Appunti lezioni Inglese II (USA e Irlanda)

Riassunti di inglese II Silver

Language and politics in the era of Donald Trump

(Semino, Lakoff, Kakutani, MacLeod, McIntyre)

Insurrection of the Capitol: in Jan 2021, civilians invaded the Capitol in order to interrupt Biden’s election. Many people died or got injured. Trump claimed that the election has been fraudulent even if there is no evidence about it.

Insurrection as an example of polarization of the American society.

Speech for the 1st anniversary from the insurrection: Biden’s speech creates an idea of principles and concepts important for the Americans by using keywords like democracy, election, truth, lie, mob.

Biden uses explicit tones about the state of the nation, political division, and about the pandemic, “more deaths than wars”, against no-vax campaign.

The speech turns around dichotomies, metaphors, values.

Post-truth: circulation of information through sensational narratives that aim to stimulate responses. On the contrary, mainstream news are rational and fact-based.

For example: Trump’s accusations don’t demonstrate the illegitimacy of the actual president.

The US before Trump

The US before Trump: parties were flexible, there were some points of convergence:

• Republican: rural-based party, privileges white Catholic people.
• Democratic: working class-based party, lately more multi-ethnic.

The US with Trump

The US with Trump: strong-man government, anti-immigrant campaign, white supremacy, discourse based on the revival of the American ancient order: “Make America great again”.

International approach: classical line with Europe, negotiations, in favor of Brexit, not interested in war, not against Putin or Kim Jong-un.

The political situation has become extremely critical as there are no more points of convergence between parties, even the Republicans against Trump followed him or quit the political life.

The US with Biden

The US with Biden: classic liberal government, financial aid to small societies, environmental and multicultural policies.

Discourse and language

Discourse: never neutral, texts are produced on purpose, to express ideas that represent the historical period of production.

History does not tell what happened, in the present questions are made in order to answer something in the present or future.

For example: “More than 2000 people died. They will pay” – 2000 deaths: fact – they will pay: narrative. The Fact becomes part of a subjective reality.

Language: tool used to create discourse, provides a different creativity from person to person that can eventually cause misunderstandings.

Language is based on Connotation and creates metaphors.

For example: “The leg of the table” – leg: metaphor.

Everything has a meaning and can be understood in many ways.

Code: opposite of Language, Denotation makes a code stable and arbitrary.

Culture: contraption of linguistically-based ideas and concepts, different one to another.

Nature: concepts that exist through Culture, is linguistically bound and its meaning depends on the culture taken into consideration.

Dichotomy between Culture and Nature.

George Lakoff

George Lakoff: professor of cognitive linguistics and Democratic thinker. He aims to bring consciousness towards political discourse.

Document: “Don’t think of an elephant”.

Natural language: everything that connects different approaches. According to Lakoff, linguistics is an instrument to understand language as the formal structure of language reflects conceptual categorizations, mechanisms, and influences.

There is a strict relation between language and thoughts as the communication system is unconscious and largely metaphoric.

The way a person communicates is linked on what he thinks and vice-versa.

Quote “say what you mean and mean what you say”: it’s wrong because rarely signifier and signified are the same, in this case language would be a code. In fact, everyday conversations are filled with silences and metaphors that create relations between ideas.

For example: “war” as a metaphor of “argument” – argument seen as a war, described with same words. Language permits to express less or more than we actually say.

Conceptual Metaphors: set of mappings, correspondences, between the Source and the Target domains, where the target is partially structured on the base of the Source.

Source domain: concept from which the metaphor is drawn.

Target domain: concept that is tried to understand.

For Lakoff metaphors are unlimited and describe something by using more concrete domains.

For example: “black hole” – describes something in the science domain by using more “affordable” words.

Image scheme: pre-linguistic elements in our experience that concern space, time, control, movement, etc.

Metaphors can highlight an Image Scheme and can affect the way of acting in that domain.

Metaphors are part of an ideology from which is difficult to exit.

For example: “Time” as a limited commodity like money, spend time, even if time does not exist outside language.

Moral view: ideas about different aspects concerning life and politics.

Lakoff focuses on the different moral systems of Republicans and Democrats and asks himself about how it’s possible that apparent opposite principles can go along.

For example: abortion and gun possession.

According to cognitivists, there is an unconscious mapping, correspondence, between Nation and Family, that’s why the American political system has two different moral views according to the different family approaches:

• Strict-father family: the father recognizes what’s right or wrong, has the duty to punish the children that disobey. His authority is justified by morality, individualist ideology. This model is similar to the Conservative approach. You are responsible of yourself, if you succeed it’s because you deserve it.
• Nurturant-parent family: co-responsible parents, their duty is to love the children and help them to be empathic and responsible. Parents are authoritative without being authoritarian. This model is similar to the Progressive approach. Obedience is created through love and not punishment.

Main differences between the Strict-father and the Nurturant-parent approaches applied to politics:

• Moral authority principle.
• Common good principle.
• Individual responsibility.
• Expansion of freedom.
• Free market.
• Human dignity.
• Bootstraps [individualismo].
• Diversity.

Bi-conceptual view: moderate approach that has both conservative and progressive ideas. According to Lakoff, moderates haven’t a specific ideology, the two moral views contradict each other.

For example: being both Pro-life [usually conservative] and Pro environment [usually progressive].

Mutual inhibition: in moderates, only one view is awake at a time, they are never present together.

However, according to Lakoff, conservatives and progressives have two different ways of reasoning:

• Conservative reasoning: direct approach.
• The problem has a specific and direct cause.
• The problem is solved through direct action.
• Progressive reasoning: systemic causation, a problem can be solved in many ways.
• Interacting direct causes.
• Feedback loops.
• Probabilistic causes.
• All the above.

Trump’s persuasiveness

Trump’s persuasiveness: unconscious mechanisms used to give idea of authority, power, wealth, etc.

• Repetition: the more the word is heard, the more it gains power and is remembered. For example: “Win win win” – thought: with Trump you are going to win.
• Framing: mental structure that defines the perception of reality, trigger word that brings to mind an area of life. For example: “Crooked Hilary” – the adjective means both “storto” or “corrotto” – People answer “lock her up” [in prigione] – reference to the second meaning “corrotto”.
• Well-known examples: the citation of an example of potential problems makes people alarm. For example: illegal immigrants.
• Words associations: link between words that creates unconscious mental associations. For example: “Radical Islamic terrorist” – thought: terrorism is built in Islam.
• Conventional metaphors: unconscious thought. For example: “Make America great again”.

Lakoff’s suggestion to the Democrats:

• Don’t repeat Republican claims proving that are wrong. Do positive thought framing.
• Stop using values. Start a dialogue based on empathy.
• Keep out of public attacks civility values, good humor.
• Give up identity politics: women, gays, Latinos issues, talk about humanity and democratic issues.

Elena Semino

Elena Semino: analyzes the importance of metaphor that influences everyday life, even politics.

Document “Metaphor in discourse”: Semino studies the major Image Schemes:

• Path.
• Sport.
• War.
• Container: Image Scheme characterized by three elements: interior, exterior, boundary. The scheme creates a contrast between inside and outside.

An example of the Container Scheme in politic discourse took place during Trump’s speech in Gettysburg: he promises the construction of a wall that separates the US and Mexico.

Lexical Items that recall the Container: wall, border, prison, deportation, come in, send out, etc.

Dichotomies in the discourse: inside/outside, good/bad, we/them.

The repetition of these terms activates in the audience an emotional response that makes Trump avoid real evidence of the immigration problem.

The US in the world

(Kagan, Prager, Bacevich, Applebaum)

Four conservative thinkers offer a panorama on the Republican party and analyze the situation of the US nowadays with its problems due to politic polarization after Trump.

Robert Kagan

Robert Kagan: theorist at the time of Bush Jr, between 2001 and the invasion of Iraq.

Document “Power and weaknesses”: Kagan makes a contrast between the US and Europe, “Europe is Venus, and the US is Mars”. In his opinion, Europe is military and economically weak.

Metaphor “psychology of weakness”: a person would be more likely to go in the forest based on the weapon he has, knife or gun, to defend himself from a bear. The bear represents a threat, another country, and killing the bear is considered self-defense.

For this reason, for Kagan the US had the possibility and the legitimacy to declare war against Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. The US had to defend from the aggressor.

Audio “Our constitutional crisis is here”: Kagan is worried about the potential constitutional crisis caused by Trump’s Republican party. He claims that the visions and institutions created by Trump can endanger irreparably democracy and society.

Tribalism: identity based on the tribe, totalitarian tendency, avoiding other’s opinion and to have a larger sense of being. The importance to work peacefully is underestimated.

Anne Applebaum

Document “Twilight of democracy”: Applebaum shows an affinity between certain European and American groups. She cites four affinities that have influenced the political framework in the last years.

• Delegitimization of the opposition: idea of tribalism, skepticism towards outsiders.
• Professionalization of politics: idea of politics linked to a politician, lack of representation and corruption.
• Change in information technology: traditional discussions and information VS internet and social media.
• Nostalgia conservatism: idea of before was better. For example: “Make America great again”, Brexit.

About the English Conservative party: many leaders in UK that led to the choice of Brexit:

• Thatcher: dialogue based on the combination of British nationalism and European citizenship.
• Blair: Labor party member that adopted the language of the Conservatives, allied with the US in Iraq.
• Cameron: proposed a referendum for Brexit hoping that people would have voted No. However, the idea of a slow and corrupted Europe prevailed and Brexit got approved.

Applebaum’s POV: English Conservative’s language has become pure opposition from other parties.

For example: Johnson’s convictions about Covid.

The US and the Republican party: Applebaum affirms that Obama’s election caused dissatisfaction in the Republican party in a context of white people privilege and disillusion towards American power. With Trump she was worried that the Republican party would only focus on white middle-class issues, for this reason she voted for the Democratic party.

If the Democratic party made a major victory in 2020, there would have been a “resa dei conti” between the Republicans and may focus on national concerns and multiculturality.

Dennis Prager

Video “American exceptionalism”: Prager explains that America isn’t just a geographic entity, America is a concept that makes Americanism, American nationalism, exist, unlike other nationalisms. America’s exceptionalism is created by the belief of people, and makes of America a unique and better nation. For this reason Prager considers himself a Trump Republican.

Evangelical vision: with Kennedy is spread the idea of saving the world and bringing liberty and values in other countries, Vietnam, Korea, Russia…. Prager considers the American military force a “peacekeeper” of democracy.

Quote “You are exceptional only if you win”: this quote answers to the belief of exceptionalism of other countries. America is created by values that make it unique.

Document “Still the best hope”: Prager identifies three values that America has:

• E pluribus unum, from the many, one: you are considered American as soon as you enter the country and embrace American values. On the contrary, in other countries you are only considered a citizen of a tribal and geopolitical entity. Examples of being unamerican: 1. White supremacists; 2. Sympathizers of communism; 3. Insurrection of the Capitol.
• Liberty: unlike countries as France, in the US liberty is detached from equality, you can’t have liberty if you haven’t the liberty to fail. It’s possible to start equal and end up not equal.
• In God we trust: God is central in the definition of a big and wealthy state and measures the sense of being of America. If a State is not based on the belief of God, its people wouldn’t be individualist.

Prager claims that in masculine countries, US, is possible to lose, while feminine countries, Europe, feel pity for who loses.

Individualism: America is based on the idea that you must help yourself in order to help others.

In state we trust: opposite of “In God we trust”, state based on secularism with selfish citizens.

Selfishness: according to Prager, people in Europe only think about their own business, like vacations etc.

Andrew Bacevich

Andrew Bacevich: conservative Vietnam veteran, is now a professor that writes about different themes.

Video “After the Apocalypse”: Bacevich focuses on America’s attitude towards the rest of the world and the illusions caused by historical memory.

Metaphor of the Apocalypse: the Apocalypse is defined by a series in rapid succession of catastrophic events like bad administration, Trump, Covid, economic devastation, ecological catastrophes etc.

Bacevich’s points of view are different for four reasons:

• Anti-Prager: Bacevich claims that arrogance is what brought America to several military disasters and left the country unprepared for the Apocalypse. The idea of exceptionalism has to be redefined, nowadays America has to change internally and externally and think in terms of multiculturality.
• Internal affairs: according to Bacevich, the US should find some common points of view between the two parties in order to create a positive dialogue about a common good.
• About NATO: the US should leave NATO as nowadays Europe can defend by itself, now it is just an institution against Russia which, according to Bacevich, has been humiliated like Germany after WW2.
• Critics on today’s America: Bacevich is worried that the current society based on consumerism caused by the freedom of choice may lead to the loss of America’s leading power.

The US have to understand that America is now part of the Post-west and the way it lives and interacts with other countries must be updated.

Polarized vision of America: white or multiethnic

(Baldwin vs. Buckley, Hochschild, Lone Star, Gran Torino)

Arlie Hochschild

Arlie Hochschild: studies how white people in the US have become an identity group.

Document “Strangers in their own land”: shows the mindset of several white Trump supporters from very different backgrounds.

Republican states are poorer than democratic ones: worse health, pollution, school level. However, republican people are against democrats that promote globalization, multiculturality, public aid.

The situation is shown through several biographies and paradoxes:

• Story of Lee: ex-worker of a petrol company, his boss asked him to dump toxic liquids in a pond. Fishes got contaminated, he got ill but company didn’t pay for healthcare. The doctor insisted to let him stay home, Lee got fired.

Paradox: Lee is now an ecologist, but supports the Conservative party and the free market.

Metzl’s book “Dying of whiteness”:

• Story of Trevor: ex-worker for a taxi company, now lives in a low-income house and has a blood illness.

Paradox: he refuses to cure himself as he is against public healthcare, Obama care.

“We don’t need the government in our lives, I wouldn’t pay the healthcare for Mexicans and poor people”.

• Story of Becca: during a manifestation against policemen’s abuse of power, she shoots herself by accident with her gun.

Paradox: she carried a gun during a manifestation against violence.

Ashley Jardina

Ashley Jardina: makes a distinction between different groups:

• Outer group identity: principles that make other people be perceived different from your group.
• Inner group identity: principles that make other people be perceived part of your group.

Outer group consciousness.