The Identity Trap: The Language of Genocide

The purpose of this article is to create a framework for thinking about how language themes propagated in radio broadcasts start to degenerate into the reification of a culture that tolerates and even encourages classification and dehumanization. Understanding these language themes becomes an early...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of language and social psychology 2012-03, Vol.31 (1), p.13-29
Main Author: Donohue, William A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Broadcasting
Case studies
Conflict
Culture
Dehumanization
Genocide
Identity
Interethnic conflict
Language
Language use
Linguistics
Propaganda
Radio broadcasting
Reification
Rwanda
Social Environment
Social Identity
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Description
Summary:The purpose of this article is to create a framework for thinking about how language themes propagated in radio broadcasts start to degenerate into the reification of a culture that tolerates and even encourages classification and dehumanization. Understanding these language themes becomes an early warning system that begins to signal the beginning of a genocidal spiral. This framework is termed the Identity Trap, and it demonstrates how various linguistic conventions combine to establish a social context that builds up the speaker’s social identity while denigrating the “enemy’s” social identity, which provides the rationale for escalating conflict against that enemy. Two broadcasts from the 1994 Rwandan genocide are used as examples.
ISSN:0261-927X
1552-6526
DOI:10.1177/0261927X11425033