Francisco Gomes de Matos
This chapter aims at contributing to the understanding of the interrelationship of language, peace, and conflict resolution by drawing on approaches, insights, and practices from interdisciplinary sources. It is organized in three sections, beginning with a discussion of the key concepts in the title and an updated, expanded definition of language. The second section summarizes the implications, for applied peace linguistics, of four communication-based approaches to conflict resolution, selected from the literature in English and Portuguese. In the third section, implications are drawn for the preparation of peaceful language users; examples are given for a mnemonically based technique designed to help language users communicate peacefully in sociopolitical contexts. The chapter concludes with a call for the integration of language, peace, and conflict as a new type of communicative right and responsibility to be considered in the peace education of language users.
To examine the interconnectedness of language, peace, and conflict resolution would call for probing each core concept in the perspective of each of the three fields and then relationally. Instead, I provide a brief description of how linguists, peace educators and psychologists, and conflict resolution researchers view those fundamental processes for human interaction, growth, and development.
What is language? is the first question posed by scientists called linguists, whose goals may be broad and deep. Thus, a look at the table of contents of a reference work by Crystal and Crystal (2000) shows that linguists’ interests can range from the nature of language—analysis of its structure, diversity, functions, meanings, forms—through its uses and effects (friendly or unfriendly). How do linguists define or characterize language? In that source we find these statements: “Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of a system of voluntarily produced symbols” (Sapir, 2000), and, “Language is a social fact” (de Saussure, 2000). Definitions of language reflect the theoretical or applicational views of definers; thus, cognitively oriented linguists might regard language as “a cognitive system which is part of a human being’s mental or psychological structure” (Atkinson and others, 1999, p. 1).
The most recurring defining element in these lists of traits of language is that of systematicity. In my surveys of the literature for distinguishing features of language (Gomes de Matos, 1973, 1994), the view of language as a system occurred more frequently than descriptions: “Language is social,” for example, or, “Language varies/changes.” Although lists of traits of language have been enriched with the cognitive dimension, an important feature has been conspicuously missing: that of humanization. To fill that conceptual gap, I suggested that “the humanizing nature of language” be added to the linguistics literature (Gomes de Matos, 1994, p. 106). In merely stating that language is human, we do not do full justice to another distinguishing trait of that system: its humanizing power. Such a trait would subsume both making language human (the traditional sense) and making language humane (the newer sense). Realistically, such characterization of language would be worded so as to cover both its humanizing and dehumanizing power, because, as linguists Bolinger (1980) and Crystal and Crystal (2000) have emphasized, language can also be used as a weapon.
That such a (de)humanizing trait of language is still invisible in works for a general audience can be seen from looking through dictionaries. Thus, Random House Webster’s College Dictionary (1997, p. 737) carries on the tradition of defining language as “communication using a system of arbitrary vocal sounds, written symbols, signs, or gestures in conventional ways with conventional meanings,” but it does not make the dehumanizing trait explicit, despite offering its readers a useful section on avoiding insensitive and offensive language, with examples of linguistic sexism and ageism. If I were to update definitions of language within the perspective adopted for this chapter, I would sum it up in this way: language is a mental marvel for peaceful meaning making and problem solving. Such formulation reflects the fact that we are cognitive, communicative, creative, and (potentially) peaceful language users.
Another critical question is: Have the concepts of peace and conflict been dealt with in the linguistics literature? The answer is in the affirmative, but minimally so, with possible increasing attention as peace linguistics gains momentum. This emerging branch of linguistics is the study of the interaction of language and peace for improving human communicative life. Interestingly, the expression linguistics of conflict appears in a sociolinguistics book (Downes, 1998) and “Discourse and Conflict” is the title of a chapter in a comprehensive handbook (Schiffrin, Tannen, and Hamilton, 2001). Precursorily, dehumanization (through vocabulary and syntax) is discussed in Van Dijk’s Handbook for Discourse Analysis (1985). What about peace? How do linguists define or characterize it? A suggested definition is given by Hungarian scholars Szepe and Horanyi in a publication sponsored by the World Federation of Modern Language Teachers Association (1995, p. 66): “Peace is a dynamic process of cooperation for the resolution of conflicts.” Significantly, in that book, we are told that in UNESCO’s Linguapax Program, “Language can be viewed in a broader sense, as the merger of two global fields: language and peace” (p. 65).
Given this chapter’s threefold conceptual focus—language, peace, and conflict resolution—two exemplary definitions of peace by scholars of conflict resolution seem appropriate: one by Yarn, author of the Dictionary of Conflict Resolution (1999)—“Peace: state or condition of quiet, security, justice, and tranquility” (Yarn, personal communication, September 15, 2001)—and the other from Deutsch: “Peace—whether intrapsychic, interpersonal, intragroup, or international—is a state of harmonious cooperation among the entities involved” (personal communication, October 6, 2003).
Before looking at the third concept in this chapter’s title, conflict resolution, let’s see how pervasive the underlying concept of conflict is in a recent lexicographic volume of interest to researchers in conflict resolution and in peace linguistics: Sharp’s Dictionary of Power and Struggle (Sharp, 2012). In its 997 entries, there are 102 in which the concept-term conflict occurs. Thus, we are led to agree with Sharp, a political scientist, that “we live in a world filled with conflicts” (p. 1). Here is the alphabetically arranged list of entries in that pioneering lexicon in which use is made of the noun conflict . Note that eight entries refer to specific types of conflict, but many other forms of conflict are discussed or mentioned in the dictionary: accommodation, ambush, arbitration, authority backlash, battle, case history, casualty, civilian, civilian struggle, civil resistance, civil war, class struggle, coercion, collaboration, combat, commercial resistance, commercial war, compromise, conciliation, conflict, conflict resolution, conflict studies, contingency plans, conversion, decollaboration, defeat, defiance of blockade, demolition, domestic conflict, dynamics of violent action, economic nonintercourse, escalation, Fabian tactics, fearless, fight, front, general administrative noncooperation, grand strategy, guerrilla warfare, indirect strategy, industrial conflict, institutionalized violence, intergroup conflict, intersocietal conflict, intrasocietal conflict, irregular warfare, just war, leadership, logistics, maneuver, Marxism, mechanism of change, mediation, militancy, militant, military, military war, negotiation, neutrality, nonviolent struggle, occupation forces, open conflict, opponents, pacifism, peace, peacekeeper, peacekeeping, peace research, political ambush, political warfare, politics, professional strike, protracted struggle, provisional government, public opinion, realism, reconciliation, repression, sabotage, seizure of assets, selective patronage, social conflict, social distance, solidarity, strategic advance, strategy, strike, struggle group, struggle technique, subversion, success, tactic, terror, third parties, truce, ultimatum, unconventional warfare, violent action, war, war resistance .
Sharp defines conflict resolution as “the diverse ways in which conflicts are settled without violence.” Such ways “include arbitration, conciliation, judicial or legislative action, negotiation and other approaches” (p. 96). How would peace researchers define conflict resolution ? A renowned peace educator says, “Conflict is a part of all our lives: yet few of us have the skills to transform conflict from a painful destructive process to one of significant learning and constructive change” (Reardon, 2001, p. 103). She cogently argues that “conflict resolution is one function of non-violence” (p. 106).
Mention of violence is a good reminder of the major goal of this chapter: helping to integrate language, peace, and conflict resolution as an approach to understanding, preventing, monitoring, overcoming, and, if possible, eliminating forms of communicative violence in our personal lives, our communities, and the world. Alas, that human beings can be communicatively violent is easy to demonstrate through a list of thirty verbs in English expressing violent communicative acts: abuse, antagonize, attack, belittle, blow off steam, browbeat, bully, coerce, calumniate, debase, defame, deprecate, discriminate, disparage, disrespect, degrade, force, fustigate, humiliate, intimidate, insult, irritate, mock, offend, oppress, ridicule, scorn, slander, stigmatize , and vilify .
As an instructive and revealing exercise, readers are urged to produce a corresponding list of verbs representing peaceful communicative acts. Would these lexical items outnumber those in the list of verbally destructive actions? Here are some peace-enhancing verbs (contextualization would provide the necessary positiveness): affirm, agree, acknowledge, applaud, approve, assist, benefit, bless, build, celebrate, commend, compliment, congratulate, console, construct, dignify, encourage, enhance, exalt, hail, help, honor, improve, like, love, praise, promote, recommend, reconcile , and respect . That human beings need to be educated as peaceful language users is one of the chief motivations for writing this chapter. Another reason is the powerful and pervasive role that metaphors play in the uses of languages, especially with representations of conflict, war, and peace.
To illustrate how much language users activate metaphors based on war, here is a list of verbs Ellison (2002) used: attack, be vulnerable, camouflage, counterattack, deface, disarm, entrap, fight, fight back, retaliate, sabotage , and supply with ammunition . Given this chapter’s focus on the interplay of language, peace, and conflict resolution, a strategy for enhancing language users’ awareness of the pervasiveness of war-based metaphors is what I call the use of contrastive metaphors. It consists of presenting sets of three verbs, displayed as a continuum from war based to peace based: “X attacked/strongly criticized/questioned Y’s views. X’s views conflict/differ from/are not the same as mine. Of Y’s argument, X demolished it/showed that it was wrong/showed that it was questionable.”
This practice of using contrastive metaphors in continuums of human attitudes, emotions, and feelings could have its place in the educational sun all over the world. After having characterized language, here is a brief definition of the science that is exclusively focused on language, both theoretically and applicationally: linguistics.
Linguistics is the scientific study of language, that is, of the universal human faculty of communication and expression as realized through specific systems called languages. Applied linguistics (AL) is an interdisciplinary field that addresses an increasing variety of language-based problems in areas such as language learning and teaching, literacy, language contact, language policy and planning, language pathology, and language use. (For details, see Grabe, 2002.) Given the diversity of research approaches in AL (Duff, 2002) and the increasing importance of peace and conflict in the social and political sciences, it is natural to expect a growing interest among applied linguists in peaceful and conflictive aspects of language use.
I started to explore the connection between language and peace in the early 1990s through workshops and seminars on constructive communication in Portuguese, the outcome of which was a book advocating a pedagogy of positiveness (Gomes de Matos, 1996). I had presented the core concept underlying that approach—communicative peace—in a sociolinguistics publication three years earlier (Gomes de Matos, 1993) and revisited it in a brief discussion for a journal that was new in the field of peace education at the time (Gomes de Matos, 2005a). Peace linguistics is an emerging approach with a focus on peaceful/nonviolent uses of languages and an emphasis on “attitudes which respect the dignity of individual language users and communities” (Crystal, 1999, p. 255). Its complementary side, applied peace linguistics (APL), could be defined as an interdisciplinary approach aimed at helping educational systems create conditions for the preparation of human beings as peaceful language users. My commitment to APL reflects the conviction that every citizen should have the right to learn to communicate peacefully for the good of humankind (Gomes de Matos, 2005b).
After briefly characterizing linguistics, applied linguistics, peace linguistics , and applied peace linguistics —an Internet search for such terms can be instructive—attention in this section focuses on possible implications of four language-based approaches to conflict resolution. The key question is, “What implications can we draw that would inspire work in APL?” Because limitations of space prevent the exploration of different kinds of implications, I have opted to examine educational implications as a means of translating some key concepts and insights from each conflict resolution approach (CRA) into an applied peace linguistics perspective.
The first CRA, known as nonviolent communication, is grounded on a broadly based conceptual repertoire: appreciation, compassion, conflict, feeling(s)/nonfeelings, judgments, needs, positive action, responsibility, and vocabulary (for feelings).
Because our focus here is on applications of CRA by human beings as language users, Rosenberg, the author of Nonviolent Communication (2003), included a chapter in that book titled “Applying NVC in Our Lives and World.” The finding of such applicational sense in a conflict resolution (CR) work helps bring together its author—in this case, a psychologist—and applied linguists engaged in peaceful communication.
How can the key concepts in NVC be translated into APL? A simple way of bringing the two approaches closer is to add the adjective communicative to each of the concepts in the NVC system, thus: communicative appreciation, communicative compassion, communicative conflict, communicative responsibility , and so forth. The addition of communicative gives each NVC concept greater specificity and serves as a reminder to language users that peace in and through language is a varied and vast territory inhabited by interrelated dimensions.
Another educationally relevant contribution of the NCV to APL is its two lists of vocabulary for feelings (Rosenberg, 2003). The first list, of adjectives representing positive feelings (needs being met), can serve as a checklist of communicative responsibilities. In such spirit, language users would be challenged to be communicatively affectionate, appreciative, cheerful, free, friendly, good humored, loving, optimistic, peaceful, pleasant, tender , and warm . That same enumeration could become a list of nouns, representing communicatively desirable actions: communicative affection, appreciation , and so forth. The second list Rosenberg provided is focused on negative feelings (needs not being met). Accordingly, language users could use them as reminders of what to avoid in interacting with other human beings. Such a preventive or self-monitoring checklist would include, for example, communicative anger, bitterness, despair, exasperation, hostility, impatience, irritation, pessimism, resentment, shock , and wretchedness . A third inspiring insight from NVC could be borrowed by applied peace linguists: the translation of judgmental vocabulary and phraseology into nonjudgmental, peace-promoting equivalents. Provocatively, Rosenberg makes a case against the objectionable use of should when it creates shame or guilt. He argues that “this violent word, which we commonly use to evaluate ourselves, is so deeply ingrained in our consciousness that many of us would have trouble imagining how to live without it,” and he counsels, “Avoid shoulding yourself!” (Rosenberg, 2003, p. 131).
Rosenberg’s mention of violent words provides food for thought and action by applied peace linguists. What violent vocabulary do we use not only about other human beings but about ourselves, and how can that be self-monitored? How can our condition of peaceful communicative creatures be improved in that respect? The seemingly unconscious use of negative verbs, which may reflect imposed authority or oppression, would be another area for collaborative investigation by CR experts and applied peace linguists. An example would be a teacher’s use of the verb force in a classroom context: “I don’t force my students to read texts aloud in front of the class.” In this case, the humanizing verb expected of a peaceful-language-aware educator would be ask . Two other authoritarian verbs that may be found in teacher discourse are have and let , as in these remarks heard during a teacher education workshop: “Do you have your students share their notes with their peers?” (alternate humanizing verbs: ask, encourage ), and, “I let/allow my students to use a bilingual dictionary, during essay writing in English” (alternate humanizing equivalents: “I assure my students their right . . .” or, more empathically, “My students have the right . . .”). The very use of should in classroom instructions can also be questioned. Thus, saying, “One student should assume the role of minigroup leader,” instead of could may reflect the fact that teachers and teacher educators are unaware of the humanizing nature of language use, a trait of language that is new in the linguistics and communication literature.
Founded in 1984 by far-sighted, innovative psychologist Marshall Rosenberg, the Center for Nonviolent Communication has grown into an international nonprofit organization that provides expertise in the NVC approach through a network of “well over 150 certified trainers worldwide” (Cox and Dannahy, 2005, p. 41). Given its longevity and increasing internationalization, NVC has been tested in varied contexts.
According to Thomas P. Caruso (personal communication, November 2, 2005), research was conducted in Costa Rica in 2004 on the impact of NVC training at the Elias Castro School of Excellence; in the United States in 2002 as A Step toward Violence Prevention: NVC, part of a college curriculum; in the Netherlands in 200l on NVC as a way to reduce violence in kindergartens; in Finland in 2001 on how NVC reduces bullying by 26 percent at the International School of Helsinki; and in Yugoslavia in 1996 as “Mutual Education: Giraffe Language in Kindergartens and Schools” (the giraffe, the land animal with the largest heart, is the symbol for the compassionate language advocated by NVC practitioners). Researchers in conflict resolution can gain a sense of the high quality of empirical research on the effects of NVC by reading a 2005 paper by Cox and Dannahy in which they use the Rosenberg model “as a way of developing the openness needed for successful communication in e-mentoring relationships.” According to those researchers (one from the United States, the other from the United Kingdom), “there is evidence to suggest that the use of NVC, with its focus on feelings and needs, encourages trusting relationships characterized by openness.” Interestingly, they continue, “Case study research was undertaken with students participating in an online coaching and mentoring module that formed part of a Masters degree at a British university.” In their conclusion, they state that “the most noteworthy indication of NVC’s ability to facilitate electronic dialogue is illustrated through the speed at which in-depth relationships were forged with students.” (For insights into applied research possibilities by NVC for individual and group practice, Nonviolent Communication: Companion Workbook by Leu, 2003, is well worth reading.)
This approach places “language at the center of human organizing and change” (Whitney and Trosten-Bloom, 2003, p. 53) and characterizes that system as “the vehicle by which communities of people create knowledge and make meaning” (p. 56). Four key concepts of appreciative inquiry (AI) are positive change, meaning making, freedoms, and power. Positive change emphasizes the positive potential of people and organizations by focusing on “the best of what has been, what is, and what might be” (p. 15). From a peace linguistics perspective, AI authors believe that “words create worlds” and that language has the power to create social change and reality (p. 53). The term meaning making means the sharing of interview data—stories, quotes, and inspirational highlights—for deeper interaction. Freedoms , “six conditions for the liberation of power” (p. 238), include the freedom to be heard. In AI, “having no voice . . . is the experience of the oppressed. To be heard is to have a recognized and credible voice”(p. 241). By power the authors mean “the capacity to create, innovate, and positively influence the future” or “an unlimited relational resource” (p. 236). Also of possible applicational interest is AI’s “Positive Principle: Positive Questions Lead to Positive Change”(p. 66). Such formulation is similar to the philosophy underlying the checklist for asking questions positively proposed by Gomes de Matos (1996).
Although Whitney and Trosten-Bloom (2003) do not deal explicitly with the core concept of conflict, examples are provided of communicative conflicts in the workplace. Of additional interest, especially to researchers in typologies of conflict, is Whitney and Trosten-Bloom’s mention of AI meetings of people experiencing conflicts of a cultural, generational, or religious nature. Those researchers in organizational change acknowledge the relevance of the field of positive psychology and claim that the approach initiated by American Psychological Association president Martin Seligman in 1998, “along with Appreciative Inquiry, may well revolutionize the way that we live, work, and organize our families, communities, and businesses” (p. 85). For applied peace linguists, it is gratifying to learn from Whitney and Trosten-Bloom that “psychologists, like organization development consultants, believe that, to contribute constructively to human and societal well-being, they need to develop a vocabulary of joy, hope, and health” (p. 85).
Appreciative inquiry, a process for positive change, had its beginnings at Case Western Reserve University in 1985. It is being used by businesses, educational institutions, health care systems, governments, and communities in the United States and abroad. As Whitney and Trosten-Bloom state, “Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is a bold invitation to be positive. . . . Over and over people have told us that AI works, in part, because it gives people the Freedom to be Positive” (2003, p. 250). The positive impact of AI comes from its capacity to bring together and liberate the power of diverse groups of people. In a personal communication (November 2, 2005), Whitney clarifies that
research into why AI works shows that its 4-D Cycle (discovery, dream, design, and delivery) is effective as a change process for five reasons: 1) it lets people meet and be known to each other in relationships rather than in roles; 2) it enables people to be heard for what they value and care about; 3) it creates opportunities for people to share their dreams in a broader community of colleagues and friends; 4) it fosters an environment in which people are able to choose how they want to contribute; and 5) it builds systems and structures through which people are supported in taking risks to create and to innovate.
Ríos and Fisher (2003) provide an example of the use of AI as a tool for conflict transformation in which they explore how the positive features of AI might help bring about reconciliation between conflicting parties in the long-standing maritime conflict between Bolivia and Chile. In their conclusion, the two researchers say that “although AI applications in corporate and community settings have been successful in addressing complicated issues, scenarios of deep-rooted and longstanding conflict within or between countries can bring quite different challenges” (p. 247). According to Whitney, “It is AI’s relational, narrative approach to the cooperative discovery of what matters to people that is at the heart of its success as a process for creating positive futures in human organizations and communities” (personal communication, May 2, 2005). (On other uses of AI methodology, see Sampson, Abu-Nimer, Liebler, and Whitney, 2003.)
This approach shares with NVC the use of the negative prefix non , which has been universalized in such foundational concepts as Gandhi’s nonviolence , a term coined in 1915, meaning “the policy or practice of refraining from the use of violence, as in protesting oppressive authority” (Random House Webster’s College Dictionary , 1997, p. 891). When asked why she used a negative hyphenated word, non-defensive , powerful non-defensive communication (NDC) author Ellison explains that she “couldn’t find a word in the English language that describes how to communicate without (a) being dependent on the other person’s cooperation and (b) joining in the power struggle” (personal communication, April 21, 2005). She adds that “most of the words like peaceful, cooperative , and so on, inspire most people to think of the cooperative.” She continues, “My process allows people to speak with power regardless of whether s/he cooperates.”
On Ellison’s combining power and non-defensiveness in her book’s subtitle, The Art of Powerful Non-Defensive Communication , she clarifies that people respond strongly to those two adjectives together and want to know more about being powerful and non-defensive at the same time (personal communication, April 21, 2005).
The core concepts in powerful non-defensive communication (PNDC) are power, the war model (a traditional system of communicating), and the powerful nondefensive model (tools instead of weapons). Although the term peace is conspicuously absent from the book’s index, it is given prominence in its conclusion: “Peace and Power.” In another personal message, Ellison sums up her approach to power, language, and peace in this way: “The tendency toward power struggle among individuals and groups of people and conflict in epidemic proportions is often seen simply as human nature. It seems to be the story of recorded human history. I believe that we have used a particular understanding of power as the foundation of all human communication and if we were to change how we conceive of power and use it, we could change human destiny” (August 10, 2005). Ellison states that “the war model reflects a unilateral view of power, with subsequent need to control and manipulate expressed in how we use language, asking questions that are interrogating, making statements of opinion as fact, and trying to convince others to agree, as well as making predictions designed to threaten or punish others.” She clarifies that in the war model, reciprocity is seen as being effective only if others cooperate and argues that the alternative is what she call reciprocal power: “where I choose how to respond to you based on how you treat me, but I do not try to control you, or convince you to be different. I call the language for this system powerful non-defensive communication.” She goes on to explain,
In this system, reciprocity is not dependent on anyone else’s cooperation. I simply judge how much I do for you and with you based on how you treat me. Of course, there is still oppression and many circumstances where one person or group can use violence to take control. However, my belief is that in millions of personal interactions, reciprocal power expressed through a powerful non-defensive system of language not only has more power for the individual using it, but the other person is very likely to disarm their own defenses. This non-defensive system of language addresses the human need for connection, love and respect.
In Ellison’s concluding remarks, she speaks of what I call communicative peace: “If we change how we communicate in our own families and communities, it will begin to change our human mindset and someday, when one more person changes to a non-defensive way of listening and speaking, using power in reciprocal ways, . . . our wisdom can guide us in finding peaceful solutions to the global issues that we all face.” Of special interest for applied peace linguists in Ellison’s applicational insights might be her description of questions, statements, and predictions as tools of PNDC; her formats for NDC (content- or process-based questions, descriptive statements, if-type predictions); and a list of individual reactions in interactions.
My approach, described in greater length in Portuguese (Gomes de Matos, 1996, 2002a) and briefly in English (Gomes de Matos, 2000, 2001, 2002b, 2005b), reflects the assumption that communicating well is communicating for the good of humankind. In my 1996 book, I provided several checklists and guidelines on how to communicate constructively. The following sample guidelines are translated from the text in Portuguese:
How to Interact Positively
Another checklist is centered on how to write constructively. It was first used by undergraduate students of Portuguese at the local Federal University of Pernambuco, then by police officers in a community policing program sponsored by the Pernambuco State Department of Social Defense and by the Center for Applied Social Sciences:
How to Write Constructively
Peace linguists might be interested to know that in my workshops aimed at positive or constructive writing, self-monitoring checklists such as the following are shared:
My constructive communication (CC) approach capitalizes on the applicational possibilities of checklists. Also included in the 1996 book are guidelines on how to read and listen positively (this adverb is often used instead of constructively ), how to criticize positively, how to interact with older persons positively, and how to use linguistics at the service of positive communication.
In more recent work (Gomes de Matos, 2012), I refer to my approach to peace linguistics as LIF PLUS: the life-improving force of peaceful language use. In that work, I provide two applications of my technique rhymed reflections (RRs): a set of four stanzas and a set of twenty-one couplets. Here is one of the four-line RRs:
When with their parents teenagers interact
Disagreements and even conflicts may take place
How could those persons begin to learn to react?
By putting on a smiling friendly face
Following are two of the two-line RRs (slightly adapted for this chapter):
If a conflict we want to manage constructively
Let’s do our best and cooperate creatively
In mediation, Peace can be a conciliatory Power
In meditation, Peace can be a spiritualizing Flower
I also recommend that RRs be considered as the textual component of artistically designed posters. Here is an example: the third stanza of a three-stanza RR produced at the Design Department of Associação Brasil América, Recife, Brazil:
What is meant by being educated for Nonkilling?
It is a globally needed type of educational right
It involves Life-supporting-saving-and-preserving
and serves Humankind as a peace-promoting light
And here is my reason for using RRs as a psychoeducational-communicative technique:
Cognitively, rhymed reflections are mnemonic
but they can have a deep function: being solomonic
Phonetically, they are pairs of reflections that rhyme
Semantically, they are vocabulary mountains for us to climb
Creatively, RRs are imaginatively wrought
and provide us with more alternatives to be sought
To languages as meaningful mental marvels, RRs pay tribute
To the VERSEtility of language users, such reflections contribute
Rhymed reflections, from the mind and heart, human dignity will elevate
Rhymed reflections, for constructive conflict resolution purposes, will educate
Given its relatively young age and the fact that its two foundational works were published in Portuguese (Gomes de Matos, 1996, 2002a), the constructive communication approach has experienced somewhat more diffusion in Brazil, but it is slowly becoming known in English. (For two examples, see Gomes de Matos, 2001, in which the pedagogy of positiveness is applied to diplomatic communication, and Gomes de Matos, 2005b, in which uses of peaceful language are discussed and exemplified.)
Empirical research on the effects of such approaches is still to be conducted, but it seems to hold promise for an understanding of some of the challenges facing language users when being asked to explore the friendly-to-unfriendly communication continuum, through the use of contrastive metaphors, as illustrated in this chapter. Gomes de Matos’s book on communicative peace (2002a) was reviewed in English by Rector (2003). According to the University of North Carolina linguist, “the book is a new step in the development of linguistic theory” and “it constitutes an interdisciplinary work, intertwining philosophy, psychology, and social sciences.” The reviewer adds that Gomes de Matos “suggests a method for achieving a positive and humane communication for peace” and “teaches how to be positive and avoid being offensive or destructive.”
A brief appraisal in English of the constructive communication approach can be found in a linguistic introduction to Portuguese by Berkeley linguist Azevedo (2005, p. 290): “Research on negative language . . . has led some scholars to make a case for intentional use of positive language as a strategy to improve communication, and ultimately, one would hope, human relations (Gomes de Matos, 1996, 2002b). Whether such efforts can be effective as a tool for social change is an open empirical question.”
In educating for human rights and responsibilities, one of the still little-explored dimensions in applied peace linguistics has to do with communicative peace, that is, the right to communicative peace, that is, the right every person should have to learn to communicate peacefully for the good of humankind. In such spirit, a plea of mine was the subject of a message by the president of the International Communication Association (Craig, 2003), in which my formulation is described as an in-depth integration of three fundamental human rights: the right to live in peace, the right to learn, and the right to communicate.
My updated version of that interpretation, with the addition of the notion of conflict resolution, is that human beings should have the right and the responsibility to learn to communicate peacefully in varied societal contexts, especially in challenging, life-threatening situations. The right to communicate constructively is much neglected in schools and other forms of education. This neglect is detrimental to social life and is in need of change. In such spirit, let’s make the humanizing force of language a frequent rather than an occasional feature of communicative use. Accordingly, I make a plea here for organizations committed to helping persons, groups, communities, and nations (re)solve conflicts and disputes to invest more in interdisciplinary research aimed at integrating knowledge about peaceful uses of languages into programs such as Columbia University’s Peace Education Program, which sustains an International Institute of Peace, founded in 1982 by peace educator Betty Reardon (Jenkins, 2005). An emphasis on peaceful communication in such initiatives would reflect the assumption of the need for transformative communicative change leading to the preparation of citizens as peaceful users of languages, a systematic practice conspicuously absent from school curricula in Brazil, for instance, and presumably in most other countries.
To provide a concise view of some implications of the approaches dealt with in the preceding section, I turn to my THRIL (threefold repetition of the initial letter) technique, inspired by the long-cherished literary tradition of alliteration, still underexplored in communicatively vital contexts such as conflict resolution.
What follows are four sets of alliteration through which key concepts and insights from each approach are presented. Readers are urged to apply their alliterative talents to their readings in the CR field; it may prove both entertaining and provocative. By creating such alliteration, you make dual use of your meaning-making marvel—your mind: (1) you try as best you can to accurately translate some of the philosophy underlying each approach and (2) you challenge your ability to be concise, thus enhancing memorability. To illustrate how such a practice of making meaningful, memorable messages can be used effectively in political science contexts, here is a set created for a lecture given to students of international relations at a college, Faculdade Integrada do Recife. Only some letters have been selected for inclusion:
Nonviolent Communication
Appreciative Inquiry
Powerful Nondefensive Communication
Constructive Communication
As a creative practice, alliteration has much to offer inquiring minds in all domains of human knowledge, especially those that call for language-peace-and-conflict awareness, a much needed trio in today’s increasingly turbulent world. In closing, may communicative peace be with you, so that in your language-based conflicts and disputes, you act as true humanizers, humanists who are imbued with the ideals of human rights, justice, peace, and dignity and who, with a keen sense of global social responsibility, apply such values for the improvement of the human communicative condition everywhere.
The focus of this chapter has been the interaction of three core concepts: language, peace, and conflict resolution. How about their integration in materials aimed at the preparation of educators as communicative peace builders from a conflict-management-resolution perspective? As an inspiring example of that, a description will be made of a recent publication, sponsored by the US Institute of Peace: Peacebuilding Toolkit for Educators: High School Lessons (Milofsky, 2011). The book is the outcome of a collective effort: the editor plus seven contributors with expertise and experience in a variety of fields, among them teacher education, international education, curricula development, conflict resolution, teaching of ethics, and public policy. As a peace linguist, I was attracted by the book’s practical treatment of conflict and language. In two of its three sections are four lessons focused on conflict (definition, identification of conflict elements, identification of conflict style, conflict mediation), one lesson on nonverbal communication (the authors remind us that “about 80 percent of our communication is nonverbal,” p. 57), and one lesson on active listening, in which seven techniques are presented according to a tripartite framework of purpose, method, and example.
The example component consists of phraseologies used for such purposes as encouraging, restating, clarifying, empathizing, summarizing, and reframing. Given the relevance of phraseologies in human linguistic interaction, the illustrative phraseologies found in the handout for active listening techniques may not only draw readers’ attention but challenge them to contribute to the promising area of cross-linguistic phraseological studies: the comparison of set phrases (e.g., on apologies, agreement, conciliation, dignity, empathy, persuasion, problem solving). Two examples of listening actively (humanizingly, peacefully) are, “I can understand how you would perceive that as a threat” (p. 68), and, “Let’s see how we can work together to address your concern” (p. 69). One of the bits of communicative advice given is worth quoting: “In redirecting negative or adversarial statements, use neutral or positive rather than accusatory language” (p. 69). Although addressed to educators in a US context, this tool kit can be adapted to other contexts sharing the authors’ conviction that students should be encouraged “to think critically about the world around them and their place in it” (p. 7).
A recent initiative of the Honolulu-based Center for Global Nonkilling should be brought to the attention of readers of this third edition: the launching of the volume Nonkilling Linguistics: Practical Applications (Friedrich, 2012). It includes the pioneering chapter, “Nonkilling Linguistics,” coauthored by Patricia Friedrich and Francisco Gomes de Matos, originally published in Toward a Nonkilling Paradigm (Pim, 2009). The volume contains an interview with Gomes de Matos, in which suggestions are made for applications of nonkilling linguistics. This emerging branch of linguistics aims at using principles of linguistics to help language users avoid and prevent acts of communicative violence and killing. Recognition of the relevance of nonkilling linguistics can be found in Deutsch (2010). In his poster-review, Deutsch states, “Gomes de Matos’ poems are a contribution to the world.” Given the relationship between peace linguistics and nonkilling linguistics, developments in both initiatives should prove inspiring to practitioners of conflict resolution.
In this chapter, I have offered to readers a sense of the theoretical and applied dimensions related to the emerging area of applied peace linguistics. I have summarized the key concepts of language, peace, and conflict resolution and have described their interrelationship through a synthesis of implications from four communication-based approaches to conflict resolution, three of them from the United States and one from Brazil. Finally, I have provided examples of applications of communicative peace and have called for a new type of communicative right and responsibility to be considered in the education of peaceful language users:
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What is a language? A mental marvel
Used for all kinds of meaning making
But how can we integrate languages
Into the blessed ways of peace making?
By avoiding forms of verbal abuse
Preventing aggressive acts of discourse
So that our communicative intentions
Can be free from a collision course
Being communicatively empathic and friendly
In speaking, listening, reading, writing, or signing
By interacting with persons, groups, communities
In language that is linguistically dignifying
For languages to shine everywhere
And deeply touch the human soul
Let’s promote peaceful language
And make it a permanent goal
Ensuring for everyone the right to learn
Is a universal human rights priority
Learning to communicate peacefully
Should also be a vital necessity
Language uses can be loaded
It’s like a weapon, some would say
Instead, let’s give it PeacePower
And make it a truly humane way
As language users, each of us is different
But in one role very much alike we can be:
That of acting as peaceful meaning makers
And believing a kinder world there will be