This semester I'm taking a Linguistics course on semiotics and discourse analysis. It has led me to become fascinated at how language has been used throughout the 2008 presidential campaign. I thought I'd post a link to a very interesting article that Geoffrey Nunberg, a linguist, wrote on the whole "lipstick" controversy (make sure you click on the links in the article).
In light of this article I think I'd like a more thorough examination of "whining" and how it has been used by both sides. I also think all the double speak around "the fundamentals" of the economy is fascinating.
It is amazing how politicians are able to contort reality through even simple verbiage. The attacks are out of control. Even lies are told over things like tax policy (for a rigorous look at both candidates' tax proposals take a look at the Tax Policy Center's latest executive summary of it's full report on the issue).
2 comments:
I liked looking at all the links in your post. It is interesting how both sides are taking things out of context and trying to use them to their advantage. I liked the Nunberg lipstick article too! The executive summary of the tax reports is a good example of what we were talking about the other day: to get the real scoop on anything (politics, taxes, what's in your water) you have to read things that are long, boring, and just not fun to read. Most of us just get our watered-down information from more superficial sources because it's much easier. Good post!
Amen to what Ashley said! People are just too lazy to scope it all out and just want someone else to interpret it all for them and then hand them a one or two sentence summary. The problem is that those people are very biased themselves and will almost always put some sort of a slant on their summaries. So we need to bite the bullet, invest some time and thought into our decisions, and then if the results are not what we want, be constructive and helpful and cooperative in making changes, not critical and "I-told-you-so" complainers.
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