Un-lost in Translation
Posted on October 19, 2019Is my uncle racist?
An incident that comes to mind is when my family met my to-be sister-in-law’s family. The two families belonged to two distinct social groups. As the large and mildly awkward gathering progressed, my uncle happened to meet the bride’s uncle. During their introductory exchange, he casually commented “same pinch”, referring to their dark skin color.
Looking back at those comments, I find myself questioning, was that a racist remark? Is my uncle inherently racist? To an outsider, it would probably seem like that. The statement without its context does seem racist. But to me or to anyone around me in the room that day, he was just poking fun to break the ice with a stranger, who was going to be part of his family now. The light-heartedness of my uncle was appreciated and it instantly put everyone around him at ease. It paved the way for a more meaningful conversation around other aspects of their lives. It was his way of addressing the elephant in the room, by acknowledging it, accepting it and then moving beyond it. The incident has been relayed multiple times and still brings laughter in the room. However, in this particular example, the joke was politically incorrect. So do I talk to my uncle and inform him of this inappropriate behavior when I go back home?
Humor works at the tension of being a catalyst for human connection or falling prey to misinterpretations, hurting people’s feelings. It allows for subjective interpretations as it relies heavily on context and intuition. Playing with the rules of language, it makes space for creative thought to flourish. This was a natural part of my life, growing up in a bi-lingual home. Now you’d wonder what this has got to do with the number of languages you learn. Let me elaborate. Growing up in a bi-lingual home allowed me to intuitively understand the distinction between spoken word and its associated meaning. As illustrated by Saussure’s theory on the structure of language, it is composed of ‘signifier’ and ‘signified’. A signifier is simply a word – a jumble of letters. While signified is the concept of that word, what that signifier stands for. Taking the example of the word ‘cool’, if the spoken word ‘cool’ is a signifier, what might be the signified? In one context or situation, cool might refer to temperature. But in another, it might refer to something ‘popular’. The relationship between signifier and signified can change over a period of time and in different contexts.
At home often the communication happened in “Hinglish”, where we’d intersperse English with Hindi words that didn’t make literal sense but added a layer of emotion to the communication. “That toh (so) I know”, “Do this na (no)” etc are some such examples where the Hindi words didn’t add to the meaning of the sentence. The word “na” literally translates to “no” but is phonetically used to soften the harshness of the words “Do this!” It feels like a request than a command when somebody says “Do this na”. Though this presents an animated form of ‘sense-making through context establishment’, this way of communication reproduced itself in softer forms when words adopt new meanings with the context they were disposed of in.
Language is interwoven with these evident and/or suggestive associations which change over time. As Cordula Simon rightly points out, we no longer associate the word black with its literal meaning—a word that was once accepted as a neutral substitute for Negro. Even that has come to be replaced with the words- a person of color. But probably that will also sound pretty tainted in no time.
So now the question becomes what do we call racist if the rules of language keep changing? And if that is the case then why is political correctness so important to have a more equitable society?
“Person of color” translates to a fragmented phrase in Hindi- “rang ka vyakti” sounding almost absurd. It doesn’t hold the same cultural connotations as its English counterpart. However, it would be ridiculous to infer that the non-existence of the word in Hindi means that native Hindi-speakers are averse to treating others with dignity. It simply illustrates how forms of respect and acceptance go beyond the use of language and are depicted by intention and action.
Politically correct language focuses all the attention on the spoken words, losing the intuitive essence of any conversation. The clear and rigid rules on what’s acceptable sterilize the conversation, leaving little or no scope for other interpretations. Cloaked as a form of “respect” for others, PC language establishes a clear hierarchy between the “intellectuals” who defined the rules and the rest falling into the bucket of “uneducated -ist’s”. The social backlash on politically incorrect language instills fear of being misjudged as racist, sexist or any other–ist. It develops a general air of over-sensitivity on the topics. This cripples us from learning about others that seems different, for the fear of unintentionally offending them. The rules that were originally established to create a cohesive society turn into agents of isolation of cultural groups. By adopting a politically correct language does not free us from the acts of racism/ sexism. It is merely an unthinking, reflexive adherence to language fashion of the time. Would it work better if we allow for interpretation and ask ourselves whether it makes sense in a certain context? Will that allow for narratives of people from different cultures and experiences to influence and shape our own?
As our societies grow increasingly diverse and global, these ostracized rules on language and communication will act as agents of discrimination. We need to ask ourselves, if by creating a homogeneous set of rules on language we are encouraging just another form of symbolic violence? Can the orchestra of people from various cultures create a melody if we allow them to freely play with the rules?
-Ayushi Jain
References:
-Design as Symbolic Violence: Reproducing the ‘isms’ + A Framework for Allies – By Dr. Joanna Boehnert
-Pierre Bourdieu: Theory of symbolic violence
https://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~wright/Found-c4rev.pdf
-How language works and why political correctness doesn’t –By Cordula Simon
https://areomagazine.com/2019/02/14/how-language-works-and-why-political-correctness-doesnt/
-Ferdinand de Saussure: The Linguistic Unit — Sign, Signified and Signifier Explained
-George Carlin – Euphemisms and political correctness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9n8Xp8DWf8
-In the Trump Era, Political Incorrectness on the Rise – By Ed Kilgore
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/04/in-the-trump-era-political-incorrectness-on-the-rise.html
-Is Political Correctness A Smoke Screen Concealing Racism, Sexism, and Hate? – By Lulu deCarron