Part 6: Revealing how the Labels and Classifications Communicated through Language Influence the Foundational Structuring of Individual and Collective Behavior.
"All words are made up." -Thor, Avengers Infinity War (2018)
My last blog post focused on describing how SAT can help us understand the dynamics of culture and its historical impact on individual and collective identities. Through some great insights from cultural anthropology we can begin to understand that a big part of what sets us Homo Sapiens apart in the grand evolutionary narrative is the extent and complexity of our social structures, the depth of our symbolic thinking, and our capacity for abstract thought.
We're still not entirely sure of how language began, but many anthropologists and linguists believe that the beginnings of lanugage were based on onomatopoeic imitations of natural sounds. Many apes and other primates, for example, make grunts or have social calls, and plenty of other animals on our planet communicate with body language, sounds or smells. However, unlike our hominid ancestors and cousin species’ like Neanderthals, Homo Sapiens developed a highly flexible and sophisticated system of communication (human language) that enabled the transmission of very complex ideas and the capacity to form abstract concepts such as periods of time, ethical codes, and spiritual beliefs.
Our ability to imagine things that don't exist in the physical world (like gods, nations, legal entities, etc.) and our propensity for storytelling allowed us to construct shared myths that transcended beyond the bonds shared in our immediate kinship groups, uniting large numbers of people around common beliefs and goals. This capacity for "collective imagination" is what eventually enabled our species to build cities, kingdoms, and civilizations, setting us on a path distinct from all other species. As philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine put it in his 1968 essay Ontological Relativity, "language is a social art."
I love the concept of language, and one of the defining moments of my undergrad experience was learning to understand human nature through the power of language. To keep this concise, I'm only discussing the broader philosophical perspective of language as it relates to culture and social accreditation through the lens of structural linguistics and mythology. My goal is to show you how language functions as a map that allows us to adopt the socially accredited cognitive capabilities that help us navigate our social environments.
How to Tell 'Who's the Boss?' Deconstructing Our Use of Language
Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when it seemed as if a tangible white darkness shut you in, and the great ship, tense and anxious, groped her way toward the shore with plummet and sounding-line, and you waited with beating heart for something to happen? I was like that ship before my education began, only I was without compass or sounding-line, and had no way of knowing how near the harbor was. “Light! Give me light!” was the wordless cry of my soul, and the light of love shone on me in that very hour. Helen Keller, "The Story of My life"
For Keller, acquiring language was a gateway to social inclusion and personal identity formation. I recently downloaded "The Story of My Life" for free on Apple books and reading her work has given me a humble yet practical perspective on the impact of language on human life, which aligns with the central concerns of Structuralism.
Central to structuralism is an idea that human culture and cognition are shaped by underlying structures, these are things like language, kinship systems, myths, and more. Post-structuralist thinkers like Derrida, Foucault, and Deleuze built upon structuralist ideas, emphasizing the fluidity and instability of structures. This approach is what led me to develop the framework for the Social Accreditation Theory, seeking to use the idea of accreditation to account for the feedback loops that emerge from over time to influence our social behavior. (The works of Deleuze and Guattarie were particularly insightful to me, and I want to revist them in future posts.)
The early 20th century saw significant interest in scientific and systematic approaches to understanding human behavior and society, and it was during this time that processes of social accreditation really began to influence social behavior and a lot thinkers in this period helped pave the way to these ideas. During this period, structuralism emerged as an intellectual movement and theoretical approach from people who tried to understand the fundamental structures that govern human behavior, culture, language, and thought. Structuralism originally began from advances in linguistics, particularly through the work of Ferdinand de Saussure.
Ferdinand de Saussure, the founder of semiotics, realized that words are like signs on a road—they give us messages that help us understand the world. He said every word has two parts: the signifier, which is the word itself, like "boss," and the signified, which is the idea or image the word brings to mind. The signified meaning of "boss" generally confers a level of authority or dominance, but the context of the use of the word can change it's meaning.
The titular character from the "Boss Baby" film franchise wears a suit and tie and walks and talks like an adult when parents aren't around.
Saussure's revolutionary work taught us that there is no mysterious link between things and words but in the patterns of our behavior and how we create and decipher meanings as we engage with language.
The word "boss" is a great example here. When we hear "boss," we might think of someone in charge at work. In a corporate setting, "boss" might make you think of someone who wears a suit and has a big office, or in a small startup, the "boss" could be more chill, maybe seen wearing casual clothes and working alongside the team.
And if I say "boss" in a room of people with no context, every person could have a different idea of what is being said based on their perceptions of the social experience. "Boss" could be a slang term for cool or refer to a higher level enemy in a video game. It could also have a double meaning if it's used as a double entendre or sarcastically.
Understanding this helps us see how language shapes our view of the world, just like Saussure said. Many other early structuralist thinkers built off this insight to begin using this semiotic approach to understand the deeper meaning behind not just words, but also the stories and narratives that become our shared mythology.
Roland Barthes, another leading figure in the development of semiotics and structuralism, argued that language isn't just a tool for communication but a system of signs that creates meanings within cultural contexts. Barthes' "Mythologies" deconstructs what he calls myths—cultural constructs that are presented as natural or universal truths but that are actually manifestations of societal values imposed by dominant groups. We generally think of ancient mythology when we hear the word, but even today, much of our perceptions of reality are based on our interpretations of the myths that have been presented to us.
In the last blog on culture, I briefly mentioned the significance of myths for transmitting knowledge and societal values to unite communities. Myths provide frameworks for what happens to those who conform to or deviate from social norms, often in exaggerated or symbolic ways. The value and meaning of mythology is in a secondary message that is being delivered beneath the surface level understanding of the sign, and its influence stems from how the reader or storyteller interprets the meaning. It's not the word "boss" that makes the "Boss Baby" movie funny, but the mythology behind the meaning we give to the word.
Language plays a crucial role in these processes by shaping the discourse around conformity and deviation. This perspective reveals that cultural narratives are not static but are continually negotiated and reshaped through the tools of language and myth, reflecting the dynamic nature of human societies.
The Immortal Importance of Man-Made Myths
"My favorite definition of mythology: other people's religion. My favorite definition of religion: misunderstanding of mythology." -Joseph Campbell
Joseph Campbell, a mythologist known for his work on the universal structures of myths, argued that myths are fundamental to human experience and shape our understanding of the world. According to Campbell, myths serve the function of providing a narrative framework that supports societal norms and values.
His famous concept of the monomyth or "hero’s journey" illustrates how myths can embody cultural ideals of heroism and morality, which in turn play a huge role in the socialization process by outlining paths to social accreditation. Campbell’s concept of the monomyth not only describes a narrative structure but also reflects the psychological and social processes people undergo as they integrate into or develop within their societies.
Myths, especially those that follow the monomyth pattern, play their part in social accreditation by defining what is considered worthy or desirable in a society. Each stage of the hero's journey can parallel stages in a person's life, where societal norms and values are learned, tested, and finally internalized. Heroes model what behaviors are admired and rewarded, and what consequences follow from defiance or failure. Through these stories, societies collectively teach members about virtues such as bravery, sacrifice, and wisdom. They create the archetypes or ideal types that we aspire to, which guide behavior and help establish our status or identity within the community.
Certain mythologies have been passed down through epic poems, folklore stories, and plays. Many popular stories like The Odyssey, The Epic of Gilgamesh, and The Quest for the Holy Grail, embody the "hero's journey".
Sacred texts often originate in specific historical and cultural contexts, and their original meanings are shaped by the language and societal norms of that time. The specific terms, phrases, and narratives used in sacred texts encode religious norms, values, and beliefs, shaping how these texts are perceived and understood by followers.
For example, the Bible, the Quran, and the Bhagavad Gita were written in languages and contexts that deeply influence their original meanings. Over time, translations and reinterpretations adapt these texts to new languages and cultural contexts, reflecting and shaping contemporary values.
Campbell’s analysis shows how myths can sanction certain values or behaviors as they provide a shared set of expectations and roles within the society. I'm going to talk more about Campbell's work when I discuss religion and art, but I want to keep the focus here on how language both describes and changes social norms and culture.
I also mentioned Zora Neale Hurston in the last post. Hurston was an African American anthropologist and novelist, who made significant contributions to understanding how folklore and cultural narratives serve as repositories of communal values and history.
Her work "Mules and Men" is an exploration of how language and narrative shape our cultural identity and serve as a means of social accreditation. For her, collecting Black folk tales wasn't just an act of preservation but also a method of validating the cultural practices and spoken histories of Black communities that were marginalized in mainstream narratives.
Her approach suggests that there is a deeper meaning behind the stories people tell, that folklore is a form of social knowledge that carries the implicit rules and values of a community. For Hurston, these stories weren't just entertainment—they were vital expressions of a community's identity, serving both to reinforce social norms and to contest and negotiate social values. Language here acts as a vehicle for both accreditation and resistance, providing insights into how communities internally validate their own norms and challenge external impositions.
By sharing stories that are uniquely their own, communities strengthen internal bonds and affirm their cultural identity. This storytelling acts as both a literal and metaphorical conversation among community members, where shared values and norms are continuously reaffirmed and negotiated. While myths and folktales serve different functions, they can often interact and overlap.
A narrative might start as a myth and evolve into folkloric tales as its religious significance diminishes but its cultural value as a story remains. Or, some folktales might be elevated to the status of myths when they become emblematic of national identity or acquire a profound cultural significance that aligns them with the foundational stories of a culture.
In SAT, the relationship between language, mythology, and cultural narratives highlights how societies manage and negotiate the boundaries of social accreditation. Myths operate through language, transforming history into nature, but they can also simplify complex signs and present them as straightforward and obvious, which might obscure their historical and cultural basis.
This process makes it difficult for people to question these myths because they appear to be inherent truths rather than constructed assertions. In terms of social accreditation, this aspect of myth can be seen in how certain behaviors or identities are normalized within a culture, thereby accrediting them without need for explicit validation.
Does this man look French to you? For example, Barthes discusses the portrayal of wine in French culture not just as an alcoholic beverage but as a ritualistic substance that is intrinsic to French identity, which naturalizes itself as a specific cultural norm and silences the complexities and contradictions involved in the act of wine consumption.
To Barthes, the point of mythology is to turn our stories of history into ideological truths that give us a system of values, that often become systems of facts and these values and norms form our individual identities and collective cultures.
I'm sharing this all to show that the explicit labels and classifications provided by language become implicit criteria for social accreditation. People navigate these criteria, consciously or unconsciously, in their pursuit of social validation.
Language can shape both societal interactions and power dynamics
"Language is a weapon of politicians, but language is a weapon in much of human affairs." - Noam Chomsky
In my post on conformity and normative influence, we talked about labeling theory, saying that when society labels or classifies certain behaviors, appearances, or identities with specific words, these labels come loaded with value judgements that affect the person or group being labeled.
This shows that labels like "successful," "failure," "normal," or "deviant" are not neutral. They carry weight (social capital) and can implicitly influence how people perceive themselves and others. These labels, in turn, become part of the criteria for social accreditation, where people strive to align with positive labels and avoid negative ones.
The work of the celebrated linguist, Noam Chomsky's also provides further insights into the relationship between language and power. His theory of generative grammar revolutionized our understanding of language structure, suggesting that all human languages share a common underlying structure, which he called "universal grammar." This idea supports the notion that our ability to create and understand complex linguistic structures is innate.
Chomsky's critique of media and propaganda, particularly in "Manufacturing Consent," highlights how language and communication are used by powerful entities to shape public perception and maintain social control. This concept aligns with the ideas of Barthes and Hurston, as it shows how language can be manipulated to perpetuate certain myths and societal norms, thus influencing social accreditation processes.
Chomsky's analysis of political discourse reveals how euphemistic language- for example, saying "collateral damage" instead of "civilian casualties" can desensitize the public and obscure the realities of power and conflict. You can also see this when refugees and immigrants are referred to as "aliens."
I'll definitely have more to say about the influence language has on power later, and I'll revisit Chomsky's work when we look at media and technology, but for now let's just remember that the manipulation of meaning in language can shape societal perceptions and it significantly influences what behaviors and identities are accredited or sanctioned.
Just by studying the evolution of specific signifiers and their associated concepts over time, we can uncover the subtle shifts in our values and norms. This structuralist approach helps us in unpacking the different ways that we validate or sanction each other based on the meaning we give to signs, but through SAT, we can also understand how our processes of accreditation transform the meanings of the signs we use. Language both reflects and shapes societal norms and values, leading to a dynamic and ongoing process of social validation and sanction. This interplay is central to understanding how meaning is constructed, maintained, and evolved within a society.
How Language Changes Culture Changes Language Changes Culture
"But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought." - George Orwell
Let's look at a few general examples to see how explicit accreditation (the sign) is influenced by implicit accreditation (the signifier) through cultural transmission processes that alter normative and informational influences in our communication behaviors.
Take the concept of "marriage," for instance. In the past, marriage primarily represented an arranged partnership between a man and a woman, often linked to economic and social stability. Although marriages were traditionally a religious ritual, the same language and mythology was adopted and used by the state to classify partnerships and households.
Through the modern structuring of our home and social lives, the tradition of marriage became a socially accredited norm, causing people to aspire for marriage as a way of validating their existence and role in society.
As cultural perspectives on gender and relationships have progressed, the meaning of marriage has transformed. It now commonly symbolizes the validation of long-term relationships and has extended to encompass same-sex unions, mirroring the broader acceptance and changing societal norms regarding relationships.
Michel Foucault, the historian and philosopher, argued that the concepts of homosexual and heterosexual identities as we understand them today did not emerge until the 19th century. In his work, particularly in "The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction," he show that society didn't initially categorize people based on their sexual preferences. Instead, sexual acts were seen as behaviors or practices rather than as defining features of a person’s identity.
Foucault emphasized that these identities were created through the ways societies talked about and regulated sexual behavior. This shift marked a change from seeing sexual acts as isolated behaviors to seeing them as indicators of a deeper personal identity.
In many cultures, gender has historically been understood and constructed in binary terms (male and female) due to deep-rooted social, religious, and legal norms. These classifications were associated with specific roles, behaviors, and expectations based on the context of social norms.
Implicitly, the everyday use of gendered language reinforces these norms by making them a routine part of our communication and thought processes. For example, in languages like Spanish, French, or German, nouns are gendered, which subtly reinforces the idea of a gender binary in speakers' minds. (More on binary thinking in future posts!)
In recent years, the language around gender has been evolving, terms like "non-binary," "genderqueer," and "genderfluid" have emerged, challenging the traditional norms and offering people new ways to seek and obtain social accreditation. As society starts to validate diverse gender identities, the language we use plays a crucial role in that validation process. This is what people mean when they champion representation or inclusivity.
Chomsky's influence shows how labels such as "minority," "immigrant," or specific racial or ethnic identifiers carry both implicit and explicit connotations based on our societal values and prejudices. For a marginalized person, navigating these labels can be extremely difficult. While we might have pride in our cultural or racial identity, cultural prejudices or stereotypes associated with these labels can deeply impact our feelings of inclusion, acceptance, and validation. (I've already mentioned that we'll touch more on race and social problems later but keep this in mind!)
Slurs and insensitive labels can spread among adolescence and throughout schools and lead young people to adopt and internalize harmful beliefs about themselves and others. But the very language used in our educational systems can also implicitly influence a students' self-worth and aspirations. Being placed in "advanced" classes or labeled as an "honor student" can influence your self-perception and future goals. Whereas being labeled as "problem child" or even "special needs" can lead to your capabilities and skills being underestimated by teachers and peers.
In the past, mental health challenges were often labeled with stigmatizing terms. Over time, as understanding grew, language evolved to describe these conditions in a more nuanced and compassionate manner. As society becomes more understanding of mental health, the language we use directly impacts individuals' feelings of validation or alienation. Being diagnosed with “clinical depression” as opposed to being labeled “crazy” can make a huge difference in how people perceive themselves and seek support.
Terms like "blue-collar," "white-collar," "upper class," "working class," and "underprivileged" explicitly classify people based on occupation or economic status. These classifications implicitly carry weight about a person’s perceived value or worth in society. They influence our aspirations, self-worth, and interactions. For instance in modern societies, someone labeled as "self-made" might receive significant social validation, emphasizing our cultural value around individual achievement and independence.
As I'll show in later posts, the mythology behind the so-called "American Dream" greatly emphasizes individual success and self-reliance in our cultural narratives. But I hope that at this point, you're starting to understand how language mediates these cultural narratives, and facilitates the feedback loops in social accreditation processes.
Language Also Shapes Perception and Understanding
"If we spoke a different language, we would perceive a somewhat different world." - Ludwig Wittgenstein
The labels and classifications provided by language, whether they be about gender, mental health, or economic status, play a pivotal role in the processes of social validation and sanctioning. In all these examples, we see that language doesn't merely describe reality; it helps shape it.
This linguistic relativity mirrors the emergence of cultural relativity that we covered in the last post. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is a principle of linguistic relativity that shows how the words and phrases that we commonly use can also shape our metacognition, or how we think about our own thinking. Consider how the different ways that grammar is constructed in a language can influence how people develop and follow their thoughts.
English, with its subject-verb-object structure, might encourage a linear way of organizing thoughts, while languages with more flexibility in sentence structure, like German or Russian, might have a more fluid and dynamic way of forming thoughts about thoughts. Some bilingual speakers even say they feel like they have a different personality or a different way of thinking in each language that they use.
The language we use provides us with specific cognitive tools that shape not only how we interpret the world around us but also how we reflect on our own cognitive and emotional experiences. Language doesn't just allow us to express what we think; it is essential in determining how we think and how we are aware of our own thinking processes.
Social Accreditation Theory hinges on the recursive mechanisms of social validation and sanctioning, asserting that societies employ both overt and subtle mechanisms to endorse or contest specific behaviors, beliefs, and identities. At the heart of these processes of language are cognitive faculties such as categorization, memory, and perception.
Categorization, a fundamental cognitive process, relies on discerning commonalities to group phenomena. Language helps make this happen, outlining and defining our classifications to offer linguistic frameworks that shape our perception and engagement with the environment.
Moreover, our memory, an essential repository of experiences, is intrinsically linked to language. The encoding, storage, and retrieval of memories are influenced by linguistic structures, and these memories, in turn, inform our behaviors and predispositions, subsequently feeding the cycle of social accreditation.
Furthermore, our perspective or our worldview, the lens through which we interpret our surroundings, is sculpted by linguistic nuances. Our interpretations guide our actions, which then navigate the terrain of social accreditation processes.
Just like the structure that shapes language is observable and explainable, modern structuralist and post-structuralist thinkers have begun analyzing how our very concept of self can be understood by revealing how our unique experiences, perspectives, and world views emerge from the culture we're apart of. This begins to have larger implications on subjectivity, autonomy, and free will.
This will be important for the next post, which will attempt to relate SAT to the cultural aspect of knowledge and explore developments through the philosophical field of epistemology. I hope you have a better understanding of how much the environment that you're born into, and the language you use everyday influences who you are and what you believe. Thank you for reading this!
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References/Further Reading:
Campbell, J. (1990). Transformations of myth through time. Harper & Row.
Chomsky, N., & Herman, E. S. (1988). Manufacturing consent: The political economy of the mass media. Pantheon Books.
DK. (2011). The Philosophy Book. DK Publishing.
Foucault, M. (1978). The history of sexuality, volume 1: An introduction (R. Hurley, Trans.). Pantheon Books.
Henrich, J. (2016). The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter. Princeton University Press.
Keller, H. (1903). The story of my life. Doubleday, Page & Co.
Quine, W. V. O. (1968). Ontological relativity. The Journal of Philosophy, 65(7), 185-212.
Ottenheimer, H. (2009). The anthropology of language : an introduction to linguistic anthropology (2nd ed). Wadsworth.
West, S. (2020). Episode 115-117. Philosophize This!. Retrieved from https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast
Yule, G. (2006). The study of language (3rd ed.). Cambridge University Press.