Language and Power

Language is a tool used to express thoughts, to hide thoughts or to hide lack of thoughts. It is often a means of domination. The question is who has the power to define the world around us. This book demonstrates how language is being manipulated to form the minds of listeners or readers. Innocent words may be used to conceal a reality which people would have reacted to had the phenomena been described in a straightforward manner. The nice and innocent concept “cost-sharing”, which leads our thoughts to communal sharing and solidarity, may actually imply privatization. The false belief that the best way to learn a foreign language is to have it as a language of instruction actually becomes a strategy for stupidification of African pupils. In this book, 33 independent experts from 16 countries in the North and the South show how language may be used to legitimize war-making, promote Northern interests in the field of development and retain colonial speech as languages of instruction, languages of the courts and in politics.

About the author
Birgit Brock-Utne is Professor of Education and Development at the University of Oslo. She has many years of experience of living, teaching and researching in Africa, especially Tanzania, where she served as Professor of Education at the University of Dar es Salaam from 1987-1992. Gunnar Garbo, author and journalist and former member of the Norwegian Parliament, was the Norwegian Ambassador to Tanzania from 1987 to 1992.

International availability:
This book is internationally distributed by African Books Collective