"Manipulate" has a negative connotation, as it implies that something negative is happening. The terms "influence" or "sway" have better connotations even though they essentially mean the thing.

Language is often used to influence the thinking and actions of others. Euphemisms can be used to downplay bad things—think of the term "casualty" instead of "death" whenever a news cast refers to a military action. The government has often used the term "military action" in order to describe events most commonly associated with war. People are opposed to war because it has a destructive connotation, and "military actions" seem smaller and less destructive.

Many people make their livelihoods from using language as a weapon. Politicians use it to demonize the other side of a debate as well as champion their own views as the best for the country. Lawyers use language to find either a way to convict the defendant or keep him/her out of prison. Salespeople use language in order to convince people they must have goods that they can probably live without. The use of rhetoric has been used by both famous and common people throughout history. Lenin and Stalin used rhetoric in order to stoke the fires of class warfare that led to the Russian Civil War and various purges.

The use of language is the closest thing to mind control that people have at the moment. By using rhetorical devices such as connotation and euphemism, people can attempt to influence others to action. If the rhetoric is heated enough, people can be swayed to do either great or horrible things as a result of the words of one person.

This particular quote encourages you to see the negative side of language by using the words “weapon” and “manipulate,” which both carry negative connotations. This will lead you toward a negative analysis of language as a skill, and it subconsciously provides you with a treacherous view of this “skilled person” who is attempting to control others through their words. That being said, the power of language has been a topic of interest since its development, and the tools of rhetoric, or persuasive language, are definitely skills to be acquired if one ever wants to successfully navigate familial relationships, job interviews, academic writing, or romantic proposals. Language, used well, can have incredibly positive impacts on the world around us to inspire, build, promote, and heal.

If you want to follow the lead of the prompt and look at the negative side of language and its dangerous capabilities, Ray Bradbury does this in Fahrenheit 451 by creating a society that has banned books, thereby reducing the prevalence of language in its population. While people can still read—Mildred receives the script to her favorite soap opera to read along—most are more interested in entertaining activities or the images on the television. George Orwell’s own dystopian future, 1984, similarly tackles language by creating Newspeak, in which euphemism glosses over the hard truths of the world in order to make concepts more politically acceptable. One could argue that our own preoccupation with political correctness also limits language and either manipulates people into saying something slightly distant from the real truth of the matter or prevents them from speaking on a subject altogether. Orwell’s Animal Farm also tackles the manipulation of language in political propaganda when the Animals' commandments are adjusted by Squealer as the pigs gain more and more control of the farm. What was once inspiring becomes controlling and restrictive.

Language has convinced populations to accept and fight for all kinds of governments from the democratic republic to the fascist regime. A careful analysis of an orator’s presentation can only be done through a careful study of language and its power.

This is a rather clever title in a sense, because it is asking you to show that langauge is a powerful weapon and that it can be used to manipulate others by writing a persuasive essay that itself will attempt to manipulate the reader to supporting whatever stance you take on the issue.

Quite clearly, I would agree with the statement. The art of rhetoric, which is all about trying to persuade people to think the same way as you, is one that is studied extensively and one that we see examples of every day in our lives in politics and other arenas. You only have to look at and analyse speeches from people such as Barak Obama, Martin Luther King and Abraham Lincoln to see the way that language, in the hands of a skilled orator, is a tool of manipulation. You might like to respond to this prompt therefore by picking maybe three famous speeches (you could use the three people mentioned above) and looking at how the speakers used language to manipulate and persuade. If you want some more extreme examples, you might want to think about somebody like Hitler or Stalin. Good luck! This is a really interesting question.