Linguistic Violence and Cognitive Distortions in Adolescents with Reference to Performance Poetry

Abstract

Linguistic violence occurs in various forms, such as bullying, insulting, labelling, abusing and attacking. Violence afflicted through language is as real and traumatic as that of physical violence. While words have the power to heal and uplift minds, it is equally charged with a destructive force that can break and hurt people when used to attack or alienate people. Linguistic violence through verbal abuse impacts the mental and emotional health of people. Though it affects the health and wellbeing of everyone who is subjected to its trauma, it primarily scars children and adolescents with a damage that is lasting. This paper looks into two antibullying performance poems discussing verbal abuse and linguistic violence. The types of violent speech acts addressed here are name-calling, insulting, labelling and bullying, and their adverse effects on the mental and cognitive health of the victims subjected to bullying is analysed and presented here.