from “less than nothing”. His mother, a housemaid, rejected by her family when she became pregnant at sixteen, was taken in by her employer, the kindly Protestant Mrs. Wilson. The subtle prose reveals a decent, compassionate but troubled man; restless at night, contemplating his good fortune while worrying about other people’s struggles:

“It would be the easiest thing in the world to lose everything…”

While making a delivery to the Convent before Christmas, he discovers a dishevelled girl locked in an outhouse surrounded by her own excrement. A chilling ‘cat and mouse’ scene follows where he quietly challenges the Mother Superior, having replaced his urge to leave with “…a type of contrariness to stay on, and to hold his ground…” The tension in this powerful episode is enhanced by the accompanying ritual of sharing a pot of tea. The author brilliantly evokes the threat and menace lurking behind polite conversation:

“So all is well at home Billy.”

The sentence simmers with hostility and the subtext is clear – make trouble for us and we will make life very difficult for you and yours. There is no extravagance in Keegan’s writing. The sense of unease and foreboding that permeates the story is reflected in nature.  “It was a December of crows” when “blades of cold slid under doors.” The animals appear threatening – wicked geese patrol the Convent grounds, impudent crows “gathering in black batches” strut through the town, while stray dogs scavenge in bins. As he wrestles with his conscience, Bill envies the river Barrow “swollen like dark stout”, so sure of its course.  He decides that the hardest thing to do is to do nothing.

This is a beautifully crafted tale, simply told. Turning to the author’s photograph on the fly-leaf, you might ask:

“What can you read in a face?”

Keegan’s implacable image seems to say “Don’t ever think about messing with us again.”

Jolene Sheehan

Words and Wonder

Words are magnetic stickle bricks,
attaching to memories and other phrases,
holding on in spikey places.
An initial term can conjure material from thin air,
like how "white rabbit" makes also appear,
the black hat,
fluff around bright eyes,
a cage, 
a pet,
and someone I once knew who had a rabbit.

Impossible to be present with just one word
when it comes with its own 3-dimensional map.
So, when I come to ask,
"How am I feeling right now?"
and the word "sad" comes to me,
it does not help to join me with myself.
Nor form a feelings hug that makes me outside-proof,
nor ball me into a word sphere with no edges,
where inside I acknowledge what is challenging or rough.
Instead, I am taken away from the sensations inside me,
pulled outwards into an atmosphere of associations.

Sadness melds with memories and judgments
of painful, hard, unwanted emotions.
The stories pile around quietly like landfill,
preserved where they are buried,
giving off noxious gases.

So today, instead of "sad",
I will say that I can feel the ways I am held up.
Like Dali’s characters who have long droopy faces
and fat limbs propped up on thin crutches.
I will say that the porous nature of my bones and heart
have reached saturation point.
I am leaking out an ointment that is also sealing me off.
I will say that there is a vibration in me like the sound of wheels on tarmac,
interrupted with the rhythm of a stick being dragged across railings.

I will say that I can feel all this and I am also here to witness
the sag then lift of a bird outside my window,
as it flies, supported across the grey-blue,
and as I see this simple wonder, I feel that too.