Project co-funded by Tandem Ukraine and Open Society Foundation in Serbia.
From the series “Boerenooientjies hou van Pielsuig” (Boer girls like to suck dick). This is the reference to a movie called ê-lollipop about a friendship between a black boy and a white boy. In Xhosa a lollipop is obviously called ê-lollipop, kind of the punchline of the movie. Used with kind permission of the artist, Anton Kannemeyer.
On artist / Anton Kannemeyer (born 1967) is a South African comics artist, who sometimes goes by the pseudonym Joe Dog. Kannemeyer has lectured the University of Pretoria, Technikon Witwatersrand, and was also a senior lecturer at the University of Stellenbosch.
Corruption of language is the abuse of communicational, cognitive, aesthetical, magical, cultural and other language functionalities aiming to drive people into thinking, even before they say anything, whether that being right or wrong, how it should be said, and how not.
Corruption of language is an interpretation or a misinterpretation of language on different plans, varying from general to particular. The misuse of communication, cognitive, aesthetical, magical, cultural and other functions of language contribute to the inability of the individual to put the wellbeing of the community above their own interest, mainly in terms of expression through language. Some specific examples of corruption of language are: misinterpretation of Quran by the extremists of the Islam Republic or Nazis’ interpretation of Nietzsche; misinterpretation of different laws, securitization (i.e., the moment when the idea is abandoned to such an extent that the concept of security relates only to certain reference objects – such as the state – and to a certain type of security threats – such as military ones); misinterpreting satires; verbal taboos; developing and using specific stereotypes based on cultural narratives. At the same time, the technological advance has led to the proliferation of what is today known as “fake news”, which might be an appropriate example of the way in which language is used as a form of benefit. By offering not so true or not so false forms of the real truth (i.e., fake news) or by framing or reframing certain aspects of a specific issue (migrants vs. refugees; terrorists vs. freedom fighters), one might corrupt language and convert it from a communication tool into a miscommunication one.
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