A Reflection on Political Linguistics – Exceedingly Relevant, Concerningly Overlooked

The field of political linguistics remains an oft underrecognized area of research regarding state-making, and consequently everything from their policymaking stances to even the ceremonies they choose to celebrate. This article aims to elucidate the concerns of this field, in an attempt to contextualize its importance in the modern (and ever-changing) political landscape of the world. It shall do so by providing a thorough explanation of what the subject is, before relating it to real-world examples to establish its everlasting relevance in any attempt to understand politics.

What is political linguistics?

In his paper “Truth is a linguistic question” (1973), famed American linguist Dwight Bolinger defines truth as “[…] that quality of language by which we inform ourselves” (542). The definition of truth is, of course, incredibly relevant in any study of political science in general, specifically when considering the act of state-making. This is because states are made out of implicit social contracts, and such contracts rely on a minimum amount of faith amongst the public in the structures of the state; even in the most sceptical of democracies, there is at least a belief that this scepticism shall amount to something – that even if the government itself came to power on false promises, the democratic machine shall eventually be able to dethrone it and stop the despotism. When the public stops recognising the stated purpose of the state’s structures as the ‘truth’, is when the public becomes mutinous, doing away with the old and untrustworthy social contract and enforcing a novel one.

Thus, hearkening back to the definition of truth proposed earlier, its function seems to be limited to information. This, obviously, counters schools of thought like Derridean deconstruction, which attempt to use a linguistic/grammatical framework to uncover truth. Bolinger contends, “the logician’s analytic truth [is] no more than consistency within language” (Bolinger 542). It makes sense, since concepts like truth, justice, etc. are ideally objective, and limiting them to specific linguistic frameworks in the process of deconstruction strips them of their universality. In trying to deconstruct justice, in fact, Derrida (the father of deconstruction) simply concludes that it must be distant and impossible, always a “perhaps” (Derrida 27). However, neither justice nor truth can afford to be such distant impossibilities because of their sheer necessity in the real world.

Now, relevant to our context, truth holds an arguably more unique position than justice here. In keeping with the definition of truth proposed by Bolinger, it is purely a function of information. However, notice that the conception of truth mentioned earlier with respect to the act of state-making is more often than not simply a belief; an assumption of truth, rather than the truth itself. This distinction between factual truth and the truth of state-making is integral in order to understand what political linguistics as a field entails in its study. When state-makers of the present and the past attempt to use falsifications of truth, using devices such as the aforementioned deconstruction, it is the role of the political linguist to point out the fallacies of their empty statements. When grammatical logic is used to present urgent needs of the populace as distant impossibilities, the political linguist must see through the façade and direct the public’s attention towards the realities of the rhetoric presented by the government.

This brings into focus the historical purview of the subject as well. For scholars of political linguistics to be able to decode the intricacies and/or fallacies of political rhetoric, they need to look at examples from the past. While linguistic structures have evolved, the purpose of language, especially in political contexts has been the same – convincing the populace of (convenient?) truths.

To sum up, political linguistics is the study of language as used in political contexts across history, in order to examine and verify the validity of statements made in the same contexts in the present day for truthfulness.

Real-world Applications and Context

Political rhetoric in the modern day is observed through a vast spectrum of scale, ranging from state-level officials presenting their electoral pitches about water quality in their constituency, to heads of states delivering reports to the public about their interactions with other governments. On the latter level, arguably the most important rhetorical exchange over the past two decades has been between the Middle East and the United States of America. To contextualise the relevance of political linguistics in understanding states and their policy stance(s), this paper shall examine US rhetoric about the Middle East in the second inaugural address of George W Bush.

To understand the lofty statements made in the speech, some context is essential. While the US had been involved (in their own words) in spreading democracy and freedom to foreign countries (such as Cuba), the end of the Cold War marked a turn in the intent behind these interests. Previously, the goal had been to prevent Soviet association with as many countries around the world as possible, in pursuits of hegemonic dominance and the enlargement of their sphere of influence. After the USSR was dissolved in 1991, the US could afford to tone down their ‘democratisation’ efforts around the world. However, programs and state mechanisms were still very much in place for these efforts, so the decision now was to repurpose these efforts towards a new goal that had as of yet been relatively secondary in view of Cold War tensions. Now, the “Clinton administration’s embrace of ‘geoeconomics’ reflected a recognition of global economic integration in the 1990s and a widely held belief that foreign markets would serve as the primary locomotive for the country’s economic growth in the twenty-first century. Related domestic goals included reductions in the federal budget and trade deficits, restrictive monetary policies, and a more hospitable relationship between business and government” (Hook 122). Spreading the doctrine of the free market was now no longer about an ideological or hegemonic race to superiority; corporate profits had now entered the fray, and more free markets simply meant more American exports alongside cheaper and more numerous factors of production from around the globe.

However, these interests were soon eclipsed because of 9/11. The ramifications of funding the Mujahideen in Afghanistan against erstwhile USSR had finally caught up to the US, and the need of the hour in response to a tragedy of this magnitude was of course a shift in the rhetoric presented to the public. George W Bush was now a wartime President. The sudden surplus of confidence in the government prompted it to capitalise on the same, presenting a rhetoric of revenge towards its own public, while also being careful to avoid any statement too incendiary for the international community.

The ’war on terrorism’ had now begun.

By 2005, we reach our speech in focus, George W. Bush’s inaugural speech for his second term. Having reached somewhat of a height after Saddam Hussein’s capture, 2004 saw the government’s approval ratings fall to an all time low. The Republicans barely scraped through the election with an extremely narrow margin, and Bush’s approval stood at 50%. While presenting Hussein as an enemy for the public to antagonize had been temporarily successful, as the war dragged on and took its toll on public opinion, this sentiment could not be maintained.

This entire wall of context leads us to one paragraph of Bush’s speech, which summarises the attempt to hearken the spirit of American exceptionalism in the hearts of a public that has begun to see through the inefficacy of the methods of the government:

“We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.”

By saying this, the government attempts to paint itself as a saviour and a beacon of liberty and freedom in the world. It hearkens back to Kennedy’s promise to the people in his own inaugural address, perhaps trying to revitalise the public’s memory of the eventual success the US saw in culling the rise of communism. Kennedy, with his youthful charisma, had proclaimed:

“[…] we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”

While this promise took around 30 years, countless shady reversals of the liberty of people of other countries to choose their own governments by the CIA, etc. to accomplish, Bush’s speech goes on to reword basically the same claim as Kennedy, stating:

“This is not primarily the task of arms, though we will defend ourselves and our friends by force of arms when necessary.”

However, some course correction comes into play at this juncture. The aforementioned reversals are noted, as Bush states:

“America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling. Our goal instead is to help others find their own voice, attain their own freedom, and make their own way.”

This is cleverly directed not just to the American public, but also to the international community. America has at this point been the subject of major criticism, especially with the revelation of the CIA’s role in funding the Afghan Mujahideen, and the rising suspicions that at least on some level bin Laden himself could have had in/direct links with Operation Cyclone. Also, the memory of the CIA’s Cold War-era ‘interventions’ was also fresh, and it had been just over 4 years since the documents about the most major of these (the entirety of Operation Northwoods against Cuba) were declassified.

However, with the apparent endlessness of the war in Iraq resulting in the aforementioned weariness within the public, the question now was whether the American public was even ready to commit to “pay[ing] any price”. Of course, we know with the power of hindsight that they weren’t. With the Abu Ghraib revelations surfacing against the officials responsible and Secretary of Defence Rumsfeld, the public had already been made wary that all was not well with the harbingers of liberty. The Pentagon declines to keep statistics about civilian casualties in Iraq, and independent examinations vary, but the very fact that in the month of July 2006 alone the minimum estimate was a thousand people, gravely concerned the American public. Parallelly, and rather embarrassingly the Bush administration right before the new elections had been wrong about the presence of WMDs in Iraq, thereby conceding one of the foremost justifications it used to even start the offensive. Eventually, in 2008, Bush would announce the retreat of American forces from Iraq, which would ultimately be concluded by Barack Obama in 2011. However, Bush’s reign as President remains one of the most maligned ones in recent history, because while there was enough of a delay in spotting the government’s misdeeds for it to be re-elected, they were questioned repeatedly, thus ensuring that the public’s authority to criticise its government under democracy was not jeopardised.

Conclusion

In the modern day, it is increasingly becoming a rarity for leaders’ misrepresentations of crucial facts to be questioned and critiqued, especially when presented with boisterous oratory and convincing rhetoric. That is the essence behind why political linguistics becomes even more relevant, not just in its academic applications, but also in the layman’s awareness of it. Democracy continues to be jeopardized by ill-intentioned leaders, and in such situations a subject with a unique purview like that of political linguistics becomes radically more relevant.

References

Bolinger, Dwight. “Truth is a Linguistic Question.” Language, vol. 49, no. 3, Sept. 1973, p. 539, https://doi.org/10.2307/412350.

“Bush and Public Opinion.” Pew Research Center – U.S. Politics & Policy, 18 Dec. 2008, www.pewresearch.org/politics/2008/12/18/bush-and-public-opinion/.

Derrida, Jacques. “Force of Law: The ‘Mystical Foundation of Authority.’” Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice, edited by Drucilla Cornell et al., Routledge, New York, New York, 2016, pp. 3–67.

Hook, Steven W. “Inconsistent U.S. Efforts to Promote Democracy Abroad.” Exporting Democracy: Rhetoric vs. Reality, edited by Peter J. Schraeder, L. Rienner, Boulder, Colorado, 2002, pp. 109–128.

Rae, Bob. Exporting Democracy: The Risks and Rewards of Pursuing a Good Idea. McClelland & Stewart, 2012.

Wratil, Christopher, et al. “Government Rhetoric and the Representation of Public Opinion in International Negotiations.” American Political Science Review, 2022, pp. 1–18, https://doi.org/10.1017/s0003055422001198.

Ayon Basu

Intern, Asia in Global Affairs

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