The Hidden Language of Power [EP. 1] Linguistics & Life

This documentary exposes how “linguistic manipulation” has been used by governments, media, corporations and international bodies from the 1960s to today to mask power imbalances and economic shifts. We trace key euphemisms – for example, calling civilian casualties “collateral damage” (a military term for unintended civilian deaths
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) or calling torture “enhanced interrogation techniques” (George W. Bush’s word for CIA torture
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). We also examine economic terms like “fiscal responsibility” used to sell austerity: UK leaders promised fiscal responsibility could “go hand in hand with a social conscience”
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even as spending cuts drove up inequality
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. Citing archival sources and court cases, we highlight moments of pushback – e.g. in 2019 a US appeals court pointedly rejected the term “enhanced interrogation,” bluntly stating “colloquially… __ was tortured”
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Sources
Human Rights Watch, Off Target: The Conduct of the War and Civilian Casualties in Iraq (Dec. 11, 2003)
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G. Alex Sinha, “Euphemism and Jus Cogens,” Northwestern Journal of Human Rights 19 (2021)
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.
Bob Egelko, “For first time, court calls U.S. ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ torture,” San Francisco Chronicle (Sept. 18, 2019)
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Tom Engelhardt, “All the Euphemisms We Use for ‘War’,” TomDispatch / The Nation (2014)
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Michael Sanderson, “David Cameron warns of ‘new age of austerity’,” The Guardian (Apr. 26, 2009)
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.
Tidiane Kinda, Jaejoon Woo & Elva Bova, “Austerity and inequality: The size and composition of fiscal adjustment matter,” CEPR Policy Insight (Feb. 2018)
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Kathrin Maurer, “Communication and Language in Niklas Luhmann’s Systems-Theory,” (Systems theory analysis, 2010)
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.