Page 179 - Beyond Methods

Fostering language awareness 167
While a critical reading of passages included in most L2 textbooks can provide opportunities for fostering CLA in the classroom, per- haps nothing is more useful for that purpose than supplementary materials such as government reports or newspaper articles. They have a tendency to use deceptive language to hide real intentions particularly when dealing with sensitive cultural or political issues. In his perceptive essay Politics and the English Language, George Orwell (1946) observed that the “great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s de- clared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and ex- hausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.”
The language of insincerity results in what is called doublespeak. According to William Lutz (1989, p. 1), doublespeak “is language that makes the bad seem good, the negative appear positive, the un- pleasant appear attractive or at least tolerable.” A detailed discourse analysis of newspaper and news magazine articles will yield telling examples of doublespeak that can be used in class for creating crit- ical language awareness. Brian Morgan (1998), for instance, cites a British newspaper article that printed a collection of terms used by the British media to describe the 1991 Gulf War. Here are some examples.
They have a war machine. Their men are brainwashed. They have propaganda. They destroy.
They kill (enemies).
They are ruthless.
Their missiles cause civilian
casualties.
Their planes are zapped.
We have army, navy and air force. Our boys are professional.
We have press briefings.
We take out.
We neutralize (enemies).
We are resolute.
Our missiles cause collateral damage.
Our planes fail to return from missions.
As these examples show, doublespeak is the result of a deliberate at- tempt to mislead and misinform. A critical engagement with polit- ical discourse appearing in newspapers and news magazines can go a long way in helping learners realize that language can conceal as much as it can reveal. Doublespeak is not limited to times of war; newspapers carry political discourses full of doublespeak other times as well (see the microstrategy 7.2 below).