What's in a name?

 

Think of the awesome power of naming a thing. To name is, in a way, to create the thing. “What’s going on with you and that cutie from the tavern?”  “He’s my boyfriend!”  To name is to make something come into existence (in this case, a boyfriend. Mazel Tov.) In this theory, the focus is on who gets to do the naming. For Kramarae, the scholar behind Muted Group Theory, the “who” is almost always men. Language is an especially man-made invention. In your game, who has the power to name others and which groups suffer under the biased naming of others?  These are the questions we’ll try to answer by thinking about those who mute others and those who end up muted.

The idea brings to mind the Dalit, a word used for those occupying the lowest castes of Indian society. These people were formerly known as “untouchable”, a name they no-doubt didn’t coin for themselves. Just as members of the dominant castes in India were able to name (and therefore define) a population as unworthy of touch, so too have men created an unequal world of language women must occupy. According to Muted Group, man-made language functions to exclude and devalue women.  

Who, in your D&D fantasy world, is excluded, marginalized, or dehumanized (whether or not they’re human)? The few scattered mountain orcs call themselves “snow-folk”. The gnomes living in valleys below, name them the “bloody curse”. Perhaps in a city of elves, even elderly humans must take diminutive, childish nicknames. Perhaps additionally, a human may never attain certain respected elven titles. In your fantasy world, consider which groups to mute, how dominant powers would seek to define and exclude them. Low status should equate with low ability to define ones-self to the culture at large. Indeed, a conflict such as this could fuel a number of quests and interactions with different populations. Stratified societies provide your players with ready-made conflicts and opportunities to roleplay public/private distinctions in language and speaking. Once away from the prying eyes of the elven authorities, a small band of humans might disregard the unsophisticated nicknames in favor of names they chose themselves.

Dominant groups also have the power to describe experiences of the world that are themselves dominant. If your game includes a powerful religious order, for example, they’re probably quite adept at defining other religious practitioners as cultists, zealots, and heretics. Even if someone who doesn’t practice the dominant religion has a great, multiverse-saving idea, they must first overcome the labels, stereotypes, and limitations hefted on them from the dominant culture. Political dominance can usually be equated with dominant perceptions. 

In the real world, that political dominance is almost exclusively male. For example, it’s fairly easy to think of a host of derogatory words used to describe the way women speak (i.e., shrill, harsh, vocal fry, bitch, moan, harp, nag). According to Muted Group Theory, men are the gatekeepers of most language, the majority of cultural products, and mainstream expression. Just like humans in our fictional elven city have to keep their heads down and take the childlike nicknames foisted upon them, so too women in a male-dominated culture. 

What are the options for women living as a muted group? Kramarae asserts that in order to participate in male systems, women must constantly work at translating their experiences into male-language. This may leave them wondering if they said or did the right thing and, if they chose their words carefully enough to pass male scrutiny. However, like training in a weighted vest, women’s efforts to speak men’s language, in men’s code, with men’s gestures, in (as the song says) A Man’s World, have made them better at understanding men than men at understanding women. Women have had to put in the effort; men haven’t. 

For players, it’s a valuable practice to consider the class position your character occupies. If you take the Noble background, for instance, “You understand wealth, power, and privilege…You are welcome in high society, and people assume you have the right to be wherever you are.” Think about that for a second: the right to be wherever you are. You are the one who does the muting. Your privilege likely also extends to naming, labeling, and defining others. By extension, it would also include the inability of others to effectively label you. The Noble background is a great example to get thinking about the effects of a socially dominant position. Think about how you might roleplay this in-game. 

For dungeonmasters considering how Muted Group Theory might integrate its tenets into their game might start with thinking about a newly-named group. Perhaps there is a new cult, type of magic, or population that’s just been discovered. I know that in my notes, I rarely include multiple names for each faction, but if I’m thinking about Muted Group Theory, perhaps I should. After all, our world contains both undocumented workers and illegal aliens, death taxes and estate taxes, advisory boards and death panels, draft-dodgers and conscientious objectors. 

In your game, this might look like newly-converted religious devotees calling themselves “The Walkers of The Way”; the established church (and therefore the population in general) calls them “The Wanderers”. They might be described by the dominant culture as aimless confused fools. In their own private conversations, they self-define as progressive, theologically-minded independent thinkers. To most, they’re Wanderers; to themselves, they’re Walkers. Regardless, they at least warrant a name. Leaving an experience unnamed makes it difficult to talk about and nearly impossible to rectify.

Once a term exists and enters into the common parlance, its very encoding makes it real. If the “Wanderers” can convince the society at large that they’re not wandering at all, but sincere devotees to a just cause, the general lexicon may change to support them and their self-definition. Notably, most people won’t be conscious of these efforts of naming. They’ll simply accept the terms the dominant culture presents to them. Commoners will reproduce the repression and othering considered appropriate to their social position. 

Finally, some people may be marginalized (and therefore muted) in multiple ways: a female tiefling cleric of a forbidden goddess probably has a few cards stacked against her. Her disadvantages are multiple, and her oppression is likely more complex than could be captured by only examining one of the groups to which she belongs.