IMPLICATIONS FOR AN APPLIED PEACE LINGUISTICS

After briefly characterizing linguistics, applied linguistics, peace linguistics, and applied peace linguistics—an Internet search for such terms can be instructive-attention will be focused on possible implications of four language­based approaches to conflict resolution.

Nonviolent Communication (NVC)

The first CRA, known as nonviolent communication, is grounded on a broadly based conceptual repertoire: appreciation, compassion, conflict, feeling(s)/ nonfeelings, judgments, needs, positive action, responsibility, and vocabulary (for feelings).

Because our focus here is on applications of CRA by human beings as lan­guage users, it is well to mention that the author of Nonviolent Communication has commendably included a chapter titled “Applying NVC in Our Lives and World” (Rosenberg, 2003, pp. 8-12). The finding of such applicational sense in a conflict resolution (CR) work helps bring together its author—in this case, a psychologist—and applied linguists engaged in peaceful communication.

How can the key concepts in NVC be translated into APL? A simple way of bringing the two approaches closer is to add the adjective “communicative” to each of the concepts in the NVC system, thus: communicative appreciation, com­municative compassion, communicative conflict, communicative responsibility, and so forth. The addition of “communicative” gives each NVC concept greater specificity and serves as a reminder to language users that peace in/through lan­guage is a varied and vast territory inhabited by interrelated dimensions.

Another educationally relevant contribution of the NCV to APL: its two lists of Vocabulary for Feelings (Rosenberg, 2003, pp. 44-46). The first list, of adjectives representing positive feelings (needs being met), can serve as a checklist of com­municative responsibilities. In such spirit, language users would be challenged to be communicatively affectionate, appreciative, cheerful, free, friendly, good- humored, loving, optimistic, peaceful, pleasant, tender, and warm. That same enu­meration could become a list of nouns, representing communicatively desirable actions: communicative affection, appreciation, and so forth. The second list pro­vided by Rosenberg is focused on negative feelings (needs not being met). Accord­ingly, language users could use them as reminders of what to avoid in interacting with other human beings. Such a preventive/self-monitoring checklist would include, for example, communicative anger, bitterness, despair, exasperation, hos­tility, impatience, irritation, pessimism, resentment, shock, and wretchedness. A third inspiring insight from NVC that could be borrowed by applied peace linguists: the translation of judgmental vocabulary and phraseology into nonjudgmental, peace-promoting equivalents. Provocatively, Rosenberg makes a case against the objectionable use of “should” when it creates shame or guilt. He argues that “this violent word, which we commonly use to evaluate ourselves, is so deeply ingrained in our consciousness that many of us would have trouble imagining how to live without it,” and he counsels, “Avoid shoulding yourself!” (Rosenberg, 2003, p. 131). His mention of violent words provides food for thought and action by applied peace linguists: what violent vocabulary do we use not only about other human beings, but about ourselves, and how can that be self-monitored? How can our condition of peaceful communicative creatures be improved, in that respect? The seemingly unconscious use of negative verbs, which may reflect imposed authority or oppression, would be another area for collaborative investigation by CR experts and applied peace linguists.

“Do you have your students share their notes with their peers?” (alternate humanizing verbs: ask/encourage) and “I let/allow my students to use a bilin­gual dictionary, during essay-writing in English” (alternate humanizing equiv­alents: “I assure my students their right.. or, more empathically, “My students have the right.. The very use of “should” in classroom instruc­tions can also be questioned. Thus, saying “One student should assume the role of minigroup leader” instead of “could” may reflect the fact that teachers and teacher educators are unaware of the humanizing nature of language use, a trait of language that is new in the linguistics/communication literature.

Nonviolent Communication Research

Founded in 1984 by far-sighted, innovative psychologist Marshall Rosenberg, the Center for Nonviolent Communication has grown into an international nonprofit organization that provides expertise in the NVC approach through a network of “well over 150 certified trainers worldwide”(Cox and Dannahy, 2005, p. 41). Given its longevity and increasing internationalization, NVC has been tested in varied contexts. According to Caruso (personal communication, November 2, 2005), research was conducted in Costa Rica in 2004 on the impact of NVC Training at the Elias Castro School of Excellence; in the United States in 2002 as A Step Toward Violence Prevention: NVC, part of a college curriculum; in the Netherlands in 200l on NVC as a way to reduce violence in kindergartens; in Finland in 2001 on how NVC reduces bullying by 26 percent at the International School of Helsinki; and in Yugoslavia in 1996 as “Mutual Education: Giraffe Language in Kindergartens and Schools.” (The giraffe, the land animal with the largest heart, is the symbol for the compassionate language advocated by NVC practitioners.) Researchers in conflict resolution can have an idea of the high quality of empirical research on effects of NVC by reading a recent paper by Cox and Dannahy (2005), in which the Rosenberg model is used “as a way of devel­oping the openness needed for successful communication in e-mentoring relationships.” According to those researchers (one from the United States, the other from the United Kingdom), “there is evidence to suggest that the use of NVC, with its focus on feelings and needs, encourages trusting relationships characterized by openness.” Interestingly, “case study research was undertaken with students participating in an online coaching and mentoring module that formed part of a Masters degree at a British university.” In their conclusion, Cox and Dannahy state that “the most noteworthy indication of NVC’s ability to facilitate electronic dialogue is illustrated through the speed at which in-depth relationships were forged with students” (2005) For insights on applied research possibilities by NVC for individual and group practice, the Nonviolent Commu­nication: Companion Workbook by Leu (2003) is well worth reading.

Appreciative Inquiry

This approach places “language at the center of human organizing and change” (Whitney and Trosten-Bloom, 2003, p. 53) and characterizes that system as “the vehicle by which communities of people create knowledge and make meaning” (p. 56). Four key concepts of appreciative inquiry (AI) are positive change, meaning making, freedoms, and power. Positive change emphasizes the posi­tive potential of people and organizations by focusing on “the best of what has been, what is, and what might be” (p. 15). Interestingly, from a peace linguis­tics perspective, AI authors believe that “words create worlds” and that language has the power to create social change and reality (p. 53). The term “meaning making” means the sharing of interview data—stories, quotes, and inspirational highlights—for deeper interaction (p. 165). Freedoms, “six conditions for the lib­eration of power”(p. 238), include the freedom to be heard. In AI, “having no voice... is the experience of the oppressed. To be heard is to have a recognized and credible voice...”(p. 241). By “power” the authors mean “the capacity to create, innovate, and positively influence the future” or “an unlimited relational resource” (p. 236). Also of possible applicational interest is AI’s “Positive Principle: Positive Questions Lead to Positive Change”(p. 66). Such formulation is similar to the philosophy underlying the checklist for asking questions positively proposed by Gomes de Matos (1996, pp. 34-37).

Although the core concept of conflict is not dealt with explicitly in the Whitney and Trosten-Bloom (2003) volume, examples are provided of commu­nicative conflicts in the workplace. Of additional interest, especially to researchers in typologies of conflict, is Whitney and Trosten-Bloom’s mention of AI meetings of people experiencing conflicts of a cultural, generational, or religious nature (p. 71). Those researchers in organizational change acknowl­edge the relevance of the field of positive psychology and claim that the approach initiated by the American Psychological Association president Martin Seligman in 1998, “along with Appreciative Inquiry, may well revolutionize the way that we live, work, and organize our families, communities, and busi­nesses” (p.

Research on AI

Appreciative inquiry, a process for positive change, had its beginnings at Case Western Reserve University in 1985. It is being used by businesses, educational institutions, health care systems, governments, and communities in the United States and abroad. As Whitney and Trosten-Bloom state: “Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is a bold invitation to be positive.................................. Over and over people have told us

that AI works, in part, because it gives people the Freedom to be Positive” (2003, p. 250). The positive impact of AI comes from its capacity to bring together and to liberate the power of diverse groups of people. In a personal communication (November 2, 2005), Whitney clarifies that “the research into why AI works shows that its 4-D Cycle (discovery, dream, design, and delivery) is effective as a change process for five reasons: 1) it lets people meet and be known to each other in relationships rather than in roles; 2) it enables people to be heard for what they value and care about; 3) it creates opportunities for people to share their dreams in a broader community of colleagues and friends; 4) it fosters an environment in which people are able to choose how they want to contribute; and 5) it builds systems and structures through which people are supported in taking risks to create and to innovate.” An example of the use of AI as a tool for conflict transformation is given by Rios and Fisher (2003), in which the authors explore how the positive features of AI might help bring about reconciliation between conflicting parties in the long-standing maritime conflict between Bolivia and Chile. In their conclusion, the two researchers say that “Although AI applications in corporate and community settings have been successful in addressing complicated issues, scenarios of deep-rooted and longstanding conflict within or between countries can bring quite different challenges” (p.

Powerful Non-defensive Communication

This approach shares with NVC the use of the negative prefix “non,” which has been universalized in such foundational concept as Gandhi’s nonviolence, a term coined in 1915, meaning “the policy or practice of refraining from the use of vio­lence, as in protesting oppressive authority” (RandomHouse, 1997, p. 891). When asked why she used a negative hyphenated word, “non-defensive,” powerful non­defensive communication (NDC) author Ellison explains that she “couldn’t find a word in the English language that describes how to communicate without (a) being dependent on the other person’s cooperation and (b) joining in the power struggle” (personal communication, April 21, 2005). She adds that “most of the words like peaceful, cooperative, and so on, inspire most people to think of the cooperative.. and she argues that “My process allows people to speak with power regardless of whether s/he cooperates.”

On Ellison’s combining power and non-defensiveness in her book’s subtitle— The Art of Powerful Non-Defensive Communication—she clarifies that people respond strongly to those two adjectives together and want to know more about being powerful and non-defensive at the same time (personal communication, April 21, 2005).

The core concepts in PNDC are power, the war model—a traditional system of communicating—and the powerful non-defensive model-tools instead of weapons. Although the term “peace” is conspicuously absent from the book’s index, it is given prominence in its conclusion: Peace and Power (pp. 264-271). In another personal message, Ellison sums up her approach to power, language, and peace in this way: “The tendency toward power struggle among individuals and groups of people and conflict in epidemic proportions is often seen simply as human nature. It seems to be the story of recorded human history. I believe that we have used a particular understanding of power as the foundation of all human communication and if we were to change how we conceive of power and use it, we could change human destiny” (August 10, 2005). Ellison states that “the war model reflects a unilateral view of power, with subsequent need to control and manipulate expressed in how we use language, asking questions that are interrogating, making statements of opinion as fact, and trying to convince others to agree, as well as making predictions designed to threaten or punish others.” She further clarifies that in the war model, reciprocity is seen as being effective only if others cooper­ate and argues that the alternative is what she call reciprocal power, “where I choose how to respond to you based on how you treat me, but I do not try to con­trol you, or convince you to be different. I call the language for this system pow­erful non-defensive communication.” She goes on to explain, “In this system, reciprocity is not dependent on anyone else’s cooperation. I simply judge how much I do for you and with you based on how you treat me. Of course, there is still oppression and many circumstances where one person or group can use vio­lence to take control. However, my belief is that in millions of personal interac­tions, reciprocal power expressed through a powerful non-defensive system of language not only has more power for the individual using it, but the other per­son is very likely to disarm their own defenses. This non-defensive system of lan­guage addresses the human need for connection, love and respect.” In Ellison’s concluding remarks, she speaks of what in my approach is called communicative peace: “If we change how we communicate in our own families and communities, it will begin to change our human mindset and someday, when one more person changes to a non-defensive way of listening and speaking, using power in recip­rocal ways,... our wisdom can guide us in finding peaceful solutions to the global issues that we all face.” For applied peace linguists, of special interest in Ellison’s applicational insights might be her description of questions, statements, and pre­dictions as tools of PNDC, her formats for NDC (content- or process-based ques­tions, descriptive statements, If-type predictions), and a list of individual reactions in interactions.