Monday, September 10, 2007
Just Words
I got into an interesting discussion the other day about the power of words. I was thinking about how the same words, said at different times, can have two totally different effects. My question is this: Do words in and of themselves have power, or does the power lay in the emotion that we invest in them?
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the power lays in the definition because look at a word like "odium". What are you feeling? confusion? This word is actually a synonym for hate, a very strong and powerful word. If you didn't know what odium meant you would feel no power at all and therefore the power lies within the meaning.
I agree, I think its very dependent on connotations and how the word is used. It also depends on how fluent you are, or past experience. If someone has been in a situation where they have been singled out and (employing some slang here, sorry) "hated on", then they may have a different reaction to some words then others.
I can think of several slurs that are acceptable in some situations between certain people, but completely unacceptable in a different situation.
I think that words certainly do have power in the definition that we have learned about them and probably used in some context. For instance, if I abhorred someone, it would be much different than just hating someone. This is because of my relationship with this word. Then slowly, I lay emotion into that word so that its deeply integrated into my vocabulary and imbedded into use with something. The emotion I feel for it would then be transferred onto other times I used it.
I really think that there is no real power in the words themselves. Words are just the tools by which human beings communicate their ideas and emotions as they wish to express them to other people. Furthermore, words are different in every language and it is only our own personal connections to those words that have any meaning. If we didn't have feelings attached to the words then they would mean nothing at all to us and have absolutely no power.
I think it depends on the person, to an extent. I mean, I read the word 'odium' without knowing what it meant, and I still got a strong feeling of hatred. But I'm a very emotion-based person, so who knows if someone who were very word-based would get that? I think a lot of it does depend on the emotion behind it, because it changes how you say things. And that's what makes quotes quotable (*ahem* seniors...). Anyway, if you look at just a singular word, it can lie within the connotation or just how the person takes the word; but if it's an entire sentence or whatever, I'd say it definitely relies on the emotion behind them.
I don't think the words themselves have the power as stated by Amylm. I think it's the connotations associated with those words and the way they are said. Katrina also mentions that it depends on the person that says the words too which effects the power of them.
I agree with Elliot and Katrina that the person who says the words has the biggest impact on their meaning. Does that also include body language? Can you "say" a word without actually giving voice to it?
I think you can 'say' a word without giving voice to it, though its largely more up to misinterpretation than if you voice it. But I do believe you can communicate through body language, it's not necessarily actually using your vocal chords that gives a word meaning.
You guys are going to hate me, but I'm going to bring up poetry explication. Explicating is all about finding the meaning the author tries to convey buy specifically using this word and that phrase. Well, what if you're explicating some poem about trees written by a four-year-old. Is the meaning there in the first place or are we putting it there. Do the words convey any of the author's original meaning or does it come from each of our individual interpretations of the words. Does this mean that any meaning we try to find in words is false meaning? Is it completely subjective? As you can see, I'm a fan of rhetorical questions.
So are you saying that the impact the word has depends more on the person who recieves it rather than the person who says it?
Okay, one thing on poetry explication; when's the last time IB's made us explicate a poem written by a four-year-old? It kind of annoys me that everyone says we can't derive meaning from a poem written by a four-year-old, but who's asking you to derive meaning from a poem written by a four-year-old? Maybe I missed some big chunk of IB, but whenever I've explicated a poem for IB it's always been from something by Shakespeare, Keats, Eliot, or some renowned famous poet; or maybe even a passage from Tale of Two Cities, never have I explicated a four-year-old's poem about trees. So really, what validation does a four-year-old's poem lacking meaning relate to the explications IB makes us do?
That being said, it does depend on who's hearing the word on how the word actually gets interpreted, and words can be misinterpreted. Which partially says the power is in the emotion behind the words, rather than the words themselves.
I agree with Amy that everyone has a different connection to words, but are words just lables for emotion. They discribe the emotion that the person want to express.
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