Free English Language Dissertations - 'with The End Of The 'cold War' In 1989, Has There Been More Openness In The
'With the end of the 'Cold war' in 1989, has there been more openness in the discourse of 'deterrence' or in 'warring words'?
Introduction
The Cold War has been described as 'a nearly fifty-year war of words and wills', (Maus, 2003: 13). It was a period during which most individuals lived in constant fear that 'the bomb' would be dropped, effectively obliterating life as we know it. Direct combat itself was a very small part of this war: 'The Cold War, fought with national ideologies, economic posturing and infinite defense budgets, festered without any combat or mass casualties (at least among the superpowers) throughout the latter half of the 20th century before finally coming to a head in the mid-'80s' (Hooten n.d.). When the Cold War finally came to its ultimate end, the words of war shifted in meaning. 'Warring words' continued to be part of the popular vocabulary, but their connotations had changed, and their definitions shifted. The discourse of 'deterrence' faded away, as there was no longer a need for it. This paper will discuss the ways in which the Cold War has affected not only the history of the world, but also the history of the words that changed along with it.
The Words of War
The language we use to describe the things we do is a significant reflection of who we are at a given time in the culture. Communication is an essential tool for human beings, as we are highly social creatures by nature. The need to communicate is an integral part of our composition. However, in the course of transferring information to one another, there is always a margin of error. This means that miscommunication is bound to occur. According to Coupland, Wiemann, and Giles, 'language use and communication are in fact pervasively and even intrinsically flawed, partial and problematic" (1991: 3).
Because communication is so important to humans as a species, it is only natural that miscommunication brings with it some sort of consequence. This is a universal concept, and it affects all of us on a very basic level. As Banks, Ge, and Baker assert, one's theoretical orientation is of no importance in this respect: 'A key sense of miscommunication, however, regardless of one's theoretical orientation, is something gone awry communicatively that has social consequences for the interactants; without social consequences, the phenomenon would be of trivial interest' (1991: 105).
As a result, conflict is inevitable in society, and a worst-case scenario of conflict is, of course war. War is more than a militaristic action that is played out with bullets and bombs as tools. Words, too, are very much a part of any war effort, and they can be very powerful as weapons. The Cold War has been described as 'a nearly fifty-year war of words and wills', as both sides aggressively tried to promote and protect their respective ideologies at home and abroad while always remaining aware of the repercussions of pushing the limits too far' (Maus, 2003: 13).
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