Jackson Katz Quotes

The political value of a word must be measured not in terms of its linguistic coherence but in the way people use it.

I'm drawn to the magical efficacies of language as a political act.

I have never said, as is sometimes believed, or even suggested that lower-class children should not learn the so-called educated norm of the Portuguese language of Brazil. What I have said is that the problems of language always involve ideological questions and, along with them, questions of power.

After all, enforced national bilingualism in this country isn't mere policy. It has attained the status of a religion. It's a dogma which one is supposed to accept without question.

If French is no longer the language of a power, it can be the language of a counter power.

Circumstances ... give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing colour and discriminating effect.

When California passes a law saying that English is the official language, it can only mean one thing: That English is no longer the official language.

My interest in the linguistic differences between women and men grew from research I conducted early in my career on conversations between speakers of different ethnic and regional backgrounds.

Language is a weapon of politicians, but language is a weapon in much of human affairs.

language is never neutral

After all, enforced national bilingualism in this country isn't mere policy. It has attained the status of a religion. It's a dogma which one is supposed to accept without question....Make no mistake. Canada is not a bilingual country. In fact it is less bilingual today than it has ever been...As a religion, bilingualism is the god that failed. It has led to no fairness, produced no unity, and cost Canadian taxpayers untold millions.

I emerged in that incredible moment in the 1980s when all kinds of social questions about subjectivity and objectivity, about who was making, who was looking.

The word 'demand' is a tricky word when used by our gender. When used by men, it's part of their vernacular.

There was a time when liberals were linguistically dominant in America.

... politics of meaning

Politics begins when you have two people in a room or when you have one person looking in a mirror.

Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly: The official language of the state of Illinois shall hereafter be known as the "American" language and not as the "English" language.

In politics you have to say, compared to what?

Opinion elites begin to shape a debate.

[Visual images are] the surest way of conveying an idea. A leader or an interest can make itself master of current symbols to master the current situation.

Language, especially in this country is a daily plebiscite.

Our Constitution has affirmed that Gaelic is the national language. Yet there is scarcely one person in a thousand throughout Ireland who cannot speak English and scarcely one in ten who can speak Irish easily.

The study of gender and language might seem at first to be a narrowly focused field, but it is actually as interdisciplinary as they come.

One of the first studies in the field of gender and language, by Don H. Zimmerman and Candace West in 1975, found that in casual conversations between women and men, women were interrupted far more often.

I ask unanimous consent that I be able to deliver a floor speech on immigration reform in Spanish.