Talking Politics: The Substance of Style from Abe to "W" (Paradigm

by Michael Silverstein

If politics as practiced is talk, then how does a political figure—especially an American President—talk politics? If someone can be all style and no substance, is there any actual political substance to style? Talking Politics looks at the alpha and omega of presidential image, its highs—Lincoln at Gettysburg—and lows—"W" at any microphone—demystifying the spun mists of political "message" on which an institution like the American presidency has always depended.

Genres: Linguistics, Anthropology

142 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Carrie]

A pamphlet written by Anthropolgy and Linguistics professor Michael Silverstein at the University of Chicago. I took a course titled The Perspective on Languages in the Humanities. Has a VERY dry sense of humor.

[Completelybanned · Rating 4 out of 5]

As so often happens when revered scholars sit down to write something for the "general public," they instead produce a more casual version of their typical writing that is best suited to students and specialists. Silverstein's argument about the transformation of U.S. political discourse is compelling, and more ahead of the curve than might be expected. The book is a valuable entry in the literature on language and politics, although readers hoping to expand upon or intervene in the topic of "message" and its place in U.S. electoral politics may prefer to read the fuller treatment of the subject in Creatures of Politics by Silverstein and Lempert (2012).

[Lilly Irani · Rating 4 out of 5]

Silverstein gives a detailed and careful analysis of how George Bush's forms of speaking have had so much traction, how it fits into the broader historical moment of media and advertising culture, and how that all connects with linguistic anthropology and cultural psychology. Silverstein has to go beyond the Foucauldian investigation of how truth propositions are being constructed in language because in G-dub's case, you actually can't evaluate many of his ungrammatical or contradictory statements as expository discourse that can be true or false. Silverstein's insight is to analyze the structure of Bush's talk, how the words he chooses create an imagistic collage that works more like brand (Sexy ladies and beer always appear together, sure it doesn't make sense, but they always do) than like (failed) propositions (the sky is blue, true or false). Only a short pamphlet, it offers a provocation. A really awesome book on this topic might attempt ethnography of different political audiences to see how they respond to and experience the analyzed political speech.

Super interesting, but offers challenging material for anyone not familiar with linguistic anthropology. It is relatively jargon-free (compared to Silverstein's other work) but still not a breezy read.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good popularization of much contemporary linguistic anthropological thought. Attempts to understand the popularity of G. W. Bush, a man that rarely speaks a coherent sentence and seems to have no understanding of anything relevant to the job to which he's been (s)elected. Mixes humor and high-level ling-anth criticism. Very insightful.