Language is a magical tool, which helps us communicate with those around us and with ourselves, it undoubtedly makes our lives easier, it mirrors our thinking – most of the time. It is our ticket to the outside world, it is, after our appearance, the first impression we will make on a person who just knows us. The language we utter in its totality says much more than a simple sequence of words. It reveals, to the observant person, mental state, (self) beliefs, beliefs, concerns, social status, culture, past and much, much more.
The philosopher Wittgenstein likened language to a set of games. Each game has different rules, which players know and follow each time in order to "play". Language is therefore used for a specific purpose within a "game", which obviously corresponds to a social activity. Plus, talking about games means talking about winners and losers (let's save that for another time).
A.F. Christidis, a Greek linguist and fascinating professor in the field of Linguistics of the Department of Philology at the AUTH, used to tell us that thought and therefore communication begins in man in a prescriptive form. A baby's first attempts at language are essentially commands waiting to be fulfilled. And then, when the baby grows up, how many times do you hear "mommy, water!" No matter how many times you insist on adding "please", you still hear the command from your little dynasty, who even when he grows up there will be times when he will talk to his mom like he did when he was a baby.
This takes on another dimension if one considers why language was born in the first place. This is a huge debate that I will NOT open the door to, but I will say briefly that of the various theories that exist, most, if not all, talk about the social factor, about the organization of the group of the first people, the sharing of useful information, the expression of their identity (where I belong, what position I have) but also the negotiation with the aim of both personal and collective benefit.
Fast forward a few millennia to the present, the core of the language remains the same. We are genetically predisposed to acquire language, however for this predisposition to be activated, exposure to language is a prerequisite. It is not the words, but the (fellow) human gaze that gives meaning to the words. After all, as Dionysios Solomos said, "language is not the study of words but the study of people". So we speak within the context of society, even if we speak alone, we use language for negotiation, expression, communication, but we also ask something from the one who listens to us.
And that's how we go curves of the language. Why we do things with language[1]. If we assume that I am in the classroom and as we are teaching with the window open, my student Stefanos says "Ma'am I am cold", what Stefanos is communicating is not only the set of words he uses, nor does he expect me to go to touch him to find out if what he says is true, if he really has a cold. Stefanos asks me to close the window. And yet, the word window is nowhere to be found, just as there is no imperative.
Let's say I'm in the kitchen washing a lettuce, which is also in season. My hands are wet and at that moment the phone rings. I hear a little voice saying "Mom, phone", and I answer "I'm washing lettuce!". Neither of them says what they mean. The little girl, because she is drawing at the moment and is bored to get up, asks mom to pick up the phone. The mother, for her part, asks her daughter to pick up the phone, but without saying so explicitly. You know very well who picks up the phone at the end as I know very well that you will tell me that you know these things and that I am not telling you anything new. However, sometimes human magic is hidden in the data, as long as we observe it. Because if an alien observed human language for the first time, he would surely find it nonsensical.
Let me take you to an example that we all experienced. When COVID-19 came to Greece, the state's advertising campaign to keep our distance and stay safe was "Stay at home". This sentence is not imperative, nor did it have any "must" in front of it to make it clear to us, but we all understood that this is a strong suggestion, if not an obligation. The final inflection, paradoxically, made it more intense as it was like an attempt to interfere with reality, that is, it gave us the nature of the real using the inflection of reality.
A letter of recommendation that will go to your next employer and inside it says “Mr. Papadopoulos is excellent. She always brought us treats to the office and she does really nice lettering,” probably doesn't want your next potential employer to hire you, unless you're a calligrapher. So this sentence says a lot that does not agree with its apparently positive content.
So we mean what we say they do something other than their apparent function. But beyond this magical, I say it again, characteristic of language, there are also very specific cases where a speaker he says and does at the same time.
A head of state can say "I declare war" and the moment he utters this sentence he already does so, that is, he declares war. But if I say "win a war", as I am not a head of state, I do absolutely nothing. I may mean something entirely different, depending on the occasion in which I utter it. I might go to war with the unwashed bin to wipe out its population once and for all (unfortunately it's a constantly lopsided battle). I might declare war on cockroaches[2] that invade the home, shake our nervous system and raise our sichara to its zenith. But these aren't real wars, as I'm speaking metaphorically, right?
A valid will does what it says, bequeaths to the heirs what is written exactly as written. Remember Jenny Karezi and the problems with the inheritance left to her by her grandmother? "I leave 6 million drachmas to Vassula, wife of Dimitrios Bezestainis." Despite the hype that many of us enjoy as viewers of old Greek cinema, a will has legal force, but to do what it says, its content must be true, otherwise, goodbye to the inheritance.
And so we come to the latest. A few days ago we were given the option to access the social networks Facebook & Instagram without seeing ads, i.e. to choose ad-free access by paying a subscription or to continue with the previous regime, i.e. to use these media and those to they use our preferences to send us ads. On the occasion of this, a text was widely circulated which "forbids" Facebook from using our data for advertising. By copying/pasting you are NOT on the "safe side" as the text says. You might be on the ignorant side, but that's not too bad because even though we use technology and the internet A LOT, most of us do NOT know much. Most of the time, actually we forget that when something is free, it is not exactly free. In the case of social media, we we are the tradable good. But to return to the published text, it can NOT prohibit anything like that because it simply has no legal force. It is not a legal document (lawyers and notaries have to work too), it has not been sent as an official document directly to Mark HQ, nor does the context in which we write it, on our FB wall, give it such authority. It's like telling someone, I'm putting restrictive measures on you and not having any paper to prove it. Or even more typically, and possibly simpler, it's like telling your teenage son, "I forbid you to use the cell phone" and not taking it away. What do you think, will he use it if he has it in front of him?
The tongue has no bones and it breaks bones our people have been saying for a long time. He's not talking about her rudeness the proverb but for the power of the tongue, which is incalculable. Language has many guises, it is a resource, it is a weapon, it is a tool, but it has rules, like everything else in our life.
[1] JL Austin and then JR Searle, analyzed the issue of linguistic acts, which is an integral part of the philosophy of language as well as the science of pragmatics.
[2] Bonus story: If you don't loathe cockroaches, or if despite your loathing, you enjoy reading about them, you can see here.
*Cover photo: designmodo