Ekin Cotuk has been a member of the Visualising Peace team since Spring 2023. Her research is on language, linguistics, and peacebuilding, a topic she discusses in depth in this presentation.
She has written a total of 5 blogs on the subject of peace linguistics, using a variety of case studies and providing bibliographies for each. The first blog appears below, and the others are linked at the end of this post.
Why is language important when we talk about peace?
As many items in our Peace Museum have shown, much of peacebuilding involves communication: whether it’s politicians sitting across from one another in a negotiation room, or ordinary civilians sharing stories and experiences, encouraging conversation between conflicting groups can be one of the first steps in building peace. But little attention has been paid to how the medium through which we communicate, language, can complicate or nurture peace processes.
This is the first blog entry on a five-part series focused on different aspects of the relationship between language and peace. The blogs explore a variety of topics, and best read in dialogue with one another, as one blog’s conclusions leads to the next one’s research question. I start by exploring how language can create conflict on a national level and the crucial role that language planning and language policy plays in either legitimising or marginalising and excluding groups of language speakers and their cultural identities, by focusing on the conflict in Myanmar. Drawing on the close link between language and identity, I explore the implications of foreign language-learning on identity and inner peace in the context of immigration, discussing unique insights offered in the biography Lost in Translation by Eva Hoffman. In today’s increasingly globalised world, I then aim to investigate the spread of the English language and the potential problems it may cause, tracing a path towards peace in the English language. Intrigued by what different languages have to offer to our understanding of peace, I seek to stretch and understand habits of visualising peace through a case study of the unique nature of the Turkish language that emerged during the 2013 Gezi Park protests. This introductory piece aims to set out the links between language and peace more broadly, and provide a backdrop against which I conducted my research.
Language is how we express ourselves, our ideas, experiences, and desires. Language is also deeply connected to our culture and provides a lens through which we interpret the world. Language has the potential to unify, to reconcile— but it also can be weaponised, used to divide, and create conflict. Scholarship concerned with investigating how language could be used to foster peace and further human rights emerged during the 1990s, under a field of study called ‘peace linguistics.’1 Preceding the emergence of peace linguistics, scholar Francisco Gomes de Matos had begun publishing works on communicating positively, focused on using language positively and its positive applications.2 These publications feature various ‘checklists’ and lists of reflective questions to get language users thinking critically about how positively they communicate.3 Gomes de Matos defines peace linguistics as an interdisciplinary field of study, with a concentration of providing educational environments with the foundations to shape ‘peaceful language users.’4 This helped establish Gomes de Matos as a pioneer of peace linguistics. A key concept that underpins Gomes de Matos’ writings on peace linguistics is an emphasis on humanity, and the process of ‘humanizing’ language, which comes from his personal belief that ‘human beings’ right to a peaceful and just life should be matched by a corresponding human responsibility to communicate peacefully.’5 So, peace linguistics is focused on the study of peace from a linguistic perspective, which also involves being conscious of how language can be used to create conflict with dehumanizing uses to challenge and shift habits of using language negatively.6 An interesting aspect of Gomes de Matos’ work is that he often uses poems and other creative expressions to make ‘pleas’ and provide guidance on using peaceful language, departing from academic convention, which is closely aligned with efforts in peace education to adopt introspection and self-reflection as a means to promote peace, and echoes transrational efforts to explore alternative practices to peace education.7
To explore and understand the efforts to develop peace linguistics as a field of study, Andy Curtis has found that peace linguistics has faced challenges in development due to its interdisciplinary nature complicating academic ownership, as well as difficulties in implementing a concrete theoretical framework for peace linguistics.8 In recent years, he has advocated for the development of a ‘new’ peace linguistics, which moves towards systematic and detailed analysis of how language is used.9 Instead of a more ‘prescriptive’, ‘top-down’ approach, he argues for a ‘bottom-up’ approach to peace linguistics.10 His case studies have focused on the use of language by powerful political figures. Andy Curtis’ interpretation of peace linguistics consists of deep linguistic analysis to increase understanding and consciousness of the meaning of not only what words mean but how they are used, which is visible in his case studies’ focus on the use of language by politicians.11
The human-centred approach to language that Gomes de Matos emphasises when discussing peace linguistics applies to other areas where language is concerned with inciting conflict. In the realm of politics and policymaking, linguistic peace is achieved through the creation of inclusive policies that grant all languages equal status and avoid marginalising linguistic groups; this can be seen in the case of Myanmar, discussed later, and Gomes de Matos’ call for governments and legislative bodies to recognise ‘complexity of the socio-cultural and multilingual context’ of a country.12 When it comes to second-language acquisition, linguistic peace can be visualised through finding one’s own voice in that language and gaining a sense of agency, and the construction of an identity that can be voiced as the speaker desires, expressed in terms of respecting the ‘unique[ness]’ of language users and their experiences in peace linguistics.13 Peace within the spread of English as a global language can be visualised in terms of fostering a multi-lingual environment in which no language is endangered by the spread of English awareness, echoed in the ‘respect for language diversity’ that Friedrich and Gomes evoke when discussing different factors that play into building a linguistically peaceful society.14 Moving beyond our understanding of peace within the English-language speaking world, peace as conceptualised in the Turkish language in the 2013 Gezi Park protests proved to be a creative and humorous endeavour, involving the hybridisation of the Turkish language with different cultural and linguistic codes to advocate for peace.
What I hope to show with these blogs is that the ideals of peace linguistics go beyond its purely linguistic and language use applications: its principles of humanisation and inclusion extend to politics, psychology, language status and social justice.
Read Ekin’s other blogs…
Linguistic diversity and visibility for peace: education and community radio in Myanmar
‘Lost in Translation’: Language, identity, and inner peace
How do we visualise peace in English?
Visualising peace across different languages: the Turkish language in protest
Bibliography
Curtis, Andy. “A New Peace Linguistics Approach to Empathy, Language and Leadership.” In Creating Classrooms of Peace in English Language Teaching. Taylor & Francis, 2022. https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Creating_Classrooms_of_Peace_in_English/tGFoEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover.
———. “Back from the Battlefield: Resurrecting Peace Linguistics.” TESL Reporter 50, no. 1 (October 1, 2017): 20–34.
———. The New Peace Linguistics and the Role of Language in Conflict. Google Books. IAP, 2022. https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_New_Peace_Linguistics_and_the_Role_o/Bn5ZEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0.
Friedrich, Patricia F, and Francisco Gomes. “1. Toward a Nonkilling Linguistics.” In Multilingual Matters EBooks, edited by Patricia Friedrich, 1–19. Multilingual Matters, 2016. https://doi.org/10.21832/9781783095483-005.
GOMES DE MATOS, Francisco. “Peace Linguistics for Language Teachers.” DELTA: Documentação de Estudos Em Lingüística Teórica E Aplicada 30, no. 2 (December 2014): 415–24. https://doi.org/10.1590/0102-445089915180373104.
Gomes de Matos, Francisco. “Harmonizing and Humanizing Political Discourse: The Contribution of Peace Linguists.” Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology 6, no. 4 (2000): 339–44. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327949pac0604_05.
Kester, Kevin, Tim Archer, and Shawn Bryant. “Diffraction, Transrational Perspectives, and Peace Education: New Possibilities.” Journal of Peace Education 16, no. 3 (September 2, 2019): 274–95. https://doi.org/10.1080/17400201.2019.1697065.
Matos, Francisco Gomes de. “16 Planning Uses of Peace Linguistics in Second Language Education.” In Un(Intended) Language Planning in a Globalising World: Multiple Levels of Players at Work, edited by Phyllis Chew Ghim Lian, Catherine Chua, Kerry Taylor-Leech , and Colin Williams, 290–300. Warsaw: De Gruyter Open Poland, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110518269-016.