I just finished listening to Fresh Air on NPR. Terry Gross had an interview with Geoffrey Nunberg whose book, Talking Right: How Conservatives Turned Liberalism into a Tax-Raising, Latte-Drinking, Sushi-Eating, Volvo-Driving, New York Times-Reading, Body-Piercing, Hollywood-Loving, Left-Wing Freak Show just came out. As you know, I am interested in the way the Right has appropriated English language in the US so I listened carefully. You can also hear the podcast (a little later today, I assume) and read a little excerpt from the book on the link above.
While most of what he said is pretty much the same as his University-mate Lakoff says (and interestingly, I did not catch them mentioning Lakoff during the show), I was surprised when he stated that everything comes out of language. Everything else he says implies the opposite - its starts with the human mind, and is converted to language by political wordsmiths like Frank Luntz. Thus, language becomes the element in the feedback loop that reinforces what the mind already thinks, but it is not the starting point of that loop.
Anyway, I have placed the book on my wish list as I cannot afford it right now and I'd like to hear any comments from readers who get to read the book before I do.
Comments
Bora,
I listened to the same bit and I must respectfully disagree. Dr. Nunberg did speak of the importance of language, but he focused far more on narrative; the expression of ideas in a manner easily accessible to any *speaker*. I found that truly fascinating.
I must also point out that he largely contradicted Lakoff, fairly clearly. A key argument of Nunberg is that the Right has a clear narrative because they have a clear position/identity. He implicitly rejects Lakoff's "Don't Think of an Elephant" by arguing that the Left's search for a narrative has come before the Left has built a clear position/identity.
This was neatly illustrated by his descriptor of the software-driven summarization of Republican speeches vs. Democrat speeches: The Republicans' speeches boiled down to [I paraphrase] 'We are Republicans. We are a large, inclusive group. We are based on common sense. We are presenting voters with a strong leader'. The Democrats' speeches, on the other hand were "word salad".
Posted by: Deep Thought | July 7, 2006 10:21 AM
But that is exactly what Lakoff says. Have you read his "Moral Politics"?
Posted by: coturnix | July 7, 2006 11:31 AM
Yes, I have. We've discussed this before, remember? And what Lakoff says is that progressives already have ideas/identity, they just need to learn to "frame" them properly. Nunberg, however, stated pretty clearly that he doesn't believe that the Democrats have an identity yet, so "re-framing" is premature.
Again, Lakoof wants to change how the existing message is delivered, Nunberg says there is no real message, yet.
Posted by: Deep Thought | July 7, 2006 12:42 PM
If that is true (I may have misheard/misunderstood him), than Nunberg is wrong. I still want to read his book, though.
Posted by: coturnix | July 7, 2006 12:47 PM