{"id":6284,"date":"2015-10-29T21:27:43","date_gmt":"2015-10-30T04:27:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=6284"},"modified":"2015-10-29T21:27:43","modified_gmt":"2015-10-30T04:27:43","slug":"signs-roadmaps-and-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/signs-roadmaps-and-language\/","title":{"rendered":"Signs, Roadmaps and Language"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"OSU<\/a><\/p>\n

Introduction<\/p>\n

In the late eighties, I was a student at Oklahoma State University.\u00a0\u00a0 I remember vividly my Tuesday and Thursday afternoon sociology class. It was a shocking experience for me, a pastor\u2019s kid that had not strayed into the world. Our teacher was a self-declared leather chaps wearing biker. She actually came to class dressed that way more than once.\u00a0\u00a0 She also informed us that she was a swinger. We didn\u2019t understand her language but don\u2019t worry, she was more than happy to explain to us graphically about her \u201cnormal.\u201d Back in the eighties she tried to convince us that this was the \u201cnew\u201d normal.\u00a0\u00a0 Swinger and biker were way out there on the extreme fringe of the \u201cnorm\u201d at that time. She was speaking politically correct language long before it was politically correct. In class, she embraced all of Freud\u2019s ideas on sexuality and even went so far to tell us that homosexuality would be accepted as normal one day.\u00a0\u00a0 On that day and at that time at OSU, there was more than one \u201credneck\u201d in the class that had very explicit and graphic language back to that suggestion. It might have included some \u201cslang\u201d words that were descriptive at that time for the subject.\u00a0\u00a0 But now just a few years down the road, thirty years to be exact, this teacher would be completely in her element and those \u201crednecks\u201d would be totally out of place.
\nInteresting that the language has changed and those \u201cslang\u201d words would get you into serious trouble today. Specifically in our politically correct society if you used them on social media you would come under attack. Interesting that the subject has continued to evolve and the language has definitely changed. Even words, that back in that time had a clear definition, have become loaded with double meanings and new definitions that sociologists have come up with.<\/p>\n

Summary<\/p>\n

Language is the one theme that I found so compelling in this book by Anthony Elliott, Contemporary Social Theory<\/em>. I have followed the thread of this word, language,<\/em> throughout the whole book and find it interesting how focusing on this one simple thing could be the hitching post of all social theory. \u201cHow we pick up on the signs around us -using language along the way to communicate with others- has become a core preoccupation of contemporary social theory. |\u201d (55) Words are how we communicate but they have so many different layers to them, that it can be very confusing. The movement and progression of this whole social theory science hinges on language and what meanings are assigned to pivotal words. \u201cLanguage is taken as the central model of analysis in structuralism on the grounds that individual speech- as a universal element of all societies and cultures- would not be possible without an enabling structure to give words meaning. \u201c (55) Words make up language but words have so many meanings that assigning them what you want it to mean in the language can be possible. Search long enough in all the different sources of definition and you can find what you mean. Is it a literal definition or is it one shaped by science, or by sociology or psychology? Things that shape our society are based upon words and their usage in language.<\/p>\n

The author clarifies what I am seeing: \u201cthere is no such things as a \u201cfixed language,\u201d one fully locked down and unchangeable. Rather the world is internally structured along the lines of languages, by which individuals come to know the social things around them and operate within society.\u201d (57) One of the things I find interesting is that some words only work against other words, so there is a frame of reference. Take the word \u201chot\u201d for instance. \u201cHot\u201d only takes on the force of signifying to other by means of its difference to \u201ccold\u201d (59) \u201cLanguage is not a transparent medium but an opaque domain of traces or inscriptions whose content and rhetoric must be questioned and thus resituated in a new register.\u201d (112) Language is thus a structure and a movement, which can only be grasped in relation to the opposition of present\/absent. Language defines the social landscape. I believe words have a meaning and when they lose meaning and start to be defined by their opposite word then what is being said can really truly be whatever you want to interpret it to be. I see that in this whole book that each person has the ability to say whatever they want and it becomes truth. Even if the definition of what they are saying is not accurate!<\/p>\n

Analysis<\/p>\n

To see language as encoding powerful emotional semiotic forces is a critical advance on viewing it as simply the \u201cneutral\u201d expression of rational intentions. (215) Words are neutral and have meaning assigned to them by their definition. Intentions are contained within the language! Are you confused yet? How about this take: Thus for example, identity in not immediately present in a sign, it is by learning to use language situationally \u2013 which is itself a matter of linguistic differences and cultural conventions- that subjects project themselves into gender roles a women or men. (217) So gender, which we have seen take a direct hit this past year with Bruce Jenner is now optional and we can manipulate it to fit our situation.\u00a0\u00a0 I do see this coming true just like it was spoken about here and it has been a constant barrage of language that has brought us to this moment. Society has taken liberties with everything and I do see that recorded in this contemporary social theory book.<\/p>\n

Now how about the critics? I found it quite interesting that there never was a definition of who these critics happened to be.\u00a0\u00a0 Who is a critic against this use and abuse of language? So here is what the critics point out about this language issue: \u201cAccording to critics, Lyotar fails to appreciate that all language games<\/em> – no matter how provisional and tentative in formulation- implicate assumptions about the shape of society. (241) \u201cFor many critics, the rise of global communication systems has gone hand in hand with the erosion of national culture.\u201d (335) Now we are getting somewhere. Erosion of national culture is what has happened as this sociological free for all that has been lived out and taught and expressed in our college campuses across this nation. No wonder we are in the shape that we are in. Once again, where is the concept of religion or Christianity in a book that talks about life? It is not present, instead people and their language has overtaken and usurped any higher being or power.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/p>\n

I will conclude with these three quotes from the book that I think really sum up the day and time that we live in.\u00a0\u00a0 It is what my sociology teacher was saying was going to be so freeing and so full of life in the future. Doing what ever you want and it being acceptable is the thought that she presented so strong. So here is the conclusion that Anthony Elliott came to: In conditions of advanced globalization, our language for expressing individualism is more and more fixed into the syntax of possessions, ownership, control and market value\u201d (338) \u201cIn smashing apart traditional national boundaries, globalization, ironically, offers people a kind of \u201cabsolute freedom\u201d to do whatever they like. The irony is that the world of \u201ceverything goes\u201d has become crippling, as the anxiety of choice floats unhinged from both practical and ethical considerations as to what is worth pursuing.\u201d (339)<\/p>\n

So as I see it, individualism makes social theory just about you. Forget everyone else. It really is just about you! What you want to do is normal and you get to live with absolute freedom in a society where everything goes. I believe instead of becoming freeing that the word \u201ccrippling\u201d that the author used is a much better definition of these three words \u201ccontemporary social theory.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Those words make up language.\u00a0\u00a0 The definition of the word crippling is one that is disabled or deficient in a specified manner (a social cripple<\/em>) but that is not the only definition. Let me give you more. Crippling: to disable; impair; weaken. Crippling: anything that is impaired or flawed. I think the author hit it right on the head.<\/p>\n

His final quote that ended the book, I believe really sums up this whole thing: It is the search that every one of the people studied in this book pontificated about in great detail. Finding something that matters.\u00a0\u00a0 So here are\u00a0his words: \u201cInstead of finding ourselves, we lose ourselves.\u201d (339) \u00a0 It is all about the language.<\/p>\n

Anthony Elliott, Contemporary Social Theory<\/em>: An Introduction, second ed. (New York: Routledge, 2014).<\/p>\n

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Merriam Webster Online. Accessed October 29, 2015. http:\/\/ www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/citation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Kevin Norwood<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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