Hitler's Intention for Languge

During Tuesday’s class we focused on Bakhtin and his interpretation of what language can do. Through reading Bakhtin and unpacking it as a class one of the things I learned is that language can have different intentions (Bakhtin 289). Burke’s “The Rhetoric of Hitler’s Battle” provides an example of Bakhtin’s assertion by showing that language can be manipulative.

Hitler used language to push his ideas unto others. Hitler used it in order to brainwash the Aryans into following his belief that Jews are the villains.  Burke states "the symbol of a common enemy, the Prince of Evil himself. Men who can unite on nothing else can unite on the basis of a foe shared by all" (Burke 193). Hitler created this common foe by identifying Jews as evil. Burke believes that Hitler materialized a religious pattern that was a terrifically effective weapon of propaganda (Burke 193). His dialogue and the way he expressed his beliefs is what moved the Aryans to follow Hitler and act on his ideas. Hitler in his speech focused on the style of his language rather than the content because it spoke to the pathos of the Aryans. Hitler refers to the Aryans as constructive and to the Jew as destructive, saying that in order for the Aryan to continue constructing they must destroy the Jews (Burke 204).

Hitler first unified the Aryans against a common enemy then used the projection device, which had "the ability to hand over one's ills to a scapegoat, thereby getting purification by dissociation. And the greater one's internal inadequacies, the greater the amount of evils one can load upon the back of 'the enemy' (Burke 203). Hitler also used his concept of symbolic rebirth, convincing Aryans that he was the prophet and that such rebirth involved a symbolic change of lineage (Burke 203). It was not the content of the language that influenced Hitler’s followers but rather his style that appealed to them and made them actively want to believe in his ideas. Bakhtin argues "that to create a style is to create a language for oneself" (598). Bakhtin basically states that style is language, which is certainly the case for Hitler’s speech. He understood that the style of language was just as important as the content when it came to persuading his audience

Both Bakhtin and Burke exemplify what language can do. Bakhtin speaks highly of it focusing on the stylistic aspects of language and it’s many uses. Burke uses Hitler’s “battle” to give a real life example of these stylistic aspects of language and how they can be used to manipulate. Bakhtin says "the novel can be defined as a diversity of social speech types and a diversity of individual voices, artistically organized" (Bakhtin 262). This statement can directly relate to the types of speeches Hitler gave. Hitler was not a novelist but Bakhtin would agree that he used social speeches to influence others. He used stylistic devices to appeal to their emotions, making him a master at the art of rhetoric.

- Cailyn Callaway