The language of self-help as an example of “Langue de bois”. International Journal Of Psycholinguistics, vol. 13, nº 2 (37), 141-149,1997.

LEONOR SCLIAR-CABRAL

0. Introduction

Contemporary society of on-line information, of globalization, of market economy, of cultural industry and of explosion of consumerism and death of utopias is also accompanied by internal emptiness, disruption of family, of interpersonal and friendship bonds and of individual identity. An example of such a world is given by the fact that the average daily time of an American child watching TV is of seven hours. The direct consequence of such a portrait is the increasing growth of anxiety and despair and concurrently the desperate search for immediate, miraculous cures offered either by all types of pseudo religious sects or by pseudo up-to date scientific practices, which use variants of “Langue de bois”, traditionally illustrated with the discourse employed by totalitarian regimes, and now manifested in texts produced by those who promise to people how to overcome all their problems.

Although the art of persuasion was developed from ancient times in its multiple forms as, for instance, the genre of Biblical parabolas, the Sophists’ paradoxical arguments and the detailed weapons taught by Cicero in De inventione, De oratore libri,

Brutus, Orator and by Quintilian in Institutionis oratoriae libri XII (Gwynn, 1926), it assumed nowadays the form of the powerful industry of advertising, abbreviated by its professionals as adv, where billions of dollars are involved, and integrating marketing, in its ampler sense “a system that can provide products, services and ideologies from the source to a given target”...“We are living in a world that produces, sells, changes or tries to persuade people to have a given lifestyle or a defined status quo” (Scliar Cabral, E.J.

1992, 2).

Since I am going to examine a particular kind of Langue de bois used by

Neurolinguistic Programming, now on abbreviated NLP, it must be pointed out that the technology or methodology that their founders Bandler and Grinder introduced and continue to be used by their followers is known as human modeling, which basically consists of finding and describing the important elements and processes that people go through, beginning with finding and studying a human model, so, their “human models” are inspired in the “older pattern of success story by achievement” (McLuhan 1972, xviii), I add, which is a stereotyped goal in the American culture, a society where “self- serving credits for positive achievement, externalization of blameworthy failures, out- group denigration as a necessary basis of positive in group identity.” (Robinson 1995,

275) is also found.

1. NLP contextualization

John Grinder, Professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz (UCSC) and a graduate student, Richard Bandler, can be considered the founders of NLP, in the mid of the seventies (Bandler and Grinder 1979). As it was explained above, NLP aims to modeling individuals following models of successful people, which are accessed either by observing these people’s behavior and/or asking them questions about what they do, why they do it, what works and doesn’t work. As the NLP practitioners confess themselves, it is not a theory, nor even based on theories nor do they want to prove scientifically its truth. It is one of the most assumed pragmatic therapies, based on trial and error: what fails for a particular purpose is discarded, although nowadays, there are some efforts to prove experimentally the effectiveness of some of its claims, for instance, the one that affirms that thought is represented through specific sensory languages, which in turn can be accessed by changing the direction the subject’s eyes look to. Nevertheless, the experiments run by

Loiselle at the University of Moncton in New Brunswick, Canada reported by Bolstad

(1997), with pseudo words, did not take into consideration the fact that the alphabetic

Latin system is read from left to right. What would be the results with Hebrew or Arab?

Anyway, NLP techniques would not be so dangerous if applied to some innocent practices, as for instance, how to prepare a good cake, but their practicioners go beyond what would be ethically allowed: they promise to cure phobias and depression (James and

Woodsmall 1989, James 1997).

1.1. Sources and techniques

Initially Bandler and Grinder used some clichés loaned from Chomsky’s GGT, like “deep and superficial structures”, expression that we still find here and there in the current NLP texts, although it is dismissed by Chomsky himself nowadays. The initial use of Chomskyan clichés shows some naïve worry to justify the word “linguistics” which enters in the agglutinated composition “Neuro-linguistics Programming” even if this collection of receipts does not have anything to do with the fundamental principles that base any linguistic tendency, not to mention that it is opposite to inatist theories. A greater affinity is found between the founders of NLP and (Korzybski

1933; Hayakawa 1963). Credits are given to Social Psychology, Gestalt therapy and particularly to Bateson (1958), Erickson’s patterns of hypnotic techniques and Pavlov’s proposal of conditioned reflexes. More details about NLP history are given in Andreas and Faulkner 1994, ch.2.

Some of NLP main techniques are listed as: time-line therapy; sensory acuity and physiology; meta-model; representational systems; Milton-model; eye accessing cues; submodalities and metaprogramas.

The scrutiny of these techniques demonstrates their lack of scientific basis, some of them easily perceived despite the spectacular results their practitioners advertise, although similar results were and are also obtained by xamãs. For example, the recognition of the client’s complex beliefs by a trained operator (practitioner) who supposedly gets into his/her thought processes and internal experience by observing external cues like eye’s movements, body expression, respiration, heart beats and so on; the supposition that our mental representations are directly feed through five senses (!!!).

Even if they admit the importance of physiology in order to explain neural processes, to justify the stem “neuro” in the composition of the syntagm “Neurolinguistic

Programming”, there are few texts where the peripheral nature of the sensory (afferent) motor (efferent) circuits are clearly explained.

2.2 Roles The dynamics of NLP develops through intensive courses where three main roles take place: the client, sometimes called the subject; the operator whose function is to apply a certain NLP pattern to get a specific result over the client and the meta-operator who helps the operator to apply the exercises accordingly.

These brief information about NLP are enough to understand the similarities and differences between Langue de bois as it was examined in the totalitarian context (Slama-

Cazacu 1996, 213-150) and the one used by NLP adepts, which will be the topic discussed now on.

3. Langue de bois

The definition used in the following analysis is taken from Slama-Cazacu (op.cit.

226), observing that she uses for referring to it the abbreviation WL (for the English translation “wooden language”): “a WL is a subsystem of a language, referring mostly to lexical elements, but also phraseology elements, with a character of fixed expressions, of clichés “stonified”, with a determined meaning in the context of a certain “authority”, to a large extent used in a stereotyped-dogmatic manner, as the expression of a Power or an ideology or a semblance - simulacra - of ideological, economical, technological, political, cultural etc. systems which have the power or a certain state authority, imitated but also imposed by the political Power or by groups or individuals having such ambitions

(veleité) (even if, generally, the promoters or the epigons of the ideological system do not always know exactly the semantic content; then diffused by repetition (including memorization., and a ‘motivation” based on fear sometimes), mostly due to the frequent use in the various means of communication, written or oral. This diffusion involves masses which, more often than not, do not know the exact meaning of various terms, adopting them blindly (and sometimes in an incorrect form especially if this is offered as such by their promoters). It causes therefore that annihilation of thinking noticed by G.

Orwell (see also note 7 and in any case a deviation of the own manner of thinking of the receivers-masses. By that, they may become submitted to a collective suggestion. The real intention or at least the obtained effect are generally that an authority imposes itself, either due to the secret or the prestige owned, or due to the technocratic knowledge, thus hindering another way of thinking and generally attempting at a masking of the true reality if this one is not favorable: creating by that a psychological state suitable for manipulation.”

3.1 Stereotypes and authority

Before entering in the identification of those properties signaled by Slama-Cazacu as constituting the Langue de bois, it is necessary to discuss some difficulties of defining the exact meaning of “stereotypes” and “authority”. As Robinson (op.cit. 275-6) pointed out: “First, there has to be a conceptually defensible consensus of meaning for certain crucial terms, e.g. stereotype, prejudice and nationality. Second, it is necessary to distinguish six components from each other: what people know about the culture’s representations of members of other groups, what they themselves believe, what they feel, what they say, what they do and why they say and do what they do. Third, matters of fact

(what they are really like) need to be distinguished from matters of value (what we ought

(not) to believe about them).” In the present study what must be emphasized is the stereotype of “successful person” in the American society which will model the clients, for example, the model Bill

Gates, or following Andrea’s and Falconer’s ideas (op.cit., ch.4), people must discover their mission: this is the difference between those who succeed and those who fail.

(Faulkner and Freedman, 1993; Faulkner and McDonald, 1992).

Three main psychological trends explain authoritarism, the one that equals it with fascism (Adorno et al. 1965); the one that equals it with dogmatism (Rockeach, 1960;

Tetlock, 1984) and the one that explains it as the imposition of one’s will over others’.

More recently Kohlberg (1987) proposed the redefinition of the concept of autoritharism relative to different socio-ethic prospective.

3.2. WL Categories (according to Slama-Cazacu’s definition) found in NLP

3.2.1 Fixed expressions and “stonified” clichés

The following are some recurrent fixed expressions and “stonified” clichés found in written and oral NLP texts which by repetition become empty of their original meaning: human modeling, subjective experience, anchors, patterns of hypnotic techniques (Milton model), sensory acuity, physiology, training, representational systems, sensory modalities

(auditory, visual, kinesthetic), induce trance, eye accessing cues, submodalities, metaprograms, towards goals, cognitive structure, rapport, personal identity, reimprinting.

3.2.2. Determined meaning in the context of a certain “authority” Authority in the NLP context is assumed either by the operator (practitioner) who models the client, by the meta-operator and by the NLP written and oral texts which circulate through multimedia. They impose authority over the anxious client in search of physical or spiritual cure.

3.2.3.Stereotyped-dogmatic manner

The best example of stereotyped-dogmatic manner in NLP practices is the one played by the meta-operator over the operator since the last one must follow a previous script with minor variants. The omniscient character of NLP which make predictions, if you follow their script in the therapy section, contradicts the main property of linguistic communication, indeterminacy, based in the interplay between given and new information.

3.2.4 Expression of a Power or an ideology

There are many traits peculiar to the American predominant ideology which are present in the NLP proposal: the pragmatic character of its techniques; the naïve belief of self-determinism without any constraint, and of self-made-successful person, no matter if the surrounding world is falling into pieces, which can be exemplified in the following

Baffa’s”(1997) message:

“I go through life making anything feel any way I want. I can be sitting in the worst traffic, drop into a state of time distortion, and turn up some of the most enjoyable feelings I can imagine. You see there is so much more to learn, to experience, to do, but I don’t even begin to suspect what those might be. And if I keep my senses open while looking for what is not there, I might just discover what some of those things might be.

A long time ago I read my first NLP book. It was barely off the presses when I did read it. I can remember - I got so exited, finding anybody who would put up with me so that I could try on everything in that book - 100 times over! And I am still excited - twenty years later!

I thought to myself, “This stuff has got to be too cool, I want to master it” . I have since done everything I wanted to do to this point.”

“Doing everything a person wants to do” suggests an omnipotence which does not correspond to reality, since any species, including humans is constrained by its biopsychological determinants, not to mention the socio-historic factors in a given time and space

3.2.4. Diffusion by repetition (including memorization, and a “motivation” based on fear sometimes)

It would not be difficult to make a quantitative research of repeated expressions which recur in the NLP as a leit-motiv. Repetition is a technique borrowed from advertising where it is scientifically proved how many times a message must circulate in order to be incorporated even against will by the receiver. Nevertheless, the feature of “motivation” based on fear sometimes, which is a characteristic of Langue de bois in the totalitarian context is not the case in the NLP one, since what motivates people in the last one is mainly the seek for help and for success.

For instance, there are many patients who want to give up from smoking, from phobias, from depression, from allergy and others who want to be the boss.

If there is fear, it is fed by a surrounding world of violence and aggression magnified by tons of bombarding messages people are constantly confronted with through mass media, including Internet and perhaps the majority of people is still in the pre-conventional level of moral judgment, when obeying is strictly related to the fear of punishment (Colby and Kohlberg 1987, 16).

3.2.5. Blindly adoption and annihilation of thinking

The already pictured profile of our contemporary society at the beginning of this paper produces a “childish consumer” (McLuhan, op.cit.:xvii), an annihilation of identity and thus of thinking and the compulsory need of being absorbed by the group and of behaving without questioning adhering to stereotypes imposed by mass media. This is particular crucial in the United States, where NLP was born: “The average citizen as well as most social and behavioral scientists simply do not know what is going on” (Key,1973

1).

Blindly adoption in NLP discourse will be illustrated by one of its major employed techniques, hypnosis, inspired on Milton Erickson’s ideas. Analysing the basis of modern media effectiveness, which employs subliminal languages “a language within a language - one that communicates to each of us at a level beneath our conscious awareness, one that reaches into the uncharted mechanism of the human unconscious” (Key op.cit., 11), NLP adopted hypnosis, considering it more powerful and lasting in its effects than advertising subliminal means and tranquilizing their clients about possible unscrupulous misuses or abuses of it. But what can be worse than invading a weaker person’s mind with the purpose of modeling it accordingly to stereotypes or creating expectancies that everyone can be a genius like Einstein, depending only on his/her will? And what submission can surpass that one which is based on “voluntary” agreement of the weaker part to trust without defenses on the dominant partner, the hypnotist?

4. Concluding remarks

NLP discourse, as an example of Langue de bois, suggests the multiple varieties it can assume, depending on sociopolitical and cultural factors.

In a globalized world of on-line communication where large budgets are invested to guarantee the effectiveness of intended persuasion, the Langue de bois attained a degree of sophistication unsuspected even during Goebels’days with all the paraphernalia built by Nazi propaganda. Internal emptiness turns the contemporary homo sapiens lost in a forest of informations which he is unable of selecting and structuring to find his own identity.

References

Adorno, T.W., Frenkel-Brunswick, E., Levinson, D.J. and Sanford, R.N. 1965. La personalidad autoritaria. Buenos Aires, Proyección.

Andreas, S. and Faulkner, C. (Eds.). 1994. NLP The new technology of achievement.

William Morrow and Co., Inc.

Baffa, C.1997. Excitement. The writings of Carmine Baffa. Http://www.avatar-indust... armine/atti/atti0001.htm.

Bandler,R. and Grinder, J. 1979. Frogs into Princes. Moab, Utah, Real People Press.

Bateson, G. 1958. Naven. Stanford, Stanford University Press.

Bolstad, R.1997. Research on NLP.Http://www/actwin.com/nl...dom/research- summary.

Htm. Colby, A . and Kohlberg, L. (Eds.). 1987. The measurement of moral development:

Theoretical foundations and research vallidation. Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University

Press.

Gwynn, A . 1926. Roman education from Cicero to Quintilian. Oxford, Clarendon Press.

James, T. and Woodsmall, W. 1989. Time line therapy and the basis of personality.

Honolulu, Advanced Neuro Dynamics, Inc.

Hayakawa, S.I. 1963. Language in thought and action. New York, Harcourt Brace

Jovanovich.

James,T. 1997. The use of time line therapy techniques in treating depression. NLP homepage. Aloha, [email protected]. Advanced Neuro Dynamics.

Key, W.B. 1973. Subliminal seduction. New Jersey, Prentice-Hall, Inc.

Kohlberg, L. 1981. The philosophy of moral development. , Harder and

Row.

Korzybski, A . 1933. Science and sanity: An introduction to non-Aristotelian systems and general semantics. Lancaster, Pa, Science Press Printing Co.

Robinson., P. 1995. Human beings and barbarians in the states of Europe: Writing about

THEM and US in history texts and other media. International Journal of

Psycholinguistics, 11 no3[32], 271-96.

Rockeach, M. 1960. The open and closed mind. New York, Basic books. Scliar Cabral, E.J. 1992. Marketing influence in a changing world: Making visible invisible influences. Intertrade’92, Katowice, Poland, LC AIESEC.

Slama-Cazacu, T. 1996. Specific stereotypes in language and communication: The

“Langue de bois” (Special reference to an Eastern European country). International

Journal of Psycholinguistics, 12, no 2 [34], 213-50.

Tetlock, P.E. 1984. Cognitive style and political belief systems in the British House of

Commons. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46, 365-75.