essay about the power of words

Essay on The Power of Words

Students are often asked to write an essay on The Power of Words in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on The Power of Words

The power of words.

Words are more than just a means to communicate. They have the power to inspire, motivate, and change perspectives.

Words Inspire

Words can inspire us to achieve great things. They can encourage us to strive for success and never give up.

Words Motivate

Motivational words can help us to overcome challenges. They give us the strength to keep going when times are tough.

Words Change Perspectives

Words can change our views. They can help us see things from a different angle, opening our minds to new ideas and possibilities.

250 Words Essay on The Power of Words

The influence of verbal expressions.

Words, the foundation of human communication, are potent tools that shape our reality. They contain the power to inspire, motivate, and transform lives, as well as the capacity to demoralize, harm, and create discord.

Words as Catalysts of Change

Words can instigate revolutions and inspire social change. Historical figures like Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi utilized the power of words to galvanize masses, leading to significant societal transformations. Equally, in literature, authors use words to challenge prevailing norms, stimulate thought, and foster empathy.

The Destructive Power of Words

Conversely, words can also be destructive. They can perpetuate stereotypes, incite hatred, and trigger conflict. Words used irresponsibly, without consideration for their potential impact, can cause irreversible damage.

Words in the Digital Age

In the digital age, the power of words is amplified. Social media platforms provide a global stage where words can spread rapidly, influencing millions within seconds. This underscores the need for responsible communication to prevent the spread of misinformation and hate speech.

In conclusion, the power of words is undeniable. They shape our perceptions, influence our actions, and define our society. As such, we must wield them responsibly, understanding that our words can either build bridges or erect barriers. The choice is ours.

500 Words Essay on The Power of Words

The essence of words.

Words, the basic building blocks of communication, are more than mere symbols or sounds. They carry immense power, shaping our thoughts, actions, and the world around us. They can build bridges or erect walls, heal wounds or inflict pain, inspire revolutions or maintain status quo.

The Constructive Power of Words

Words have the power to create. They are the vessel through which we express our thoughts, emotions, and ideas. In literature, authors use words to craft vivid imagery, compelling narratives, and profound insights, transporting readers into different worlds. In science and philosophy, words articulate complex theories and abstract concepts, advancing human understanding.

The Power of Words in Interpersonal Relationships

In interpersonal relationships, words can nurture bonds, express love, and foster understanding. A well-chosen word can mend a broken relationship, while a harsh one can irreparably damage it. Words have the power to validate someone’s feelings, making them feel seen, heard, and understood.

However, the power of words is not always positive. Words can also destroy. They can breed hatred, instigate violence, and perpetuate stereotypes. Hate speech, for instance, uses words to marginalize, intimidate, and dehumanize certain groups, leading to social division and conflict.

The Power of Words in Politics and Society

In politics, words can be a tool for manipulation. Politicians use rhetoric to sway public opinion, sometimes spreading misinformation to further their agendas. However, words can also promote social change. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech used powerful words to galvanize the civil rights movement.

The Responsibility that Comes with the Power of Words

Given the power of words, it is essential to use them responsibly. This means being mindful of the potential impact of our words on others, striving for accuracy and truthfulness in our communication, and using words to promote understanding, respect, and peace.

Conclusion: The Enduring Power of Words

In conclusion, words are not just passive carriers of meaning. They are active agents in shaping our reality. They have the power to create and destroy, to heal and hurt, to enlighten and deceive. As wielders of this power, we have a responsibility to use words wisely and ethically. The power of words is a testament to the power of human communication and the profound impact it can have on our individual lives and society at large.

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The Power of Words

How to build verbal agility

Posted August 23, 2022 | Reviewed by Hara Estroff Marano

Words are enormously powerful tools that most people don’t fully appreciate. Although people recognize the importance of communication skills, they don’t necessarily grasp how to become more effective communicators.

When people develop true mental agility in working with language, they gain a range of skills that make them more highly effective communicators. Attuned to the nuances of words, they become expert at working in teams because they can communicate clearly and translate the real meaning of what one person says to another person. They are able to separate their emotional reaction to a report or news article from their cognitive reaction and as a result can glean what’s really significant. They can “read” other people by the words they use and the way they use them.

Language is a neurocognitive tool by which we can:

· Transmit and exchange information

· Influence and control the behavior of others

· Establish and demonstrate social cohesion, and

· Imagine and create new ways of experiencing life.

To appreciate the power and majesty of words, we have to recognize that they mean more than their dictionary definitions. Words require context to make them meaningful. We understand them in relation to other words. A single word such as light can evoke different images and emotions at different times: The Charge of the Light Brigade , a light snack, the light at the end of the tunnel, lighthearted, lightweight, lightbulb, light of my life, and more.

We understand others best when we can identify the purpose that frames the words. For example, reports are intended to help people crystallize a problem. A good report contains information that is verifiable. A good report writer carefully avoids inferences, judgments, and inflammatory language that might bias the reader and affect the quality of the work.

On the other hand, preachers, parents, teachers, propagandists, politicians, and employers use directives to influence and control the future behavior of their listeners or readers. Directives promise rewards and/or consequences. Those that have the strongest impact engage people’s emotions through the dramatic application of tone, rhyme, rhythm, and repetition, devices through which the message is embedded in our memory .

Words are so much a part of our human experience that we need to disengage ourselves from them. We disengage by turning words into objects—by playing word games. People who play with words are more conscious of the subtleties and innuendos that conversations contain and are less likely to be swayed by emotional appeals or fall victim to their own prejudices.

Difficult crossword puzzles, such as the New York Times crossword puzzle, force solvers to pursue increasingly subtle clues as the week progresses and the puzzles get harder. Think about all those people you know who brag that they do the New York Times crossword puzzle in ink. Doing the puzzle in ink intimates that their verbal agility is such that they won’t make mistakes and need to erase answers in order to try again.

Wordle erupted in popularity in 2021, making players guess a five-letter word by staring with a random guess. As the player guesses letters correctly, they appear in yellow or green—yellow means it’s in the day’s word and green means that it’s in the day’s word and you’ve put it in the correct place. Players are limited to six guesses. Guessing the day’s word with no other context but your vocabulary and understanding of spelling conventions forces players to think about words differently.

Turning One Word into Another

It takes a long time to learn to read and even longer to learn to read well. Once that threshold has been crossed, we become efficient readers. We read automatically—traffic signs, cereal boxes, billboards, t-shirts. In fact, we can’t stop ourselves from reading when we see what looks like a word.

In the verbal puzzle below, you will need to bring out your Wordle skills to understand how one word can follow a pattern to turn into a series of different words. The word on the far left on the first line is SEED and the word on the far right is PICK . In the example, you can see how changing one letter each time can get you from SEED to PICK. But you need to take into account what that last word is so that you can make the appropriate guesses.

SEED SEEK PEEK PECK PICK

HANK ____ ____ ____ PORT

HARE ____ ____ ____ COOK

MAUL ____ ____ ____ WILD

ROOD ____ ____ ____ LICK

HELP ____ ____ ____ ROAM

TEST ____ ____ ____ PORE

DILL ____ ____ ____ BOOT

TUBA ____ ____ ____ DONE

DIVE ____ ____ ____ HART

DUNK ____ ____ ____ BEET

MUST ____ ____ ____ DOCK

LIFE ____ ____ ____ DEBT

HAIR ____ ____ ____ DEAN

DELL ____ ____ ____ VOTE

MITT ____ ____ ____ PACE

What makes the puzzle hard is that you have to switch between thinking abstractly and thinking concretely. The puzzle would be easy if all you had to do was randomly replace letters. By having to come up with a legitimate word each time, as in Wordle , you have to think through the words you know. Puzzles like this one help breed verbal agility.

HANK HARK PARK PART PORT

HARE CARE CORE CORK COOK

MAUL MALL WALL WILL WILD

ROOD ROOK ROCK LOCK LICK

HELP HEAP REAP REAM ROAM

TEST PEST POST PORT PORE

DILL DOLL BOLL BOLT BOOT

TUBA TUBE TUNE TONE DONE

DIVE HIVE HAVE HATE HART

DUNK BUNK BUNT BENT BEET

MUST DUST DUSK DUCK DOCK

LIFE LIFT LEFT DEFT DEBT

HAIR HEIR HEAR DEAR DEAN

DELL DOLL DOLE DOTE VOTE

MITT MITE MICE MACE PACE

Donalee Markus, Ph.D., specializes in the clinical application of neuroscience to rehabilitate concussion, stroke, and traumatic brain injury, enhance academic performance, and maintain memory skills.

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The Irrefutable Power Of Words

You’ve experienced the power of words in a way you will never forget. Even now, the memory lingers.

How could a few small words have such a big impact on your life?

Words have power . And only when you experienced that power yourself — either as the giver or as the receiver — did you begin to understand it.

You can use the power of words to heal or comfort others. Or you can use it to tear them down. Your character shapes and is shaped by the way you use this power.

So, how can you make the most of it?

Examples of the Power of Spoken Words

Examples of the power of written words, why are words so powerful for humans, 1. speak the truth., 2. avoid exaggerations., 3. don’t use double standards., 4. don’t use your words to manipulate others., 5. be consistent in what you say., 6. speak mindfully., 7. use words to benefit others..

When was the last time you heard spoken words that changed your perspective on something or someone? Maybe the words felt like a sucker punch.

Or maybe they lit you up inside and inspired you to make a change.

Consider the following examples of spoken words:

• Speeches and Lectures
• Song Lyrics
• Conversations (spoken)
• Audiobooks or Podcasts
• Movies or TV shows

Now, see if you can recall any memories of negative words for each of these samples.

Are there songs you find difficult to listen to because of the negative lyrics? Or have you been avoiding someone because of a recent negative outburst?

Maybe you’re thinking of negative words you’ve never heard but that felt, in your mind, as though they’d been spoken aloud – and directly to you.

Guess what’s next.

Written words also have power — for the one who writes them and for those who read them.

You’ve felt this power. And maybe you’ve wielded it yourself.

Maybe you even consider it your superpower. You’re not wrong to call it that.

Consider the following examples:

• Journal entries
• Articles / Blog Posts
• Letters, Notes, and Emails
• Stories and Poems
• Awards / Commendations or Written Reprimands
• Books and Book Reviews

Never underestimate the power of a thoughtful note — or a love poem — or a compelling story.

The right words draw you in and build connections. The wrong words destroy relationships or prevent them from ever being built.

This is why marketers pay well for effective copywriting .

If your words can connect with your target audience and persuade them that paying for a particular product or service will change their life for the better, you most definitely have a superpower.

Use it for good.

Humans are the only species on this planet that has the power of speech and of the written word (as far as we know).

But in spite of the creative potential this power gives us, we spend more time exploring its destructive potential.

And we sabotage our own health and happiness when we do.

According to functional MRI scans (fMRI ), just looking at a list of negative words (including the word “NO”) worsens anxiety and depression.

And dwelling on those words can actually damage key structures in the brain — including those responsible for memory, feelings, and emotions.

Vocalizing that negativity releases more stress hormones, not only in you but in those who hear you.

Even silent worrying (about money, relationships, work, etc.) stimulates the release of neurochemicals that make you and those around you feel worse.

Empaths are particularly sensitive to this, but everyone around you is affected to some degree. And you as the ruminator suffer the most.

So, how can you turn things around?

7 Tips for Making Your Written and Spoken Words Powerful

“Words have the power to both destroy and heal. When words are both true and kind, they can change our world.” — Gautama Buddha

Trust is built on honesty; people want to know they can depend on you to tell them the truth, even when it hurts to hear it (and even if it makes you look bad).

There are times when lying can save a life. But in most cases, with relationships, a reputation for lying will rob you of your power to connect with them.

Without truth behind them, your words lose their meaning and become empty noise.

Saying “You never….” or “You always…” to berate others ensures that your negative message about them (which is personal) will eclipse whatever message you’re trying to send.

Very few people are consistent enough to “always” leave the toilet seat up or to “never” take out the garbage. And they know that.

So, if you accuse them of a perfect record of thoughtlessness, their own disagreement with your memory will make it difficult to pick up on the underlying request.

Double standards are when you have different rules or different expectations of two or more different people of equal ability in the same situation.

For example, if your employer, Biff, tells one employee, Jack, that all he needs to do is X and Y but then he tells Sally she’ll have to X, Y, and Z — and in less time — to receive the same reward (or 79% of it), he’s using the power of words (and money) to impose a double standard.

And once he does and word gets around, Biff’s own words will create an atmosphere of injustice.

No one wants to work for an employer who devalues and exploits others.

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Marketing isn’t about using words to pressure or manipulate people into spending their money on whatever you’re selling.

Neither is it about competing with other marketers to see who can use their words more effectively to make customers feel things.

If the only reason you’re trying to build a connection is to get something from the other person, they’ll pick up on that.

And even if you do persuade them to buy something, it’ll leave skid marks in their memory.

They’ll remember you as someone who used the power of words to line your own pockets at their expense. And their regret is your loss.

Consistency is saying or doing the same thing regardless of the circumstances, as long as those words or actions still apply.

It is possible to overdo consistency. And none of us is perfect.

But when it comes to the power of words, you don’t want to give anyone the impression that your words and actions will change whenever you feel the slightest pressure to change them — regardless of the consequences.

If someone’s words change too easily, they’re the verbal equivalent of shifting sands. You can’t build anything on them that won’t fall apart.

Fickle words have no power.

A daily mindfulness practice trains you to be aware of your thoughts and feelings, without judging them.

So, you can acknowledge that someone’s words or actions have made you feel devalued or manipulated.

But you don’t have to avenge your ego by using words as defense weapons.

You retain your power when you take a step back and use your words to restore balance instead.

When you use the power of beautiful words to express empathy rather than anger or condescension, you put the good of the souls involved ahead of your own impulses. You might also enjoy these mindfulness journal prompts .

Karma demands that we pay for every unkind word we speak or write. Every time we use the power of words against another soul, we guarantee that, sooner or later, we’ll experience the same pain we’ve inflicted.

Think of that the next time you look back at a conversation and wish you’d used the comeback that came to mind a half-hour later.

Or, better yet, think of that when you’re about to say (or write) a scathing response to someone who has verbally attacked you.

Even if you succeed in turning their own words against them, you’ll eventually realize that the victory wasn’t worth the alienation you caused.

Use your power to build them up instead.

Will you take advantage of the power of words?

Asking questions instead of resting on statements is another way to benefit from the power of words.

Questions open your mind, while statements (assumptions, snap judgments, and fixed beliefs) close it.

If you pride yourself on keeping an open mind — about people, ideas, and situations — you should be using words to ask more questions rather than to utter statements no one is allowed to question.

The words you speak can either promote growth and connection or undermine it.

Take a moment today to think of the words you want to be remembered for. Before you speak, think of the words you’d want to say if they were your last.

May the words you choose bless everyone who hears (or reads) them today.

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The power of language: How words shape people, culture

Speaking, writing and reading are integral to everyday life, where language is the primary tool for expression and communication. Studying how people use language – what words and phrases they unconsciously choose and combine – can help us better understand ourselves and why we behave the way we do.

Linguistics scholars seek to determine what is unique and universal about the language we use, how it is acquired and the ways it changes over time. They consider language as a cultural, social and psychological phenomenon.

“Understanding why and how languages differ tells about the range of what is human,” said Dan Jurafsky , the Jackson Eli Reynolds Professor in Humanities and chair of the Department of Linguistics in the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford . “Discovering what’s universal about languages can help us understand the core of our humanity.”

The stories below represent some of the ways linguists have investigated many aspects of language, including its semantics and syntax, phonetics and phonology, and its social, psychological and computational aspects.

Understanding stereotypes

Stanford linguists and psychologists study how language is interpreted by people. Even the slightest differences in language use can correspond with biased beliefs of the speakers, according to research.

One study showed that a relatively harmless sentence, such as “girls are as good as boys at math,” can subtly perpetuate sexist stereotypes. Because of the statement’s grammatical structure, it implies that being good at math is more common or natural for boys than girls, the researchers said.

Language can play a big role in how we and others perceive the world, and linguists work to discover what words and phrases can influence us, unknowingly.

How well-meaning statements can spread stereotypes unintentionally

New Stanford research shows that sentences that frame one gender as the standard for the other can unintentionally perpetuate biases.

Algorithms reveal changes in stereotypes

New Stanford research shows that, over the past century, linguistic changes in gender and ethnic stereotypes correlated with major social movements and demographic changes in the U.S. Census data.

Exploring what an interruption is in conversation

Stanford doctoral candidate Katherine Hilton found that people perceive interruptions in conversation differently, and those perceptions differ depending on the listener’s own conversational style as well as gender.

Cops speak less respectfully to black community members

Professors Jennifer Eberhardt and Dan Jurafsky, along with other Stanford researchers, detected racial disparities in police officers’ speech after analyzing more than 100 hours of body camera footage from Oakland Police.

How other languages inform our own

People speak roughly 7,000 languages worldwide. Although there is a lot in common among languages, each one is unique, both in its structure and in the way it reflects the culture of the people who speak it.

Jurafsky said it’s important to study languages other than our own and how they develop over time because it can help scholars understand what lies at the foundation of humans’ unique way of communicating with one another.

“All this research can help us discover what it means to be human,” Jurafsky said.

Stanford PhD student documents indigenous language of Papua New Guinea

Fifth-year PhD student Kate Lindsey recently returned to the United States after a year of documenting an obscure language indigenous to the South Pacific nation.

Students explore Esperanto across Europe

In a research project spanning eight countries, two Stanford students search for Esperanto, a constructed language, against the backdrop of European populism.

Chris Manning: How computers are learning to understand language​

A computer scientist discusses the evolution of computational linguistics and where it’s headed next.

Stanford research explores novel perspectives on the evolution of Spanish

Using digital tools and literature to explore the evolution of the Spanish language, Stanford researcher Cuauhtémoc García-García reveals a new historical perspective on linguistic changes in Latin America and Spain.

Language as a lens into behavior

Linguists analyze how certain speech patterns correspond to particular behaviors, including how language can impact people’s buying decisions or influence their social media use.

For example, in one research paper, a group of Stanford researchers examined the differences in how Republicans and Democrats express themselves online to better understand how a polarization of beliefs can occur on social media.

“We live in a very polarized time,” Jurafsky said. “Understanding what different groups of people say and why is the first step in determining how we can help bring people together.”

Analyzing the tweets of Republicans and Democrats

New research by Dora Demszky and colleagues examined how Republicans and Democrats express themselves online in an attempt to understand how polarization of beliefs occurs on social media.

Examining bilingual behavior of children at Texas preschool

A Stanford senior studied a group of bilingual children at a Spanish immersion preschool in Texas to understand how they distinguished between their two languages.

Predicting sales of online products from advertising language

Stanford linguist Dan Jurafsky and colleagues have found that products in Japan sell better if their advertising includes polite language and words that invoke cultural traditions or authority.

Language can help the elderly cope with the challenges of aging, says Stanford professor

By examining conversations of elderly Japanese women, linguist Yoshiko Matsumoto uncovers language techniques that help people move past traumatic events and regain a sense of normalcy.

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The Power of Words

• Lucy Swedberg

How language connects, differentiates, and enlightens us

Four new books investigate how language connects, differentiates, and enlightens us. Viorica Marian’s The Power of Language explores the benefits of multilingualism. People who are multilingual perform better on executive-functioning tasks, for instance, and draw more novel connections.

In A Myriad of Tongues, author Caleb Everett notes that more than 7,000 languages exist today. And while academics traditionally looked for commonalities among languages, recent research has focused on how languages diverge, and what those differences can teach us.

A third book, Magic Words, by Wharton professor Jonah Berger, examines how specific words can carry an oversize impact, making them more likely to change hearts and minds or drive change.

By contrast, Dan Lyons’s STFU reminds readers that sometimes saying nothing is the best approach. “All of us,” he writes, “stand to gain by speaking less, listening more, and communicating with intention.” His book offers advice on how to do that, whether online, at work, or at home.

About a year ago, a friend suggested that I enroll in an adult tap-dance class held at our town’s community center. The suggestion wasn’t as random as it might seem. For nearly two decades in my youth, I had loved tapping in classes and onstage. And when I laced up those black leather shoes after a nearly 20-year hiatus, I felt instantly at home.

• LS Lucy Swedberg is an executive editor at Harvard Business Publishing, focused on education.

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The Power of Words, Simone Weil

• 15 October, 2021

Simone Weil wrote the essay, ‘The Power of Words’ , when she was twenty-five after she returned from the Spanish Civil War where she had joined the Republican faction. Weil had already visited Germany in 1932 where she was concerned about the rise of the fascists, her concerns validated after Hitler rose to power in 1933. It was during this social and political turmoil in Europe, on the brink of World War II, that Weil’s prophetic voice rang out in this searing essay. But her diagnosis of what besets contemporary society in her time can still speak to us today.

For Weil, the mis-use of words—the way they are used to obscure rather than grasp reality—was leading society into unending conflict. The greatest danger she saw unfolding was the use of ‘empty words’ given ‘capital letters’ that were used as a banner or hostile slogan, by means of which, “on the slightest pretext, men will begin shedding blood for them and piling up ruin in their name, without effectively grasping anything to which they refer…”. It is their very lack of meaning that makes it impossible to define clear objectives in a conflict or to measure whether the cost justifies the effort—and sacrifices—it demands. The result is that in such conflicts the only barometer of success is the extermination of the enemy.

For Weil, this gave contemporary conflict its unreal nature, based as it was on the use of words that do not refer to concrete reality but abstract entities. Words misused in her time, but also in ours, include those such as: nation, security, capitalism, communism, fascism, order, authority, property and democracy. “If we grasp one of these words,” Simone Weil writes, “all swollen with blood and tears, and squeeze it, we find it is empty. Words with content and meaning are not murderous.”

Take for example, the words ‘nation’ and ‘national interest.’ Weil contends that if we examine the way these terms have been used in modern history, the national interest of every State has been in retaining its capacity to make war, while at the same time depriving all other countries of it. Yet our leaders will call forth people to defend the ‘nation’ and the ‘national interest,’ as if there were a real opposition of interest between nations. If that were the case, she argues, nations would be able to negotiate and bargain for their interests. These calls amount to nothing other than defending the nation’s capacity to make war. “For the word national and the expressions of which it forms part are empty of all meaning; their only content is millions of corpses, and orphans, and disabled men, and tears and despair.”

Take for example, the words ‘nation’ and ‘national interest.’ Weil contends that if we examine the way these terms have been used in modern history, the national interest of every State has been in retaining its capacity to make war, while at the same time depriving all other countries of it.

Empty words then are illusory, meaning everything and nothing; but they are attached to real, material things. Although the word ‘nation’ and the way it is used in sloganeering is abstract and empty, the State and its affiliated apparatuses is very real. The supposed opposition between fascism and communism was an imaginary distinction for Weil, on closer analysis she believed they actually reflected “identical political and social conceptions.” But in her time, two very real oppositional political organisations existed whose aim was complete power and elimination of the other, with people on both sides willing to die and to kill for these words. “Corresponding to each empty abstraction there is an actual human group…”

Weil’s diagnosis was that words were no longer used as signs to help us grasp some aspect of concrete reality. But even more dire than that, she argued that we have also lost the capacity to use words with measure and proportion. Phrases such as ‘to the extent that’ and ideas such as degree, limit, comparison, contingency and interdependence, amongst others, are no longer used. For example, “There is democracy to the extent that … or: There is capitalism in so far as …” Instead, words are used as if reflecting an absolute, immutable reality, and “at the same time we make all these words mean, successively or simultaneously, anything whatsoever.” 

Words lose their meaning when they become reified as things in themselves, rather than the means to judge and ascertain the state of social structures. We essentialise people and parties as belonging inherently to certain words like dictatorship or democracy, such that, “our political universe is peopled exclusively by myths and monsters; all it contains is absolutes and abstract entities.” We seek to crush those who belong to the ‘other’ side of that abstract word. We don’t seek to examine the variations, the changing causes of phenomena, the specific conditions that give rise to them, and the limits within which they occur, in order to come up with solutions that have some discernment; solutions that actually might work because they address specific issues and have concrete objectives, other than just defeating the other side. Instead, “we act and strive and sacrifice ourselves and others by reference to fixed and isolated abstractions…”

These words resonate across the more than eighty years since Weil wrote them. It could be argued that a lack of nuance, measure and proportion in how we use our words and in our thinking is a real mark of our times. In the age of social media, clickbait, and ‘content’ creation, much discussion is levelled out to bitesize pieces, to easy arguments where you’re either for or against, to a descent into facile comparisons. The poet Kaveh Akbar made this point about why he needed time off from Twitter:

“On social media, the same rhetorical language was being used about the casting of some Marvel movie as about the leveling of a village in Syria. The same exact rhetorical algorithms of outrage were used to talk about one as the other. Our brains haven’t evolved enough to differentiate between the two. Language is language. And so I was just not in command of my compassion, the distribution and focus of my rage, and it took a while to recalibrate.”

Short attention spans and a tendency towards simplification have perhaps always existed, but this seems to be turbo charged in our current era, where the ‘content’ that reaches us is often determined by algorithms that increasingly seal us off into echo chambers. In our pandemic times this is nowhere more illustrated than in the vaccination debate. Either you are unequivocally for vaccines and worship at the altar of medical science, or you are an anti-vaxxer and believer of vast and incredible conspiracies, mainly linked to the threat of our supposed freedom. Each side goes to ‘war’ with the other with no real measure of what the multiple issues are, no discernment about how what is true is dependent on certain conditions (instead vaccines are either always good, or always bad) and in relation to a host of factors.

It is true that social media has provided a powerful platform for marginalised groups in society. Giving a voice to groups of people who have been previously left out is to be lauded, as it is redistributing some of the power (if power is also about having a platform to be heard), and there have been many instances of social media being used to mobilise movements such as #MeToo and pro-democracy protests such as the Umbrella Movement (as well as its opposite).

Source image: Wikimedia

But the nature of the platform—word limits, algorithms, scrolling that has fractured our attention—has also meant that it has flattened a lot of debate. Debate is also a good word that characterizes much of the discourse on social media, focused as it is more on winning an argument rather than having a conversation or discussion, where there might be mutual listening and an attempt to understand the ‘other side.’

In discussions of the issues of the day, we can’t seem to hold differing ideas or understandings in tension for long enough to explore nuance, tease out implications, bring underlying assumptions or commitments to the surface. By contrast, the measured and proportionate words Weil advocates the use of can allow us to discern and grasp the fuller meaning and reality of something ; and if nothing is absolute, then it becomes possible to entertain the fact that a seemingly contradictory thing can also be true, to a certain extent. 

We need to determine to what extent the nuances of conflicting things can be true if we are to apprehend reality properly rather than flattening it out—if we are to propose goals and solutions that actually address concrete issues rather than just merely be used for abstract sloganeering and banner waving. In that sense, for our times Weil’s call to revive the use of expressions like to the extent that, in so far as, on condition that, in relation to, is more necessary than ever. 

Discernment, analysis, measured words —these are the tools which could be an antidote against what Weil termed “the swarm of vacuous entities or abstractions.” Perhaps even more than in her time, our contemporary culture cultivates this ‘swarm.’ The pandemic might have been a time for us to sit back and reflect on what we are doing and where we are headed, individually and as a society. As the world slowly opens up again, will we retreat to how things were before the pandemic, continuing to move at a breakneck pace, or will we have learnt from the past couple of years, where perhaps a space has opened up for questioning business as usual?

In Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Future , Pope Francis touches on the need to rediscover the art of discernment . This is surely connected to Weil’s appeal to a greater discernment in how we use words, so that outcomes are based on apprehending the reality of a given situation and addressing concrete objectives, rather than the desire to compete and win against our supposed opponents. 

This call for discernment is also surely linked to a contemplative approach not only to social and political issues, but also to the way in which we individually and institutionally engage in processes that are capable of this discernment, reflection and mutual listening. As Sarah Bachelard terms it, this way of being could form the basis of a ‘contemplative politics.’ She asks: 

The words we use will be of significance in this process. As Weil understood, words have the power to illuminate, but also to obscure; to lead to unending conflict, but also to greater consciousness. 

‘The Power of Words’ essay published in Simone Weil : An Anthology, edited and introduced by Sian Miles (Penguin Modern Classics)

Featured image source: Google Images

3 thoughts on “The Power of Words, Simone Weil”

This article seems to skirt the real issues we face with regard to words today – that being the suppression of free speech (called misinformation/disinformation) with the resultant cancellation of persons in the most cruel ways. Never have I seen such a world of lies. Words are being misused. Meanings of words are being altered (vaccine definition altered to accommodate the fact that the vax does not give immunity) New words are being created (e.g. the gender identity phenomena) Platforms for conversation have become a means of propagandizing rather than discussing – via algorithms. Twitter leadership , for instance, has an agenda, and it does not serve free speech. We are at a transformational point in history where things can go very badly.

What we have to recognize is the use of words that promote international authoritarianism. Even movements concerning the environment are being used by these authoritarians with “words” that appeal to good-hearted people but at their core will lead to power being concentrated in the hands of those who really seek control over others. Look at the ACTIONS, rather than the words of the “climate crisis” pied pipers. They live in luxury, travel on private planes to climate conferences, AND they refuse to use their words to challenge the world’s biggest polluters. Why? Fear of retaliation? What is your “social score”?

Where is TRUTH in all these words we hear in the media? Our words must serve freedom and truth. “By their fruits, you shall know them.” Not by their words.

My worst word is refugie crise. It is a word that puts the Rich countries in Europe in the center. But the real crises are the War, the narko produktion and the hunger, which make people flee their homelands. You could say the same about climatcrise. The climat is the climat and Can not be in crisis. But our society is in crisis because of our own behavour. The climate just react naturally on our inpact. By calling the two subjects crisis our responsability is blurred.

This article really makes me think about the words i use, and to really examine where i stand on some of the “issues” of our day. Simone Weil is an author i need to read and discuss with others.

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Language and power.

• Sik Hung Ng Sik Hung Ng Department of Psychology, Renmin University of China
•  and  Fei Deng Fei Deng School of Foreign Studies, South China Agricultural University
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.436
• Published online: 22 August 2017

Five dynamic language–power relationships in communication have emerged from critical language studies, sociolinguistics, conversation analysis, and the social psychology of language and communication. Two of them stem from preexisting powers behind language that it reveals and reflects, thereby transferring the extralinguistic powers to the communication context. Such powers exist at both the micro and macro levels. At the micro level, the power behind language is a speaker’s possession of a weapon, money, high social status, or other attractive personal qualities—by revealing them in convincing language, the speaker influences the hearer. At the macro level, the power behind language is the collective power (ethnolinguistic vitality) of the communities that speak the language. The dominance of English as a global language and international lingua franca, for example, has less to do with its linguistic quality and more to do with the ethnolinguistic vitality of English-speakers worldwide that it reflects. The other three language–power relationships refer to the powers of language that are based on a language’s communicative versatility and its broad range of cognitive, communicative, social, and identity functions in meaning-making, social interaction, and language policies. Such language powers include, first, the power of language to maintain existing dominance in legal, sexist, racist, and ageist discourses that favor particular groups of language users over others. Another language power is its immense impact on national unity and discord. The third language power is its ability to create influence through single words (e.g., metaphors), oratories, conversations and narratives in political campaigns, emergence of leaders, terrorist narratives, and so forth.

• power behind language
• power of language
• intergroup communication
• World Englishes
• oratorical power
• conversational power
• leader emergence
• al-Qaeda narrative
• social identity approach

Introduction

Language is for communication and power.

Language is a natural human system of conventionalized symbols that have understood meanings. Through it humans express and communicate their private thoughts and feelings as well as enact various social functions. The social functions include co-constructing social reality between and among individuals, performing and coordinating social actions such as conversing, arguing, cheating, and telling people what they should or should not do. Language is also a public marker of ethnolinguistic, national, or religious identity, so strong that people are willing to go to war for its defense, just as they would defend other markers of social identity, such as their national flag. These cognitive, communicative, social, and identity functions make language a fundamental medium of human communication. Language is also a versatile communication medium, often and widely used in tandem with music, pictures, and actions to amplify its power. Silence, too, adds to the force of speech when it is used strategically to speak louder than words. The wide range of language functions and its versatility combine to make language powerful. Even so, this is only one part of what is in fact a dynamic relationship between language and power. The other part is that there is preexisting power behind language which it reveals and reflects, thereby transferring extralinguistic power to the communication context. It is thus important to delineate the language–power relationships and their implications for human communication.

This chapter provides a systematic account of the dynamic interrelationships between language and power, not comprehensively for lack of space, but sufficiently focused so as to align with the intergroup communication theme of the present volume. The term “intergroup communication” will be used herein to refer to an intergroup perspective on communication, which stresses intergroup processes underlying communication and is not restricted to any particular form of intergroup communication such as interethnic or intergender communication, important though they are. It echoes the pioneering attempts to develop an intergroup perspective on the social psychology of language and communication behavior made by pioneers drawn from communication, social psychology, and cognate fields (see Harwood et al., 2005 ). This intergroup perspective has fostered the development of intergroup communication as a discipline distinct from and complementing the discipline of interpersonal communication. One of its insights is that apparently interpersonal communication is in fact dynamically intergroup (Dragojevic & Giles, 2014 ). For this and other reasons, an intergroup perspective on language and communication behavior has proved surprisingly useful in revealing intergroup processes in health communication (Jones & Watson, 2012 ), media communication (Harwood & Roy, 2005 ), and communication in a variety of organizational contexts (Giles, 2012 ).

The major theoretical foundation that has underpinned the intergroup perspective is social identity theory (Tajfel, 1982 ), which continues to service the field as a metatheory (Abrams & Hogg, 2004 ) alongside relatively more specialized theories such as ethnolinguistic identity theory (Harwood et al., 1994 ), communication accommodation theory (Palomares et al., 2016 ), and self-categorization theory applied to intergroup communication (Reid et al., 2005 ). Against this backdrop, this chapter will be less concerned with any particular social category of intergroup communication or variant of social identity theory, and more with developing a conceptual framework of looking at the language–power relationships and their implications for understanding intergroup communication. Readers interested in an intra- or interpersonal perspective may refer to the volume edited by Holtgraves ( 2014a ).

Conceptual Approaches to Power

Bertrand Russell, logician cum philosopher and social activist, published a relatively little-known book on power when World War II was looming large in Europe (Russell, 2004 ). In it he asserted the fundamental importance of the concept of power in the social sciences and likened its importance to the concept of energy in the physical sciences. But unlike physical energy, which can be defined in a formula (e.g., E=MC 2 ), social power has defied any such definition. This state of affairs is not unexpected because the very nature of (social) power is elusive. Foucault ( 1979 , p. 92) has put it this way: “Power is everywhere, not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere.” This view is not beyond criticism but it does highlight the elusiveness of power. Power is also a value-laden concept meaning different things to different people. To functional theorists and power-wielders, power is “power to,” a responsibility to unite people and do good for all. To conflict theorists and those who are dominated, power is “power over,” which corrupts and is a source of social conflict rather than integration (Lenski, 1966 ; Sassenberg et al., 2014 ). These entrenched views surface in management–labor negotiations and political debates between government and opposition. Management and government would try to frame the negotiation in terms of “power to,” whereas labor and opposition would try to frame the same in “power over” in a clash of power discourses. The two discourses also interchange when the same speakers reverse their power relations: While in opposition, politicians adhere to “power over” rhetorics, once in government, they talk “power to.” And vice versa.

The elusive and value-laden nature of power has led to a plurality of theoretical and conceptual approaches. Five approaches that are particularly pertinent to the language–power relationships will be discussed, and briefly so because of space limitation. One approach views power in terms of structural dominance in society by groups who own and/or control the economy, the government, and other social institutions. Another approach views power as the production of intended effects by overcoming resistance that arises from objective conflict of interests or from psychological reactance to being coerced, manipulated, or unfairly treated. A complementary approach, represented by Kurt Lewin’s field theory, takes the view that power is not the actual production of effects but the potential for doing this. It looks behind power to find out the sources or bases of this potential, which may stem from the power-wielders’ access to the means of punishment, reward, and information, as well as from their perceived expertise and legitimacy (Raven, 2008 ). A fourth approach views power in terms of the balance of control/dependence in the ongoing social exchange between two actors that takes place either in the absence or presence of third parties. It provides a structural account of power-balancing mechanisms in social networking (Emerson, 1962 ), and forms the basis for combining with symbolic interaction theory, which brings in subjective factors such as shared social cognition and affects for the analysis of power in interpersonal and intergroup negotiation (Stolte, 1987 ). The fifth, social identity approach digs behind the social exchange account, which has started from control/dependence as a given but has left it unexplained, to propose a three-process model of power emergence (Turner, 2005 ). According to this model, it is psychological group formation and associated group-based social identity that produce influence; influence then cumulates to form the basis of power, which in turn leads to the control of resources.

Common to the five approaches above is the recognition that power is dynamic in its usage and can transform from one form of power to another. Lukes ( 2005 ) has attempted to articulate three different forms or faces of power called “dimensions.” The first, behavioral dimension of power refers to decision-making power that is manifest in the open contest for dominance in situations of objective conflict of interests. Non-decision-making power, the second dimension, is power behind the scene. It involves the mobilization of organizational bias (e.g., agenda fixing) to keep conflict of interests from surfacing to become public issues and to deprive oppositions of a communication platform to raise their voices, thereby limiting the scope of decision-making to only “safe” issues that would not challenge the interests of the power-wielder. The third dimension is ideological and works by socializing people’s needs and values so that they want the wants and do the things wanted by the power-wielders, willingly as their own. Conflict of interests, opposition, and resistance would be absent from this form of power, not because they have been maneuvered out of the contest as in the case of non-decision-making power, but because the people who are subject to power are no longer aware of any conflict of interest in the power relationship, which may otherwise ferment opposition and resistance. Power in this form can be exercised without the application of coercion or reward, and without arousing perceived manipulation or conflict of interests.

Language–Power Relationships

As indicated in the chapter title, discussion will focus on the language–power relationships, and not on language alone or power alone, in intergroup communication. It draws from all the five approaches to power and can be grouped for discussion under the power behind language and the power of language. In the former, language is viewed as having no power of its own and yet can produce influence and control by revealing the power behind the speaker. Language also reflects the collective/historical power of the language community that uses it. In the case of modern English, its preeminent status as a global language and international lingua franca has shaped the communication between native and nonnative English speakers because of the power of the English-speaking world that it reflects, rather than because of its linguistic superiority. In both cases, language provides a widely used conventional means to transfer extralinguistic power to the communication context. Research on the power of language takes the view that language has power of its own. This power allows a language to maintain the power behind it, unite or divide a nation, and create influence.

In Figure 1 we have grouped the five language–power relationships into five boxes. Note that the boundary between any two boxes is not meant to be rigid but permeable. For example, by revealing the power behind a message (box 1), a message can create influence (box 5). As another example, language does not passively reflect the power of the language community that uses it (box 2), but also, through its spread to other language communities, generates power to maintain its preeminence among languages (box 3). This expansive process of language power can be seen in the rise of English to global language status. A similar expansive process also applies to a particular language style that first reflects the power of the language subcommunity who uses the style, and then, through its common acceptance and usage by other subcommunities in the country, maintains the power of the subcommunity concerned. A prime example of this type of expansive process is linguistic sexism, which reflects preexisting male dominance in society and then, through its common usage by both sexes, contributes to the maintenance of male dominance. Other examples are linguistic racism and the language style of the legal profession, each of which, like linguistic sexism and the preeminence of the English language worldwide, has considerable impact on individuals and society at large.

Space precludes a full discussion of all five language–power relationships. Instead, some of them will warrant only a brief mention, whereas others will be presented in greater detail. The complexity of the language–power relations and their cross-disciplinary ramifications will be evident in the multiple sets of interrelated literatures that we cite from. These include the social psychology of language and communication, critical language studies (Fairclough, 1989 ), sociolinguistics (Kachru, 1992 ), and conversation analysis (Sacks et al., 1974 ).

Figure 1. Power behind language and power of language.

Power Behind Language

Language reveals power.

When negotiating with police, a gang may issue the threatening message, “Meet our demands, or we will shoot the hostages!” The threatening message may succeed in coercing the police to submit; its power, however, is more apparent than real because it is based on the guns gangsters posses. The message merely reveals the power of a weapon in their possession. Apart from revealing power, the gangsters may also cheat. As long as the message comes across as credible and convincing enough to arouse overwhelming fear, it would allow them to get away with their demands without actually possessing any weapon. In this case, language is used to produce an intended effect despite resistance by deceptively revealing a nonexisting power base and planting it in the mind of the message recipient. The literature on linguistic deception illustrates the widespread deceptive use of language-reveals-power to produce intended effects despite resistance (Robinson, 1996 ).

Language Reflects Power

Ethnolinguistic vitality.

The language that a person uses reflects the language community’s power. A useful way to think about a language community’s linguistic power is through the ethnolinguistic vitality model (Bourhis et al., 1981 ; Harwood et al., 1994 ). Language communities in a country vary in absolute size overall and, just as important, a relative numeric concentration in particular regions. Francophone Canadians, though fewer than Anglophone Canadians overall, are concentrated in Quebec to give them the power of numbers there. Similarly, ethnic minorities in mainland China have considerable power of numbers in those autonomous regions where they are concentrated, such as Inner Mongolia, Tibet, and Xinjiang. Collectively, these factors form the demographic base of the language community’s ethnolinguistic vitality, an index of the community’s relative linguistic dominance. Another base of ethnolinguistic vitality is institutional representations of the language community in government, legislatures, education, religion, the media, and so forth, which afford its members institutional leadership, influence, and control. Such institutional representation is often reinforced by a language policy that installs the language as the nation’s sole official language. The third base of ethnolinguistic vitality comprises sociohistorical and cultural status of the language community inside the nation and internationally. In short, the dominant language of a nation is one that comes from and reflects the high ethnolinguistic vitality of its language community.

An important finding of ethnolinguistic vitality research is that it is perceived vitality, and not so much its objective demographic-institutional-cultural strengths, that influences language behavior in interpersonal and intergroup contexts. Interestingly, the visibility and salience of languages shown on public and commercial signs, referred to as the “linguistic landscape,” serve important informational and symbolic functions as a marker of their relative vitality, which in turn affects the use of in-group language in institutional settings (Cenoz & Gorter, 2006 ; Landry & Bourhis, 1997 ).

World Englishes and Lingua Franca English

Another field of research on the power behind and reflected in language is “World Englishes.” At the height of the British Empire English spread on the back of the Industrial Revolution and through large-scale migrations of Britons to the “New World,” which has since become the core of an “inner circle” of traditional native English-speaking nations now led by the United States (Kachru, 1992 ). The emergent wealth and power of these nations has maintained English despite the decline of the British Empire after World War II. In the post-War era, English has become internationalized with the support of an “outer circle” nations and, later, through its spread to “expanding circle” nations. Outer circle nations are made up mostly of former British colonies such as India, Pakistan, and Nigeria. In compliance with colonial language policies that institutionalized English as the new colonial national language, a sizeable proportion of the colonial populations has learned and continued using English over generations, thereby vastly increasing the number of English speakers over and above those in the inner circle nations. The expanding circle encompasses nations where English has played no historical government roles, but which are keen to appropriate English as the preeminent foreign language for local purposes such as national development, internationalization of higher education, and participation in globalization (e.g., China, Indonesia, South Korea, Japan, Egypt, Israel, and continental Europe).

English is becoming a global language with official or special status in at least 75 countries (British Council, n.d. ). It is also the language choice in international organizations and companies, as well as academia, and is commonly used in trade, international mass media, and entertainment, and over the Internet as the main source of information. English native speakers can now follow the worldwide English language track to find jobs overseas without having to learn the local language and may instead enjoy a competitive language advantage where the job requires English proficiency. This situation is a far cry from the colonial era when similar advantages had to come under political patronage. Alongside English native speakers who work overseas benefitting from the preeminence of English over other languages, a new phenomenon of outsourcing international call centers away from the United Kingdom and the United States has emerged (Friginal, 2007 ). Callers can find the information or help they need from people stationed in remote places such as India or the Philippines where English has penetrated.

As English spreads worldwide, it has also become the major international lingua franca, serving some 800 million multilinguals in Asia alone, and numerous others elsewhere (Bolton, 2008 ). The practical importance of this phenomenon and its impact on English vocabulary, grammar, and accent have led to the emergence of a new field of research called “English as a lingua franca” (Brosch, 2015 ). The twin developments of World Englishes and lingua franca English raise interesting and important research questions. A vast area of research lies in waiting.

Several lines of research suggest themselves from an intergroup communication perspective. How communicatively effective are English native speakers who are international civil servants in organizations such as the UN and WTO, where they habitually speak as if they were addressing their fellow natives without accommodating to the international audience? Another line of research is lingua franca English communication between two English nonnative speakers. Their common use of English signals a joint willingness of linguistic accommodation, motivated more by communication efficiency of getting messages across and less by concerns of their respective ethnolinguistic identities. An intergroup communication perspective, however, would sensitize researchers to social identity processes and nonaccommodation behaviors underneath lingua franca communication. For example, two nationals from two different countries, X and Y, communicating with each other in English are accommodating on the language level; at the same time they may, according to communication accommodation theory, use their respective X English and Y English for asserting their ethnolinguistic distinctiveness whilst maintaining a surface appearance of accommodation. There are other possibilities. According to a survey of attitudes toward English accents, attachment to “standard” native speaker models remains strong among nonnative English speakers in many countries (Jenkins, 2009 ). This suggests that our hypothetical X and Y may, in addition to asserting their respective Englishes, try to outperform one another in speaking with overcorrect standard English accents, not so much because they want to assert their respective ethnolinguistic identities, but because they want to project a common in-group identity for positive social comparison—“We are all English-speakers but I am a better one than you!”

Many countries in the expanding circle nations are keen to appropriate English for local purposes, encouraging their students and especially their educational elites to learn English as a foreign language. A prime example is the Learn-English Movement in China. It has affected generations of students and teachers over the past 30 years and consumed a vast amount of resources. The results are mixed. Even more disturbing, discontents and backlashes have emerged from anti-English Chinese motivated to protect the vitality and cultural values of the Chinese language (Sun et al., 2016 ). The power behind and reflected in modern English has widespread and far-reaching consequences in need of more systematic research.

Power of Language

Language maintains existing dominance.

Language maintains and reproduces existing dominance in three different ways represented respectively by the ascent of English, linguistic sexism, and legal language style. For reasons already noted, English has become a global language, an international lingua franca, and an indispensable medium for nonnative English speaking countries to participate in the globalized world. Phillipson ( 2009 ) referred to this phenomenon as “linguistic imperialism.” It is ironic that as the spread of English has increased the extent of multilingualism of non-English-speaking nations, English native speakers in the inner circle of nations have largely remained English-only. This puts pressure on the rest of the world to accommodate them in English, the widespread use of which maintains its preeminence among languages.

A language evolves and changes to adapt to socially accepted word meanings, grammatical rules, accents, and other manners of speaking. What is acceptable or unacceptable reflects common usage and hence the numerical influence of users, but also the elites’ particular language preferences and communication styles. Research on linguistic sexism has shown, for example, a man-made language such as English (there are many others) is imbued with sexist words and grammatical rules that reflect historical male dominance in society. Its uncritical usage routinely by both sexes in daily life has in turn naturalized male dominance and associated sexist inequalities (Spender, 1998 ). Similar other examples are racist (Reisigl & Wodak, 2005 ) and ageist (Ryan et al., 1995 ) language styles.

Professional languages are made by and for particular professions such as the legal profession (Danet, 1980 ; Mertz et al., 2016 ; O’Barr, 1982 ). The legal language is used not only among members of the profession, but also with the general public, who may know each and every word in a legal document but are still unable to decipher its meaning. Through its language, the legal profession maintains its professional dominance with the complicity of the general public, who submits to the use of the language and accedes to the profession’s authority in interpreting its meanings in matters relating to their legal rights and obligations. Communication between lawyers and their “clients” is not only problematic, but the public’s continual dependence on the legal language contributes to the maintenance of the dominance of the profession.

Language Unites and Divides a Nation

A nation of many peoples who, despite their diverse cultural and ethnic background, all speak in the same tongue and write in the same script would reap the benefit of the unifying power of a common language. The power of the language to unite peoples would be stronger if it has become part of their common national identity and contributed to its vitality and psychological distinctiveness. Such power has often been seized upon by national leaders and intellectuals to unify their countries and serve other nationalistic purposes (Patten, 2006 ). In China, for example, Emperor Qin Shi Huang standardized the Chinese script ( hanzi ) as an important part of the reforms to unify the country after he had defeated the other states and brought the Warring States Period ( 475–221 bc ) to an end. A similar reform of language standardization was set in motion soon after the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty ( ad 1644–1911 ), by simplifying some of the hanzi and promoting Putonghua as the national standard oral language. In the postcolonial part of the world, language is often used to service nationalism by restoring the official status of their indigenous language as the national language whilst retaining the colonial language or, in more radical cases of decolonization, relegating the latter to nonofficial status. Yet language is a two-edged sword: It can also divide a nation. The tension can be seen in competing claims to official-language status made by minority language communities, protest over maintenance of minority languages, language rights at schools and in courts of law, bilingual education, and outright language wars (Calvet, 1998 ; DeVotta, 2004 ).

Language Creates Influence

In this section we discuss the power of language to create influence through single words and more complex linguistic structures ranging from oratories and conversations to narratives/stories.

Power of Single Words

Learning a language empowers humans to master an elaborate system of conventions and the associations between words and their sounds on the one hand, and on the other hand, categories of objects and relations to which they refer. After mastering the referential meanings of words, a person can mentally access the objects and relations simply by hearing or reading the words. Apart from their referential meanings, words also have connotative meanings with their own social-cognitive consequences. Together, these social-cognitive functions underpin the power of single words that has been extensively studied in metaphors, which is a huge research area that crosses disciplinary boundaries and probes into the inner workings of the brain (Benedek et al., 2014 ; Landau et al., 2014 ; Marshal et al., 2007 ). The power of single words extends beyond metaphors. It can be seen in misleading words in leading questions (Loftus, 1975 ), concessive connectives that reverse expectations from real-world knowledge (Xiang & Kuperberg, 2014 ), verbs that attribute implicit causality to either verb subject or object (Hartshorne & Snedeker, 2013 ), “uncertainty terms” that hedge potentially face-threatening messages (Holtgraves, 2014b ), and abstract words that signal power (Wakslak et al., 2014 ).

The literature on the power of single words has rarely been applied to intergroup communication, with the exception of research arising from the linguistic category model (e.g., Semin & Fiedler, 1991 ). The model distinguishes among descriptive action verbs (e.g., “hits”), interpretative action verbs (e.g., “hurts”) and state verbs (e.g., “hates”), which increase in abstraction in that order. Sentences made up of abstract verbs convey more information about the protagonist, imply greater temporal and cross-situational stability, and are more difficult to disconfirm. The use of abstract language to represent a particular behavior will attribute the behavior to the protagonist rather than the situation and the resulting image of the protagonist will persist despite disconfirming information, whereas the use of concrete language will attribute the same behavior more to the situation and the resulting image of the protagonist will be easier to change. According to the linguistic intergroup bias model (Maass, 1999 ), abstract language will be used to represent positive in-group and negative out-group behaviors, whereas concrete language will be used to represent negative in-group and positive out-group behaviors. The combined effects of the differential use of abstract and concrete language would, first, lead to biased attribution (explanation) of behavior privileging the in-group over the out-group, and second, perpetuate the prejudiced intergroup stereotypes. More recent research has shown that linguistic intergroup bias varies with the power differential between groups—it is stronger in high and low power groups than in equal power groups (Rubini et al., 2007 ).

Oratorical Power

A charismatic speaker may, by the sheer force of oratory, buoy up people’s hopes, convert their hearts from hatred to forgiveness, or embolden them to take up arms for a cause. One may recall moving speeches (in English) such as Susan B. Anthony’s “On Women’s Right to Vote,” Winston Churchill’s “We Shall Fight on the Beaches,” Mahatma Gandhi’s “Quit India,” or Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream.” The speech may be delivered face-to-face to an audience, or broadcast over the media. The discussion below focuses on face-to-face oratories in political meetings.

Oratorical power may be measured in terms of money donated or pledged to the speaker’s cause, or, in a religious sermon, the number of converts made. Not much research has been reported on these topics. Another measurement approach is to count the frequency of online audience responses that a speech has generated, usually but not exclusively in the form of applause. Audience applause can be measured fairly objectively in terms of frequency, length, or loudness, and collected nonobtrusively from a public recording of the meeting. Audience applause affords researchers the opportunity to explore communicative and social psychological processes that underpin some aspects of the power of rhetorical formats. Note, however, that not all incidences of audience applause are valid measures of the power of rhetoric. A valid incidence should be one that is invited by the speaker and synchronized with the flow of the speech, occurring at the appropriate time and place as indicated by the rhetorical format. Thus, an uninvited incidence of applause would not count, nor is one that is invited but has occurred “out of place” (too soon or too late). Furthermore, not all valid incidences are theoretically informative to the same degree. An isolated applause from just a handful of the audience, though valid and in the right place, has relatively little theoretical import for understanding the power of rhetoric compared to one that is made by many acting in unison as a group. When the latter occurs, it would be a clear indication of the power of rhetorically formulated speech. Such positive audience response constitutes the most direct and immediate means by which an audience can display its collective support for the speaker, something which they would not otherwise show to a speech of less power. To influence and orchestrate hundreds and thousands of people in the audience to precisely coordinate their response to applaud (and cheer) together as a group at the right time and place is no mean feat. Such a feat also influences the wider society through broadcast on television and other news and social media. The combined effect could be enormous there and then, and its downstream influence far-reaching, crossing country boarders and inspiring generations to come.

To accomplish the feat, an orator has to excite the audience to applaud, build up the excitement to a crescendo, and simultaneously cue the audience to synchronize their outburst of stored-up applause with the ongoing speech. Rhetorical formats that aid the orator to accomplish the dual functions include contrast, list, puzzle solution, headline-punchline, position-taking, and pursuit (Heritage & Greatbatch, 1986 ). To illustrate, we cite the contrast and list formats.

A contrast, or antithesis, is made up of binary schemata such as “too much” and “too little.” Heritage and Greatbatch ( 1986 , p. 123) reported the following example:

Governments will argue that resources are not available to help disabled people. The fact is that too much is spent on the munitions of war, and too little is spent on the munitions of peace [italics added]. As the audience is familiar with the binary schema of “too much” and “too little” they can habitually match the second half of the contrast against the first half. This decoding process reinforces message comprehension and helps them to correctly anticipate and applaud at the completion point of the contrast. In the example quoted above, the speaker micropaused for 0.2 seconds after the second word “spent,” at which point the audience began to applaud in anticipation of the completion point of the contrast, and applauded more excitedly upon hearing “. . . on the munitions of peace.” The applause continued and lasted for 9.2 long seconds.

A list is usually made up of a series of three parallel words, phrases or clauses. “Government of the people, by the people, for the people” is a fine example, as is Obama’s “It’s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day , in this election , at this defining moment , change has come to America!” (italics added) The three parts in the list echo one another, step up the argument and its corresponding excitement in the audience as they move from one part to the next. The third part projects a completion point to cue the audience to get themselves ready to display their support via applause, cheers, and so forth. In a real conversation this juncture is called a “transition-relevance place,” at which point a conversational partner (hearer) may take up a turn to speak. A skilful orator will micropause at that juncture to create a conversational space for the audience to take up their turn in applauding and cheering as a group.

As illustrated by the two examples above, speaker and audience collaborate to transform an otherwise monological speech into a quasiconversation, turning a passive audience into an active supportive “conversational” partner who, by their synchronized responses, reduces the psychological separation from the speaker and emboldens the latter’s self-confidence. Through such enjoyable and emotional participation collectively, an audience made up of formerly unconnected individuals with no strong common group identity may henceforth begin to feel “we are all one.” According to social identity theory and related theories (van Zomeren et al., 2008 ), the emergent group identity, politicized in the process, will in turn provide a social psychological base for collective social action. This process of identity making in the audience is further strengthened by the speaker’s frequent use of “we” as a first person, plural personal pronoun.

Conversational Power

A conversation is a speech exchange system in which the length and order of speaking turns have not been preassigned but require coordination on an utterance-by-utterance basis between two or more individuals. It differs from other speech exchange systems in which speaking turns have been preassigned and/or monitored by a third party, for example, job interviews and debate contests. Turn-taking, because of its centrality to conversations and the important theoretical issues that it raises for social coordination and implicit conversational conventions, has been the subject of extensive research and theorizing (Goodwin & Heritage, 1990 ; Grice, 1975 ; Sacks et al., 1974 ). Success at turn-taking is a key part of the conversational process leading to influence. A person who cannot do this is in no position to influence others in and through conversations, which are probably the most common and ubiquitous form of human social interaction. Below we discuss studies of conversational power based on conversational turns and applied to leader emergence in group and intergroup settings. These studies, as they unfold, link conversation analysis with social identity theory and expectation states theory (Berger et al., 1974 ).

A conversational turn in hand allows the speaker to influence others in two important ways. First, through current-speaker-selects-next the speaker can influence who will speak next and, indirectly, increases the probability that he or she will regain the turn after the next. A common method for selecting the next speaker is through tag questions. The current speaker (A) may direct a tag question such as “Ya know?” or “Don’t you agree?” to a particular hearer (B), which carries the illocutionary force of selecting the addressee to be the next speaker and, simultaneously, restraining others from self-selecting. The A 1 B 1 sequence of exchange has been found to have a high probability of extending into A 1 B 1 A 2 in the next round of exchange, followed by its continuation in the form of A 1 B 1 A 2 B 2 . For example, in a six-member group, the A 1 B 1 →A 1 B 1 A 2 sequence of exchange has more than 50% chance of extending to the A 1 B 1 A 2 B 2 sequence, which is well above chance level, considering that there are four other hearers who could intrude at either the A 2 or B 2 slot of turn (Stasser & Taylor, 1991 ). Thus speakership not only offers the current speaker the power to select the next speaker twice, but also to indirectly regain a turn.

Second, a turn in hand provides the speaker with an opportunity to exercise topic control. He or she can exercise non-decision-making power by changing an unfavorable or embarrassing topic to a safer one, thereby silencing or preventing it from reaching the “floor.” Conversely, he or she can exercise decision-making power by continuing or raising a topic that is favorable to self. Or the speaker can move on to talk about an innocuous topic to ease tension in the group.

Bales ( 1950 ) has studied leader emergence in groups made up of unacquainted individuals in situations where they have to bid or compete for speaking turns. Results show that individuals who talk the most have a much better chance of becoming leaders. Depending on the social orientations of their talk, they would be recognized as a task or relational leader. Subsequent research on leader emergence has shown that an even better behavioral predictor than volume of talk is the number of speaking turns. An obvious reason for this is that the volume of talk depends on the number of turns—it usually accumulates across turns, rather than being the result of a single extraordinary long turn of talk. Another reason is that more turns afford the speaker more opportunities to realize the powers of turns that have been explicated above. Group members who become leaders are the ones who can penetrate the complex, on-line conversational system to obtain a disproportionately large number of speaking turns by perfect timing at “transition-relevance places” to self-select as the next speaker or, paradoxical as it may seem, constructive interruptions (Ng et al., 1995 ).

More recent research has extended the experimental study of group leadership to intergroup contexts, where members belonging to two groups who hold opposing stances on a social or political issue interact within and also between groups. The results showed, first, that speaking turns remain important in leader emergence, but the intergroup context now generates social identity and self-categorization processes that selectively privilege particular forms of speech. What potential leaders say, and not only how many speaking turns they have gained, becomes crucial in conveying to group members that they are prototypical members of their group. Prototypical communication is enacted by adopting an accent, choosing code words, and speaking in a tone that characterize the in-group; above all, it is enacted through the content of utterances to represent or exemplify the in-group position. Such prototypical utterances that are directed successfully at the out-group correlate strongly with leader emergence (Reid & Ng, 2000 ). These out-group-directed prototypical utterances project an in-group identity that is psychologically distinctive from the out-group for in-group members to feel proud of and to rally together when debating with the out-group.

Building on these experimental results Reid and Ng ( 2003 ) developed a social identity theory of leadership to account for the emergence and maintenance of intergroup leadership, grounding it in case studies of the intergroup communication strategies that brought Ariel Sharon and John Howard to power in Israel and Australia, respectively. In a later development, the social identity account was fused with expectation states theory to explain how group processes collectively shape the behavior of in-group members to augment the prototypical communication behavior of the emergent leader (Reid & Ng, 2006 ). Specifically, when conversational influence gained through prototypical utterances culminates to form an incipient power hierarchy, group members develop expectations of who is and will be leading the group. Acting on these tacit expectations they collectively coordinate the behavior of each other to conform with the expectations by granting incipient leaders more speaking turns and supporting them with positive audience responses. In this way, group members collectively amplify the influence of incipient leaders and jointly propel them to leadership roles (see also Correll & Ridgeway, 2006 ). In short, the emergence of intergroup leaders is a joint process of what they do individually and what group members do collectively, enabled by speaking turns and mediated by social identity and expectation states processes. In a similar vein, Hogg ( 2014 ) has developed a social identity account of leadership in intergroup settings.

Narrative Power

Narratives and stories are closely related and are sometimes used interchangeably. However, it is useful to distinguish a narrative from a story and from other related terms such as discourse and frames. A story is a sequence of related events in the past recounted for rhetorical or ideological purposes, whereas a narrative is a coherent system of interrelated and sequentially organized stories formed by incorporating new stories and relating them to others so as to provide an ongoing basis for interpreting events, envisioning an ideal future, and motivating and justifying collective actions (Halverson et al., 2011 ). The temporal dimension and sense of movement in a narrative also distinguish it from discourse and frames. According to Miskimmon, O’Loughlin, and Roselle ( 2013 ), discourses are the raw material of communication that actors plot into a narrative, and frames are the acts of selecting and highlighting some events or issues to promote a particular interpretation, evaluation, and solution. Both discourse and frame lack the temporal and causal transformation of a narrative.

Pitching narratives at the suprastory level and stressing their temporal and transformational movements allows researchers to take a structurally more systemic and temporally more expansive view than traditional research on propaganda wars between nations, religions, or political systems (Halverson et al., 2011 ; Miskimmon et al., 2013 ). Schmid ( 2014 ) has provided an analysis of al-Qaeda’s “compelling narrative that authorizes its strategy, justifies its violent tactics, propagates its ideology and wins new recruits.” According to this analysis, the chief message of the narrative is “the West is at war with Islam,” a strategic communication that is fundamentally intergroup in both structure and content. The intergroup structure of al-Qaeda narrative includes the rhetorical constructions that there are a group grievance inflicted on Muslims by a Zionist–Christian alliance, a vision of the good society (under the Caliphate and sharia), and a path from grievance to the realization of the vision led by al-Qaeda in a violent jihad to eradicate Western influence in the Muslim world. The al-Qaeda narrative draws support not only from traditional Arab and Muslim cultural narratives interpreted to justify its unorthodox means (such as attacks against women and children), but also from pre-existing anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism propagated by some Arab governments, Soviet Cold War propaganda, anti-Western sermons by Muslim clerics, and the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinians. It is deeply embedded in culture and history, and has reached out to numerous Muslims who have emigrated to the West.

The intergroup content of al-Qaeda narrative was shown in a computer-aided content analysis of 18 representative transcripts of propaganda speeches released between 2006–2011 by al-Qaeda leaders, totaling over 66,000 words (Cohen et al., 2016 ). As part of the study, an “Ideology Extraction using Linguistic Extremization” (IELEX) categorization scheme was developed for mapping the content of the corpus, which revealed 19 IELEX rhetorical categories referring to either the out-group/enemy or the in-group/enemy victims. The out-group/enemy was represented by four categories such as “The enemy is extremely negative (bloodthirsty, vengeful, brainwashed, etc.)”; whereas the in-group/enemy victims were represented by more categories such as “we are entirely innocent/good/virtuous.” The content of polarized intergroup stereotypes, demonizing “them” and glorifying “us,” echoes other similar findings (Smith et al., 2008 ), as well as the general finding of intergroup stereotyping in social psychology (Yzerbyt, 2016 ).

The success of the al-Qaeda narrative has alarmed various international agencies, individual governments, think tanks, and religious groups to spend huge sums of money on developing counternarratives that are, according to Schmid ( 2014 ), largely feeble. The so-called “global war on terror” has failed in its effort to construct effective counternarratives although al-Qaeda’s finance, personnel, and infrastructure have been much weakened. Ironically, it has developed into a narrative of its own, not so much for countering external extremism, but for promoting and justifying internal nationalistic extremist policies and influencing national elections. This reactive coradicalization phenomenon is spreading (Mink, 2015 ; Pratt, 2015 ; Reicher & Haslam, 2016 ).

Discussion and Future Directions

This chapter provides a systematic framework for understanding five language–power relationships, namely, language reveals power, reflects power, maintains existing dominance, unites and divides a nation, and creates influence. The first two relationships are derived from the power behind language and the last three from the power of language. Collectively they provide a relatively comprehensible framework for understanding the relationships between language and power, and not simply for understanding language alone or power alone separated from one another. The language–power relationships are dynamically interrelated, one influencing the other, and each can draw from an array of the cognitive, communicative, social, and identity functions of language. The framework is applicable to both interpersonal and intergroup contexts of communication, although for present purposes the latter has been highlighted. Among the substantive issues discussed in this chapter, English as a global language, oratorical and narrative power, and intergroup leadership stand out as particularly important for political and theoretical reasons.

In closing, we note some of the gaps that need to be filled and directions for further research. When discussing the powers of language to maintain and reflect existing dominance, we have omitted the countervailing power of language to resist or subvert existing dominance and, importantly, to create social change for the collective good. Furthermore, in this age of globalization and its discontents, English as a global language will increasingly be resented for its excessive unaccommodating power despite tangible lingua franca English benefits, and challenged by the expanding ethnolinguistic vitality of peoples who speak Arabic, Chinese, or Spanish. Internet communication is no longer predominantly in English, but is rapidly diversifying to become the modern Tower of Babel. And yet we have barely scratched the surface of these issues. Other glaring gaps include the omission of media discourse and recent developments in Corpus-based Critical Discourse Analysis (Loring, 2016 ), as well as the lack of reference to languages other than English that may cast one or more of the language–power relationships in a different light.

One of the main themes of this chapter—that the diverse language–power relationships are dynamically interrelated—clearly points to the need for greater theoretical fertilization across cognate disciplines. Our discussion of the three powers of language (boxes 3–5 in Figure 1 ) clearly points in this direction, most notably in the case of the powers of language to create influence through single words, oratories, conversations, and narratives, but much more needs to be done. The social identity approach will continue to serve as a meta theory of intergroup communication. To the extent that intergroup communication takes place in an existing power relation and that the changes that it seeks are not simply a more positive or psychologically distinctive social identity but greater group power and a more powerful social identity, the social identity approach has to incorporate power in its application to intergroup communication.

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The Works of Edgar Allan Poe

By edgar allan poe, the power of words.

• Year Published: 1903
• Language: English
• Country of Origin: United States of America
• Source: Poe, E.A. (1903). The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition, Volume 4 . New York: P. F. Collier and Son.
• Flesch–Kincaid Level: 8.2
• Word Count: 1,439
• Genre: Fantasy
• Keywords: creation, free will, human nature, impulse
• ✎ Cite This

Poe, E. (1903). The Power of Words. The Works of Edgar Allan Poe (Lit2Go Edition). Retrieved April 28, 2024, from https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/147/the-works-of-edgar-allan-poe/5227/the-power-of-words/

Poe, Edgar Allan. "The Power of Words." The Works of Edgar Allan Poe . Lit2Go Edition. 1903. Web. https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/147/the-works-of-edgar-allan-poe/5227/the-power-of-words/ >. April 28, 2024.

Edgar Allan Poe, "The Power of Words," The Works of Edgar Allan Poe , Lit2Go Edition, (1903), accessed April 28, 2024, https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/147/the-works-of-edgar-allan-poe/5227/the-power-of-words/ .

OINOS. Pardon, Agathos, the weakness of a spirit new-fledged with immortality!

AGATHOS. You have spoken nothing, my Oinos, for which pardon is to be demanded. Not even here is knowledge thing of intuition. For wisdom, ask of the angels freely, that it may be given!

OINOS. But in this existence, I dreamed that I should be at once cognizant of all things, and thus at once be happy in being cognizant of all.

AGATHOS. Ah, not in knowledge is happiness, but in the acquisition of knowledge! In for ever knowing, we are for ever blessed; but to know all were the curse of a fiend.

OINOS. But does not The Most High know all?

AGATHOS. That (since he is The Most Happy) must be still the one thing unknown even to Him.

OINOS. But, since we grow hourly in knowledge, must not at last all things be known?

AGATHOS. Look down into the abysmal distances!—attempt to force the gaze down the multitudinous vistas of the stars, as we sweep slowly through them thus—and thus—and thus! Even the spiritual vision, is it not at all points arrested by the continuous golden walls of the universe?—the walls of the myriads of the shining bodies that mere number has appeared to blend into unity?

OINOS. I clearly perceive that the infinity of matter is no dream.

AGATHOS. There are no dreams in Aidenn—but it is here whispered that, of this infinity of matter, the sole purpose is to afford infinite springs, at which the soul may allay the thirst to know, which is for ever unquenchable within it—since to quench it, would be to extinguish the soul's self. Question me then, my Oinos, freely and without fear. Come! we will leave to the left the loud harmony of the Pleiades, and swoop outward from the throne into the starry meadows beyond Orion, where, for pansies and violets, and heart's—ease, are the beds of the triplicate and triple—tinted suns.

OINOS. And now, Agathos, as we proceed, instruct me!—speak to me in the earth's familiar tones. I understand not what you hinted to me, just now, of the modes or of the method of what, during mortality, we were accustomed to call Creation. Do you mean to say that the Creator is not God?

AGATHOS. I mean to say that the Deity does not create.

OINOS. Explain.

AGATHOS. In the beginning only, he created. The seeming creatures which are now, throughout the universe, so perpetually springing into being, can only be considered as the mediate or indirect, not as the direct or immediate results of the Divine creative power.

OINOS. Among men, my Agathos, this idea would be considered heretical in the extreme.

AGATHOS. Among angels, my Oinos, it is seen to be simply true.

OINOS. I can comprehend you thus far—that certain operations of what we term Nature, or the natural laws, will, under certain conditions, give rise to that which has all the appearance of creation. Shortly before the final overthrow of the earth, there were, I well remember, many very successful experiments in what some philosophers were weak enough to denominate the creation of animalculae.

AGATHOS. The cases of which you speak were, in fact, instances of the secondary creation—and of the only species of creation which has ever been, since the first word spoke into existence the first law.

OINOS. Are not the starry worlds that, from the abyss of nonentity, burst hourly forth into the heavens—are not these stars, Agathos, the immediate handiwork of the King?

AGATHOS. Let me endeavor, my Oinos, to lead you, step by step, to the conception I intend. You are well aware that, as no thought can perish, so no act is without infinite result. We moved our hands, for example, when we were dwellers on the earth, and, in so doing, gave vibration to the atmosphere which engirdled it. This vibration was indefinitely extended, till it gave impulse to every particle of the earth's air, which thenceforward, and for ever, was actuated by the one movement of the hand. This fact the mathematicians of our globe well knew. They made the special effects, indeed, wrought in the fluid by special impulses, the subject of exact calculation—so that it became easy to determine in what precise period an impulse of given extent would engirdle the orb, and impress (for ever) every atom of the atmosphere circumambient. Retrograding, they found no difficulty, from a given effect, under given conditions, in determining the value of the original impulse. Now the mathematicians who saw that the results of any given impulse were absolutely endless—and who saw that a portion of these results were accurately traceable through the agency of algebraic analysis—who saw, too, the facility of the retrogradation—these men saw, at the same time, that this species of analysis itself, had within itself a capacity for indefinite progress—that there were no bounds conceivable to its advancement and applicability, except within the intellect of him who advanced or applied it. But at this point our mathematicians paused.

OINOS. And why, Agathos, should they have proceeded?

AGATHOS. Because there were some considerations of deep interest beyond. It was deducible from what they knew, that to a being of infinite understanding—one to whom the perfection of the algebraic analysis lay unfolded—there could be no difficulty in tracing every impulse given the air—and the ether through the air—to the remotest consequences at any even infinitely remote epoch of time. It is indeed demonstrable that every such impulse given the air, must, in the end, impress every individual thing that exists within the universe;—and the being of infinite understanding—the being whom we have imagined—might trace the remote undulations of the impulse—trace them upward and onward in their influences upon all particles of an matter—upward and onward for ever in their modifications of old forms—or, in other words, in their creation of new—until he found them reflected—unimpressive at last—back from the throne of the Godhead. And not only could such a thing do this, but at any epoch, should a given result be afforded him—should one of these numberless comets, for example, be presented to his inspection—he could have no difficulty in determining, by the analytic retrogradation, to what original impulse it was due. This power of retrogradation in its absolute fulness and perfection—this faculty of referring at all epochs, all effects to all causes—is of course the prerogative of the Deity alone—but in every variety of degree, short of the absolute perfection, is the power itself exercised by the whole host of the Angelic intelligences.

OINOS. But you speak merely of impulses upon the air.

AGATHOS. In speaking of the air, I referred only to the earth; but the general proposition has reference to impulses upon the ether—which, since it pervades, and alone pervades all space, is thus the great medium of creation.

OINOS. Then all motion, of whatever nature, creates?

AGATHOS. It must: but a true philosophy has long taught that the source of all motion is thought—and the source of all thought is—

OINOS. God.

AGATHOS. I have spoken to you, Oinos, as to a child of the fair Earth which lately perished—of impulses upon the atmosphere of the Earth.

OINOS. You did.

AGATHOS. And while I thus spoke, did there not cross your mind some thought of the physical power of words? Is not every word an impulse on the air?

OINOS. But why, Agathos, do you weep—and why, oh why do your wings droop as we hover above this fair star—which is the greenest and yet most terrible of all we have encountered in our flight? Its brilliant flowers look like a fairy dream—but its fierce volcanoes like the passions of a turbulent heart.

AGATHOS. They are!—they are! This wild star—it is now three centuries since, with clasped hands, and with streaming eyes, at the feet of my beloved—I spoke it—with a few passionate sentences—into birth. Its brilliant flowers are the dearest of all unfulfilled dreams, and its raging volcanoes are the passions of the most turbulent and unhallowed of hearts.

April 28, 2024

published by phi beta kappa

Print or web publication, king, kennedy, and the power of words.

How candor and poetry can change the course of history

The night of April 4, 1968, presidential candidate Robert Kennedy received the news that Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated. Kennedy was about to speak in Indianapolis and some in his campaign wondered if they should go ahead with the rally.

Moments before Kennedy climbed onto a flatbed truck to address the crowd, which had gathered in a light rain, press secretary Frank Mankiewicz gave the candidate a sheet a paper with ideas of what he might say. Kennedy slid it into his pocket without looking at it. Another aide approached with more notes and the candidate waved him away.

“Do they know about Martin Luther King?” Kennedy asked those gathered on the platform. No, came the reply.

After asking the crowd to lower its campaign signs, Kennedy told his audience that King had been shot and killed earlier in Memphis. Gasps went up from the crowd and for a moment everything seemed ready to come apart. Indianapolis might have joined other cities across America that burned on that awful night.

But then Kennedy, beginning in a trembling, halting voice, slowly brought the people back around and somehow held them together. Listening to the speech decades later is to be reminded of the real power of words. How they can heal, how they can still bring us together, but only if they are spoken with conviction and from the heart.

Compare what we often hear from politicians today to what Kennedy said on that tragic night in Indianapolis. He told the crowd how he “had a member of my family killed”—a reference to his brother John, who had been assassinated less than five years before.

Later on, Kennedy recited a poem by Aeschylus, which he had memorized long before that trying night in Indianapolis:

Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget Falls drop by drop upon the heart, Until, in our own despair, against our will, Comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.

Kennedy’s heartfelt speech came only hours after King’s last address. The night before, the civil rights leader had reluctantly taken to the dais at the Mason Temple in Memphis . The weather that evening had been miserable—thunderstorms and tornado warnings. As a result, King arrived late and was just going to say a few words and then tell everyone to please go home.

Visibly tired and with no notes in hand, King stumbled at first. The shutters hitting against the temple walls sounded like gun shots to him. So much so that King’s friend, the Rev. Billy Kyles, found a custodian to stop the noise. Only then, at the crowd’s urging, did the words begin to come together for King.

“We’ve got some difficult days ahead,” he said that night. “But it really doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop.”

King closed by telling the crowd, “… we as a people will get to the Promised Land. So I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. …”

Novelist Charles Baxter contends that the greatest influence on American writing and discourse in recent memory can be traced back to the phrase “Mistakes were made.” Of course, that’s from Watergate and the shadowy intrigue inside the Nixon White House. In his essay, “Burning Down the House,” Baxter compares that “quasi-confessional passive-voice-mode sentence” to what Robert E. Lee said after the battle of Gettysburg and the disastrous decision of Pickett’s Charge.

“All of this has been my fault,” the Confederate general said. “I asked more of the men than should have been asked of them.”

In Lee’s words, and those of King and Kennedy, we hear a refreshing candor and directness that we miss today. In 1968, people responded to what King and Kennedy told them. During that tumultuous 24-hour period in 1968, people cried aloud and chanted in Memphis. Words struck a chord in Indianapolis, too, and decades later former mayor (and now U.S. Senator) Richard Lugar told writer Thurston Clarke that Kennedy’s speech was “a turning point” for his city.

After King’s assassination, riots broke out in more than 100 U.S. cities—the worst destruction since the Civil War . But neither Memphis nor Indianapolis experienced that kind of damage. To this day, many believe that was due to the words spoken when so many were listening.

Tim Wendel is the author most recently of Summer of ’68: The Season That Changed Baseball, and America, Forever.

● NEWSLETTER

The power of words

Can you imagine a world without words?

It would be chaos.

Many times we take them for granted, just as a way of communicating what we want or need. And they actually do that, but at the same time they do something bigger.

Words are powerful. Whether you write or speak them, they do have an impact on you and the others. They express feelings and share knowledge. They can change someones mood completely and ignite a spark in them.

That´s why writing is an extraordinary experience. It´s not just jotting down symbols that form words, it’s a way of expressing what you feel or think. Hence why you should really think before speaking. Once the words are out, they never come back. If you want to expand motivation and peace, your words should reflect that, they should be positive. Otherwise, you would be doing the exact opposite.

Everyone should try writing at least once. It doesn´t matter the topic, or if you want to share it with others, but you should just sit down and take all those thoughts out your head. In that way, you´ll have less going on in your mind and they will probably make more sense to you once you see them.

If you want to test how powerful words are, try for a week saying positive phrases to yourself in front of the mirror, and you´ll soon see a change in your mood and the way you act.

View the discussion thread.

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Book Report — The Book Thief by Markus Zusak: the Power of Words

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak: The Power of Words

• Categories: Book Report Literary Criticism

About this sample

Words: 778 |

Published: Mar 19, 2020

Words: 778 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Table of contents

Prompt examples for "the book thief" essay, "the book thief" essay example.

• Character Development: Explore how the characters in "The Book Thief" are shaped and transformed by the power of words, including Liesel, Hans, and Max.
• Literary Devices: Analyze the literary devices used by Markus Zusak to emphasize the significance of words in the narrative, such as metaphors, symbolism, and imagery.
• Impact of Storytelling: Discuss the role of storytelling and literature within the novel, examining how it serves as a form of resistance, escape, and connection for the characters.
• Moral and Ethical Questions: Examine the moral and ethical questions raised by the power of words in the story, including the themes of propaganda, censorship, and the responsibility of language.
• Universal Themes: Reflect on the universal themes regarding the power of words, their ability to heal or harm, and the lasting impact of stories and literature on individuals and society.

Works Cited

• BBC News. (2018, May 26). Abortion: All you need to know about the UK law. BBC News.
• BBC News. (2019, May 15). Alabama abortion ban: Should men have a say in the debate? BBC News.
• Catholics for Choice. (2019). Access to abortion.
• National Abortion Federation. (2021). Facts about abortion: US abortion statistics. https://prochoice.org/abortion-facts/
• Pros and Cons. (2021). Abortion. https://www.prosandcons.org/social-issues/abortion/
• Sanghani, R. (2019, May 23). Are men really allowed to make decisions about abortion? BBC News.
• Smith, M. (2020, March 4). Abortion roars back as 2020 issue. Politico. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/04/abortion-issue-returns-121905
• The Guardian. (2019, May 16). Alabama abortion ban: Republican state senate passes most restrictive law in US. The Guardian.

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Essay, Paragraph or Speech on “The Power of Words” Complete English Essay, Speech for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.

The Power of Words

All over the world, words are the primary way people communicate with each other. It doesn’t matter where you live, what color you are, or what creed you follow; words convey your thoughts. There is no bigger medium of expression.

We use words to thank, to plead, to rejoice, to grieve, to instruct, to congratulate. It doesn’t matter if they are written or they are sung. You just can’t get away from words. From the time you are born and your mom whispers sweet nothings in your ears to the time that the priest reads the scriptures out to you at the end, you can’t get away from words. Yet we pay so little attention to them. We use them at random, sometimes our minds find it hard to keep pace with our tongues. Words have great power. The power to bring peace, the power to spread love , the power to give hope, the power to encourage, the power to guide, the power to comfort, the power to uplift, the power to heal. But they can also kill, they can make you feel small and insignificant, they can hurt you, they can humiliate you, they can rob you of your decency, steal your sleep and even make you sick. Then there are the words that humble you, elevate you, take you closer to God.

Never speak words that can rob another of his dignity and his pride. If you don’t have the words to encourage and elevate, best is to say nothing at all. A kind helping word of encouragement can make someone’s day so be ready with that word any time of the day. You never know whom you might be able to help with your good word of the day.

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Phyllis VanBuren: Power of Words

Not all childhood ditties are truthful. How many of us recited “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me?” In our youth, we believed it. Why? As children, we trusted our parents to tell the truth, even as we held back the tears caused by tormentors. Or maybe we chose to offer the challenge of a physical confrontation to ward off our bullies and prayed that they would choose another victim, leaving us often alone … and without friends.

How wrong we were. It’s a lie!

Many years later, some of us found Proverbs 18:21a, realizing the power of words. “Death and life are in the power of the tongue …”Some verbal attacks are mortal. Words cut to the bone, slash the heart, destroy one’s self-esteem … and these wounds are usually invisible and go untreated. Invisible scars. Hurtful words are weapons of massive destruction.

Men and women reportedly use approximately 16,000 words daily. Typically, those words are used in communication with other persons. ALL words leave an imprint.

Yet another “pearl” comes to mind — "Think before you speak.” And let’s add … before we text, email, or post. Those digital formats never forget, not even when the words are allegedly deleted. Some suggest drafting a message, saving it on the device without sending/posting, reading it a day or two later and then DELETING it. The act of writing down one’s feelings is therapeutic, the re-reading — a window of reason, and the deletion — the removal of the anger. That would seem to be a much better approach than the actual attack on another human being. Words have power!

Words can encourage, can edify, can build up. Our words should honor God and His love. Our words should bring light to the darkness of the world. Wise people reflect God’s truth in their lives; the foolish hold God’s truth in contempt and choose their own path.

King Solomon is often cited as the wisest man who ever lived and is attributed as the principal, if not the only author, of Proverbs. In Proverbs 12:18 we read "Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing."

Since we know the pain of hurtful words, let’s consider the role of wise words that promote healing within others. We alone are responsible for the words we use.

In a conversation, one person speaks while the other listens. Or that is the intent. However, how do we listen? Do we listen “for the message,” or do we formulate our response even as the other person speaks? I fear the latter is frequently more realistic. Since words are powerful, weighing our words is the more prudent action. If the exchange is emotionally loaded, another adage may be helpful — “Count to 10 before you speak.” Fools babble.

Would we use the same words if our parents were present? Our Heavenly Father is always present. Do our words honor Him? Do our words reflect integrity or baseness? Should we recall another adage of our youth — someone should wash out our mouths with soap for improperly using words?

Are our compliments sincere or falsehoods to manipulate another to fall victim of malicious ridicule? Empty and evasive words are equally hurtful.

While some claim that“silence is golden,” that is another partial truth. Forcing others to use the vocabulary of silence is more deadly than hateful words uttered in anger.

If we are unable to control our tongue, maybe we should recall an admonition of our mother — “If you cannot say anything good, don’t say anything at all.”

Words cause deeper and longer-lasting pains than sticks and stones. At least, there is a greater chance of recovery from physical injuries.

And, yes, I wrote these words weeks ago, read them many times, edited them many times, and chose to share them in the hope of sparing others from “death by tongue.”

Therapeutic? Hopefully.

— This is the opinion of Times Writers Group member Phyllis E. VanBuren, a lifelong learner and enthusiastic educator, who values family, friends, faith, honesty, liberty and integrity. Her column is published the fourth Sunday of the month.

Our Mission: "To care for one another and the world around us."

The Power of Words (Kol Nidre 5775, October 3, 2014)

October 10, 2014

In the words of Leo Rosten, from his short essay, The Power of Words :

They sing. They hurt. They teach. They sanctify. They were man’s first immeasurable feat of magic.

They liberated us from ignorance and our barbarous past…

We live by words: Love, Truth, God.

We fight for words: Freedom, Country, Fame.

We die for words: Liberty, Glory, Honor.

They bestow the priceless gift of articulacy on our minds and hearts – from “Mama” to “infinity…”

There was a time in all of our lives that we crossed the threshold into speech, whether we remember it or not.

A mail carrier paused for a moment to visit with a four year old about his baby sister.   Having discussed with the boy the wonder of having a little sister, he asked:  “Can she talk?”  “No,” the little boy replied.  “She has her teeth, but her words haven’t come in yet.”

As a mother and a grandmother, I have learned a lot about language acquisition over the years and the power of words..  At Kol Nidre, 28 years ago, I shared the following story:

“My son, Jonah, has teeth and the words have come in, too. As my first child, he is my first effort in the world of linguistic programming and I am learning a lot about the acquisition of language through our encounters.  We have the word “please” down to a science.  He believes that it is a magic word. Every time he says, “please,” I am so thrilled that I give him whatever he has asked for so politely.  In an effort to condition him, he has conditioned me.  And together, we have learned the most important lesson about the power of words.”  ( Words , RARP, Kol Nidre 5747)

My grandson, Micah, is following in his uncle Jonah’s footsteps.  As my first grandchild, he is reintroducing me to the power of words.  Gary and I have marveled at his language acquisition this past year.  At two years and four months, he spent the week after Labor Day with us.  As his primary caregivers for the week, we had the responsibility of every diaper change and every bedtime.   Those of you familiar with two-year olds know that a favorite word at that age is “no.”  Some people never outgrow that word, but Micah is not your typical two year-old.  He’s my grandson; of course he’s not.  He rarely ever said “no” to us in 8 days.  Rather than shut us down or appear to be negative, when asked if he wants to change his diaper, go to bed, or turn off Disney Junior, he has the most clever response.  In his sweet little voice, he looks at us and responds,  “Maybe later.” I have learned a lot from his choice of words.  It is as if he is saying, “Savta, I want to let you down easy.  I am not going to go along with your suggestions, but I don’t want to hurt your feelings, appear childish, or negative.  Thank you for your misguided adult suggestion, but no thank you.”

“Maybe later” is a lesson I have now incorporated in my own life.  Words do have the power to shape encounters.  And we never know where our best teachers will come from when it comes to how we use our words.  Micah’s “maybe later” reminds me to be more diplomatic with my words, but as he has learned, diplomacy doesn’t extend bedtime, or diaper time, no matter how cute or clever the response.

I often wonder what happens to the lessons of childhood when I am at a restaurant, store, airport, classroom, or doctor’s office.  I can’t believe how rarely people say “please”and “thank you.”  I am amazed at the tone and words people use over the phone or in emails to my staff, and to me.  Aside from the fact that for many encounters, people don’t even look you in the eye, because they are texting while talking.  From Facebook to Twitter, email to the family kitchen, in our efforts to use words efficiently, we have lost the civility of the word “please” and we feel empowered to make demands and share feelings without the Victorian filter of the past.  Micah reminded me that once upon a time, people couched negativity in kind language. Today, we just let people have it right between the eyes.

A very large woman was walking out of the Springfield Kmart the other day with a purse the size of a suitcase.  In her hurry and self-absorption, she slammed into my arm and really hurt me.   And she didn’t even stop to say she was sorry.  I couldn’t believe it.  The difference in my reaction to her was entirely based on her lack of words and her lack of apology of any kind.  The lack of an “I’m sorry” roused a host of negative thoughts and reactions in me about her, even though I said nothing as I rubbed my very red arm.

“I’m sorry” is not the only phrase people fail to say, as we learned from the wall we created in our hallway after my Erev Rosh Hashanah sermon last week. The wall outside taught all of us how many hurtful words and actions we have all exchanged in the past year.

In our office culture, here at TBS, we exchange birthday gifts and gifts throughout the year.  And we all send each other handwritten “thank you” notes.  I am amazed at how few people say “thank you,” let alone send a note or at the very least an email of gratitude for sometimes very big favors or kindnesses.  I have saved every single thank you note any of you have ever written to me for the past 29 years.  Never under estimate the power of words.  If you get anything out of these High Holy Days, remember that two words – “I’m sorry” or “Thank you” can make a huge difference in your life and your relationships.

One of the characters of the Yiddish play, The Dybbuk, says:  “Wherever you stand to lift up your eyes to heaven, that place is the Holy of Holies. Every human being created by God in God’s own image and likeness is a High Priest. Each day of your life is the Day of Atonement ; and every word spoken from the heart is the name of God.”

We are here this Kol Nidre night, because we know that every word spoken from our hearts falls short of being the name of God.  Whatever we put into words, either in writing or verbally, should be for the long run, not the short run.  Dashing off that email may make you feel better, but it does not serve your purpose in the long run.

Most of the time, hurtful words, ingratitude, entitlement, and rudeness do not change any mind for the better and do not move any mountain, except the one it places between you and the person who receives your words at the other end.  How often I would love to suggest that people keep their thoughts to themselves, or at the very least, show sensitivity in their timing.  We all have an email, letter, Tweet, or comment we wish to God we could retract.  We must be true to ourselves, but our words really need to reflect our best selves, all of the time.  We all fall short much of the time.

That is why we are here.  Kol Nidre night is about taking stock of our words.  The power of the melody behind the words of Kol Nidre is designed to raise our consciousness about words and promises we have made all year and intend to make in the year ahead.  Kol Nidre reminds us that we are not in control of much in our lives, but we are in control of our words.  As Emily Dickenson wrote, “A word is dead/ when it is said,/ some say./ I say it just/begins to live/that day.”

Tomorrow, at Family Services, we will read the famous story every Jewish child grows up on about a child who has lost his friends, because of the way he was treating them with his words.  The rabbi of the story teaches the child a lesson about words.  You know the one.  The rabbi tells the child to take a feather pillow, open it up, and shake it out into the wind.  And then, when the child returns to the rabbi, he tells the child to go collect the feathers.  The child gets upset, knowing the feathers are long gone.  So, too, our words, teaches the rabbi.  Once they are aloft, we can never get them back.

The rabbis teach us that a word once spoken is like an arrow that can never be retracted once it is shot.  It is ironic then, that the word for sin in Hebrew, chet , is an archery term, which means “missing the mark.”  If words are arrows, then we sin whenever we miss the mark.  And we miss the mark a good percentage of the time.  That is why we desperately need tonight.  We gather to ask forgiveness for rash words, broken promises, insincere assurances, and for the assorted and sordid gossip and tale-bearing that reduces even the most educated individual into an assassin of character or worse.

Words do have great power.   They can be used for good, or they can cause great hurt and misunderstanding.  They can promote truth or destroy trust with falsehood:

A person remarked that a certain man was highly educated. He was able to speak five languages fluently.   His so-called friend answered by saying, “Yes, that may be true; but he cannot be trusted to be nice or tell the truth in any of them.”

In contrast, it is said of Fiorello La Guardia, the 99 th mayor of NY, who served for three terms from 1934-1945 and who was a Congressman for many years before and after that, that he spoke seven languages fluently, and used all of them to welcome and assist strangers to our shores on Ellis Island and throughout his immigrant city.

It is the brain and heart behind the words and the languages that control whether they are used for good or hurtful purposes.  Whether you say, “I love you. You are special,” or “I hate you. You are a terrible person,” will determine not only the quality of your relationship, but whether or not you have one going forward.

Words can convey tenderness or regret. They can build a person up or they can irreparably tear a relationship apart.  I truly believe that whether we are employers or employees, parents, partners, associates, teachers or students, friends or foes, encouraging words, helpfulness, respect and a spirit of approval are more effective than a diatribe of someone’s faults or failings.  Why is it that the term “having words” means that we disagreed?  It is a talent and skill to know when to speak and when to refrain from speaking your mind.

The old show “All in the Family” began political incorrectness on television decades ago.  Archie Bunker, the husband, would all too often want to shut his wife up, and tell her, “stifle yourself, Edith.”  In our second-to-second internet world, people don’t ever stifle themselves anymore.  As my Bubby used to say in Yiddish, “What is on your lung is on your tongue.”  Today, with a few clicks and uploads lives are ruined because people just can’t seem to stifle themselves.  Contrary to popular belief, sometimes saying nothing at all, is best, for whatever words you might choose will be the wrong ones.

A 75-year-old man went to his doctor for a physical exam.  The doctor could not find anything wrong with him and said, “It is amazing; you really have the body of a 50-year-old.  What is your secret?”  The man replied, “Well, when my wife and I were married 50 years ago, we made an agreement. We decided that we would never quarrel. So when we have a difference of opinion and it causes friction, and we see a fight coming on, she stays in the house and I go for a long walk.  I guess my good health is due to the fact that for 50 years I have pretty much led an outdoor life .”

I am not suggesting that you bottle up your feelings or that you always avoid controversy, although sometimes that is the only way to get through a family vacation or holiday.  But, remember that the Kol Nidre comes to us from a time when we said things we didn’t mean and felt so guilty about it.  We denounced our Judaism to stay alive in dark times.

Too many families and friendships have been torn apart by words that could never be retracted, while others have been destroyed by the deafening silences that over time made all words meaningless.  Whatever else we do over the next 24 hours, we need to take responsibility for our words.  In the Al Chet prayer we say, throughout Yom Kippur, we ask our forgiving God to forgive us:  “For the sin we have committed against you with our words.”

We are all human.  We say things and write things that would be best left unsaid, stifled, or censored.  For the words we share echo and reverberate in the ears of the recipient long after they have arrived.  There is no Epi-pen for the sting of words.  But, there is atonement.

And some times, getting things off your chest does make you feel better and doesn’t hurt anyone.  Take my Tweet this summer:  “CNN’s reporting of the Gaza war is appalling. No longer my network of choice.”   I was grateful that Twitter offered me a chance to vent my frustrations about the level of bias I couldn’t tolerate any more.  In the same way I am proud of all of you who wrote to Sharon Bulova, the Chairman of our Board of Supervisors, about the fact that Fairfax is holding an event tomorrow.  Sometimes our words are needed to right wrongs.  Speaking up and speaking out have their place in public and private discourse, as well.

As Rosten wrote about the power of words: “They sing. They hurt. They teach. They sanctify.”  Words are not ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ in and of themselves.  Words have value and impact in the way they are used and the tone in which they are delivered.

The Rabbis of the 4 th century who wrote Pirke Avot , the Ethics of the Fathers 5:9, share with us the attributes of the wise man.

The wise man does not speak before him that is greater than he in wisdom;

He does not break his fellow’s speech;

He is not in a rush to reply;

He asks what is relevant and replies to the point;

He speaks of first things first and last things last;

Of what he has not heard he says, “I have not heard,”

And he acknowledges what is true.

And the opposite applies to the clod.

We pray that we will not be clods in the new year. Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, in his 1996 book Words that Hurt, Words that Heal asks the question, “Could you go 24 hours without saying any unkind words about, or to, anybody.”  If so, you have your words under control.  But, if not, you have a serious problem.  Ask the person who can’t live without alcohol, drugs, or nicotine for 24 hours.  If they are being honest with themselves, they will tell you that they are addicted to those substances.  Telushkin cautions that if you are fueled on using words to harm and hurt, then you have lost control over your tongue.  And the rest of us are victims of your ego-destroying criticism, excessive anger, verbal bullying, sarcasm that really isn’t funny, public humiliation, hurtful names, betrayal of secrets, and rumors or malicious gossip.

Words have power.  Sometimes they are needed to right a wrong, to offer corrective criticism, or to share painful feelings.  Listen to those words without the need to respond.  Take them to heart, as words you just may need to hear.  Whether you are delivering the words or receiving them, always remember that words can lift us up from sorrow, or bury us deep in despair.  Words can extol the human spirit or shatter self-esteem for a lifetime.  Words can build confidence or destroy self worth.  Words can be a symphony of empathy, or strike harsh notes of dissonance and discord.  Words can teach and inform, or words can spread ignorance and fuel hatred. Words can make us cry and words can make us laugh.

Every night, after saying the Shema, a mother encouraged her daughter to talk to God directly.  After learning at temple on Rosh Hashanah about saying “I’m sorry” for the things she said , the little girl prayed,

“God, I’m sorry for not listening to my mommy and for telling a lie today.  And I am sorry for adultery.”

Her mother was a bit surprised with the evening prayer and gently said to her daughter,

“Sarah, you are six years old.  How did you commit adultery?

To which little Sarah replied. You know, Mommy, you were there.  “I talked back to an adult today.”

As the teacher of teenagers, I regularly ask my students if they have mouthed off to their parents, and the majority always respond in the affirmative.  But, what saddens me more is how frequently they share the fact that they are so often victims of harsh words, yelling, and unkind things that are said by all the adult members of their households.  Adults need to be role models for all kinds of behavior, and our choice of words and tone is a good place to start.

I’m not sure any of us understand the effect our words really have.  I suppose that is why we are here asking for forgiveness on this Kol Nidre night.  I repent as you do, for what I have said and for what I failed to say.  But, the key to repentance is promising not to do it again.

God asks us, his children, “Are you ready to understand the power of your words and to do a better job using words in the New Year?”  All too often we respond, “Maybe later.”  Kol Nidre night comes each year to suggest: “Maybe now.”

Shanah tovah.

A Lesson for Our Kids on the Power of Words

R aise your hand if you’ve ever heard the phrase: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” I couldn’t tell you when I heard it for the first time or why, but it’s safe to say it stuck. As a kid growing up, I learned that words were just words. It was normalized to minimize hard feelings because they’d magically go away. Being angry, sad, or disappointed wasn’t a big deal — it was something I just had to “get over.” Now, as an adult raising my own kids, I know how untrue that phrase is. Words do matter, and they cause lasting impacts. While it took me several decades to fully understand this, I’m glad to report that they’re doing things differently these days. And there are ways for us to teach our kids about the power of their words.

The Power of Our Words

Recently, my oldest daughter shared one of her favorite lessons from her guidance counselors on the importance of words. The lesson discussed the impact of our words on the people around us. How one compliment can make someone’s day — or how a few mean words said in anger can be devastating.

The lesson discussed how powerful words can be, whether positive or negative. To illustrate the point in a concrete way, the counselor had the kids crumple up a piece of paper. Each crumple and contortion represented unkind words or bullying. Once they finished, she had them try to get the paper back to the way it was. Of course, no matter how much they smoothed it back out, it wasn’t the same.

She explained that, in a real-life scenario, smoothing the paper out might look like apologizing . But even when we say we’re sorry, when we hurt someone, it never fully erases the impact. Things don’t go back exactly to how they were. The same is true when those mean words get the better of us.

As parents, we want to teach our kids this lesson without the heartbreak, and it starts by leading with empathy . “You can build empathy by teaching the power of words,” says Matthew Schubert , a licensed professional counselor. “When your child understands how certain words make them feel, it helps them understand how their words affect others,” he adds.

Teaching our kiddos to walk in someone else’s shoes teaches them to pause and think about the impact and power of their words. It also helps them be a caring friend to those who have had difficult experiences with bullying . Even though they may not have been made fun of, they understand what it would feel like.

Leading With Empathy and Kindness

Being empathetic in every situation is easier said than done, even for an adult with more practice. It’s even more difficult as a kid, especially when tempers flare. So, how do we teach our kids to be kind and patient ?

Schubert recommends that parents start with the basics, like identifying emotions and effectively communicating. “Doing this helps people better understand what you are trying to say and how you’re feeling,” he says. Remember that kindness comes in all shapes and forms. Practicing kindness doesn’t have to include a grand gesture.

Small Ways To Practice Kindness

If you’re looking for ways to teach your kids to infuse a little more kindness in their day-to-day lives, consider practicing some of the following:

• Give a compliment to a friend, a family member, or even a stranger.
• Practice gratitude and let people know that you appreciate them.
• Be willing to listen to other people’s problems.
• Volunteer with local organizations or find different ways to help people out through acts of kindness .
• Leave notes of encouragement and kind words for people you encounter.

While this isn’t an exhaustive list, it’s an excellent place to start if you’re looking for little ways to teach your kids kindness . You also can ask your child about ideas they have. How do they want to practice kindness? How have they received kindness in the past that was meaningful to them?

“Finding the right words and actions to express this is an empowering experience for your kids,” says Schubert. “Something I often hear from kids is that they feel unheard. They feel invisible in the realm of adults making all the rules for them and always telling them what to do,” he adds. When your kiddo gets actively involved in these activities, it feels less like something they have to do and more like something they want to do.

We Are Responsible for Our Words

The words we say are powerful and have lasting impacts. I don’t know why this particular lesson hit home so hard for my daughter, but I’m glad it did. Be it an example with crumpled paper, broken dishes, or toothpaste squeezed out of a tube, the lesson that speaks the loudest is this: You are responsible for your words.

Equally as important, it’s worth saying, again and again, that it’s no extra thing to choose to be kind. Compliment someone. Flash them a smile if they seem to be feeling down. You never know whose day you can turn around or how much of a difference you can make for one person with just a few kind words.

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Jamelle Bouie

This Whole King Trump Thing Is Getting Awfully Literal

By Jamelle Bouie

Opinion Columnist

Donald Trump’s claim that he has absolute immunity for criminal acts taken in office as president is an insult to reason, an assault on common sense and a perversion of the fundamental maxim of American democracy: that no man is above the law.

More astonishing than the former president’s claim to immunity, however, is the fact that the Supreme Court took the case in the first place . It’s not just that there’s an obvious response — no, the president is not immune to criminal prosecution for illegal actions committed with the imprimatur of executive power, whether private or “official” (a distinction that does not exist in the Constitution) — but that the court has delayed, perhaps indefinitely, the former president’s reckoning with the criminal legal system of the United States.

In delaying the trial, the Supreme Court may well have denied the public its right to know whether a former president, now vying to be the next president, is guilty of trying to subvert the sacred process of presidential succession: the peaceful transfer of power from one faction to another that is the essence of representative democracy. It is a process so vital, and so precious, that its first occurrence — with the defeat of John Adams and the Federalists at the hands of Thomas Jefferson’s Republicans in the 1800 presidential election — was a second sort of American Revolution.

Whether motivated by sincere belief or partisanship or a myopic desire to weigh in on a case involving the former president, the Supreme Court has directly intervened in the 2024 presidential election in a way that deprives the electorate of critical information or gives it less time to grapple with what might happen in a federal courtroom. And if the trial occurs after an election in which Trump wins a second term and he is convicted, then the court will have teed the nation up for an acute constitutional crisis. A president, for the first time in the nation’s history, might try to pardon himself for his own criminal behavior.

In other words, however the Supreme Court rules, it has egregiously abused its power.

It is difficult to overstate the radical contempt for republican government embodied in the former president’s notion that he can break the law without consequence or sanction on the grounds that he must have that right as chief executive. As Trump sees it, the president is sovereign, not the people. In his grotesque vision of executive power, the president is a king, unbound by law, chained only to the limits of his will.

This is nonsense. In a detailed amicus brief submitted in support of the government in Trump v. United States, 15 leading historians of the early American republic show the extent to which the framers and ratifiers of the Constitution rejected the idea of presidential immunity for crimes committed in office.

“Although the framers debated a variety of designs for the executive branch — ranging from a comparatively strong, unitary president to a comparatively weaker executive council — they all approached the issues with a deep-seated, anti-monarchical sentiment,” the brief states. “There is no evidence in the extensive historical record that any of the framers believed a former president should be immune from criminal prosecution. Such a concept would be inimical to the basic intentions, understandings, and experiences of the founding generation.”

The historians gather a bushel of quotes and examples from a who’s who of the revolutionary generation to prove the point. “In America the law is king,” Thomas Paine wrote in his landmark pamphlet, “Common Sense.” “For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other.”

James Madison thought it “indispensable that some provision should be made for defending the Community against the incapacity, negligence or perfidy of the chief Magistrate.” The presidency was designed with accountability in mind.

Years later, speaking on the Senate floor, Charles Pinckney of South Carolina — a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia — said outright that he and his colleagues did not intend for the president to have any privileges or immunities: “No privilege of this kind was intended for your Executive, nor any except that which I have mentioned for your Legislature.”

What’s more, as the brief explains, ratification of the Constitution rested on the “express” promise that “the new president would be subject to criminal conviction.”

“His person is not so much protected as that of a member of the House of Representatives,” Tench Coxe wrote in one of the first published essays urging ratification of the Constitution, “for he may be proceeded against like any other man in the ordinary course of law.”

James Iredell, one of the first justices of the Supreme Court, told the North Carolina ratifying convention that if the president “commits any misdemeanor in office, he is impeachable, removable from office, and incapacitated to hold any office of honor, trust or profit.” And if he commits any crime, “he is punishable by the laws of his country, and in capital cases may be deprived of his life.”

Yes, you read that correctly. In his argument for the Constitution, one of the earliest appointees to the Supreme Court specified that in a capital case, the president could be tried, convicted and put to death.

If there were ever a subject on which to defer to the founding generation, it is on this question regarding the nature of the presidency. Is the president above the law? The answer is no. Is the president immune from criminal prosecution? Again, the answer is no. Any other conclusion represents a fundamental challenge to constitutional government.

I wish I had faith that the Supreme Court would rule unanimously against Trump. But having heard the arguments — having listened to Justice Brett Kavanaugh worry that prosecution could hamper the president and having heard Justice Samuel Alito suggest that we would face a destabilizing future of politically motivated prosecutions if Trump were to find himself on the receiving end of the full force of the law — my sense is that the Republican-appointed majority will try to make some distinction between official and unofficial acts and remand the case back to the trial court for further review, delaying a trial even further.

Rather than grapple with the situation at hand — a defeated president worked with his allies to try to overturn the results of an election he lost, eventually summoning a mob to try to subvert the peaceful transfer of power — the Republican-appointed majority worried about hypothetical prosecutions against hypothetical presidents who might try to stay in office against the will of the people if they aren’t placed above the law.

It was a farce befitting the absurdity of the situation. Trump has asked the Supreme Court if he is, in effect, a king. And at least four members of the court, among them the so-called originalists, have said, in essence, that they’ll have to think about it.

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Jamelle Bouie became a New York Times Opinion columnist in 2019. Before that he was the chief political correspondent for Slate magazine. He is based in Charlottesville, Va., and Washington. @ jbouie