Michael
Rodriguez
Professor
Kendra Andrews
English
1102-065
12
December 2012
It seems that many political figures make
controversial issues seem so simple and ‘peachy.’ Whether it is about war,
economic, environmental, sociocultural, or equal rights issues, politicians
somehow tend to make these issues sound like they are not as complicated as
they really are. How do politicians use language and rhetorical devices to
convince the public into thinking these issues are a cinch? Politicians do use
unique language and word choice in the political atmosphere, but do they use
language to avoid or lie about these controversial issues or do they use
specific rhetorical devices and manipulate language to shape controversial
issues into simple ones? Politicians do not use language to avoid or lie but
rather use linguistic manipulation and certain rhetorical devices to make
issues less complicated and in their speeches to the public in order to
influence them into believing the same ideas or to gain their vote.
In modern times; economic, war, and
sociocultural issues are of major concern in politics. After an economic collapse, Washington has
scrambled to try and get the economy back to the state it was in prior to the
recession by trying to pass bills to increase taxes on the wealthy, limiting
government spending, and enacting laws in order to create more jobs. Now, the
government is worried about another shut-down in early 2013 because of the
increasing budget deficit. The economic collapse started during the presidency
of George W. Bush but he was more concerned about the war in Iraq than fixing
the economy. President Bush was a main contributor to the war on terrorism and
in the Middle East until Obama came to office. The issue on the War in The
Middle East is slowly dissipating as we continue to pull troops out of Iraq and
Afghanistan. A few months ago, an American facility in Libya was attacked and
multiple high-ranking officials were killed. The public is still left in the
dark with almost no evidence about what really happened in Benghazi and
multiple politicians are reporting the wrong facts. Sociocultural issues
include abortion, education, and most recently, the Central Intelligence Agency
scandal.
Alan Finlayson refers to Michael
Freeden’s theory of political ideologies. That is politicians change their
ideologies or beliefs accordingly to the major issues that are apparent at the
time being (Finlayson, 764). A great example of this is how political
ideologies in the early 2000s were concerned with the fight against terrorism
after the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon and then once the economy
collapsed in the mid-2000s, major issues in government revolved around fixing
the damaged economy. This changes not only the ideologies that politicians
carry but also the language that they use when addressing the public on new
issues.
Much of the general public feel that
they have been lied to when a politician, especially a presidential candidate,
promises that they will enact governmental policy change and it never happens. Once
a newly appointed president reaches Washington, they “often discover that the
problems they face are more difficult than they expected” (Olsen, Ouyang, Poe,
Trantham, and Waterman, 1404). Presidents find it hard to get congress to
cooperate with them and make policy changes. While campaigning, candidates tend
to have an ideology that opposes the ideology of certain individuals or groups
in congress and then in turn, these individuals or groups oppose cooperation
and the proposals given by the new president. President Obama also found that
congress disagreed with the policies that he introduced. “He campaigned on a
platform of sweeping policy change, as well as a promise that he would bring the
nation together” (Olsen, Ouyang, Poe, Trantham, and Waterman, 1405). Just
before his inauguration speech in 2009, he expected congress to help make quick
changes in government. Obama did not lie when he promised change; he was just unable
to get the right policies approved in Washington.
I feel that in politics, linguistic
manipulation plays an important role in how politicians make controversial
issues less complicated. Linguistic manipulation is defined by Gunta Rozina and
Indra Karapetjana as “the conscious use of language in a devious way to control
the others” (113). Politics has dominated the media and can get their message
out to millions of people so easily. This is used to persuade people into
making specific political decisions, especially voting decisions. Language in the political atmosphere has two
specific powers according to Rozina.
These are influential and instrumental powers that politicians
have. “Influential power inclines people
to behave in certain ways or makes people adopt opinions/attitudes without
exerting obvious force on them” (Rozina and Karapetjana, 113). This power can be seen used in the media like
the State of the Union Address, advertising especially during presidential
campaigning, and in cultural spheres.
Instrumental powers are given by law to the government to make and
enforce laws, create taxes to provide funding for government programs such as
welfare, and provide a bureaucratic system (Rozina and Karapetjana, 113).
Rozina also explains the specific
rhetorical devices that are used in political linguistic manipulation. These devices include metaphors, metonymies,
and a very specific type of allusion called phraseological allusions. Rozina describes only these three rhetorical
devices as the most important devices used in politics but there are many more
used in politics. A metaphor compares
one thing as if it were something else, without using ‘like’ or ‘as’. This is a very simple rhetorical device and
is used numerous times. George W. Bush uses a metaphor in his second inaugural
speech “And as hope kindles hope, millions more will find it. By our efforts,
we have lit a fire as well—a fire in the minds of men. It warms those who feel
its power, it burns those who fight its progress, and one day this untamed fire
of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world” (Bush, 2005). George W.
Bush uses the word ‘fire’ to represent the fight against terrorism and explains
that others that feel the same way about terrorists are influenced by our fight
against it and join in our battle to spread peace.
Metonymy is a rhetorical device that makes an
association between two different concepts or ideas and enables the audience to
see the ‘big picture’ and reason behind the speaker’s decisions or ideas (Rozina
and Karapetjana, 117). The last device
that Rozina discusses is phraseological allusions. “According to the Latvian linguist Nacisione,
‘phraseological allusion is an implicit mental reference to the image of a
phraseological unit which is represented in discourse by one or more explicit
image-bearing components hinting at the image’” (Rozina and Karapetjana, 115). Phraseological
allusions present images that grabs the audience attention, “creates figurative
language”, and uses “the image to appeal to the imagination” (Rozina and
Karapetjana, 115). An example of a phraseological allusion is present in The Baltic Times where they use a set of
explicit photographs that relate to the War in Iraq (Rozina and Karapetjana,
115). These photos attempted to give evidence that weapons of mass destruction
were accessible to the Iraqi military and tried to scare the world into
imagining what would happen if they used those weapons.
The use of rhetorical devices and
linguistic manipulation is apparent in politics. In order to make controversial
issues less complex, politicians use a certain language or rhetoric to do so.
This specific political rhetoric implicates the use of specific rhetorical
devices such as metonymies and phraseological allusions as well as the
manipulation of language in order to present issues as simple in order to ease
the public’s concerns. The evidence found in multiple articles points to the
fact that politicians not only use certain linguistic techniques to simplify
issues but to get there ideas across, influence the public into believing the
same ideas as they do, and persuade “people to take political actions or . . .
to support a party or an individual” (Rozina and Karapetjana, 115).
Works
Cited
Olson, Jeremiah, Yu Ouyang, John Poe,
Austin Trantham, and Richard Waterman. “The
Teleprompter
Presidency: Comparing Obama’s Campaign and Governing Rhetoric.” Social Science
Quarterly 93.5 (2012): 1402-423. Blackwell Publishing, 16 Oct. 2012. Web. 19
Nov. 2012.
Rozina, Gunta, and Indra Karapetjara. “The
Use of Language in Political Rhetoric: Linguistic
Manipulation.”
(2009): 111-22. May, 2009. Web. 27 Nov. 2012.
Finlayson, Alan. “Rhetoric and the
Political Theory of Ideologies.” Political
Studies. 60.4
(2012): 751-67.
Political Studies Association. Web. 23 Nov. 2012.
Bush, George W. “Inaugural
Address.” (2005). Presented Online by Gerhard Peters and John T.
Woolley. The American Presidency Project. Web. 12 Dec. 2012.
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