On Communicative Goodness: A Peace Linguist’s View
POETRY FORMAT, 21 May 2018
Francisco Gomes de Matos – TRANSCEND Media Service
The communicative good we can do
should help our dignity deeply renew
How? By respecting the person(s) with whom we interact
and by turning a heated argument into a peacebuilding act
By showing a deep communicative humility
when being exalted as if we were a celebrity
What really matters is not how many things in what languages we can say
but what kind of communicative good we can do to whom where every day
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Francisco Gomes de Matos, Ph.D. is an applied peace linguist from Recife, Brazil. He has degrees in Languages, Law, and Linguistics. He is Professor Emeritus at the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco where he is active in the Dom Hélder Camara Human Rights Commission. He is one of the pioneers in Linguistic Rights (author of 1984 Plea for a Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights) and in the emerging area of Peace Linguistics. Currently he is President of the Board, ABA Global Education (www.abaweb.org). He can be reached at fcardosogomesdematos@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 21 May 2018.
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