Euphemism and Metaphor

[Celso Alvarez Caccamo]

Mark Moore wrote:

> I was intrigued to hear that Chomsky was explicitly straying into
> sociolinguistic territory.  I scanned "Deterring Democracy" for similar
> explicit linguistic (as opposed to political) analysis for a (only
> half-sarcastic) quote for a review of an anthropological linguistics
> conference. Chomsky in that book from my cursory reading only analyzed
> language in a very general way. Can anyone suggest similar quotes from any
> other of his books where he might comment on language in the way that
> Celso's quote suggests?

I stand corrected. Chomsky does comments on the uses of
"humanitarian crisis", "ethnic cleansing" and "genocide", but his
comments are mostly about the former two, not "ethnic cleansing".
As for "semantic upgrading", let me clarify that that was
my interpretation of his words. So, I worded my message poorly.

>>From Znet, http://www.zmag.org :
=======================================
Two Print Interviews
and Two Audio Interviews
With Noam Chomsky

Radio Nation Interview via Real Audio
CBC Interview

Print Interview, April 8, 1999

Max Boehnel: Let's decode some of the language we are hearing around
this war. Can you comment on the use of the terms humanitarian crisis,
genocide, and ethnic cleaning as they are being applied to Kosovo?

Noam Chomsky: Well for starters, the concept called "humanitarian
crisis" has a technical meaning, which does not have much to do with
what might reasonably be assumed to be the defining criteria of the
term. The technical meaning of humanitarian crisis is a problem
somewhere that threatens the interest of rich and powerful people. That
is the essence of what makes it a crisis. Now, any disturbance in the
Balkans does threaten the interest of rich and powerful people, namely,
the elites of Europe and the US. So when there are humanitarian issues
in the Balkans, they become a humanitarian crisis. On the other hand, if
people slaughter each other in Sierra Leone or the Congo, it's not a
humanitarian crisis. As a matter of fact, Clinton just refused to
provide the relatively puny sum of $100,000 for a peace making force in
the Republic of the Congo which might well have averted a huge massacre.
But those deaths do not constitute a humanitarian crisis. Neither do the
many other deaths and tragedies to which the U.S. directly contributes:
the massacres in Colombia, for example, or the slaughters and expulsions
of people in southeastern Turkey, which is being carried out with
crucial support from Clinton. Those aren't humanitarian crises. But
Kosovo is a crisis because it is in the Balkans.

Now the term genocide, as applied to Kosovo is an insult to the victims
of Hitler. In fact, it's revisionist to an extreme. If this is genocide,
then there is genocide going on all over the world. And Bill Clinton is
decisively implementing a lot of it. If this is genocide, then what do
you call what is happening in the southeast of Turkey? The number of
refugees there is huge, it's already reached about half the level of
Palestinians expelled from Palestine.

If it increases further, it may reach the number of refugees in
Colombia, where the number of people killed every year by the army and
paramilitary groups armed and trained by the United States is
approximately the same as the number of people killed in Kosovo last
year.

Ethnic cleansing, on the other hand, is real. Unfortunately, it's
something that goes on and has been going on for a long time. It's no
big innovation. How come I'm living where I am instead of the original
people who lived here. Did they happily walk away?

===============================


Celso Alvarez Cáccamo              Tel. +34 981 167000 ext. 1888
Linguística Geral, Faculdade de Filologia     FAX +34 981 167151
Universidade da Corunha                          lxalvarz at udc.es
15071 A Corunha, Galiza (Espanha)   http://www.udc.es/dep/lx/cac