Conservatives Twist Language to Dominate Politics

News and Opinion for Democrats Against Bush -- Part II

Conservatives Twist Language to Dominate Politics

' The phrase "Tax relief" began coming out of the White House starting on the very day of Bush's inauguration. It got picked up by the newspapers as if it were a neutral term, which it is not. First, you have the frame for "relief." For there to be relief, there has to be an affliction, an afflicted party, somebody who administers the relief, and an act in which you are relieved of the affliction. The reliever is the hero, and anybody who tries to stop them is the bad guy intent on keeping the affliction going. So, add "tax" to "relief" and you get a metaphor that taxation is an affliction, and anybody against relieving this affliction is a villain.'

--UC Berkeley professor George Lakoff

U.C. Berkeley News

Framing the issues: UC Berkeley professor George Lakoff tells how conservatives use language to dominate politics

By Bonnie Azab Powell, NewsCenter | 27 October 2003

Read the complete text of this fascinating article on the UC Berkeley News website at-- http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/27_lakoff.shtml

Excerpt--

BERKELEY – With Republicans controlling the Senate, the House, and the White House and enjoying a large margin of victory for California Governor-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger, it's clear that the Democratic Party is in crisis. George Lakoff, a UC Berkeley professor of linguistics and cognitive science, thinks he knows why. Conservatives have spent decades defining their ideas, carefully choosing the language with which to present them, and building an infrastructure to communicate them, says Lakoff.

The work has paid off: by dictating the terms of national debate, conservatives have put progressives firmly on the defensive.

In 2000 Lakoff and seven other faculty members from Berkeley and UC Davis joined together to found the Rockridge Institute, one of the few progressive think tanks in existence in the U.S. The institute offers its expertise and research on a nonpartisan basis to help progressives understand how best to get their messages across. ....

[See the complete article for an interview with Lakoff, explaining in detail how "framing" works.]

Copyright UC Regents

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/27_lakoff.shtml

Click here for more information--

The Rockridge Institute website-- http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/

The Center for American Progress-- New Liberal Think Tank: Center for American Progress

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