Language as a Tool

I guess I always knew that language could be used as a tool, but I never really thought of it until I read Cushman's book. (Odd because I am a language major.) Anyway, the ways that the members of the Quayville community used language were INCREDIBLE, and I found this book incredibly fascinating.

If you think about it, the only tool that these community members had was their knowledge of language and how it worked in gatekeeping situations. They didn't have money or a formal education to help them meet their needs and the needs of their children, so they had to develop their language skills to help them get what they wanted out of gatekeeping situations. They also used Cushman as a language tool. They used her language to their advantage. They also used her status as a Ph.D. candidate to their advantage when applying for housing - another example of their language proficiency. They knew how her status would appeal to landlords, and they knew it would offset the fact that they were receiving Section 8 to help pay for their housing.

I think a great example of this is when Disco was arrested for grand theft auto and went before a judge. Disco pleaded guilty, and Chaos thought that he could've used language skills differently to get a different outcome, so he thought that he would "help" Disco by interrupting the court proceedings to tell him that he was being, basically, an idiot. However, Disco had the language skills necessary to get out of that situation, but he wanted to stand up to authority, so he chose not to use his language skills. Lucy also had the language skills to get him out of jail. However, she wanted her son to go down a different path and she also didn't want to have to worry about him for a while, so she let him go to jail so that she could get him out of the situation. She held back and let the judge send him to jail to get what she wanted.

I think we all use language as a tool to get what we want, but in some discourses, it's not as obvious because there isn't such a huge gap between the authority and ourselves. (By we, I mean, the "we" at MSU.) One could say that professors have the power here. However, there isn't the same gap here as there is between the residents of Quayville and, say, the social workers. The professor and the student are both in an academic setting, and both are familiar with the language of academia. The professor has also been an undergrad and a grad student. So it is easier for the student and the professor to communicate because they have a shared experience. However, the social worker has probably never applied for Section 8, and the community member has probably never been to college. When there is less of a gap between the gatekeeper and the one who wishes to open the gate, the use of language as a tool is less obvious, but it is still there.