ABSTRACT
STUDENTS OF GENOCIDE HAVE BEEN FRUSTRATED FOR YEARS BY THE LACK OF effective preventive measures of genocide in the world since Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944. One of the main reasons contributing to this frustration has been the lack of consensus in defining the term, which derives, at least in part, from inadequate conceptualization of the phenomenon. Unsatisfactory conceptualization, as some scholars argue, is due to an insufficient number of cases observed (Gurr and Harff 1988). For other scholars such as Hirsch (1995), it was more likely due to the “politics of memory;” namely, politicians deliberately wipe out the episode from daily political discourse for the purpose of thought control. A fully articulated theory of genocide would require an examination of the complex interaction among social, cultural, political and economic forces within a specific society. Developing such a comprehensive theory is far beyond the objective of this research. Rather, the present study is limited to investigating the role which one particular cultural factor, language, played in the occurrence of a historically specific instance of total domestic genocide. Little research has been conducted on this topic, especially in reference to China.
