Javier Castellote Lillo

In this article reflects on the possibility that certain violent uses of language can generate bodily wounds. In contrast to violence of a physical nature, the violence of language is usually characterized as symbolic and, by extension, is interpreted as a mode of violence that does not directly affect the body, but rather the mind and the social recognition of the person and the group to which it is directed. However, based on the conceptual framework opened by Petra Gehring, it will be examined from a phenomenological perspective how the force of language can also impact the body. To this end, the notions of bodily schema and memory will be used, together with the concept of the lived-body, to broaden our understanding of corporeality.

This article aims to critically examine the skeptical position that reduces the harmful effect of certain words to the excessive sensitivity of the receiver. Against this position, it is argued that violent language has an objective dimension that exceeds individual sensitivity, which shapes a symbolic power that functions on the basis of historically sedimented conventions and classifications. Following the ideas of Louis Althusser and Judith Butler, the analysis shows that the force of certain insulting words is not a simple subjective and psychologizing act, but a phenomenon that rests on a dynamic and collective conception of language, in which power is deployed through the dialectic between movement and retention, which is materialized in the violent name. Thus, violent speech is not only an isolated act, nor can it be analyzed only from the context of enunciation, but acts as a reaffirmation of hierarchies and social binomials that perpetuate power structures.