Language and Conflict: A Neglected Relationship

The links between conflict and language seem clear. In Dan Smith's analysis the idea of conflict brings us inexorably to nationalism, then to identity and thus to language. Language is unlikely to be a central cause of conflict, but it may contribute to the ways that nationalism and armed conflict unfold. Paul Chilton argues that the declaration of war is a linguistic act, that military operations can only be set in motion and continued by verbal activity and that all political institutions are ultimately constituted by forms of language and communication. Sue Wright examines the relationship between nation building (including linguistic unification) and the propaganda which justifies human and economic sacrifice and permits total war in the Clausewitzian sense. They argue that the political influence, significance and effect of linguistic borders and the discourse manipulation of language are factors in conflict which should not be ignored.