: Wait and see…
In a discussion among friends or colleagues, one might expect to be able to leave much unsaid. It is a fact that much human communication happens “between the lines.” And some linguists will tell you that to understand language at all requires the auditor to understand the unstated assumptions and shared knowledge conflated with every message.
So how come this doesn’t work for politicians?
Here’s what the newly-muted Howard Dean has to say in an article today by Jodi Wilgoren and Edward Wyatt of The New York Times:
“I sometimes speak elliptically, so I leave out pieces that seem to me to be obvious but aren’t obvious to the people who haven’t heard me talk about whatever the subject before…There’s been more than one time when I’ve said something, and sort of the middle of what I’ve said is not said but thought, and therefore assumed to be understood, which is a ridiculous assumption on my part, but sometimes gets me in trouble.”
It’s only a ridiculous assumption in an adversarial communicative environment, e.g. a political campaign in which opponents will “go literal” if that suits their rhetorical-political purposes.
Further, it doesn’t help matters that most journalists have no idea about current thinking in rhetoric and linguistics and so are easily suckered into transmitting simplistic adversarial literalism. Or, the fairness bias stops them from questioning that which should be questioned because journalists do not want to appear biased.
If for no other reason, literalism used as a rhetorical weapon makes an excellent argument for the careful scripting of political campaigns. Want to appear unscripted and real? Then script it that way.
Dean appears to want it both ways. He’s got to pick one. Either he is going to do the right thing (from the perspective of campaign politics) and carefully follow an “unscripted” script, or he is going to do the wrong thing, which is exactly what he’s doing now as described in the Times article.
(Then again, there’s always an end-point problem with rhetorical analysis. Messages live as long as they remain in the memory of mankind. This is one of the reasons academics nearly always write in the present tense when quoting the wisdom of the ages. Wisdom speaks to us today as long as it remains in memory. A given politician’s message may work or not today. And that may change tomorrow. One of the most powerful recent examples of this is President George H. W. Bush’s “read my lips” quip. Great rhetoric at the moment. Poor rhetoric four years later. At this moment, I think Howard Dean is a chump because, for his campaign, message control appears to be an oxymoron. Then again, he may be a genius. Wait and see.)
DOWDIFICATION OF DEAN’S DISCOURSE
: Wait and see…” href=”http://rhetorica.net/archives/002193.html#002193″>Andrew Cline cites a NYT story indicating Howard Dean is following Maureen Dowd’s lead: “I sometimes speak elliptically, so I leave…
DOWDIFICATION OF DEAN’S DISCOURSE
Andrew Cline cites a NYT story indicating Howard Dean is following Maureen Dowd’s lead: “I sometimes speak elliptically, so I leave out pieces that seem…