With apologies for the very long silence, owing to work and other commitments, I return with a simple question for you: Who owns language? As I try to keep up to date with news and current affairs, it seems that people are becoming increasingly aware and concerned with language use and whether certain terms are appropriate. As always, the specific context is crucial, as is any perceived or actual offence – a relative concept that I touched on in a previous blog post.
The latest example of this concerns a term at matches involving Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, where any fans caught using a specific Jewish-related term could be arrested or face being banned from matches. Football authorities are quite rightly taking all steps necessary to kick racism out of the national game, though the caveat from the UK Prime Minister – such that action only be taken if the term is used as an insult – is important.
This is because some fans seem to use the term to refer to themselves as a 'badge of honour', in defiance of advice from police. This raises interesting questions about the intention to offend, as well as my question about the ownership of language. If an offensive or racist term is appropriated as an identity marker by the social or ethnic group it previously denigrated, can this term – in this specific context, at least – still be deemed offensive to that group? In the context of rival football fans at games (and even friends' Facebook posts prior to fixtures), where insults and chants – often euphemistically termed 'banter' – are commonplace; the line between bravado and offence is blurred.
I'm reminded of a similar news item earlier this year in Germany, when a father, reading aloud to his daughter, took offence at the presence of the n-word in a popular children's book. His actions sparked a national debate, resulting in the publisher agreeing to expunge the term from future editions – a move that was also welcomed by the book's author shortly before his death. The sad footnote to this example, however, was that both the father and his daughter experienced a backlash. It's also annoying when people persistently invoke the "political correctness gone mad" argument as a means of justifying the continued use of offensive terms.
My own feeling remains that offence is relative – so it's better to avoid using certain terms than risk offending someone, even unwittingly. That's precisely what political correctness is. At the same time, we have to recognise that no-one owns language or its use. Language in all its forms is only a mutually agreed form of expression which is subject to change over time. That's why policing its use is difficult, if not impossible. But if we modify our own language use, then we signify to others that we are aware of – and are sensitive to – its power. To the extent that we are also role models to those around us, what we say is as important as what we do.
