E104 Syllabus - Fall 2001

Syllabus from Language & Politics Fall 2001

E104: LANGUAGE AND POLITICS Fall Semester 2001-2002

03:35P-04:25P MW

Venue: OP 105

Instructor: Samuel Gyasi Obeng Office: Memorial 326

Office Hours: M: 4:30 p.m.6: 00 p.m.

DISCUSSION SESSIONS (Tristan Purvis)

Time Day Venue

9:05-9:55 R BH235

4:40-5:30 R OP107

1:25-2:15 R PY115

Course Description

This course explores the language of politics. In particular, it examines how politicians or political actors and political commentators use language to talk about politics and how politics also influences language. We will examine the speeches of politicians, party propaganda, slogans, and other discourse types aimed at influencing the political process. Also examined is the language used in communicative events like congressional or parliamentary sessions, cabinet meetings, state of the union address, and so forth. We will also examine political correctness, the politics about censorship and free speech, the language of labeling, and language policy issues. The political actors whose language will be examined include presidents and vice-presidents, members of Congress, parliamentarians, senators, governors, and action group members. Because the course involves investigating how language and politics influence each other, the course will cross disciplines like political science, journalism, and communication. To help broaden students' perspectives on language and politics the course will not focus exclusively on language and politics in the United States. To this end, the course will occasionally cross cultural/national boundaries by observing data from the United Kingdom and non-Western cultures, especially Africa and Asia.

Course Textbooks

Beard, Adrian. (2000). The Language of Politics. London: Routledge.

Goshgarian, Gary. (2001). Exploring Language. Ninth Edition. New York: Longman

Evaluation

1. Written Assignments (WA) 30% of final grade

2. Quizzes (QZ) 40% of final grade

3. Attendance & Participation in Discussion Sections (APDS) 10% of final grade

4. Final Project 20% of final grade

Grading

1. WA: 9-10 = A; 8-9 = B; 7-8 = C; 6-7 = D

2. QZ: 9-10 = A; 8-9 = B; 7-8 = C; 6-7 = D

3. APDS: 9-10 = A; 8-9 = B; 7-8 = C; 6-7 = D

4. FP: 9-10 = A; 8-9 = B; 7-8 = C; 6-7 = D

Final Grade = WA+ QZ+ PD + FP= 100

Course Policy

1. Assignments. All assignments must be neatly typed. No late assignments will be allowed for the semester. A late assignment may be turned in for comments but it will not count toward the final grade.

2. Incompletes will be considered (by instructor) only on receipt of a written request from the student and only in compliance with university guidelines for use of Incompletes.

3. Exam retakes, extra credit: NONE

4. Makeup Quiz: Instructor must be notified in advance if a student cannot take a quiz at a scheduled time (emergencies excepted of course.) If this is not done or if the student's reason for not being able to take the quiz at the scheduled time is not legitimate, the student will not be allowed to make up the exam.

5. Course changes: Students shall be responsible for all announcements and changes in the course program which are given in class, whether they attend the class in which the announcement is made or not.

6. Attendance: Attendance is mandatory. However, if for some legitimate reason, you are unable to attend a class, it is your responsibility to arrange in advance to have a classmate pick up handouts, assignments, for you. You can however come to the instructor or Associate instructor for further information or clarification WHEN NECESSARY.

7. Tardiness Policy: Students who arrive late to class distract both the instructor and other students from the lesson. As a courtesy to your fellow students and your instructor, please make every effort to arrive on time.

8. Final Project: Due on December 5, 2001 at 5:00 p.m.

TENTATIVE COURSE CALENDAR

WEEK 1

Introduction: Politics, Politicians, Political, Politicize.

WEEKS 2 & 3

Metaphor (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Obeng & Hartford, 2000) Metaphor2

Metonymy (Beard, 2000)

Analogy (Beard, 2000)

Innuendo (Obeng, 1997)

Spin (Beard, 2000)

Quiz 1

WEEKS 4 & 5

Answering Questions

Evasion (Obeng, 1997)

Circumlocution (Obeng, 1997) Assignment 1 Due

WEEKS 6 & 7

Imitation &. Influence (Dickerson, 1997; Obeng 2000, Rojo and Van Dijk, 1997)

Pronoun Usage (Dickerson, 1997; Rapley, 1998; van Dijk, 1998b, 1992; Wilson, 1990)

Rhetoric (Stroking, Name-Calling) (Chilton, 1985; 1995; Chilton, Ilyin & Mey, 1998; van Dijk, 1998)

Quiz 2

WEEKS 8 & 9

WINNING ELECTIONS

Posters, Symbols, Props and Costumes (Beard, 2000, Obeng, 1997) Slogans (Beard, 2000)

Manifestoes (Beard, 2000)

Propaganda (Orwell, 1989; Institute For Propaganda Analysis) Quiz 3

THE POLITICS ABOUT LANGUAGES AND SPEECH

WEEKS 10 & 11

Political Correctness, Censorship and Free Speech Assignment 2 Due

WEEK 12

The Language of Labeling

WEEK 13

The Language Issue in the United States (Bilingualism or Monolingualism?)

Quiz 4

WEEKS 14 & 15

The Politics about Languages in Africa and Asia

Assignment 3 Due

WEEK 16

Final Project: Due on December 5 at 5:00 p.m.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aristotle (1954). Rhetoric. (Translated by W.R. Roberts.) New York: Random House.

Aristotle (1982). (transl. Freese J.H.) Art of Rhetoric. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Atkinson, M. (1984). Our Master's Voice. Methuen, London.

Ayer, A. J. (1936). Language, Truth and Logic. Gollancz, London.

Billig, M. (1991). Ideology and opinions. London: Sage.

Brenneis, D.L. and Myers, F (1984). Dangerous words. Language and politics in the Pacific. New York: New Your University Press.

Chilton, P. (1985). Language and the nuclear arms debate: Nukespeake today. London: Francis Pinter.

Chilton, P. (1987). Cooperation and non cooperation: ethical and political aspects of pragmatics Language and Communication, 7(3), 221-39.

Chilton, P (1990). Politeness, politics and diplomacy. Discourse and society, 1(2), 201-24. Chilton, P. and llyin, M. (1993). Metaphor in political discourse: The case of the "Common European House" Discourse and Society, 4(1), 7-32.

Crockcroft, N. (1992) Persuading People. Macmillan, London.

Cross, D.W. (1989). Politics: The art of bamboozling. In G. Goshgarian (Ed.) Exploring Language. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foreman and Co.

Dickerson, P. (1997) It's not just me who's saying this . . . The deployment of cited others in televised political discourse. British Journal of Social Psychology, 36:33-48.

Dillon, J.T. (1990). The practice of questioning. London: Routledge.

Goatly, A. (1997) The Language of Metaphors. Routledge, London.

Goshgarian, G. (1989) Exploring Language. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foreman and Co.

Lakoff, George and Johnson, M. (1980) Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Nkrumah, Kwame (1970). A call to the workers of Ghana. The Struggle Continues. London: Pariaf Books-Limited. 1-8.

Obeng, Samuel Gyasi 1997a Language and Politics: Indirectness in Political Discourse. Discourse and Society 8 (1): 49-83.

Obeng, S. G. (2000) Doing politics on walls and doors: A linguistic analysis of graffiti in Legon (Ghana). Multilingua, (19) 4:

Orwell, George (1989). Politics and the English Language. In Gary Goshgarian (ed.) Exploring Language. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foreman and Co. p. 77-89.

Rapley, Mark (1998). Just an ordinary Australian: Self-categorization and the discursive construction of facticity in new racist political rhetoric. British Journal of Social Psychology, 37:325-344.

Richards, 1.A. (1936) The Philosophy of Rhetoric. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Riggins Stephen Harold (1997). The language and politics of exclusion: others in discourse. Thousand Oaks, Calif. : Sage Publications

Rojo, Luisa Martin and Van Dijk, Teun A. (1997) There was a problem and it was solved. Legitimizing the expulsion of Illegal migrants in Spanish parliamentary discourse. Discourse and Society, 8(4): 523-566.

Steinhart, E. and Kittay, E. F. (1998) Metaphor. In Jacob L. Mey & Asher, R.E. (Eds.) Concise Encyclopedia of Pragmatics. Amsterdam, New York: Elsevier.756-781.

Van Dijk, Teun (1998) On the analysis of parliamentary debates on immigration. Working paper for the project Racism at the Top. Unpublished Manuscript.

Van Dijk, Teun A. (1998a) What is Political Discourse Analysis? In Jan Blommaert & Chris Bulcaen (Eds.) Political linguistics. Amsterdam: Benjamins. 11-52.

Wilson, John (1990) Politically Speaking: The Pragmatic Analysis of Political Language. London: Blackwell.

Politics About Languages

Abbas, S. (1993) The power of English in Pakistan. In World Englishes, Vol. 12, No. 2, pp. 147 56. Adegbija, Efurosibina (1994) Language Attitudes in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Sociolinguistic Overview. Clevedon, Avon: Multilingual Matters.

Bamgbose, Ayo (1991) Language and the Nation: The Language Question in Sub-Saharan Africa. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Brass, Paul (1991) Ethnicity and Nationalism. Newbury park, CA: Sage.

Obeng, S. G. & Adegbija, E. (1999) Language and ethnic identity in sub-Saharan Africa. In Joshua Fishman ed. Handbook of language and ethnic identity. New York: Oxford University Press.

Obeng, Samuel Gyasi (2001) Speaking the Unspeakable: Discursive Strategies to Express Language

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Last updated: October 08, 2007