One of the most prevalent ways that Orientalism shows its face in the present day is through the simultaneous exploitation and ridicule of languages of Asia. From Arabic to Chinese, oftentimes these languages are conflated but at the same time exploited for their “exotic” features and then used as decoration.
One of the most common forms of ridicule of a language occurs when someone pretends to speak a language, such as Arabic, by uttering sounds that are stereo-typically associated with that language. These sorts of actions again in some ways create a false dominance of European Languages at the expense of Asian languages. In fact, many people do not realize that languages such as Hindi and Farsi are linguistically related to the vast majority of languages spoken in Europe, as they belong to the same linguistic family.
Furthermore, many of these languages receive further ridicule through other stereotypes that stem from the Orientalist mindset. For example, following terrorist attacks on the United States and increased xenophobia towards Middle Eastern countries, Arabic, as represented through the media and popular culture, has itself become associated with terrorism. This association takes away the cultural richness and complexity of the Arabic language, and only places it in one light. Again, this displays the mindset of dominance of European and Western language and culture.
While these languages are often placed in a stereotypical light, aspects of each are at the same time exploited. One simple example of this is typography. There are billions of fonts that try to represent an Arabic, Devanagari, Chinese or Japanese “style” by changing the Latin script to mirror those scripts. The problem with these fonts is that they take elements of each language because they may look “exotic” or “cool” but they fail to capture any cultural significance of the language itself. Of course, it would be unrealistic, in combating Orientalism and its stereotypes, to expect a person to become fluent in every language. However, having an understanding and appreciation for the cultural significance attached to language can go a long way.
This is really thought provoking. I don't often think about the cultural implications of language, and even less often how that connects to bias. Nice job making all of this information accessible to readers (like me) who are ignorant of many linguistic connections.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with your statement about Arabic language associated with terrorist attacks takes away the richness of the culture. But I disagree that trying to mimic the sound of the language is Orientalism. I have heard so many people trying to mimic sounds of the Russian, German or Italian languages. It is stereotyping but it does not involves only Eastern Culture as Orientalism devids West from East.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about the association of Arabic with terrorist attacks. That is something I haven't thought about before, but happens all the time I'm sure.
ReplyDelete