'Because it's easier to kill that way': Dehumanizing epithets, militarized subjectivity, and American necropolitics.
This article examines the blunt conceptual instrument of dehumanizing American military terms for the enemy in the context of the Vietnam War and the Global War on Terror. I examine language that dehumanizes American service members themselves, who are semiotically framed as expendable. Next, I expl...
| Publicado en: | Language in Society Vol. 50; no. 4; pp. 583 - 604 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Cambridge University Press
Sep2021
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=151873094&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 151873094 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00474045 7Y8 jtl: Language in Society issn: 00474045 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Sep2021 vid: 50 iid: 4 pid: 15979 pub: Cambridge University Press artinfo: ui: 151873094 10.1017/S0047404521000324 ppf: 583 ppct: 21 formats: tig: atl: 'Because it's easier to kill that way': Dehumanizing epithets, militarized subjectivity, and American necropolitics. aug: au: McIntosh, Janet affil: Brandeis University, USA su: Dehumanization Humanity Epithets Genericalness (Linguistics) Linguistics sug: subj: Dehumanization Humanity Epithets Genericalness (Linguistics) Linguistics ab: This article examines the blunt conceptual instrument of dehumanizing American military terms for the enemy in the context of the Vietnam War and the Global War on Terror. I examine language that dehumanizes American service members themselves, who are semiotically framed as expendable. Next, I explore the essentialist, semi-propositional qualities of derogatory epithets for the enemy and the affectively charged, deadly stances they encourage. I examine how generic references to the enemy during training make totalizing claims that risk encompassing civilians in their typifications. And I show that, in the context of war, the instability of derogatory epithets can manifest itself when the servicemember is confronted with the behavioral idiosyncrasies and personal vulnerabilities of actual 'enemies' on the ground. The putative folk wisdom found in generic references to the enemy can thus fall apart when confronted with countervailing experience; in such cases, service members may shift stance by renouncing military epithets. (Military language, epithets, slurs, generics, othering, dehumanization, necropolitics) pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y dt: @attributes: year: 2021 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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