LANGUAGE AND POLITICS

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LANGUAGE AND POLITICS
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• How language can be used to achieve political
  ends?
• What is meant by the term politics?
• How is it possible to see many of our
  (linguistic) choices as having political
  consequences?
• How language can be used to create and reinforce
  certain value systems?
• What are the rhetorical devices used by
  politicians to make an impact on the public?

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What is meant by 'politics'?

• George Orwell 'in our age there is no keeping
  out of politics. All issues are political
  issues.'
• Politics is concerned with power the power to
  make decisions, to control resources, to control
  other people's behavior and often to control
  their values. Even the most everyday decisions
  can be seen in a political light
• There is no avoiding political decisions

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Politics and Ideology

• Politics - inevitably connected to power.
• Enforcement of your own political beliefs can be
  achieved in a number of ways through physical
  coercion (dictatorial regimes) democratic
  coercion (through the legal system).
• Much more effective to persuade people to act
  voluntarily in the way you want.To secure power,
  it makes sense to persuade everyone else that
  what you want is also what they want. To achieve
  this, an ideology needs to be established
  (frequent use of proverbs-universal truths that
  appear common sense)
• 'ideology' - any set of beliefs which appear
  logical and 'natural' to the people who hold
  them.

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Language as Thought Control Newspeak and
Political Correctness

• Theory of linguistic determinism-language
  provides a framework for our thoughts and it is
  very difficult to think outside this framework.
• Politicians throughout the ages have owed much of
  their success to their skilful use of rhetoric as
  they attempt to persuade their audience of the
  validity of their views.
• Can one control how another person thinks?

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Political correctness

• Examples of PC terms visually impaired, blended
  family (house-holds with children from several
  relationships), and ethnic origin terms, such as
  African-American. Non-PC terms are considered by
  some not only to be offensive, but to create or
  reinforce a perception of minority groups as
  unequal to the majority.
• It could be argued that the use of PC language is
  particularly significant in relation to
  disability since many changes could be made to
  the way most organizations operate which could in
  turn have a positive effect on the lives of
  people with disabilities. For example, some
  people make a distinction between impairment and
  disability, using impairment to refer to a
  condition (such as loss of vision or a limb), and
  disability to refer to activities that are
  difficult or impossible to undertake (reading
  small print or climbing the stairs).

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Presuppositions and Implicatures

• Presuppositions- background assumptions embedded
  within a sentence or phrase.
• 'We want to set people free so that they have
  greater power over their own lives.(presupposes
  that people are not currently free).
• Presuppositions can be slipped into a sentence in
  several ways via
• -adjectives, especially comparative ones 'A
  future Conservative Government will introduce a
  fairer funding formula for schools. (presupposes
  that the current funding system is not fair).
• -subordinate clauses 'We have arrived at an
  important moment in confronting the threat posed
  to our nation and to peace by Saddam Hussein and
  his weapons of terror.(George W. Bush).
  (presupposes that S. Hussein is a threat to the
  United States and to peace).
• -questions instead of statements 'Is it not now
  time for him to ensure that his Government get
  control of the situation in Belfast?' (David
  Trimble, leader of the Ulster Unionist Party
  addressing Tony Blair).(presupposes that the
  government doesn't have control of the situation).

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• Implicatures- like presuppositions, they lead the
  listener to infer something that was not
  explicitly asserted by the speaker. However,
  unlike presuppositions, implicatures operate over
  more than one phrase or sentence and are much
  more dependent on shared knowledge between the
  speaker and the listener and on the context of
  the discourse.

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• Here is a part of interview with Tony Blair
• Paxman I want to explore your personal feelings
  about this war. Does the fact
• that George Bush and you are
  both Christians make it easier for you
• to view these conflicts in terms
  of good and evil?
• Blair I don't think so, no, I think that
  whether you're a Christian or not you
• can try to perceive what is good
  and what is evil.
• Paxman You don't pray together, for example?
• Blair No, we don't pray together Jeremy,
  no.
• Paxman Why do you smile?
• Blair Because - why do you ask me the
  question?
• Paxman Because I'm trying to find out how
  you feel about it.
• Blair is not sure what he really wants the war
  is horribly wrong and evil and he is also making
  fun of both of them because they claim to be
  Christians and should know better.

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Persuasive language- the power of rhetoric

• Rhetoric- skill of elegant and persuasive
  speaking, perfected by ancient Greeks
• Metaphor is a way of comparing two different
  concepts. Politicians often have to talk about
  abstract concepts in ways to make them seem more
  concrete - to make the abstractions more concrete
  and not to bore the public. For example, a very
  frequent metaphor for economy is economy is
  machine. Personification is a special kind of
  metaphor and politicians use it frequently when
  referring to countries. For example, in 1990s,
  British TV referred to German's influential
  position in the EU with the metaphor 'Germany is
  the bully in the playground."
• Euphemism is a tool which is extensively used
  when discussing military matters. For example,
  surgically clean strikes and clean bombs achieve
  their effect from the positive connotations of
  clean and the association that exists in everyday
  discourse between clean and healthy.

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• The 'rule of three'- one of the best-known
  structural devices in political rhetoric is
  the use of the 'three-part statement'. For some
  reason people find things grouped in threes
  particularly pleasing.
• (even in fairy tales Three Little Pigs,
  Goldilocks and the Three Bears, but also in
  films The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Sex, Lies
  and Videotape). Three of the most famous
  three-part statements from the 18th and 19th ct.
  are
• -the cry of the French Revolution Liberté,
  Égalité, Fraternité
• -the Declaration of Independence 'We hold these
  truths to be self evident that all men are
  created equal that they are endowed by their
  Creator with certain unalienable rights that
  among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of
  happiness.'
• -Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address 'that
  government of the people, by the people and for
  the people shall not perish from this earth.'

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• Parallelism- to emphasize that the ideas are
  equal in importance can add a sense of symmetry
  and rhythm, which makes the speech more
  memorable.  
• We shall fight in the seas and oceans, we shall
  fight with growing confidence and growing
  strength in the air, we shall defend our Island,
  whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the
  beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds,
  we shall fight in the fields and in the streets,
  we shall fight in the hills we shall never
  surrender.
• 
  Winston Churchill 
• And so let freedom ring from the prodigious
  hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from
  the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom
  ring from the heightening Alleghenies of
  Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the
  snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.
• 
  Martin Luther King

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• 5. Proverbs- considered a universal truth and it
  is very difficult to question something that is
  universally regarded as a given truth.
  Politicians have used the already-existing
  proverbs, but there are also those proverbs that
  have been coined from the statements of
  politicians
• And, so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your
  country can do for you- ask what you can do for
  your country.
• 
  J. F. Kennedy
•  
• If you can't stand the heat, get out of the
  kitchen.
• 
  Harry S. Truman
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• I have nothing to offer but blood, toll, tears
  and sweat.
  Winston Churchill