Analysis Of Robin Lakoff's Talking Power: The Politics Of Language

Language is not just a means of communication, but a powerful tool that can be used to create bridges between cultures or to stratify society. In Talking Power: The Politics of Language in Our Lives, Robin Lakoff discusses the ways in which language stratify society. On the other hand, Rosetta Stone is a program made entirely toward the former directive; its language teaching programs are utilized worldwide by people eager to learn a new language. In this clip, a white, presumably American, man enters a street-side booth in Korea and speaks Korean to the shop owner, while the Korean shop owner, a middle-aged Korean woman, speaks English back to him. They have a short conversation, and the Korean man sitting at a table next to the American man looks confused and bewildered at the sight. At first glance, this commercial is simply about the power of knowing another language and
In her article, Lakoff defines politics as a “game of power; politics allocates power and utilizes it” (68). Power, then, is what drives reality; in other words, “it gets things done or undoes what exists” (68). Put together, power is what determines human relationships, and politics is how power is distributed. The crux of this relationship is language, in that language is the system that defines and allocates power through politics. Lakoff states “language is politics. How well language is used translates directly into…successes and failures” (68). One’s grasp of a language in a particular society is immediately responsible for his or her wellbeing. In this video, we see that the white man has a good grasp of Korean, and thus can successfully order a meal and carry a short conversation. Additionally, the Korean woman has a working knowledge of English and is able to converse with the white man in his own