Cover not available

Article published In: Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 7:2 (2008) ► pp.177–200

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

Dehumanisation in language and thought

 | University of CaliforniaBerkeley
Published online: 3 November 2008
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.7.2.01sto
Dehumanisation is a central tool of propaganda, war and oppression, but could it also be an everyday phenomenon? This paper attempts to demonstrate that dehumanisation is not invariably deviant behaviour, but often grounded in normal cognition. Dehumanisation is often defined as to make less human (Encarta) or to deprive of human character (Oxford English Dictionary). Are these adequate definitions? Is there evidence of polysemy, and a more salient sense? How can we explain the meaning and enactment of this process? This paper investigates the linguistic and behavioural representation of dehumanisation, with reference to modern and historical events. This semantic analysis considers aspects of pragmatics, semiotics, cognition and metaphor. The framework used in this examination is the Natural Semantic Metalanguage method of Reductive Paraphrase (Wierzbicka & Goddard 2002; Wierzbicka 1972).
References (55)
References
Arendt, H. 1963. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. New York: Viking.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Banning, D. 2001. Modern Day Luddites. Retrieved 19 June 2004 from: http://www.jour.unr.edu/j705/RP.BANNING.LUDDITE.HTML
Bar, N. & Bean-Ari, E. 2005. Israeli snipers in the Al-Aqsa intifada: killing, humanity and lived experience. Third World Quarterly. Vol. 261, No. 1. Routledge, pp. 133—152. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bernard, V., Ottenberg, P. & Redl, F. 1973. Dehumanization: A composite psychological defense in relation to modern war. In (eds), N. Sanford & C. Comstock. Sanctions for Evil: Sources of Social Destructiveness. San San: Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bogod, D. 2004. The Nazi Hypothermia Experiments: Forbidden Data? Anaesthesia. Vol. 59, Issue 12. p. 1155. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bok, S. 1973. The Dilemmas of Euthanasia Arranged by Sissela Bok. Euthanasia and the Care of the Dying. JSTOR. Bioscience. American Institute of Biological Sciences.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Buber, M. 1958. Hasidism and Modern Man. Horizon Horizon: New York.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Castle, T. & Hensley, C. 2002. Serial Killers With Military Experience: Applying Learning Theory to Serial Murder. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology. Vol. 46, No. 4, pp. 453—465. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cheng, A. 2001. The Melancholy of Race: Psychoanalysis, Assimilation, and Hidden Grief. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chowers, E. 2004. The Modern Self in the Labyrinth. London: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coates, P. 2003. Editorial Postscript: the naming of strangers in the landscape. Landscape Research. Vol. 28, No. 1. pp. 131—137. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Collins English Dictionary. 2003. UK: Collins.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Crelinsten, 2003. The World of Torture: A Constructed Reality. Theoretical Criminology. Vol. 7, Issue 3. p. 293. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Day, L. & Vandiver, M. 2000. Criminology and genocide studies: Notes on what might have been and what still could be. Crime, Law and Social Change. Vol. 34, No. 1. Springer Netherlands., pp. 43—59.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Demoulin, S., Torres, R., Perez, A., Vaes, J., Paladino, M., Gaunt, R., Pozo, B. & Leyens, J. 2004. Emotional prejudice can lead to infra-humanisation. European Review of Social Psychology. Vol.151. pp. 259—296. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Drake, C. 1998. The Role of Ideology in Terrorists’ Target Selection. Terrorism and Political Violence. Vol. 10, No. 2. pp. 53—85. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fiske, S. Harris, L. & Cuddy, A. 2004. Why Ordinary People Torture Enemy Prisoners. Science. Vol. 306. No. 5701, pp. 1482—1483. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gibson, J. & Haritos-Fatouros, M. 1986. The education of a torturer. Psychology Today, November issue., pp. 50—58.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goddard, C. 2006. Ethnopragmatics: A new paradigm. In Goddard, C. (ed.), Ethnopragmatics: Understanding discourse in cultural context. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 1—30. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goffman, E. 1963. Stigma: notes on the management of spoiled identity. NJ, Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Greenberg, J., Kirkland1, S. & Pyszczynski, T. 1988. Some Theoretical Notions and Preliminary Research Concerning Derogatory Ethnic Labels. In Discourse and Discrimination. Smitherman-Donaldson, G. & van Dijk, T. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. pp. 74—92.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hare, R. 1994. Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us. London: Warner.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haslam, N. 2006. Dehumanization: An Integrative Review. Personality and Social Psychology Review. Vol. 10, No. 3. pp. 252—264. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hassan, G. 2004. Dehumanisation of The “Other”. Retrieved 16 April 2005 from: http://www.countercurrents.org/us-hassan180804.htm
Hobsbawm, E. 1962. The Age of Revolution Europe 1789—1848. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson Ltd.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Holmes, R. 1985. Acts of War. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Keen, S. 1991. Faces of the Enemy: Reflections of the Hostile Imagination. Harper Harper: New York.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Landau, S. 2001. Cambridge Dictionary of American English. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lemkin, R. 1945. Genocide: A Modern Crime. New York: Free World. Vol. 9, No. 5. pp. 39—43.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
LeMoncheck, L. 1985. Dehumanizing Women. New York: Rowman and Allanheld.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levi, P. 1987. The Drowned and the Saved. New York: Summit Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lexikon, H. 1986. The Herder Symbol Dictionary: Symbols from Art, Archaeology, Mythology, Literature, and Religion. Illinois: Chiron Publications.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lin, T. 1999. Social Norms and Judicial Decision Making. Columbia Law Review. Vol. 99, No. 3., pp. 739—794. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Luntz, F. 2005. Republican Playbook. Retrieved 06 August 2006 from: http://www.politicalstrategy.org/archives/001118.php
Marx, K. & Engels, F. 1988. (1848). The Communist Manifesto. (ed. by Frederic L. Bender). New York: Norton & Company.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Maslach, C. & Pines, A. 1977. The burn-out syndrome in the day care setting in Child and Youth Care Forum. Springer: Netherlands., Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 100—113.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mateo, J. & Yus, F. 2000. Insults: A relevance-theoretic taxonomical approach to their translation, International Journal of Translation Vol. 12, No. 1. pp. 97—130.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McDonald, L. 1957. Voegelin and the Positivists: A New Science of Politics? Midwest Journal of Political Science. Retrieved 03 August 2006 from: http://www.jstor.org/view/00263397/di975057/97p0038y/0.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary. 2005. MA: Merriam-Webster.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Milgram, S. 1963. Behavioral Study of Obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. Vol. 671, pp. 371—378. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Morris, D. 1969. The Human Zoo. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nyiszli, M. 1993. Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Eyewitness Account. New York: Arcade Publishing.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ören, T. 2002. In Search of a Value System for Sustainable Civilization: Ethics and Quality. Symposium on Cognitive, Emotive and Ethical Aspects of Decision Making and Human Actions, August 1—2, Baden-Baden, Germany, pp. 69—72.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Richards, J. 1999. Institutional Violence. Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Riffenberg, C. 2004. Symbols of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Movements. Retrieved 17 November 2005 from: http://www.lambda.org/symbols.htm
Schneider, H.J. 1991. Australian Violence: An International Perspective, In D. Chappell, P. Grabosky & H. Strang (eds) Australian Violence: Contemporary Perspectives. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, pp. 195—207.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shay, J. 1995. Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character. New York: Touchstone.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Simpson, J. & Weiner, E. (eds) 1989. Oxford English Dictionary. Second Edition. UK: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Smith, B. 1995. From an Observer. Annals of Internal Medicine. Vol. 122, Issue 8. pp. 628—9. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stanton, G. 1998. Eight Stages of Genocide. Presented at the Yale University Center for International and Area Studies. Retrieved 28 March 2005 from: http://www.genocidewatch.org/8stages.htm
Stollznow, K. 2002. Terms of Abuse in Australian English: A Study of Semantics and Usage. Honours Thesis. University of New England.
. 2007. Key Words in the Discourse of Discrimination: A Semantic Analysis. Ph.D. dissertation. University of New England.
Wierzbicka, A. 1972. Semantic Primitives. New York: Athenum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wierzbicka, A. & Goddard, C. 2002. Meaning and Universal Grammar—Theory and Empirical Findings [two volumes]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zimbardo, P. 1970. The human choice: Individuation, reason, and order versus deindividuation, impulse, and chaos. In W. J. Arnold & D. Levine (eds), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation: Vol. 17, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. pp. 237—307.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (12)

Cited by 12 other publications

Rivera, Susana & Maria Espín
2025. Boars in the Media and Trans-Species Hate Speech. Journal of Animal Ethics 15:2 ► pp. 177 ff. DOI logo
Kuipers, Yvonne J., Roxanne Bleijenbergh, Ellen Thaels & Eveline Mestdagh
2024. A multi-actor perspective of humanised midwifery care excellence: An exploratory survey. Women's Studies International Forum 106 ► pp. 102956 ff. DOI logo
de Ruiter, Adrienne
2023. Failing to see what matters most: Towards a better understanding of dehumanisation. Contemporary Political Theory 22:2 ► pp. 165 ff. DOI logo
Sahakyan, Naira
2023. The rhetorical face of enmity: the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the dehumanization of Armenians in the speeches of Ilham Aliyev. Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 23:4 ► pp. 863 ff. DOI logo
Auslander, Lya & Francisca Toledo
2021. La place et les marqueurs des violences intrafamiliales dans les extrémismes violents. Soins Pédiatrie/Puériculture 42:318 ► pp. 10 ff. DOI logo
Maslen, Sarah, Jan Hayes, Sarah Holdsworth & Orana Sandri
2021. When Ethics is a Technical Matter: Engineers’ Strategic Appeal to Ethical Considerations in Advocating for System Integrity. Science and Engineering Ethics 27:4 DOI logo
Goddard, Cliff & Anna Wierzbicka
2018. Minimal English and How It Can Add to Global English. In Minimal English for a Global World, ► pp. 5 ff. DOI logo
Mooney, Annabelle
2017. Torture laid bare. Journal of Language and Politics 16:3 ► pp. 434 ff. DOI logo
Mooney, Annabelle
2018. Torture Laid Bare: Global English and Human Rights. In Minimal English for a Global World, ► pp. 143 ff. DOI logo
Lemberger-Truelove, Tamiko L.
2016. Humanizing the Racialized Self. Journal of Humanistic Psychology 56:1 ► pp. 53 ff. DOI logo
Potter, Jennifer E.
2014. Brown-Skinned Outlaws: An Ideographic Analysis of “Illegal(s)”. Communication, Culture & Critique 7:2 ► pp. 228 ff. DOI logo
Levisen, Carsten
2013. On Pigs and People: The Porcine Semantics of Danish Interaction and Cognition. Australian Journal of Linguistics 33:3 ► pp. 344 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 13 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue