Right excels at shaping discourse with language, linguists say
But Geoffrey Nunberg observes rebirth of Vietnam-era phrases
President Bush may have had trouble finding the words to apologize for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers. Still, it was very important that he try, a well-known expert on communication told a packed house in Kresge Auditorium last week.
Speaking at the May 5 Aurora Forum titled “Talking Right and Left: The Language of American Politics,” Georgetown linguistics Professor Deborah Tannen observed that public figures frequently try to avoid taking blame by using “near apologies” – “I’m sorry if anyone was offended” or “I’m sorry if anyone took it that way.” She said men have a particularly hard time saying they’re sorry because they fear it will weaken their position.
“Disraeli said, ‘Never apologize, never explain,’” said Tannen, a frequent television commentator and author of 19 popular books, including You Just Don’t Understand and That’s Not What I Meant. “But in public, as well as in private life, apologies can actually strengthen your position. A very well known case is JFK after the Bay of Pigs. He got a lot of credit for directly taking the blame, saying it was his fault.” Similarly, she said, studies show that wronged patients are much less likely to sue for malpractice if a physician is willing to apologize for his or her mistakes.
Tannen was joined onstage by Geoffrey Nunberg, a senior researcher at Stanford’s Center for the Study of Language and Information and a consulting professor of linguistics. Their discussion was moderated by Alan Acosta, the university’s director of communications.
Nunberg, who frequently writes on language for the New York Times and is a commentator for National Public Radio, said he has been struck in recent months by the linguistic parallels between the wars in Iraq and Vietnam. “It’s as if we really can’t escape the language,” he said. “In a sense, we do keep linguistically reprising these issues.”
For example, when U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy called Iraq “George Bush’s Vietnam” in a speech last month at the Brookings Institution, it prompted “enormous reaction.” But Nunberg said it shouldn’t be surprising that Kennedy drew the parallel, since members of the Bush administration have been using the language of Vietnam in their public statements all along. White House press secretary Ari Fleischer once said, “Slowly but surely the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people are being won” – a phrase that was used to describe America’s mission in Vietnam.
Another loaded phrase favored by the Bush administration is “support the troops.” “It was only in the Vietnam era that ‘support the troops’ came to mean ‘sign on to the president’s policy,’” Nunberg noted wryly. “Before that, it meant ‘buy Liberty Bonds.’”
Tannen and Nunberg both observed that the right has been very skillful – probably more skillful than the left – at using language to shape public discourse. For example, Tannen said, the words “abortion” and “pro-choice” have become so demonized now that many college-age women are reluctant to use them. In contrast, phrases such as “for the children” and “inclusive” are “part of a very skillful set of linguistic moves that the right has made” to accommodate the center.
The two speakers also commented on the increasingly confrontational tone of American public discourse. In her book The Argument Culture, Tannen suggests that too many Americans believe the way to achieve common goals is to have loud arguments in public forums ranging from congressional hearings to trashy talk shows. Unfortunately, she told the Stanford audience, this process undermines thoughtful debate and real understanding.
Among television producers in particular, “there’s a feeling that balance consists of putting together two people with the most extreme views possible and letting them fight it out on camera,” Tannen lamented. The result “is that viewers throw up their hands and think there’s no solution.”
Nunberg agreed, noting that American public discourse today has a very different tenor than it did in, say, the Roosevelt era. To illustrate, he quoted from a political advertisement that ran in several key primary states when former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean was still the Democratic frontrunner. The voiceover asks, “What do you think of Howard Dean’s plan to tax Americans?” and a man responds, “I think Howard Dean should take his tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing … show back to Vermont.”
Nunberg said the ad “demonstrates the extent to which the left is viewed not just as a political position but a lifestyle.” The word “liberal” has become something that Americans associate “only with upper-class white, suburban, self-indulgent, Volvo-driving, latte-drinking people.”
Sponsored by Stanford Continuing Studies, the Aurora Forum brings socially engaged writers, artists and scholars to Stanford to discuss the past, present and future of the nation’s ideals and aspirations.
The final program in this year’s series, a symposium titled “Waging Peace: Practical Alternatives to a Violent World,” is scheduled from 10 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 14. Speakers will include Harvard Medical School psychiatrist James Gilligan on the epidemic of violence; Michael Nagler, co-founder of the Peace and Conflict Studies Program at the University of California-Berkeley, on the search for a nonviolent future; author Frances Moore Lappé on courage in a culture of defeat; and author Arun Gandhi, a grandson of the Mahatma, on the future of Gandhian ideals. The cost of the program is $45 and includes lunch. For more information, visit the web at http://www.auroraforum.org.
