THE VOCABULARY OF INDIGNITY: A MNEMONIC CHECKLIST
by Francisco Gomes de Matos

Dear Evelin,

Our Research Group homepage is inspiringly titled Human Dignity and Humiliation. What happens if we change the word order and create this phrase: Humiliation of Human Dignity? As an applied peace linguist, I would reply: such combination of words could mean “humiliating treatment”, usually conveyed/represented by nouns. Interestingly, such nouns typically begin with the prefix DIS, which has a negative, reversive communicative force. If colleagues ever decide to probe the language of Indignity, an easy way to start is to compile a list of such nouns in DIS. In my workshops on Communicative Peace (for teachers of English) I challenge participants to produce the mnemonically-activated “list of nouns to be avoided” and to discuss ways to change each item into its positive, dignified meaning. Thus, on suggesting that DIScord be added to the list, a positive opposite would be given: Accord.

Before providing a sample of such vocabulary of indignity, I’d like to share a bit of usage information: in American English slang, DIS is used with the meaning of “to show disrespect for “to belittle” (cf. Random House Webster’s College Dictionary, 1997, p.372) Such Americanism made its written debut in 1980, and, as can be easily inferred, it is the initial syllable taken from such verbs as disrespect, disparage. Now, here is the checklist. What to do with it? One creative possibility is to provide the corresponding phraseology that can go with the noun. What would language users typically say when there isdiscourtesy, for instance? Research on the phraseology of both dignity and indignity would be most revealing, both intra and interculturally.

List of Nouns in DIS (would you agree with all inclusions? Why (not)?

Disagreement
Discomfort
Disapproval
Discord
Disconnection
Discouragement
Discourtesy
Disgrace
Dishonor
Disharmony
Disorder
Disintegration
Disorganization
Disparagement
Displeasure
Disregard
Distrust
Disunion /Disunity

Before closing, let me share two quotations. One by the Italian playwright Luigi Pirandelo, in his play “Six characters in search of an author, Act 1, 1921)

“Each of us, face to face with other persons, is clothed with some sort of dignity, but we know only too well all the unspeakable things that go in the heart” (cf. Words on Words. Quotations about language and languages, edited by David Crystal and Hilary Crystal, Penguin Books, 2000, p.)

How about applying such provocative thinking to our uses of languages for dignity?

Another quote is from the Greek playwright Aristophanes, who, by the way, wrote a play named PEACE. In his play The Frogs (translated by D. Barrett), two Greek playwrights - Euripedes and Aeschylus – engage in a lively interaction. The latter says: “Noble themes and noble sentiments must be couched in suitably dignified language.” (My source: Words on Words. Quotations about Language and Languages, compiled by David Crystal and Hilary Crystal, Penguin Books, 2000, p. 147).

Cogently, peace educators have been reminding us that it is society’s responsibility to help create conditions for human beings to be educated for dignity. In such spirit, applied peace linguists would add that “communicative dignity” is one of the requirements for “communicative peace” (to know more about that coinage, google the term) and that part of our challenge as researchers centered on dignity and humiliation studies is to documents, analyze both dignified and undignified uses of languages and the effects of such choices on people, groups, communities. It is largely through our vocabulary that we can humanize or dehumanize our communicative life, so may I ask you to apply this mnemonically-construed principle: Let’s dignify our daily dialogue/discourse.

Francisco Gomes de Matos
Federal University of Pernambuco and Associação Brasil América, Recife,Brazil