The Languages of Politics/La Politique Et Ses Langages Volume 1 [1 ed.] 1443897671, 9781443897679

Citation preview

The Languages of Politics/ La politique et ses langages Volume 1

The Languages of Politics/ La politique et ses langages Volume 1 Edited by

Marta Degani, Paolo Frassi and Maria Ivana Lorenzetti

The Languages of Politics/La politique et ses langages Volume 1 Edited by Marta Degani, Paolo Frassi and Maria Ivana Lorenzetti This book first published 2016 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2016 by Marta Degani, Paolo Frassi, Maria Ivana Lorenzetti and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-9767-1 ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-9767-9

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments ..................................................................................... vii Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Section I: Metaphor and Political Discourse Chapter One ................................................................................................. 9 What can Metaphor Theory contribute to the study of political discourse? Andreas Musolff Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 29 The strength to be nurturers: Obama’s framing of political issues Marta Degani Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 51 Demystifying The Importance of Seeming Earnest: politolinguistics at the crossroads of syntax and semantics Paul Danler Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 75 The Lisbon Treaty conflict Chiara Nasti Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 99 The Natural Choice? Metaphors for nature in a UK government white paper Douglas Ponton Section II: Contrastive Analyses of Political Language Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 125 Crafting an effective message for the masses, or the art of populism: an analysis of new populist rhetoric from a textual perspective Maria Ivana Lorenzetti

vi

Contents

Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 159 Understatement and overstatement: two powerful persuasive tools in English and Italian political speeches Elisa Mattiello Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 179 « Le spread est un imbroglio » : manipulations discursives autour du mot spread, reflets croisés en Italie et en France Mathilde Anquetil Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 209 NATION ET NARÓD : analyse sémantique d’un couple de faux-amis franco-polonais Dorota Sikora Section III: Historical Perspectives Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 235 Les mots de la politique à travers les siècles Stefania Cerrito Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 259 La formule « esprit européen » dans les actes du colloque L’Avenir de l’esprit européen organisé par la Société des Nations en 1933 Paola Cattani Section IV: Political Language in the Media Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 281 Visions politiques de l’euro dans le discours médiatique Brigitte Battel Chapter Thirteen ...................................................................................... 303 La lettre d’information numérique entre stratégies lexicales et discursives : l’exemple de Mediapart (France) et de Micromega (Italie) Anna Giaufret

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The editors are grateful to a number of institutions, colleagues and friends for supporting the realisation of this project at various stages and in different respects. The scholars contributing to this two-volume publication had the opportunity to meet at the international conference The Languages of Politics/La politique et ses langages, which was held on 30-31 May, 2013 at the University of Verona (Italy). This conference was made possible through funding from a national research project (PRIN 2009, “Within and across the Borders: Usage and Norm in Western European Languages”) that had been allocated to the Verona Research Unit (“English and French Linguistic Identities in 21st Century Europe: Contacts and Contaminations between Rules and Usage”). In addition, the conference was also endorsed by the Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della Ricerca (MIUR) and supported by the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures of the University of Verona. We would like to express our gratitude to the Head of the Department, Prof. Roberta Facchinetti, for promoting and encouraging our initiative. We are also thankful to the dear colleagues and friends, both at the department and working in other universities, with whom we shared our ideas and exchanged opinions in the preparatory phases of this publication. Many thanks also go to the administrative personnel at the department for their helpful collaboration and to Graham Clarke for the final proofreading of the manuscript. Finally, we feel particularly indebted to the large number of scholars who contributed to the volumes for their active cooperation, constant engagement, supportive help and great, great patience. Thank you all for making it happen!

INTRODUCTION

Volume one of the two-volume publication The Languages of Politics/La politique et ses langages brings together a selection of reviewed papers from an international conference held at the University of Verona on 3031 May, 2013. On that occasion, specialists in the study of political discourse who work in a range of linguistic traditions had the opportunity to fruitfully exchange their ideas and compare their different approaches to the study of political language(s). The collection of papers gathered in the two volumes reflects this plurality of approaches and their choral dimension by giving voice to the multiple languages of politics. The volumes also reverberate with the spirit of that conference in the respect that they are bilingual, combining contributions in English and French as the two working languages of the conference. The analysis of political language represents a budding area of research. To date, major contributions have come from the fields of rhetoric, (critical) discourse analysis, cognitive linguistics, pragmatics, lexicology, lexicography and, more recently, multimodal discourse analysis. The papers in the two volumes build their investigations on these perspectives and aim to provide new and diversified insights into the study of political language. In the volumes, the papers have been arranged according to related topics. In volume one, the articles address the following themes arranged in separate sections: metaphor and political discourse, contrastive analysis of political language, historical perspectives, and political language in the media. Volume two includes contributions that deal with political discourse and political genres, the lexicology and lexicography of politics, historical perspectives on political discourse, and political language in the new media. Altogether, not only do the papers testify to the plurality of political languages and their analyses, but they also show how these different topics are interconnected in the two volumes. The first section of volume one, Metaphor and Political Discourse, opens with the chapter “What can Metaphor Theory contribute to the study of political discourse?” This chapter sets the scene for many contributions in the volume that focus on the use of metaphors in political discourse. In his paper, Andreas Musolff reconsiders the contribution of conceptual

2

Introduction

metaphor analyses to the understanding of political discourse and its critical assessment. The chapter provides an overview of the major theoretical approaches in the field and highlights their relation to methodological improvements in metaphor research. The paper also partakes in a timely discussion on metaphor and cultural variation versus universality by presenting data concerned with different instantiations of THE NATION IS A (HUMAN) BODY metaphor. As Musolff points out, the intra-and inter-cultural semantic variability emerging from the data suggests the need to complement a conceptualist/cognitive approach to the study of political metaphor with pragmatic and discourse-historical methodologies. Chapter two, “The strength to be nurturers: Obama’s framing of political issues”, is grounded in Conceptual Metaphor Theory and explores facets of contemporary American political discourse during Obama’s first presidential election campaign. In the paper, Degani reconsiders the usefulness and validity of the idealised cognitive models first presented by Lakoff in Moral Politics (1996): the Strict Father (SF) versus the Nurturant Parent (NP) models. A critical discussion of the models and their implications for language use precedes the analysis of a selection of speeches delivered by Barack Obama during his first run for the American presidency in 2008. The paper focuses, in particular, on the expression of strength at both lexical and semantic levels, unveiling Obama’s strategic use of a strength lexicon within a Nurturant Parent framing. This result highlights the importance of coupling corpus-based analyses with a discourse-oriented methodology. The investigation of political discourse is expanded in the third chapter, “Demystifying The Importance of Seeming Earnest: politolinguistics at the crossroads of syntax and semantics”. In this article, Paul Danler illustrates how morpho-syntax and semantics can act as extremely useful analytical approaches by shedding light on the construal of political messages that partly mask or hide reality. The paper provides insights into the rhetoric of an iconic political figure of Latin America, Fidel Castro. The morphosyntactic analysis considers the discursive functions of diatheses and the use of third person plural, participle and light-verb constructions, deverbal nouns and unsaturated valence. To complement this, a semantic investigation centred on metaphor and metonymy provides additional insights into Castro’s rhetoric. Political metaphors are further explored in Chiara Nasti’s “The Lisbon Treaty conflict”. This chapter considers how the media covered a specific instance of institutional reform in the European Union that involved a complex process of ratification by the European member states,

The Editors

3

especially the United Kingdom and Ireland. The study discusses the different metaphors employed by a number of broadsheets and tabloids that presented the political debate. The paper also considers how these metaphors contributed to the creation of distinctive scenarios in the British and Irish contexts. Furthermore, the analysis indicates how the use of metaphors that portray political reality is strongly connected to issues of evaluation, ideology and cultural variation. The section on Metaphor and Political Discourse ends with Douglas Ponton’s “The Natural Choice? Metaphors for nature in a UK government white paper”. The article is informed by Critical Metaphor Analysis and looks at metaphors as powerful means of political persuasion and mass manipulation by focusing on how they shape attitudes in the public debate on the environment. The analysis is carried out on a recent white paper from the British government, in which Ponton criticises the strategic usage of the notion of ‘value’ as a key metaphor that may attract the corporate sphere. Section two, Contrastive Analyses of Political Language, opens with “Crafting an effective message for the masses, or the art of populism: an analysis of new populist rhetoric from a textual perspective”, in which Maria Ivana Lorenzetti presents a contrastive analysis of the rhetorical strategies of new populism, based on a corpus of speeches from recent American and Italian political election campaigns. Considering the multifarious domain of populism, the papers adopts an interdisciplinary approach, encompassing the historical, social and philosophical dimensions of populism as a concept and as an ideology, and investigates its language from a textual and critical discourse analysis perspective, with a main focus on the role played by metaphor and framing. Chapter seven, “Understatement and overstatement: two powerful persuasive tools in English and Italian political speeches” is couched in Sperber and Wilson’s Relevance Theory. In this paper, Elisa Mattiello focuses on understatement and overstatement as crucial persuasive devices, especially when used in combination with other figures of speech. The analysis is carried out on a corpus of English and Italian political speeches retrieved from online archives and videos. The paper shows how politicians often achieve persuasion not just by using metaphor but also by relying on hyperbolic statements (the chief expression of overstatement) and understatement. The study also touches upon aspects related to the speaker’s cognition, in that it describes the process of overstatement as related to a broadening operation and that of understatement as connected to either a broadening or a narrowing operation, depending on the type of trope involved (meiosis, euphemism or litotes).

4

Introduction

In chapter eight, « “Le spread est un imbroglio” : manipulations discursives autour du mot spread, reflets croisés en Italie et en France », Mathilde Anquetil provides a detailed contrastive analysis of the term spread as it is used in Italian and French political jargon. Anquetil explores the social usages of this word in political discourse focusing on Italian and French media. The analysis discusses the different attitudes towards the English loan and alludes to their political repercussions by referring to a situation that nearly turned into a diplomatic incident. This happened in 2012 when Silvio Berlusconi publicly expressed his contempt by saying: “Lo spread è un imbroglio”. The contrastive analysis of political language is further pursued in chapter nine, « NATION et NARÓD : analyse sémantique d’un couple de faux-amis franco-polonais ». The paper explores the semantic and conceptual dimensions of a contrastive pair of lexemes, French NATION and Polish NARÓD, following the framework of Explanatory and Combinatorial Lexicology. Bilingual dictionaries describe the two terms as semantically equivalent, and corpus data show that they are employed in a similar fashion. However, French and Polish speakers use these terms in everyday communication in a way that reveals marked semantic and conceptual discrepancies. An investigation of the semantic networks and combinatorial properties of the two lexemes confirms their different linguistic statuses. While the French NATION functions as an abstract noun and is mostly perceived as a set of features that are expected to be shared by members of a national community, the conceptualisation of the Polish NARÓD foregrounds the relational nature of the group and functions as a concrete term. Chapter ten, « Les mots de la politique à travers les siècles » by Stefania Cerrito, opens the third section on Historical Perspectives. The paper accurately investigates how some basic terms of the current political lexicon have changed their meanings throughout the centuries in order to fit transformations in society. The study is based on the consultation of a large number of historical sources, including French translations of texts about Ancient Greek political philosophy, ancient history and the Roman legal tradition. In addition to this, the study also takes into account the important role played by ancient dictionaries in the evolution of political terminology. In chapter eleven, « La formule “esprit européen” dans les actes du colloque L’Avenir de l’esprit européen organisé par la Société des Nations en 1933 », Paola Cattani brings us back to the period between the two World Wars when politicians were making plans for a united Europe and the expression “esprit européen” started circulating. Cattani defines the

The Editors

5

expression as a “formule linguistique”, which transmitted different representations of Europe and conveyed meanings that were sometimes contradictory. Her study is based on the analysis of speeches delivered by different political actors during an important symposium that was held in Paris in 1933. The event was organised by the League of Nations and concerned “the future of the European spirit”. In the analysis, the author combines a lexical approach with a discourse-analytical approach and investigates not just the meanings associated with the expression but also the debate around it. The last section, Political Language in the Media, starts with Brigitte Battel’s « Visions politiques de l’euro dans le discours médiatique ». The paper deals with the crisis of the Euro currency as a topic of discourse in a period that politics and economics characterise as a phase of transition from “europhoria” to “eurosion”. Battel investigates the media responses to this situation, their representations of reality and the type of relation with which they engage their readers (informative, conspiratorial, hopeful, etc.). The analysis, which is based on French and Italian newspaper articles in a period from January 2010 to March 2013 (from the Greek crisis to the Cyprus issue), shows that the future of the common European currency is portrayed in a subjective and highly emotional manner. The investigation of political language in the media concludes with « La lettre d’information numérique entre stratégies lexicales et discursives : l’exemple de Mediapart (France) et de Micromega (Italie) ». In this paper, Anna Giaufret compares Mediapart (FR) and MicroMega (IT) newsletters in a period from December 2012 to March 2013. The study intends to identify emerging formules and critically discuss the discursive phenomena affecting them. This is achieved by a cogent combination of quantitative and qualitative methodologies. The editors

SECTION ONE: METAPHOR AND POLITICAL DISCOURSE

CHAPTER ONE WHAT CAN METAPHOR THEORY CONTRIBUTE TO THE STUDY OF POLITICAL DISCOURSE? ANDREAS MUSOLFF UNIVERSITY OF EAST ANGLIA

Abstract The application of conceptual metaphor analysis to the critical study of political discourse has generated a wealth of publications over the past decades. This paper attempts to take stock of some of the theoretical developments in the field and reflect on their contribution to methodological advances in metaphor research generally and to the understanding of metaphor in political discourse in particular. The data comprise metaphorisations of the state as a (human) body, which has played a prominent role in Western political thought and discourse. This metaphor field shows a high degree of semantic variation, both intra- and cross-culturally, and thus invites an analysis that reflects their universality and/or cultural specificity. It is therefore argued that the conceptualist/cognitive approach to the analysis of political metaphors needs to be complemented by pragmatic and discourse-historical methodologies.

1. Introduction The title question of this contribution suggests that metaphors are relevant to political discourse – otherwise, their analysis would be contributing only very little to this subject. But are metaphors so important in politics? And if yes, should they be? At least regarding the last question, the jury is still out. Recently, I came across a British student’s blog that had this to say about political metaphors:

10

What can Metaphor Theory contribute to the study of political discourse? (1)

[…] in recent weeks I’ve noticed something that seriously irritates me about political discourse – metaphors! […] A serious offender is David Cameron. He’s by no means the only politician to use metaphors. I’m picking on him because of his frequency of use but most importantly because he’s been on TV a lot lately. Cameron’s speech to the Conservative Party Conference in October was full of these gems: “But if we put in the effort, correct those mistakes, confront those vested interests and take on the failed ideas of the past, then I know we can turn this ship around.” “The new economy we’re building: it’s like building a house. The most important part is the part you can’t see – the foundations that make it stable.” “We can choose to be a country that’s back on its feet and striding forward.” “No, Britain never had the biggest population, the largest land mass, the richest resources, but we had the spirit. Remember: it’s not the size of the dog in the fight – it’s the size of the fight in the dog.” […] I couldn’t help cringe at the use of these platitudes which made all the sensible things a little less convincing. I guess the point of using these metaphors is to spice up the discourse, be more approachable and interactive. To me however they seem a bit patronising, and I don’t think I’m the only one who feels this way. I shouldn’t think Conservative MPs especially would need metaphorical decoding of what is going on in Britain today…but there you have it! (This is a London particular 2011).

The blogger’s statement is very revealing: politicians’ metaphors are seen as being at best trivial clichés, and at worst serving to obfuscate and detract from what “is really going on”. The examples cited in this blog are well-worn common places (turning the ship around, foundations for the economy as a building, a country on its feet, the size of the fight in the dog), which are irritating not just on account of their triteness but also because they treat the hearers as if they cannot be expected to understand complex social issues and need to be fobbed off with oversimplifying slogans. It is thus not only an aesthetic discomfort that this blogger articulates but also a deeper mistrust of the politicians’ good will to announce and communicate their plans honestly in public. This is by no means an exceptional or unique view. One of David Cameron’s predecessors as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Margaret Thatcher, accused “European” (i.e., in her parlance, non-British) politicians of being particularly cunning in using metaphors, and trying to trick the metaphorinnocent Brits:

Andreas Musolff (2)

11

[...] anyone dealing with the European Community should pay careful attention to metaphors. We in Britain were inclined to minimize their significance [...]. We had to learn the hard way that by agreement to what were apparently empty generalizations or vague aspirations we were later held to have committed ourselves to political structures which were contrary to our interests. (Thatcher 1993: 319)

(3) Misleading analogies such as the European train leaving the station have been used in the debate, she [= Thatcher] says: “If that train is going in the wrong direction it is better not to be on it at all.” (The Times, 31 October 1992)

Thatcher’s quotations in examples (2) and (3) betray an anti-European bias that, of course, has little to do with metaphor. However, her denunciation of metaphors as a (typically “European”) trick to obscure controversial objectives or agendas rings hollow in view of the fact that she utilises the very metaphor that she criticises in example (3) in order to make her own political point. The conditional argument, “If that train is going in the wrong direction it is better not to be on it at all”, presupposes the concept of European politics as a train with passengers (meaning the European member states) who can choose to be a part of it (and its journey) or not. Without the metaphorical equation of the “European Community” (as it was in the early 1990s) and a train, Thatcher’s conclusion would not make any sense at all. Of course, one can argue about whether a (real or metaphorical) train is going in the right direction and whether you wish to join it or not, but without the assumption that such a train exists, offering an opportunity to join it and travel somewhere, the whole debate, including Thatcher’s choice (i.e. not to join), would be pointless. Her criticism was therefore not really about the “European train” metaphor but rather its alternative directions or destinations, i.e. about subordinate aspects of the concept of political processes as a journey. Once she had changed the metaphor to fit her political viewpoint, she had no problem using it (and many other metaphors).1 However, even if we dismiss Thatcher’s anti-metaphor stance as insincere and motivated more by anti-European prejudice than by insight into political communication, her caution towards the metaphor in politics and the anonymous blogger’s suspicions about it are still worthy of consideration. Why does the political metaphor generate such mistrust? The following discussion will attempt to elucidate this issue by 1

For Thatcher’s mastery of using metaphor in her own speeches see CharterisBlack (2005: 18-19, 87-114).

12

What can Metaphor Theory contribute to the study of political discourse?

considering recent developments in one of the major theoretical approaches to metaphor in linguistics, i.e. Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), and its relationship to discourse-historical and pragmatic approaches. These theories will be tested against data from a metaphor field that has been particularly productive in British political thought and discourse for many centuries through the phrase body politic and which is also widely known internationally, i.e. the imagery of the nation state as a (human) body.2

2. Conceptual metaphor in political discourse The notion of metaphor as a phenomenon that has conceptual significance, i.e. whose analysis tells us something about the thoughts and ideas of the people who use it, can be traced back to Aristotle (Mahon 1999) and was emphasised in the late twentieth century, e.g. in the “New Rhetoric” and analytical philosophy movements (Black 1962; Richards 1936; Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca 1969). Since 1980 it has gained special prominence as a sub-paradigm of cognitive linguistics in the form of Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) as pioneered by Lakoff and Johnson ([1980] 2003), and since then developed further in a wealth of publications.3 The evidence for the fundamental significance of metaphors for concept building and development is overwhelming. Not only are they ubiquitous in everyday speech and across most registers of human communication but they are also systematic in the sense that they concern not just lexical items but also whole areas of (popular) knowledge that are applied to the respective meaning “targets”. Thus, the STATE-AS-A(HUMAN) BODY metaphor,4 which we already encountered in Cameron’s reported praise of Britain as “a country that’s back on its feet and striding forward” (example 1), also informs utterances such as the following:

2 For dictionary entries on body politic see Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1999: 149, 713); Deignan (1995: 2); Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (2002, vol. 1: 258). For recent publications on its conceptual and linguistic history see Charbonnel (2010), Harvey (2007), Musolff (2010c). 3 The literature on CMT and its further developments such as “Conceptual integration” or “Blending Theory” is vast; for indicative references see: Fauconnier and Turner (2002); Gibbs (2008); Grady, Taub and Morgan (1996); Kövecses (2002, 2005); Lakoff (1993); Lakoff and Johnson ([1980] 2003, 1999); Ortony (1993). For applications of CMT to political discourse see Charteris-Black (2004, 2005, 2013); Dirven, Hawkins and Sandikcioglu (2001); Dirven, Frank and Ilie (2001); Lakoff (1996); Musolff (2004). 4 In keeping with CMT practice, small capitals indicate conceptual structures.

Andreas Musolff (4)

[Boris Johnson] said, “as a mere Mayor of London, as a mere toenail in the body politic, it may be difficult to have a referendum [on the EU Lisbon Treaty]”. (BBC Newsnight, 5 October 2009)

(5)

Paul Kagame, the only leader Rwanda has known since the end of the genocide, has said his country is not ready for the “medicine” of democracy ahead of elections in August. (The Independent, 25 June 2010)

(6)

So long as there has been a body politic to host them, parasites have feasted on its blood. (The Independent, 7 December 2011; regarding a scandal about lobbyists who claimed to be able to sell contacts to British government ministers)

(7)

Forty years on, Britain still has not joined Europe. The transplant of a European organ into the British body politic still requires constant reinforcement by immunosuppressant drugs. (Financial Times, 7 January 2013)

13

The examples all presuppose the view of the (nation) state as a body that has a human anatomy “down to” the toenails and that can be healthy or ill, e.g. that may need medicine, succumb to parasites, or even require an organ transplant. It goes far beyond the few lexicalised expressions such as body politic, head of state, head of government, long arm of the law, etc. that can be found in dictionaries. In fact, every concept that we have about human bodies may be applied to the nation concept: in a research corpus for this metaphor as used in the British media 1990-2013, more than seventy body-related concepts have been recorded that encompass the whole human anatomy, the life-span from conception (including the role of DNA) through birth and up to death, a wide spectrum of health-disease concepts, complete with specifications of agents of disease, special medical conditions and therapies and body aesthetics (Musolff 2010b, 2012). This wide range of body-related “source” concepts that are applied to the “target domain” (Lakoff 1993) of politics illustrates one key insight of CMT: the metaphorical mapping functions not just between isolated words but between whole areas (“domains”) of concepts that are organised in a specific perspective. This mapping is by no means exclusive: as we saw in quotation (1), there are many more metaphors available to conceptualise the state or nation (e.g. as a ship or a building, etc.). But if we choose the STATE-AS-A-BODY metaphor, all BODY-related concepts that we know become available in principle as source-input for our thinking and communicating about the (nation) state. The ultimate choice of a specific body part or condition is then mainly a question of its “fit” for

14

What can Metaphor Theory contribute to the study of political discourse?

what we wish to think and say about the state: it would make no sense to 5 randomly associate any body aspect with any political concept. This pervasive STATE-AS-A-BODY metaphor can be found in most European languages, again not just in lexicalisations (e.g. for European languages: Dutch: politiek lichaam, French: corps politique, German: politischer Körper, Staatskörper, Volkskörper, Italian: corpo politico, Spanish: cuerpo político, Russian: ɩɨɥɢɬɢɱɟɫɤɨɟ ɬɟɥɨ (politicheckoe telo), and Greek: ȆȠȜȚIJȚțȩ ıȫȝĮ (politiko soma)), but also in all kinds of conceptualisations based on knowledge of the human body and its health (Musolff 2014a; 2014b). In view of such a widespread cross-linguistic/cultural usage, we may well ask whether we are dealing with a universal metaphor or an instance of a general mapping such as COMPLEX SYSTEM ARE (HUMAN) BODIES, which has indeed been mooted as a possible universal or near-universal (Kövecses 2002: 129-130).6 The universality of bodily experience as a knowledge basis for all humans is, of course, unquestionable, and has been analysed in detail in a branch of Cognitive Linguistics known as Embodiment Theory (Gibbs 2005; Johnson 1987; Lakoff and Johnson 1999; Maalej and Yu 2011). However, as Lakoff and Johnson ([1980] 2003: 57) pointed out as early as 1980, we must bear in mind that “what we call ‘direct physical experience’ is never merely a matter of having a body of a certain sort; rather, every experience takes place within a vast background of cultural presuppositions”. One complex of presuppositions that forms its own coherent “cultural model” is, for example, the notion of the Great Chain of Being, i.e. a graded ontology, which exists, as Lakoff 5

Lakoff has formulated this constraint as the “invariance” principle of CMT: “Metaphorical mappings preserve the cognitive topology (that is, the imageschema structure) of the source domain, in a way consistent with the target domain” (1993: 215). This is plausible enough but he goes on to derive the “corollary” that “image-schema structure inherent in the target domain cannot be violated, and that inherent target domain structure limits the possibilities of mappings automatically”. This claim is both unnecessary and counter-intuitive even within CMT, because one of the main functions of conceptual metaphors, highlighted by Lakoff and Johnson themselves (1980: 147-158), is that metaphors help “create” similarities, i.e. conceptually organise a hitherto unstructured target domain. If the target domain is previously unstructured and its “emergent” structure is shaped by conceptual metaphors, it makes little sense to assume a preestablished “image-schema structure inherent in the target domain”. 6 With reference to long-term historical traditions, Harvey (2007: 7-9) discusses a common Indo-European source of the state-body metaphor that can be traced back to the second millennium BC and which later spread to other cultures (e.g. ancient Egypt and Israel).

Andreas Musolff

15

and Turner (1989) have shown, not only as a historical metaphysical worldview that was given famous literary and philosophical expression over centuries from Antiquity to the Enlightenment, but also “as a contemporary unconscious cultural model indispensable to our understanding of ourselves, our world, and our language” (Lakoff and Turner 1989: 167). As with the Great Chain of Being, we can view the body politic metaphor as a cultural model that is routinely assumed by members of the public, while its origins or historical precedents are hardly remembered accurately or explicitly mentioned by anyone except for conceptual historians. The fact that the metaphor’s socio-cultural specificity and provenance are not highlighted every time it is used, however, does not mean that it can be neglected in synchronic analyses. A corpus-based comparison of the usage of the STATE-AS-A-(HUMAN) BODY metaphor in present-day political discourses in three European languages, i.e. English, French and German, has shown that whilst the three respective discourse communities share most of the source-target mappings, their lexical realisations vary significantly and systematically in a) their respective coverage of the semantic source field of body-related concepts, b) their socio-historical indexicality as regards famous/infamous historical usage models and c) their stylistic and register-specific distribution (Musolff 2010b, 2010c, 2012, 2014b). In current British English discourse, for instance, body politic is a marked form, due to its archaic semantics and syntax, with the adjective politic meaning ‘political’ and positioned after the noun, which was productive in Early Modern English, especially for French and Latin loans (Hughes 1988: 186; Rissanen 1999: 208). Present-day English speakers have to acquire body politic as a fixed expression; otherwise, they would only be talking of a political body. This latter phrase can indeed be found in present-day discourse, but mainly to designate specific political, administrative and economic institutions, groupings and business “corporations”, not in reference to the whole of society/state. It is thus not exchangeable with body politic. One aspect that seems to stand out in British discourses about the body politic is the high occurrence (i.e. in at least one fifth of all examples) of wordplays on its double entendre as referring to an individual’s status in the political arena and their specific physical characteristics, usually in an ironical sense, as in examples (8) and (9) below.

16

What can Metaphor Theory contribute to the study of political discourse? (8)

Body politic: […] In what is perhaps the ultimate betrayal of the Celebrity “Cool Britannia” culture he embraced upon entering Downing Street, Heat this week prints a long-lens snap of Blair resplendent in his Caribbean holiday podge - a sort of “ripples and nipples” look. (The Independent, 14 August 2007)

(9)

Sorry, Gordon [Gordon Brown, British Labour Prime Minister], but your body politic doesn't match Putin's. (The Observer, 1 November 2009)

Uses such as (8) and (9) where the phrase body politic refers to a politician’s physical body are linked historically to the origins of the STATE-AS-BODY concept in the Renaissance, when the ancient tradition of describing the state as a body-hierarchy from head to toe (Musolff 2009; Nederman 1992; 2004) was conflated with the originally theologically derived notion of the King’s Two Bodies, i.e. the distinction between a mortal/vulnerable body and the eternal “mystical”/political body of the sovereign (Bertelli 2001; Horten 2009; Kantorowicz 1997). This topic is not exclusive to the English/British History of Ideas, but it received its terminological fixation in the lexical pair body natural – body politic in English. The intricacies of late medieval and Renaissance debates about how to separate the monarch’s “personal” body (and property) from their political body are of course largely forgotten today, but an awareness of the double meaning of body in the political sphere seems to have survived in the public consciousness in Britain. The most likely transmitters of the metaphor of the King’s two bodies are Shakespeare’s works, which continue to be an integral part of popular British culture through school, theatre and mass media (Diede 2008; Hale 1971; Jagendorf 1990; Spicci 2007). By contrast, references to or puns on this metaphor version figure only marginally in the public discourses of France and Germany, where they mostly occur in scholarly research (e.g. Haltern 2009). In German, the phrase politischer Körper, which lexically matches body politic most closely, can still be found in the present-day sample but is far outnumbered by alternative lexemes or phrases: Staatskörper (and its variant Körper des Staates; literally, ‘state body’/‘body of the state’), Nationalkörper (lit., ‘national body’), and Volkskörper (lit., ‘people’s body’). Staatskörper/Körper des Staates (literally, ‘state body’), accounts for 33% of all 85 metaphor instances that contain the lexical unit Körper and seems to be the most neutral, ideologically unmarked expression, which targets any kind of political (state) entity, as does politischer Körper (‘state body’) which has only four occurrences in the sample. Rationale Körper has just one occurrence in the sample and seems to mainly express

Andreas Musolff

17

the concept of SOCIETY as distinct from that of STATE. By contrast, Volkskörper accounts for more than 50% of the whole German sample and is a highly marked form. Most of the post-1965 corpus texts in which it occurs critically quote and denounce its use in xenophobic discourses and, historically, in Nazi-jargon where it served to “justify” the genocide of European Jews as parasites on the German people’s body (Musolff 2010a: 23-68). The journalist Katharina Rutschky, for instance, criticised participants in post-war German debates about demographic decline as echoing Nazi-propaganda by exhibiting an “injured soul in the sick people’s body” (“Im kranken Volkskörper steckt eine verletzte Seele”, Die Welt, 11 April 2006). In present-day French political discourse, we find three further lexicalised variants of the STATE-AS-BODY metaphor, i.e. corps politique, corps électorale and corps social. Their meanings are closely related but not identical: the social, electoral and political bodies are all aspects of the same referent, i.e. the politically active part of the French populace. The corps social is typically seen as being both the foundation of the state and an “object of the care” by the political classes, lest its problems lead to a disintegration of the nation as a unified political body, i.e. the corps politique. Its concrete manifestation is the corps électorale, which through electing parliament and president at regular intervals, continually (re)constructs its membership. The ‘electoral body’ is thus the incarnation of the ‘political body’ of the nation, which in turn is the politically active incarnation of the ‘body of society’. Such mutually defining uses of corps politique, corps électorale and corps social can be found many times over in the French sample, but have few counterparts in the English and German samples. Which discourse tradition can they be linked to? A commentary in the magazine Multitudes can help us here, which highlights the STATE-BODY metaphor in its title: “Le corps politique, un malade à la recherche de sa thérapie” (“The body politic: a sickly patient in search of a therapy”). Its author, the writer Philippe Boisnard, argues that the political classes must rethink their fundamental political assumptions, in particular the notion that French society and state are based on the notion of obedience to the sovereign general will, which dates back to Rousseau’s Social Contract of 1762 (Boisnard 2005; Musolff 2012: 148-149). In this context, it is relevant that the French press sample contains a relatively high number of interventions by public intellectuals, such as the philosophers Alain Renaud, Giorgio Agamben and Bernard Henri Lévy

18

What can Metaphor Theory contribute to the study of political discourse?

and the politician/writer Régis Debray,7 which have no equivalent in the British or German press. With intellectuals’ and philosophers’ voices playing such an eminent role in the public discourse community, it is not surprising that key metaphors from philosophical texts and traditions play a much greater role in French debates than in other national discourses. This intellectually oriented “habitus” (Bourdieu 1990) of the French public sphere is thus distinctly different from British reminiscences of the body politic/body natural duality or the historicising habitus of the German public sphere that harks back to the catastrophe of National Socialist rule.

3. The reception of political metaphor A further dimension of culture-specific variation becomes visible when we consider not just the production side but also the reception and understanding of political metaphor. In the successive academic years, 2011-12 and 2012-13, groups of international MA students at the University of East Anglia were asked to interpret the STATE-AS-BODY metaphor. After a brief induction into this concept, students were given the task of applying it to their home nation. Here are eight exemplary responses:8 (10) Student A: “The head of the body represents the Queen of England, as she is in charge of the whole country and she is royalty. The features of the head (eyes, nose, mouth and ears) represent the different official people, such as politicians, the Prime Minister, the Government”. (11) Student B: “If one organ or part of the national body suffers, the whole body would suffer from fever. In other words, having a healthy body requires healthy parts. As a nation, a problem in one area of a country should attract the attention of the whole people in that country”. 7 See A. Renaud, “Squelettiques métaphores politique”, in Libération (21 March 1995); G. Agamben “La double identité du people”, in Libération (11 February 1995); B.-L. Lévy, “Construire l'Europe politique, ou mourir”, in Le Point (13 September 2012); Interview with R. Debray, D. Podalydès and O. Py, in Le Monde (5 March 2011). 8 The responses have been normalised for English spelling and in some cases slightly abridged, and body-related source expressions have been italicised, but no content has been changed. Due to the relatively small number of responses overall (28), no statistical analysis has been applied, but this is planned for further research.

Andreas Musolff

19

(12) Student C: “2 Heads: Head of state is the king? – Not sure anymore! Head of government are [Prime Minister] Rajoy and the big banks’ presidents”. (13) Student D: “The face: president and government; the brain: oligarchs, members of parliament (make all decisions in essence); the hands: official and unofficial local authorities (including mafia groups); the mouth: the media – controlled by the oligarchs/MPs (dictates political ideology)”. (14) Student E: “Beijing: Heart and Brain, Shanghai: Face (economic centre); Hong Kong and Taiwan: Feet; Tianjin: Hands (= army close to Beijing); Shenzhen: Eyes (= the first place open to the world)”. (15) Student F: “Beijing is the heart of China. The police is the arm of China. The railway is the throat of China. Shanghai is the economic backbone of China. Tsingtao is the skeleton of Shandong province. Shenzhen is the liver of China; Tiananmen is the eye of Beijing. Nanjing is the face of Jiangsu; Szechuan is the hair of China; Xiangyang is the heel of China”. (16) Student G: “Beijing: brain (government); Shanghai: hug/arm (welcome to foreign people); Guangzhou: feet (keep China going); Hong Kong: face (familiar to everyone, representative); Taiwan: hair (we can live without hair but it is necessary for beauty)”. (17) Student H: “[…] Taiwan: potential disease (maybe one time we have to fight against it and occupy it); Tibet: stomach (sometimes you feel uncomfortable); The head of the government: hair (if one goes down, always some other one will grow up)”.

Example (10) was produced by a British student; examples (11) (12) and (13) by a Saudi-Arabian, a Spanish and a Ukrainian student, respectively, while students “E”, “F”, “G” and “H” are Chinese. All their answers are correct in the sense that they fulfil the task, but the responses fall into two distinct classes. The first four responses describe a Western political system in terms of a body’s health and anatomy, even if, as in example (13) substantial parts of the body politic seem to have been taken over by criminals or at least undemocratic forces. Responses (14)-(17), on the other hand, identify geographical places in China (both the mainland and islands, including the politically separate state of Taiwan) and link them to parts of the human anatomy on the basis of functional correspondences between activities or states of parts of the human body (arm, brain, disease, eye, face, feet, hair, hands, head, heart, stomach) and political characterisations of these locations. These responses are geographically

20

What can Metaphor Theory contribute to the study of political discourse?

more specific than those given by the non-Chinese students, and at the same time more “personalised” in the sense that they use the source domain of the human body as an inventory for characterising the People’s Republic of China as a personalised agent. This STATE-AS-BODY/PERSON is conceived of as a whole human being that puts up a face to the outside world, hugs other people(s) that are friendly to it and fights diseases. A further characteristic of the “Chinese” responses is that they thematise parts of the body politic that Western political discourse cannot reach, so to speak, e.g. the notion of its hair, which seems to be absent from all nonChinese responses (although this cannot be regarded as a statistically validated finding). As regards the comprehension task of interpreting the STATE-BODY metaphor, we can conclude that it has been successfully fulfilled in all the above examples, but it is also evident that the responses represent different interpretative perspectives that, if they were to be corroborated, may indicate a cultural dividing line. Insofar as the physical source domain categories, i.e. health, brain, head, heart, hands, feet, face, eye and hair, are basic level terms, which require no expert anatomical or medical knowledge, we may assume that they reflect prototypical concepts that are derived from the phenomenological human physique and as such are universal. This finding would support the universalist view that a globally shared basic knowledge of the human body serves as the source for conceptualising abstract objects such as the “nation state”. On the other hand, however, the contrast that we found between two main types of interpreting the metaphor invites further investigation. The first four responses clearly differ in their target referents but have in common that they visualise the abstract idea of the (nation) state and its most important institutions by functional analogies to the whole and the parts of a human body. Neither the political target nor the anatomical source references are particularly precise, but they suffice to indicate two main organising notions, i.e. that of a hierarchical ordering (head or brain = superior to rest of body) and that of the interdependence of all parts of the body, both at the literal and the figurative levels. These two notions of body-internal hierarchy and interdependence can indeed be related to the body politic metaphor tradition in European/“Western” culture, as has been established in conceptual history. The view of monarchs and/or government leaders as heads of nations, of institutions as organs, and of the whole state as suffering, if an illness breaks out in one part of the body, which these answers articulate, is fully compatible with formulations of body politic theories proposed by ancient, medieval or Renaissance thinkers and poets. The assumption of such a

Andreas Musolff

21

tradition, as a construct of conceptual history, does not entail that university students in the twenty-first century are consciously aware of it. Nevertheless, body politic terminology still permeates British and American public discourses (Musolff 2004: 83-114; 2010b: 23-25; Haltern 2009). It thus seems not unreasonable to conclude that the British student’s answer and also the responses by the Arab, Spanish and Ukrainian students (all of whom had majored in English language and literature in their respective first degrees and may well have been familiar with the body politic as a topic of English political history and poetry) stand in a loose but still tangible connection to that tradition. The Chinese students’ responses, on the other hand, do not echo this Western body politic theory. By contrast, they are constructed via different routes of combining metaphor and metonymy. From the limited evidence assembled so far, it would seem that the Chinese respondents apply, in the first place,9 a basic mapping: GEOGRAPHICAL SHAPE OF NATION (I.E. CHINA) IS CONGRUENT WITH ANATOMY OF A HUMAN BODY. Secondly, salient parts of this geopolitical ‘body’ are selected on the basis of metonymic relationships (e.g. ‘Beijing – seat of government’) and analogically associated with functional interpretations of specific bodyorgans, e.g. brain or heart as controlling the rest of the body. In example (14), brain and heart are even treated as functional equivalents, as their simultaneous allocation to the capital Beijing demonstrates. In a further step, these second-order analogies are invested with political interpretations, as exemplified in the differing depictions of Taiwan as one of China’s feet (i.e. as an essential body part), as hair (beautiful but not necessary for survival) or disease (to be combated) in examples (14), (16) and (17). The Chinese students’ reading of the metaphor contrasts with that given by the other students, not so much in terms of a more or less imaginative interpretation or topical application of the metaphor,10 but in its metaphor-metonymy combinations. It would be wrong to conclude that the difference between this construction of the (NATION) STATE-BODY metaphor and the “Western” model caused any misunderstanding among the students; however, at the 9

The following description is based on post-exercise discussions with the students and does not claim to reflect a “psychological reality” of real-time online metaphor interpretation. Any hypothesis about the latter would require psycholinguistic corroboration. 10 In examples (10) and (11), for instance, the Spanish and Ukrainian respondents also creatively applied the metaphor to topical political issues in their countries, e.g. by highlighting misgivings about the King’s ‘head-ship’ and the function of oligarchs as the ‘brains’ behind the official state ‘face’.

22

What can Metaphor Theory contribute to the study of political discourse?

same time, it became evident that the geopolitical metonymy (REGION/ PLACE-FOR-POLITICAL FUNCTION/IMPORTANCE), which was primary for the Chinese respondents, played no significant role for the others, who focused more on the perceived functional similarity between body part and political institution as the basis for their metaphor mapping. When the British and international students discussed the results among themselves, they could easily communicate with and understand each other, but they also agreed that their respective models of the concept NATION were partly different, with the Chinese students emphasising the importance of their home country’s shape, while the others highlighted political institutions. These preliminary findings will have to be tested in further studies before any reliable conclusions can be drawn, but they indicate that people from differing cultural backgrounds may share conceptual metaphors at a relatively general level, while at a more specific level there are systematic differences revealing that shared concepts can partly be “false friends” due to differing combinations of metaphor and metonymy.

4. Conclusion Conceptual metaphors such as A (NATION) STATE IS A (HUMAN) BODY can be both universal, when seen as a relatively general metaphor “theme” based on physical experience, and culture-specific, as regards the distribution of its main variants in a usage-based corpus as well as in its interpretations. Both these aspects make STATE-BODY metaphors attractive for politicians: they are easy to understand and suggest a certain selfevidentiality (e.g. that losing a head is more important than losing another limb, that being healthy is better than being ill) and they are culture/community-specific enough to allow particular allusions, humorous wordplay and historical references that are familiar to their primary audiences. Their openness for narrative and argumentative extension and elaboration makes metaphors ideal for taking antagonistic and adversarial stances. Every assessment of a political situation or problem in terms of HEALTH/ILLNESS concepts can be opposed by an alternative diagnosis and prognosis – much as M. Thatcher turned the “Europe-as-a-train” metaphor against those whom she suspected of steering it in the wrong direction (see example 3). But even when no specific debate or dispute is being aimed at, a common metaphor theme may be interpreted differently, as evidenced by the international students’ responses reported above. What is significant is that the observed variation seems to be systematic and can be related to culture-specific discourse traditions.

Andreas Musolff

23

This discourse-historical legacy is not to be understood as determining present-day usage: it manifests itself in distribution patterns that are typical but not exclusive of specific discourse communities. The patterns represent a default preferential usage option, not a necessarily implied conceptual aspect that would be entailed each time the metaphor is used. Furthermore, members of discourse communities continuously add to the range of available source concepts thanks to the development of popular knowledge. Biological parasites,11 organ transplants and immunosuppressants were not conceivable for the medieval or Renaissance public. Hence, they could not have been available as source concepts in those periods but only later, thanks to the advancement of scientific and clinical knowledge. What has to be borne in mind is that all BODY-related concepts are learnt and culturally mediated at all periods of their usage. There are no directly experienced body concepts even at the level of basic anatomy, let alone at that of scientific constructions such as the aforementioned ones. The source knowledge that is available for such generally comprehensible metaphorisations belongs to the non-expert form of knowledge culture; it is not to be confused with in-depth scientific understanding. Thus, the biological notions invoked by media and their audience in talking/reading about LOBBYISTS-AS-PARASITES, POLICIES-ASORGAN TRANSPLANTS and POLITICAL CULTURES-AS-IMMUNE SYSTEMS can only be expected to be extremely vague and open to almost unlimited variation and adaptation to whatever happens to be the topical “targetdomain” in question. These findings point towards a particular significance and urgency of engaging with synchronic and diachronic variation as a constitutive characteristic of metaphor instead of merely treating it as a marginal phenomenon.12 Metaphor’s discourse-historical dimension, which manifests itself in the distribution patterns of present-day usage and in systematic variation in its comprehension, underlines the importance not only of its sociocultural “situatedness” (Frank et al. 2008), but also of its fundamentally discursive nature, as it only emerges and develops and

11

The Greek and Latin terms parasitos/parasitus were available to connoisseurs of classical comedy since antiquity but denoted a type of social scrounger, not a biological entity. The latter conceptualisation only emerged in the late seventeenth/early eighteenth centuries (see Serres 2007: 7-8, Zimmer 2000: 1-3). 12 For the growing recognition of metaphor variation as a theoretically central issue see De Landtsheer (2009); Gibbs and Lonergan (2009); Kövecses (2005: 150-153, 155-178; 2009: 12-23).

24

What can Metaphor Theory contribute to the study of political discourse?

varies in actual discourses.13 Metaphors are not only and – pace Lakoff – not primarily conceptual phenomena but at least equally discursive structures, both at the micro-level of situated utterances and at the macrolevel of historical discourse-traditions. They are thus not different from other natural language concepts which have been acknowledged as being socially, situationally and historically differentiated and continuously varying, rather than obeying a pseudo- “objectivist” logic (Lakoff and Johnson [1980] 2003: 210-222). Metaphor “reveals the limitations of the myth of objectivism” (Ibid.: 210), and such myth-deconstruction seems to be regarded as particularly irritating in political discourse for those who assume that politicians/media/members of the public have the option and duty to speak/think (and act) absolutely. Insofar as the perceived use of metaphor in political discourse highlights this myth, it provokes emphatic criticism and rejection, which are often closely connected to an implicit or explicit suggestion that metaphor is “ideological” in the folk-theoretical sense of manipulative, distorted and hidden worldviews that are somehow transferred into people’s minds without them being aware of them (Goatly 2007: 25-33, Van Dijk 1998).14 Without a doubt, the study of political metaphors can help to provide its users (i.e. the public) with enhanced knowledge about their conceptual structure, historical background and cultural presuppositions; however, it cannot absolve them from the responsibility for their own metaphorical speech acts.

References Bertelli, S. (2001). The King’s Body. Sacred Rituals of Power in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. Black, M. (1962). Models and Metaphors. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Boisnard, P. (2005). “Le corps politique, un malade à la recherche de sa thérapie”. Multitudes. Revue politique, artistique, philosophique, 50.

13

For the “discursive turn” in CMT see Cameron (2011); Musolff and Zinken (2009); Semino (2008); Zinken (2007). 14 In extreme cases, the “objectivist” stance can serve as a tactic to excuse their holders from taking responsibility for their own thoughts, statements and actions if these are criticised as ethically problematic. Post-World War Two “explanations” by Nazi-followers that they had understood Hitler’s anti-Semitic parasite-imagery as only figurative and not implying genocidal consequences (Musolff 2013) provide a pertinent example.

Andreas Musolff

25

Available at: http://multitudes.samizdat.net/Le-corps-politique-unmalade-a-la (accessed 15 September 2013). Bourdieu, P. (1990). “Structures, habitus, practices”. In The Logic of Practice. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 52-79. Cameron, L. (2011). Metaphor and Reconciliation. The Discourse Dynamics of Empathy in Post-Conflict Conversations. London/New York: Routledge. Charbonnel, N. (2010). Comme un Seul Home. Corps Politique et Corps Mystique. 2 vols. Lons Le Saunier: Aréopage. Charteris-Black, J. (2004). Corpus Approaches to Critical Metaphor Analysis. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. —. (2005). Politicians and Rhetoric. The Persuasive Power of Metaphor. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. —. (2013). Analysing Political Speeches: Rhetoric, Discourse and Metaphor. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. De Landtsheer, C. (2009). “Collecting political meaning from the count of metaphor”. In A. Musolff and J. Zinken (eds.), Metaphor and Discourse. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 59-78. Deignan, A. (1995). COBUILD English Guides. Volume 7: Metaphor Dictionary. London: Harper Collins Diede, M. K. (2008). Shakespeare’s Knowledgeable Body. Bern: Peter Lang. Dirven, R., B. Hawkins and E. Sandikcioglu (eds.) (2001). Language and Ideology. Volume I: Theoretical Cognitive Approaches. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Dirven, R., R. Frank and C. Ilie (eds.) (2001). Language and Ideology. Volume II: Descriptive Cognitive Approaches. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Fauconnier, G. and M. Turner (2002). The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s Hidden Complexities. New York, NY: Basic Books. Frank, R. M., R. Dirven, T. Ziemke and E. Bernárdez (eds.) (2008). Body, Language and Mind. Volume 2: Sociocultural Situatedness. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Gibbs, R. W. (2005). Embodiment and Cognitive Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gibbs, R. W. (ed.) (2008). The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gibbs, R. W. and J. E. Lonergan (2009). “Studying metaphor in discourse: some lessons, challenges and new data”. In A. Musolff and J. Zinken

26

What can Metaphor Theory contribute to the study of political discourse?

(eds.), Metaphor and Discourse. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 251-261. Goatly, A. (2007). Washing the Brain. Metaphor and Hidden Ideology. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Grady, J., S. Taub and P. Morgan (1996). “Primitive and Compound Metaphors”. In A. Goldberg (ed.), Conceptual Structure, Discourse and Language. Stanford, CA: CSLI, 177-187. Hale, D. G. (1971). The Body Politic. A Political Metaphor in Renaissance English Literature. The Hague: Mouton. Haltern, U. (2009). Obamas Politischer Körper. Berlin: Berlin University Press. Harvey, A. D. (2007). Body Politic. Political Metaphor and Political Violence. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars. Horten, O. (2009). Kantorowicz, Rousseau, Büchner: Die Übertragung des Body Politic vom König auf das Volk. München: GRIN. Hughes, G. (1988). Words in Time: A Social History of the English Vocabulary. Oxford: Blackwell. Jagendorf, Z. (1990). “Coriolanus: body politic and private parts”. Shakespeare Quarterly, 41, 4, 455-469. Johnson, M. (1987). The Body in the Mind. The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Kantorowicz, E. H. (1997). The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Mediaeval Political Theology. Preface by W. C. Jordan. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Kövecses, Z. (2002). Metaphor. A Practical Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. —. (2005). Metaphor in Culture: Universality and Variation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —. (2009). “Metaphor, culture, and discourse: the pressure of coherence”. In A. Musolff and J. Zinken (eds.), Metaphor and Discourse. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 11-24. Lakoff, G. (1993). “The contemporary theory of metaphor”. In A. Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 202-251. —. (1996). Moral Politics: What Conservatives Know That Liberals Don’t. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, G. and M. Johnson (1999). Philosophy in the Flesh. The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought. New York, NY: Basic Books. Lakoff, G. and M. Johnson (2003 [1980]). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Andreas Musolff

27

Lakoff, G. and M. Turner (1989). More than Cool Reason. A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Maalej, Z. A. and N. Yu (eds.) (2011). Embodiment via Body Parts: Studies from Various Languages and Cultures. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Mahon, J. E. (1999). “Getting your sources right. What Aristotle didn’t say”. In L. Cameron and G. Low (eds.), Researching and Applying Metaphor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 69-80. Musolff, A. (2004). Metaphor and Political Discourse. Analogical Reasoning in Debates about Europe. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. —. (2009). “Metaphor in the history of ideas and discourses: how can we interpret a medieval version of the body-state analogy?” In A. Musolff and J. Zinken (eds.), Metaphor and Discourse. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 233-247. —. (2010a). Metaphor, Nation and the Holocaust. The Concept of the Body Politic. London/New York: Routledge. —. (2010b). “Metaphor in discourse history”. In M. E. Winters, H. Tissari and A. Allan (eds.), Historical Cognitive Linguistics. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter Mouton, 70-90. —. (2010c). “Political metaphor and bodies politic”. In U. Okulska and P. Cap (eds.), Perspectives in Politics and Discourse. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 23-41. —. (2012). “Cultural differences in the understanding of the metaphor of the ‘body politic’”. In S. Kleinke, Z. Kövecses, A. Musolff and V. Szelid (eds.), Cognition and Culture. The Role of Metaphor and Metonymy. Budapest: Eötvös University Press, 145-153. —. (2013). “The reception of anti-semitic imagery in Nazi Germany and popular opinion – lessons for today”. In R. Wodak and J. E. Richardson (eds.), Analysing Fascist Discourse: European Fascism in Talk and Text. London: Routledge, 56-72. —. (2014a). “Metaphors: sources for intercultural misunderstanding?” International Journal of Language and Culture, 1, 1, 42-59. —. (2014b). “Metaphor in the discourse-historical approach”. In C. Hart and P. Cap (eds.), Contemporary Critical Discourse Studies. London: Bloomsbury. Musolff, A. and J. Zinken (eds.) (2009). Metaphor and Discourse. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Nederman, C. J. (ed.) (1992). Medieval Political Thought – A Reader: The Quest for the Body Politic. London/New York: Routledge.

28

What can Metaphor Theory contribute to the study of political discourse?

Nederman, C. J. (2004). “Body politics: the diversification of organic metaphors in the later Middle Ages”. Pensiero Politico Medievale, 2, 59-87. Ortony, A. (ed.) (1993). Metaphor and Thought. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Perelman, C. and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca (1969). The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation. J. Wilkinson and P. Weaver (transl.). Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Richards, I. A. (1936). The Philosophy of Rhetoric. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rissanen, M. (1999). “Syntax”. In R. Lass (ed.), The Cambridge History of the English Language, vol. III: 1476-1776. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 187-326. Room, A. (1999). Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. London: Cassell. Semino, E. (2008). Metaphor in Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Serres, M. (2007). The Parasite. L. R. Schehr (transl.), C. Wolfe (introd.). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Spicci, M. (2007). “The Body as Metaphor: Digestive Bodies and Political Surgery in Shakespeare’s Macbeth”. Medical Humanities, 33, 67-69. Van Dijk, T. (1998). Ideology. London: Sage. Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 5th Edition. (2002). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Thatcher, M. (1993). The Downing Street Years. London: HarperCollins. This is a London particular (blog). (2011). Available at: http://thisisalondonparticular.wordpress.com/2011/10/26/politics-andmetaphors/ (accessed 15 September 2013). Zimmer, C. (2000). Parasite Rex. Inside the Bizarre World of the World’s Most Dangerous Creatures. New York, NY: Free Press. Zinken, J. (2007). “Discourse metaphors: the link between figurative language and habitual analogies”. Cognitive Linguistics, 18, 3, 445466.

CHAPTER TWO THE STRENGTH TO BE NURTURERS: OBAMA’S FRAMING OF POLITICAL ISSUES MARTA DEGANI UNIVERSITY OF VERONA

Abstract In Moral Politics (1996), Lakoff proposes two idealised cognitive models, which he claims underlie American right-wing versus left-wing political rhetoric. According to the linguist, these cognitive models reflect two opposing worldviews, each relying on a different notion of morality. One is described as the Strict Father (SF) model and is associated with the Republicans. The other worldview, which is closer to Democratic values, is expressed in the Nurturant Parent (NP) model. Not surprisingly, the models have inspired empirical investigations (Cienki 2004, 2005a, 2005b; Ahrens and Lee 2009; Ahrens 2011), but their results do not seem to confirm the validity of the models. The need for further analyses has motivated the exploration of Lakoff’s models in a recent book-length investigation (see Degani 2015). This paper is based on observations discussed in that larger study and focuses more specifically on the key notion of ‘strength’ and its framing in Obama’s speeches during his first election campaign in 2008.

1. Introduction: linguistic approaches to the study of political language Political language represents an engaging field of investigation that has attracted the interest of linguists embracing different theoretical and methodological approaches. The most traditional approach to the study of political language is that of rhetoric, which goes back to Aristotle and the Sophists. Rhetorical studies have found a particularly fertile terrain in

30

The strength to be nurturers: Obama’s framing of political issues

American academia. A number of scholars have been concerned with analysing the modern version of ancient oratory, which is public speaking or, more specifically, the art and craft of speechmaking. Studies in this vein have mostly focused on American presidential language, which is an epitome of political language use (e.g. Campbell and Jamieson 1990; Kiewe 1994; Metcalf 2004; Medhurst 2008; Tulis 1987; Windt and Ingold 1987). In Europe, a different approach has been more influential. This is the one of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). Linguists working in this framework have emphasised the use of language as a means of power, manipulation, control, racial discrimination and ideological transmission. Thus, they have put forward an “extended” interpretation of the label political language (e.g. Chilton and Schäffner 2002; Fairclough 1995; Van Dijk 1997; Wodak 1989). In their view, this term should not only refer to the use political leaders make of language, but also more broadly include other “political” uses of language that are made by people who are not politicians by profession. Other insightful analyses have been carried out by scholars who, while drawing on insights from cognitive linguistics, have put forward their own individual approaches to political language with a focus on metaphor (e.g. Charteris-Black 2004, 2005, 2013; Musolff 2004, 2010). Indeed, the role of metaphor in politics has been explored by many researchers, and has given rise to different interpretations of the political arena and its main actors (e.g. Beer and Landtsheer 2004; Carver and Pikalo 2008). Significantly, metaphor has also inspired the conception of an intriguing cognitive paradigm that is aimed at explaining American politics and, more specifically, the ideological opposition between Republicans and Democrats. This proposal was developed by Lakoff (1996), who suggested to interpret American politics in relation to two idealised cognitive models. The first studies that applied Lakoff’s models to the analysis of American political language (Cienki 2004, 2005a, 2005b; Ahrens and Lee 2009; Ahrens 2011) could not confirm their validity. A more recent study (see Degani 2015) proposed a different application of the models. This paper is based on the approach proposed in that study and takes a further step by focusing on lexical usage in context. In order to illustrate how this study can contribute to our understanding of American political discourse in relation to Lakoff’s proposal, the paper starts by providing a critical overview of Lakoff’s SF and NP models and their first linguistic applications.

Marta Degani

31

2. Lakoff’s SF and NP models of political morality Since the publication of the seminal book Metaphors We Live By (Lakoff and Johnson 1980), Lakoff has been engaged in exploring the role of metaphor in language and cognition. In this respect, a distinctive facet of his research has involved the study of conceptual metaphor for the analysis of American political discourse. The first and major outcome of these investigations was the conception of two metaphorical morality models that help to understand American politics (Lakoff 1996). Lakoff (1996) emphasises the role of morality in steering people’s minds and discloses essential connections between morality and politics. In his view, what divides Republicans from Democrats are distinctive ways of thinking and talking about politics, based on two specific familybased moral systems. One is described as the Strict Father (SF) model, the other as the Nurturant Parent (NP) model. The SF model is associated with a Republican worldview. On the contrary, the NP model is seen as being in line with a Democratic understanding of reality. As the names given to the models suggest, the concept of family plays a key role in Lakoff’s explanation. The family represents the first space of social interaction for the child. It is the place where a child’s moral values form, depending on the relationships among family members. According to Lakoff, the types of moral values and moral priorities that the child develops in the family have fundamental repercussions on the way a person relates to politics later in life. The SF model is based on a patriarchal view of the family where the father has authority over his children and his wife and is responsible for economically sustaining and protecting the whole family. In this model, the role of the mother is limited to taking care of child raising and other minor responsibilities in the household. Discipline is primarily taught by the father. He is the one who sets strict rules for his children and inflicts punishment for their violation. This is deemed necessary for the development of moral character and moral strength that can allow children to face the tough, competitive and hierarchical world they grow up in. It is through respect and obedience to their parents that children are expected to build character, self-discipline and self-reliance, which are considered essential qualities to succeed in life. People who are unable to develop moral strength are seen as a failure and a threat to society. In contrast to the SF model, the NP model relies on a view of the family where neither of the parents has authority over the other. Parents have loving and empathic relations with their children, which are essential for forming secure attachments and help children develop their personality

32

The strength to be nurturers: Obama’s framing of political issues

and their capacity for social interaction. Good communication and protection against external dangers are also seen as fundamental components in child raising. In this type of family, children become responsible, selfdisciplined and self-reliant through being cared for, being respected and caring for others. Self-realisation involves having positive relations with others, contributing to one’s community, developing one’s own potential and finding joy in life. Parents help children in this process of growth. Children develop the strength to care for themselves and for others thanks to the constant support and attachment of the people who love them. Lakoff sustains that the basic connection between family-based morality and politics can be found in the conceptual metaphor THE NATION IS A FAMILY, which represents a very common metaphorical way of conceptualising the nation as a family, with the government as a parent and the citizens as children. This metaphor turns family-based morality into political morality and provides the essential links between conservative/progressive family values and the conservative/progressive political credo. The SF and NP models are metaphorical not just because they are based on a metaphorical understanding of the president as either a father or a parent and the related interpretation of citizens as family members. The SF and NP models are also metaphorical because each is inspired by a set of metaphors that define a specific view on (political) morality (for an overview of the metaphors that ground the SF and NP models, consult chapters five and six in Lakoff 1996). Essentially, the SF model relies on an understanding of morality in terms of strength and authority, whereas the NP model is motivated by an interpretation of morality as nurturance and empathy. This means that a SF worldview revolves around the key notions of strength and authority, whereas a NP approach to reality is guided by the fundamental concepts of nurturance and empathy. If we now apply these ideas to the domain of American politics, what comes out is that Republican politicians are expected to support a value system that prioritises strength and authority. By contrast, Democratic politicians are thought to embrace a type of morality that places nurturance and empathy as top priorities. This is believed to have significant repercussions on politicians’ framing of issues, especially at crucial times such as during election campaigns. The notion of framing is vital for understanding Lakoff’s models. Considering that this concept has been applied to a wide range of fields, including psychology, anthropology, sociology, philosophy, social science and artificial intelligence, it is important at this point to make clear that the present study follows Lakoff’s application of framing in American

Marta Degani

33

political discourse (1996, 2004, 2006, 2008), which, in turn, is based on Fillmore (1982, 1985, 1987). In his discussions on framing, Fillmore points out that: “from a frame semantics point of view, it is frequently possible to show that the same ‘facts’ can be presented within different framings, framings which make them out as different ‘facts’” (1982: 125). Relying on Fillmore, Lakoff provides his own definition of frames and describes the concept in relation to politics. As he observes: frames are mental structures that shape the way we see the world. As a result, they shape the goals we seek, the plans we make, the way we act, and what counts as a good or bad outcome of our actions. In politics our frames shape our social policies and the institutions we form to carry out policies (Lakoff 2004: xv).

3. First linguistic applications of Lakoff’s SF and NP models Lakoff’s ideas on how to interpret the words of Republicans and Democrats, or, to put it more technically, how to make sense of their framing of reality, still need to be exhaustively tested on corpora of American political discourse. Lakoff himself did not provide empirical data to support his argumentation. The first linguistic studies that have been concerned with applying Lakoff’s models to the analysis of political language (Cienki 2004, 2005a, 2005b; Ahrens and Lee 2009; Ahrens 2011) are discussed in this section. Cienki (2004) works on a corpus that assembles the transcriptions of three long televised debates between the American competitors George W. Bush and Al Gore before the US presidential elections in 2000. The main objective of the study is to identify instantiations of the moral metaphors that Lakoff employs to describe each of the two morality models (e.g. morality is strength/authority/order/nurturance/fair distribution/empathy/ self-development and so on). In addition to metaphors, Cienki also looks for metaphorical and non-metaphorical entailments of the metaphors, and he conducts frequency counts of the key words that express source domains of the SF and NP metaphors. The study reveals that the amount of SF and NP metaphors found in the corpus is insufficient to prove the validity of the models. The presence of entailments of the metaphors is more consistent but it remains too weak to be taken as evidence that supports the existence of the models. Furthermore, the use of SF and NP buzzwords by each of the two politicians does not allow for a clear SF vs. NP ideological opposition between them. Only gestures, which Cienki explores on a smaller set of data, appear to indicate a certain correlation

34

The strength to be nurturers: Obama’s framing of political issues

between party affiliation (Republican vs. Democratic) and type of morality invoked (SF vs. NP). In a companion article, Cienki (2005a) discusses theoretical and methodological issues that could have affected the results of his previous study. First, he complains about the imbalance between central SF and NP metaphors, and suggests that the relative paucity of NP metaphors can justify the difficulty in retrieving them from a corpus of political language. Then, he proposes to extend the investigation to include all metaphorical expressions. This could generate new categories to complement Lakoff’s models. Most significantly, Cienki reconsiders the large number of literal and metaphorical entailments of SF and NP metaphors found in his data, and admits that language use does not disprove the existence of the models. He also observes that non-metaphorical language may play a role in the expression of morality. In another study, Cienki (2005b) discusses the validity of Lakoff’s models as based on archetypical family structures. In detail, he analyses the usage of family terms like family, parent, child/ren (and its variant kid/s) and compares their occurrence in metaphorical expressions, entailments of the metaphors and the whole corpus. The results show that family terms are used more literally than metaphorically, and that they are significantly recurrent in non-metaphorical entailments. Overall, the findings of Cienki’s studies do not refute Lakoff’s models, but rather shed light on the potential limitation of restricting the analysis to the identification of moral metaphors and metaphorical language more generally. Lakoff’s models have been closely explored in two other studies (Ahrens and Lee 2009; Ahrens 2011) that, instead of concentrating on SF and NP moral metaphors, focus on lexical items that can be associated with the morality models. In the first of these investigations, Ahrens and Lee (2009) work on a corpus of senatorial language comprising speeches delivered by both Republicans and Democrats in a period from 2000 to 2007. One of the aims of this study is to uncover whether or not party affiliation can influence the conceptual models evoked by senators via their lexical usage. For the analysis, the major conceptual domains for each of the two models are considered, namely strength and authority for the SF model and nurturance and empathy for the NP model. Starting from these four concepts and using WordNet 3.0 as a tool, two separate lists of SF and NP lexemes are created. The SF list includes the terms authority, authorization, control, decision, determine, direct, dominance, force, forcefulness, intensity, order, potency, power, right and strength, while the NP list consists of the words aid, anguish, attention, care, empathy,

Marta Degani

35

feeling, nourishment, nurturance, provide, share, sorrow, sympathy, tend, treatment and understand. The findings reveal that, overall, senators use more NP words. Another result concerns Obama and McCain’s stylistic deviation from the language used by other senators. Both the Democratic and the Republican politicians are observed to employ more SF words than NP ones. These data do not seem to offer any clear support for Lakoff’s models. However, before drawing any conclusions on the actual validity of Lakoff’s models, Ahrens and Lee cautiously consider the potential shortcomings implicit in their approach. For instance, they point out that the results concerning NP lexemes can be affected by the presence of certain high-frequency collocational patterns in the corpus. A case in point is the compound health care, which occurs very frequently in the speeches. More generally, they also observe that, “given the number of examples involved, we were unable to examine if the sense of the word matched the sense that is associated with the particular conceptual model” (76). All in all, Ahrens and Lee are not pessimistic about the possibility of using Lakoff’s models. Quite the opposite, they encourage researchers to overcome the impasse they faced by claiming: It is hoped that future research will be able to look more closely at the use in context (in addition to overall frequency and collocational patterns) so that a more accurate and detailed analysis can be obtained. […] collocational patterns should be investigated, as should (ideally) each example found, in order to ascertain that the keyword has been used in that particular context in a way that agrees with the conceptual model that it is associated with. […], it would be beneficial to integrate aspects of corpusand frequency-based analysis with aspects of textual and discourse analysis in order to have a richer understanding of both language use and meaning (77-78).

Ahrens and Lee’s study calls for a type of linguistic analysis that integrates a quantitative with a qualitative approach and thus can take into account how specific words are used in context and how politicians frame their discourse using these words. The importance of considering the actual use of words in context can also be inferred from a later publication (Ahrens 2011). Here, the analysis focuses on the SF terms dominance, authorization, potency, intensity, force, control, dominate, strengthen and authorize, and on the NP terms sympathy, nourishment, sorrow, feeling, care, aid, attend, nurturance and nourish. These words are searched for in a large pool of data comprising states of the union addresses and radio addresses delivered by four American politicians (Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton and Bush Jr.) over a period from 1981 to 2006. Even though Clinton emerges as the

36

The strength to be nurturers: Obama’s framing of political issues

prototypical Democrat in relation to his use of NP words and Reagan stands out as the prototypical Republican due to his use of SF words, doubts can be cast on the overall interpretation of SF and NP words and their collocational patterns. Thus, for instance, the lexeme force is often used in the combination work force by Clinton, whereas Reagan prefers the collocation military force. While the two expressions can be seen to mark an ideological opposition between the two politicians, the fact remains that, in the corpus, occurrences of the word force are all taken to mark a SF worldview. The study discussed in the following sections expands the range of applications of Lakoff’s models. By focusing on selected lexical items and considering how they are used in context, the analysis presented below intends to overcome the shortcomings of previous investigations and provide an accurate description of language use.

4. A new application of Lakoff’s models: introducing corpus and methodology Election campaigns represent promising occasions for analysing political rhetoric, since during these periods candidates strive to build consensus among their electorate and rely heavily on language to achieve this purpose. The presidential election run in America in 2008 will be remembered, among other things, for Obama’s masterful oral deliveries. During his first race for the American presidency, Obama was celebrated for his capacity to mesmerise audiences all over the country and attract attention beyond the national borders. Drawing on a previous investigation (Degani 2015), the study discussed in this paper analyses a selection of Obama’s most significant speeches during his election campaign in 2008. The corpus consists of the transcripts of 30 speeches from February 5, 2008 (Super Tuesday, the day when Obama was elected as the candidate of the Democratic party) to November 3, 2008 (the day before the presidential election). The speeches were downloaded from Barack Obama’s website (http://www. barackobama.com/speeches/index.php, accessed August 2010). The corpus was compiled following a range of criteria. It includes: a) all primary night speeches, b) speeches that were repeated with slight variation throughout the whole campaign, c) speeches delivered in different states, and d) speeches dealing with different issues. The full list of the speeches that constitute the corpus can be found in the appendix at the end of the paper.

Marta Degani

37

The corpus consists of approximately 77,641 words in total, and the average length of each speech is 2,588 words. The reason for compiling the corpus was to test Lakoff’s models and propose a new way for their empirical implementation (see Degani 2015). This approach relied on the assumption that a SF or NP framing of issues can only emerge if the analyst takes a holistic approach to the general political message that is communicated. In other words, it was expected that a politician’s SF or NP framing of issues was to find expression in the way his/her message is constructed as a whole. On the background of this approach, the study presented here focuses on a specific aspect of applying the SF and NP models to the analysis of Obama’s language. It considers Obama’s actual usage of words that can be connected to the SF model. As mentioned in the section above, previous lexical research (Ahrens and Lee 2009; Ahrens 2011) calls for further investigation that involves lexical items supposedly related to either the SF or the NP models. The present study responds to the need for expanding this type of research, and it does so by exploring whether or not words that are semantically related to the core concepts of SF morality – strength and authority – are used in a way that is consonant with a SF worldview. Five possibilities are envisaged: a) words are used to support SF morality, b) words are used to criticise SF morality, c) words are used to support NP morality, d) words are used to criticise NP morality, and e) words are used neutrally. Lexical items that are searched for throughout the corpus include a combination of words that were the object of previous studies (see Ahrens and Lee 2009; Ahrens 2011): authority, authorization, authorize, control, decision, determine, direct, dominance, dominate, force, forcefulness, intensity, order, potency, power, right, strength and strengthen. In addition to these, lexical searches are also done for terms that are semantically related to the core ideas of SF morality and whose presence is remarkable in Obama’s speeches. These terms have emerged as significant from a careful examination of the corpus and include (in alphabetical order): army, attack, fight, march, sacrifice, struggle and strong. Wordsmith Tools 4.0 is used for the lexical searches in the corpus. Each of the selected lexical items are searched for regarding their different parts of speech (e.g. fight as both noun and verb) and inflectional variants (e.g. fight, fighting, fought). Sense disambiguation is carried out looking at the concordances (e.g. exclusion of the word March as the name of the month). Basic information for conducting the semantic analysis is gained through the Wordlist and Concordance functions.

38

The strength to be nurturers: Obama’s framing of political issues

Observations will be made for the selected words on the basis of their actual use in context. This type of close reading is necessary for ascertaining what purpose words are employed for and how they fit into the texture of individual speeches and the discourse of the election campaign. The discussion of results will shed light on the relation between lexical items and Lakoff’s models. Furthermore, it will show how the selected words contribute to Obama’s overall electoral message.

5. Analysis: discussion of findings The analysis starts with taking a look at how frequently the above mentioned lexical items occur in the corpus. Table 1 provides a list of the words selected for the analysis ordered according to their frequency of occurrence. SF terms fight right struggle power attack sacrifice strong army march strength force strengthen decision determine authorize direct control authority dominate order authorization dominance forcefulness intensity potency Total

Raw frequency 116 103 54 37 32 28 25 22 15 14 14 13 11 10 7 7 6 3 3 2 0 0 0 0 0 522

Table 1. List of words related to SF morality

Marta Degani

39

As Table 1 shows, some of the supposed SF morality terms do not even appear in the corpus, and for others the frequency is very marginal. Therefore, the discussion will concentrate on fight, right, struggle, power, attack, sacrifice, strong, army, march, strength, force and strengthen. The term fight appears as the most recurrent in the investigated lexicon of strength. This word is used by Obama in both its literal and metaphorical senses. The literal fights evoked in the speeches are those in the Middle East. Here, a distinction is drawn between fights in the Iraq war and fights against terrorists (Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden), which the Democratic politician morally justifies in light of the threat they represent for the American people. When talking about the Iraq war, Obama is very critical. On the one hand, he complains about a war that, in his view, should have never been authorised. On the other, he shows his concern for the American troops who have been sent to fight in Iraq without adequate support. On a more general level, when Obama criticises the war in Iraq he also attacks his political opponent, McCain, who supported this mission from the very beginning. The term fight, however, is mostly employed in its metaphorical meaning to express the idea that when a good cause is at stake, people should concentrate all of their efforts (e.g. fight) to make good things happen. This idea is presented as a personal belief and is argued convincingly throughout the election campaign. Obama’s construction of his public image is informed by a series of statements about his ethical standing, and many of them involve personal fights. The Democratic candidate presents himself as someone who has already proved his capacity for sustaining difficult fights. He talks about having fought as a community organiser in Chicago, as a civil rights lawyer in the courts of justice and as a Senator in the legislature. These roles have already given him the opportunity to publicly demonstrate which battles he is willing to fight. As he repeats to his electorate, the types of fights that are close to him are the ones against joblessness and poverty and those to take power away from lobbyists. In the electoral rhetoric, his actions speak for his moral fibre. They give substance to his promises to remain on the side of the American people to help men and women make ends meet and to help children develop their potential. The suggested authenticity of this message makes Obama’s words particularly inspirational and functions as the ideal premise to ask for engagement. In order for change to happen, Obama asks his electorate to fight with him. Obama’s message is also empowering in that it appears to be inspired by trust and confidence in the capacity of the American people to fight for realising the American Dream and make America a better place for everyone.

40

The strength to be nurturers: Obama’s framing of political issues

In order to make his message of change and hope more tangible, Obama also provides additional proof of fights for good causes. He celebrates Hillary Clinton’s “fights” for children, Ashley Baia’s “fights” against injustice, Senator Edward Kennedy’s “fights” for equality and opportunity and the “fights” of Black, White and Latino people for good jobs and schools in Chicago. Overall, the use of the word fight in Obama’s speeches allows for a marked contrast between literal and metaphorical fights. Furthermore, it contributes to profile the Democratic frontrunner as an advocate of peace, who is fully devoted to “serving” the American people. The following passage emphasises this aspect: This election is our chance to reclaim our future - to end the fight in Iraq and take up the fight for good jobs and universal health care. To end the fight in Iraq and take up the fight for a world-class education and retirement security. To end the fight in Iraq and take up the fight for opportunity, and equality, and prosperity here at home. (Obama, 20 March 2008)

Next to fight, right is another word that occurs frequently among the selected lexical items. It mostly occurs in the adverbial constructions right here and right now to communicate the urgency of action. This emphasis on the hic et nunc appropriately combines with Obama’s expressed determination to fight for his people. Obama shows that he is aware of all the problems that affect the country. His rhetoric depicts the character of a politician who knows very well that, right now, Americans are facing challenges and crises and feel anxiety for the present and the future. He talks about people who do not know how to pay their insurance premiums, women who are facing economic difficulties, children who need help, brave men and women who are fighting two wars and oil companies that are making record profits. Clearly, these problems call for solutions, and the ones Obama proposes rely on democratic and patriotic values. As he suggests, what Americans need, right now, is to restore their sense of common and higher purpose. Putting aside anger and division, they need to have trust in America’s capacity to renew itself. Only this will bring about real change. The expression right here is also instrumentally employed to communicate the urge to create good, green and high-wage jobs, to guarantee high quality education for every child and to improve energy efficiency. Furthermore, the word right is used, though less frequently, in its nominal meaning. In these cases, it is built in a discourse that is aimed at transmitting some core Democratic values, including care, empathy, equality and opportunity. Obama refers, for instance, to the right

Marta Degani

41

for a quality education, the right to pursue one’s individual dreams, women’s rights in the workplace, workers’ rights, and the rights of American troops who need to be protected. He also recalls the marches for civil rights. The word struggle is used chiefly to depict a scenario of suffering people in need of help. They are the struggling Main Street of Obama’s oratory whose identity derives from the contrast with a thriving Wall Street. In his speeches, Obama shows his concern for struggling families who cannot cope with rising costs, falling incomes and lost jobs, women who struggle to break the glass ceiling and local communities struggling because of the economic downturn. He also promises to provide relief to struggling homeowners and reduce the gap between the happy few who are wealthy and the rest of the population who suffer. The whole campaign is said to be about American people’s hopes, dreams and struggles. Besides describing a situation of insidious struggles that impact the lives of Americans citizens and could be overcome if the nation were willing to turn the page and elect the Democratic candidate, other types of positive and necessary struggles are evoked. These are the great struggles for civil, social and workers’ rights. They are also the struggles of the generations who sacrificed, fought wars and revolutions and marched to “perfect America’s improbable union”. As the words suggest, the greatness of the nation derives from its struggles. In these contexts, therefore, the word struggle appeals to American people’s historical consciousness and civic identity. To add a yet more personal note to this glorified image of the nation, Obama describes his story and that of his family as one of struggle and sacrifice that is quintessentially American. Obama’s discussion around power foregrounds his proposals for environmentalist policies. The emphasis is on the need for investments in renewable energy sources like wind power and solar power. America should invest in clean energy, revert to new power sources and reduce its dependency on foreign oil. Besides these forms of natural power that need to be promoted, Obama also refers to less tangible manifestations of power that are essential ingredients in a stable democracy. This happens when he reminds his country fellows of the power of American diplomacy and ideals, which have made the nation into a beacon for all humanity. It also occurs when he inspires men and women to take action by reassuring them of having the power to change the country and the world into what it should be. In contrast to these positive types of power, there are other forms of power that should be either reduced or destroyed. In particular, he refers to the power of the status quo, the power of lobbyists and the power of terrorists.

42

The strength to be nurturers: Obama’s framing of political issues

The analysis of the term attack reveals that Obama uses it both literally and metaphorically. When he talks about literal attacks, he refers to terrorists who plot against America. These attacks must be prevented by developing the appropriate technology to detect them and trace them back to their origin. The metaphorical attacks, on the other hand, are the ones that are launched in the political arena. Attacks come mostly from Obama’s opponent, McCain, whose political behaviour is defined in terms of an attack strategy. Washington is also seen as responsible for many vicious political attacks whose main objective is maintaining the status quo and sustaining policies that Obama considers old and failed. In his view, Washington’s attacks are, “always about scoring points and never about solving our problems” (Obama, 6 May 2008). The term sacrifice is used in some binominal constructions (e.g. hard work and sacrifice, struggle and sacrifice, effort and sacrifice) and it occurs in three different contexts. On a more general level, sacrifice is evoked in connection to patriotism. Obama describes patriotism as an imperative of citizenship and he frames it in terms of people’s willingness to sacrifice for a larger cause and America’s ideals. Sacrifice is also presented as a necessary condition for the realisation of one’s dreams and the possibility to move the country forward at this time of profound economic crisis. In this case, the Democratic politician expresses his trust in the inclination of American people to make sacrifices for the right cause. As he repeats, Americans have already proved many times that they are ready for sacrifices since American history is not one of things coming easily. Obama also encourages the electorate to sacrifice for future generations so that their children can live a better life. In this respect, he provides the example of his mother and grandmother, who sacrificed to give him a winning chance in life. Lastly, the word sacrifice is associated with the men and women in uniform who fight wars in distant lands. These are portrayed as proud people who must be honoured. Since the words strong, strength and strengthen refer to the same underlying concept of strength, they are discussed together. As mentioned above, strength is a value that characterises Lakoff’s SF model in fundamental ways. This does not mean, however, that strength is absent in the NP worldview. On the contrary, NP morality conceptualises strength as being at the service of others. In other words, NP strength is the strength to be nurturers. The analysis of Obama’s electoral speeches indicates an understanding of strength in nurturant terms. The concept is evoked in different contexts to transmit an overall message of care for people that is at the core of Obama’s campaign. References to the concept of strength, which is lexicalised as strong, strength and strengthen, are instrumental

Marta Degani

43

for emphasising a range of NP values that are recurrent in Obama’s speeches. They include a call for unity, the actualisation of the American promise, the redefinition of foreign affairs and diplomatic relations, and an emphasis on the need to protect citizens through new investments in public infrastructure. As Obama reiterates, Americans need to be strong in order to overcome divisions, bridge divides and come together in common effort. The strength that derives from being united is encapsulated in the phrase “we rise and fall as one people, as one nation”. A strong nation is a united nation and Obama asks his electorate to use their strength so that America can emerge from the crisis as a more prosperous and united nation. The nurturant framing of strength is also evident when Obama connects it to the dignity of work and the realisation of one’s aspirations and dreams. In a strong economy, people are cared for by their political leaders and can take risks to realise their ideas. Obama’s words also convey the idea that people should be protected not just by a powerful military and by the strength of arms, but also through new investments in social security. Cities and mass transit need to be strengthened to make America a safer place for everyone. In the domain of foreign affairs, the main form of strength is the one of diplomacy and diplomatic alliances. As Obama claims, “change is facing the threats of the twenty-first century not with bluster, or fear-mongering, or tough talk, but with tough diplomacy and strong alliances” (Obama, 20 May 2008). The use of the word army in the corpus confirms Obama’s nurturant framing of strength. One would expect to find the term army associated with different sorts of armed conflicts. Instead, it is chiefly employed to indicate the Democratic candidate’s willingness to invest in education. The metaphorical army Obama so often talks about is one of teachers who need higher salaries and more support. Teachers are conceived as the metaphorical fighters who struggle to provide the young generations with the most important tool for their success: good education. Other lessfrequent occurrences of the term army can be found when Obama refers to his grandfather, Stanley Dunham, who marched in Patton’s Army. Unsurprisingly, the term march is used to evoke the marches for civil rights and to inspire the entire nation to continue the long march towards a better America. Obama asks his citizens to join him in the march for “a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America” (Obama, 18 March 2008). Given the fact that the notion of marching is rooted in the American psychology and is endowed with positive connotations of renewal, its political usage can be expected to build consensus in the electorate.

44

The strength to be nurturers: Obama’s framing of political issues

Finally, the word force mostly defines a scenario of negative effects due to a range of problems that need to be fixed by the next American president. According to the Democratic candidate, a free market economy that runs wild has forced older generations to compete with teenagers for minimum wage. Obama also complains about the lack of proper support to teachers, who are thus forced to teach to the test and accomplish a lot without adequate resources. He also laments the lack of governmental protection that has forced states and cities to cut essential programs.

5. Conclusion The aim of this paper was to further investigate Lakoff’s morality models by concentrating on Obama’s framing of strength during his first run for the American presidency. As mentioned above, while the NP model revolves around the core notions of care and empathy, the SF model is grounded in the basic concepts of strength and authority. Lakoff’s models predict that an American Democratic candidate will frame his discourse according to a nurturant worldview. Accordingly, one can expect that Obama’s framing of political issues during the 2008 election campaign was in line with NP morality and concentrated on care and empathy. Previous analysis (Degani 2015) confirmed this expectation by emphasising the role of moral values for defining a politician’s ideological leaning according to either a SF or a NP understanding of (political) reality. The emphasis on the identification of moral values appeared as crucial for an adequate classification of Obama’s rhetoric. This realisation also called into question methodological aspects related to lexical searches in corpora of political speeches. In detail, the relation between the “purely” lexical and the semantic levels of analysis needs to be considered seriously. The mere fact that an electoral message is framed in terms of care does not in principle exclude the usage of a strength lexicon for communicating that message. This is indeed what has been observed and commented upon in the present study. The values that inform Obama’s speeches reverberate a clear nurturant attitude. His words celebrate, among other things, the values of unity, equality, nurturance, cooperation, opportunity for everyone and social responsibility. From a lexical point of view, these NP values are imbued in a discourse that makes use of words such as fight, struggle, power, strength, attack, march and so on. However, words alone do not speak for a specific morality model, and their selection can be seen as a matter of mere individual style. The analysis conducted in this study has revealed that no direct relation can be established between lexical usage and moral

Marta Degani

45

framing of discourse. Admittedly, certain words can be used strategically to attract the interest of a more varied audience, but they cannot be taken as indicators of a specific moral framing of issues. As the analysis has shown, Obama’s speeches are characterised by the presence of a good number of words that stand for a lexicon of strength. However, his discourse is framed unambiguously according to a NP model of morality. This important observation underlines the need to conduct lexical analyses that take semantics (in a broad sense) into account. As the study suggests, in lexical investigations of political language, the interpretation of data should be guided by the understanding of how individual words make sense (and create meaning) in the contexts in which they occur.

References Ahrens, K. (2011). “Examining conceptual metaphor models through lexical frequency patterns: A case study of U.S. presidential speeches”. In S. Handl and H. J. Schmid (eds.), Windows to the Mind: Metaphor, Metonymy and Conceptual Blending. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter, 167-184. Ahrens, K. and S. Yat Mei Lee (2009). “Gender versus politics: When conceptual models collide in the US senate”. In K. Ahrens (ed.), Politics, Gender and Conceptual Metaphors. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 62-82. Beer, F.A. and C. De Landtsheer (eds.) (2004). Metaphorical World Politics. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press. Campbell, K.K. and K. Jamieson (1990). Deeds Done in Words: Presidential Rhetoric and the Genre of Governance. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Carver, T. and J. Pikalo (eds.) (2008). Political Language and Metaphor. Interpreting and Changing the World. New York, NY: Routledge. Charteris-Black, J. (2004). Corpus Approaches to Critical Metaphor Analysis. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. —. (2005). Politicians and Rhetoric. The Persuasive Power of Metaphor. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. —. (2013). Analysing Political Speeches: Rhetoric, Discourse and Metaphor. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Chilton, P. A. and C. Schäffner (eds.) (2002). Politics as Text and Talk: Analytic Approaches to Political Discourse. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.

46

The strength to be nurturers: Obama’s framing of political issues

Cienki, A. (2004). “Bush’s and Gore’s language and gestures in the 2000 US presidential debate: A test case for two models of metaphor”. Journal of Language and Politics, 3, 409-40. —. (2005a). “Metaphor in the ‘Strict Father’ and ‘Nurturant Parent’ cognitive models: Theoretical issues raised in an empirical study”. Cognitive Linguistics, 16, 2, 279-312. —. (2005b). “The metaphorical use of family terms versus other nouns in political debates”. Information Design Journal + Document Design, 13, 1, 27-39. Degani, M. (2015). Framing the Rhetoric of a Leader. An Analysis of Obama’s Election Campaign Speeches. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Fairclough, N. (1995). Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Longman. Fillmore, C. (1982). “Frame semantics”. In Linguistic Society of Korea (ed.), Linguistics in the Morning Calm. Seoul: Hanshin Publishing, 111-37. —. (1985). “Frames and the semantics of understanding”. Quaderni di Semantica, 6, 222-54. —. (1987). “A private history of the concept ‘frame’”. In R. Dirven and G. Radden (eds.), Concepts of Case. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 2836. Kiewe, A. (ed.) (1994). The Modern Presidency and Crisis Rhetoric. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers. Lakoff, G. (1996). Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. —. (2004). Don’t Think of an Elephant. Know Your Values and Frame the Debate. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing. —. (2006). Whose Freedom? The Battle over America’s Most Important Ideas. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. —. (2008). The Political Mind. New York, NY: Penguin. Lakoff, G. and M. Johnson (1980). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Metcalf, A. (2004). Presidential Voices. Speaking Styles from George Washington to George W. Bush. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. Medhurst, M. J. (ed.) (2008). Before the Rhetorical Presidency. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University. Musolff, A. (2004). Metaphor and Political Discourse. Analogical Reasoning in Debates about Europe. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. —. (2010). Metaphor, Nation and the Holocaust: The Concept of the Body Politic. New York/London: Routledge.

Marta Degani

47

Tulis, J. (1987). The Rhetorical Presidency. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Van Dijk, T. A. (1997). “What is political discourse analysis”. In J. Blommaert and C. Bulcaen (eds.), Political Linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 11-52. Windt T. and B. Ingold (eds.) (1987). Essays in Presidential Rhetoric. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt. Wodak, R. (ed.) (1989). Language, Power and Ideology. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

The strength to be nurturers: Obama’s framing of political issues

48

Appendix List of speeches in Obama’s corpus: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

February 5, 2008 “Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: Super Tuesday” February 12, 2008 “Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: Potomac Primary Night” March 4, 2008 “Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: March 4th Primary Night” March 18, 2008 “Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: A More Perfect Union” March 20, 2008 “Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: The Cost of War” April 14, 2008 “Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: AP Annual Luncheon” April 15, 2008 “Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: Town Hall Meeting with Veterans and Military Families” April 22, 2008 “Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: Pennsylvania Primary Night” May 3, 2008 “Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: Plan to Fight for Working families and Take on Special Interests in Washington” May 6, 2008 “Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: Primary Night” May 20, 2008 “Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: Forging a New Future for America” June 3, 2008 “Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: Final Primary Night” June 21, 2008 “Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: a Metropolitan Strategy for America’s Future” June 28, 2008 “Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials” June 30, 2008 “Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: the America we Love” July 1, 2008 “Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships” July 10, 2008 “Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: Women’s Economic Security Town Hall” July 13, 2008 “Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: 80th Convention of the American Federation of Teachers”

Marta Degani

49

19. July 16, 2008 “Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: Summit on Confronting New Threats” 20. August 1, 2008 “Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: Town Hall on the Economy” 21. August 5, 2008 “Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: Energy Town Hall” 22. August 23, 2008 “Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: Vice President Announcement” 23. September 9, 2008 “Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: A 21st Century Education” 24. September 12, 2008 “Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: On Taxes” 25. September 20, 2008 “Remarks of Senator Barack Obama (Daytona Beach, FL)” 26. September 27, 2008 “Remarks of Senator Barack Obama (Greensboro, NC)” 27. October 10, 2008 “Remarks of Senator Barack Obama (Chillicothe, OH)” 28. October 15, 2008 “Remarks of Senator Barack Obama (Londonderry, NH)” 29. October 20, 2008 “Remarks of Senator Barack Obama (Tampa Bay, FL)” 30. October 27, 2008 “Senator Barack Obama’s Closing argument Speech: One Week”

CHAPTER THREE DEMYSTIFYING THE IMPORTANCE OF SEEMING EARNEST: POLITOLINGUISTICS AT THE CROSSROADS OF SYNTAX AND SEMANTICS

PAUL DANLER UNIVERSITY OF INNSBRUCK

Abstract Political discourse in general is a highly complex linguistic phenomenon. What we aim to do in this paper is deal with at least two important linguistic dimensions that interact in political discourse, namely morphosyntax and semantics. Morpho-syntax and semantics as bases for (linguistic) discourse analysis are very wide fields. Therefore, we can only shed light on a very restricted number of issues in these fields. In the morphosyntactic domain, we will deal with the following: the discursive functions of the different diatheses, the use of the “anonymous” third person plural in discourse, participle and light-verb constructions, deverbal nouns and unsaturated valence. In the semantic domain, we will consider the role of metaphor and metonymy in political speeches. This should at least clarify how often things can be conveyed without being explicitly stated, and how a façade of earnestness can be built up discursively, without guaranteeing that there is anything serious behind it.

1. Introduction Oscar Wilde teaches us that being earnest inspires confidence. Smart looks, decent behaviour and, if possible, status and wealth are good premises for being considered an earnest person, earnest meaning serious, respectable and distinguished. This was true then, and is still true today.

52

Demystifying The Importance of Seeming Earnest

One more thing that greatly helps is proper talk, as Professor Higgins made clear, and this is probably just one more of those timeless values. The complex and confusing world of Oscar Wilde’s Hertfordshire is probably no more complex or confusing than any politician’s world. What is it, then, that a politician has to do in order to be respected as a serious or earnest person? How does he or she achieve seriousness or earnestness, or at least seeming seriousness or seeming earnestness? Obviously, the way he or she talks is a crucial issue. A whole mystery world is often built up discursively in political speeches. A great number of things are spoken about explicitly, whereas others are skilfully hidden or apparently just happen to go unmentioned. Demystifying The Importance of Seeming Earnest consequently means carefully looking at what is said and equally carefully looking at what is not said, and, of course, it also means looking at how things are said, in order to get an idea of what is to be expected behind the linguistic forms. The analysis of political discourse in general and of political speeches in particular is a very wide field. What we aim to do in this analysis is deal with a few linguistic aspects of one concrete political speech. In a very rudimentary communicative model, the politician is the sender of a message, while the audience is the receiver or the addressee. Obviously, the communicative situation in which a political speech is given is a highly asymmetric one (cf. Eroms 1974), in which the sender pursues more or less clear-cut goals to which the receiver is pitilessly exposed. If we tried to classify a political speech as a specific type of text or discourse according to functional criteria, it would fit into the category of persuasive texts. Persuasive texts pursue a goal or various goals, but they have to be discrete. They must not be transparent, otherwise persuasion does not work. Persuasive texts have to keep up appearances, they have to preserve a beautiful and protective façade, so that it is not too easy to see what is really happening in the strategic space behind the disguise. Politicians have to sell their product, so the “choice of language in general and metaphor in particular is essential to their overall persuasiveness” (Charteris-Black 2005: 2). The receiver somehow often senses that something is going on at a level that is not the explicit-discursive one without, however, realising what it is exactly, and this is how a certain mystery world of seeming discursive earnestness in the sense of pretended sincere straightforwardness emerges. The building blocks of this mystery world are words, phrases and sentences as material realisations of semantic conceptualisations. The General continues to be the puppet master sounds different to The General continues to have absolute power, just like This secretary has a finger in the pie again is different from This

Paul Danler

53

secretary is involved again. Metaphors and metonymies, flagwords and stigma words, miranda and anti-miranda, as well as frames with empty slots, which make for that mystery world, create more or less attractive images. Yet, it is those images that sometimes make it difficult to understand which messages are really transmitted. This, however, is not the only side of that mystery world of seeming discursive earnestness. The cosmetic surgery that we discover rather easily in the lexico-semantic field, also works in the morphosyntactic domain, even though this is a hitherto much less explored field. The war started appears less reproachful than General Kensington started the war. The same is true of The city was bombed compared to The President’s army bombed the city. Si deve eliminare questo male (This evil has to be eliminated) is less mandatory than Dobbiamo/Dovete eliminare questo male (We/You have to eliminate this evil). Moreover, Un error fatal se produjo (A fatal error occurred) appears to be fateful, as opposed to Los políticos produjeron un error fatal (The politicians committed a fatal error). The commander in chief gave the order is less personal than Kensington commands the army and therefore gave the order. Finally, They feel that they have to destroy in order to build up again probably sounds less violent and aggressive than They feel that they have to destroy the southern province of that country in order to build up a new society again. The careful choice of diatheses, the use of deverbal nouns and participle constructions as well as light-verb constructions and verbal structures with unsaturated valences are just some of the most adequate or suitable morphosyntactic means contributing to the creation of the mystery world of seeming discursive earnestness. However, the identification of those linguistic elements that make for the creation of that mystery world of discursive earnestness is one thing. Conjecturing why one word is used rather than another, or why a specific morphosyntactic construction is preferred over another, is a totally different matter. Thoughts along those lines are admittedly speculative to a certain degree. Yet, it is not speculative but obvious that certain goals in the sense of positive cognitive effects in the framework of Relevance Theory should be reached through a political speech that, as a result, should ideally lead to the desired political actions on the part of the addressees. Now, why would the addressee of the speech react to the often skilfully encoded and sometimes even implicitly conveyed suggestions in just the way the sender expects them to? The main prerequisites seem to be the sender’s credibility, reliability and trustworthiness, which means, in more technical terms, that the sender has to be convincing from an ethical point of view. It is their ethos that leads to the credibility, reliability and trustworthiness of their arguments.

54

Demystifying The Importance of Seeming Earnest

Before analysing the morphosyntactic and lexico-semantic elements that constitute the material building blocks of the mystery world of the discursive earnestness of a political speech, we will briefly look at the role of ethos in the persuasive objective of political speeches. Pathos and logos are the other two pillars of argumentation that, however, cannot be taken into consideration here.

2. The role of ethos in political speeches Ethos is often translated as the speaker’s character (Danblon 2002: 69 ff; 2005: 34 ff.). Groarke and Tindale (2004: 359) point out the importance of ethos for practical reasons when saying that “ethotic considerations often play an important role in reasoning. They can arise in circumstances in which we do not have the time, the means or the ability to investigate a question in sufficient detail to decide the proper answer to it”. In other words, the addressee follows the sender out of confidence. According to Aristotle, the discursive construction of ethos does not happen explicitly with the orator’s speaking about themselves or by the author’s praising their own virtue, which would probably even be counterproductive, but is built up implicitly by the speaker’s way of giving the speech (Maingueneau 1987: 31). The orator thereby elaborates a kind of mask, a mask of seriousness or earnestness, which is socially acceptable and even desirable, a mask almost in the Jungian sense (Jung 1964: 311 ff.). The analysis of a political speech can be understood as a subdiscipline of discourse analysis, which is part of applied linguistics in the broad sense of applying linguistic theories to a practical field that would be the concrete political speech. As pointed out above, morphosyntactic as well as lexicosemantic aspects play a crucial role in the analysis of political speeches. In order to come to terms with these aspects, an interdisciplinary approach is indispensable. The analysis of political discourse being an interdisciplinary field, the political speech to be analysed has to be seen in its politicohistorical frame. This means that, in the global analysis, the relationship or interrelationship between the text or discourse as a purely linguistic phenomenon and its generative and constitutive politico-social and historical matrix has to be taken into account. The concrete speech we are going to analyse was given by Fidel Castro in Santiago de Cuba on 1 January, 1959. Our analysis is not quantitative, but qualitative. This means that it is not our concern to find out which discursive strategies Fidel Castro uses predominantly and preferably. On the contrary, our aim is to find out

Paul Danler

55

which morphosyntactic and lexico-semantic strategies he resorts to in order to transmit his message.

3. Fidel Castro’s speech of 1 January 1959, delivered in the Céspedes Park of Santiago de Cuba January the first 1959 is an important date in the history of Cuba, marking a dramatic shift in its direction. The dictator Batista fled and the rebels took power. Referring to that day, Fidel Castro (1976: 36) says: (1)

Todas las maniobras imperialistas de última hora: golpe de estado militar, gobierno provisional, ecétera, fueron destruidas. El imperialismo tenía que vérselas ahora con una nación latinoamericana sin ejército represivo y con un pueblo armado. Eso significó el Primero de Enero de 1959. All the imperialist manoeuvres of the last hour: military coup d’état, provisional government, etc., were destroyed. Imperialism now had to face a Latin-American nation without a repressive army and with an armed people. This is what January 1, 1959 meant.1

Let us just have a quick look at what Fidel Castro said to the people in Santiago de Cuba in his famous speech. First of all, he pointed out that the revolutionaries had finally arrived. Upon comparing Santiago de Cuba with Havana, he insists on the difference between the two cities. In Santiago there was discipline, order and support for the revolutionaries, whereas in Havana there was resistance to the revolution, falsehood and betrayal. Fidel Castro repeatedly emphasises that it is indispensable to distrust the politicians who used to be on Batista’s side, mainly General Cantillo, but also Pedraza. In other words, one should distrust those of that group who have remained, while Batista had left, and who claimed that at that moment one just had to wait without doing anything. Fidel Castro warns against the double game of those people. Furthermore, he explains to his audience the misunderstanding with Coronel José Rego Rubido. Fidel Castro had tried to make it clear to him that the Square of Santiago de Cuba would be attacked, if hostilities were going on there, but the messenger obviously did not get it right and informed Rego Rubido that the attack would be inevitable anyway. Fidel Castro assures the listeners that the Revolution will reach its goal, that he himself is not interested in power at all, that there will be a sugar cane harvest all over the country, that there will be good salaries, schools for the children and there will be 1

The quotations have been translated by the author of this study.

56

Demystifying The Importance of Seeming Earnest

justice. There will not be any further wars or bloodshed. Every kind of hatred will disappear just as tyranny has disappeared. There will be discipline and there will be order. The guns will be exclusively for the people. There will be freedom of the press and guaranteed rights for all individuals. Fidel Castro points out several times that it is extremely annoying that Batista could escape with all that money that belonged to the Cuban people. However, Castro indirectly warns Batista that he cannot even feel safe abroad – not because Cubans would not respect the laws of other countries, but because overseas people also start to see and to learn how social justice can be achieved and that an end can be brought to tyranny. Why is all this contextual information necessary? It is necessary for various reasons: a) morphologically zero-realized arguments do have referents that can only be discovered in the context; b) a morphosyntactically absent subject still has an extra-linguistic reference; and c) metaphorical and metonymic words and phrases express parts of conceptual metaphors that structure a conceptual part of a story taken from the wider context. These are just some of the most important ones. Our next step is the analysis of the morphosyntactic tools that help to build up the façade of the mystery world of seeming discursive earnestness.

4. The analysis of the speech delivered by Fidel Castro in the Céspedes Park of Santiago de Cuba on 1 January 1959 4.1 Saying it without explicitly stating it: morphosyntactic devices 4.1.1 The different diatheses When talking about diatheses, one usually distinguishes between active and passive voice, between causative and recessive diathesis, as well as between impersonal and passivizing SE-diathesis in most Romance languages. In a very simplified way, it is often claimed that the SEdiathesis is impersonal with intransitive verbs, whereas it is passivizing with transitive verbs (cf. Serianni 1999; Salvi and Vanelli 1992; Gili Gaya 1998). Se duerme/si dorme (one sleeps) would consequently be an impersonal SE-diathesis, whereas se lee (este periódico)/si legge (questo giornale) (one reads this newspaper/this newspaper is (being) read) or se leen (estos periódicos)/si leggono (questi giornali) (one reads these newspapers/these newspapers are (being) read) would be a passivizing

Paul Danler

57

SE-diathesis. However, Si vedono gli alunni/Li si vedono in Italian is Se ve a los alumnos/Se los (les) ve in Spanish, because in Spanish the preposition a for persons has survived before the direct object, instead of the Latin accusative (cf. Penny 2001: 114). Se ven las banderas/Se las ven (one sees the flags/the flags are seen), however, would also be the passivizing SE-diathesis in Spanish. The question of SE-diatheses is a rather controversial issue. However, it has been pointed out that both the impersonal and the passivizing SEdiatheses go back to the same origin (cf. Kemmer 1993: 179), and that for this reason there is no need to distinguish between an impersonal and a passivizing SE-diathesis (cf. Quesada 1997; Sánchez López 2002). For practical reasons, we will still stick to the traditional and more common distinction between the two SE-diatheses in most Romance languages. Anyhow, what is essential for our analysis is the fact that neither the impersonal SE-diathesis nor the passivizing one has a morphologically realised subject in the syntactic surface structure. The se in the impersonal SE-construction is not the subject like on in French, or one in English, even though it might seem so. The verb in the impersonal SE-construction seems pseudo-reflexive and the construction as such might seem more active than the passivizing SE-diathesis. It could even be argued that the SE in the impersonal SE-construction blocks the subject position. In the passivizing SE-diathesis, the second actant of the corresponding active construction rises to the position of the first actant, which ends up being patientive rather than agentive in the passive construction. Concerning the passive diathesis, for our analysis of political speeches it is relevant that the passive diathesis, as opposed to the active one, also allows concealment of the agent, because the obligatory prime actant of the active diathesis turns into an optional prepositional actant in the passive diathesis. The interpreter translates the speech turns into The speech is translated (by the interpreter), in which by the interpreter has become an optional constituent. Apart from the three diatheses – the SE-diathesis and the active and the passive ones – one more diathetical opposition needs to be considered, i.e. the one between the causative and the recessive diathesis. In the causative diathesis, the verbal functor governs an agentive argument. For this reason, the incidence is seen as an action. In the recessive diathesis, on the contrary, the verbal functor does not highlight the agent anymore, so that from the new perspective the incidence is not seen as an action, but as a process. In They start the fight, the situation is seen as an action, in which they do something, whereas in The fight starts the situation is presented as a process, as if the fight started all by itself.

Demystifying The Importance of Seeming Earnest

58

Let us start our analysis with the SE-diatheses. In the first quotation, Fidel Castro speaks about an agreement that had been reached just before 1 January 1959. (2)

Se había llegado a un acuerdo. (Castro 1959: 6) An agreement had been reached.

Here we have an impersonal SE-diathesis. What is pointed out here is the agreement as well as the fact that an agreement had been reached. The syntagma un acuerdo, an agreement, is in the most rhematic position and thereby acquires most importance from a communicative point of view. However, the agents are not specified. Fidel Castro explains in this passage that a plan for an uprising was adopted by the leader of the military movement of Santiago and by the revolutionaries, without explicitly stating who had reached the agreement. The other question that interests us is in what way this contributes to the construction of Fidel Castro’s ethos. By putting it this way, he is presenting the reaching of the agreement as a collective achievement, which is in line with the ideology of everything for the people and everything through the people. Fidel Castro is just one of the people, which underlines his solidarity. In the second quotation, in which Fidel Castro again refers to the uprising in the Square of Santiago de Cuba, there is a reflexive construction and a passivizing SE-diathesis: (3)

(…) si las hostilidades se rompían porque los acuerdos no se cumplían y nos veímos obligados a atacar la Plaza de Santiago de Cuba, entonces no habría otra solución que la rendición de la Plaza, (…). (Castro 1959: 4) (…) if hostilities broke out because the agreements were not kept and we would feel obliged to attack the Square of Santiago de Cuba, then there would not be any other solution, but the surrender of the Square (…)

Nobody who might start hostilities or refrain from keeping agreements is mentioned personally. From an ethical point of view this shows us a Fidel Castro who does not accuse anyone of anything in advance, who is cautious but determined to act if need be. In the next quotations there are examples of the passive diathesis: (4.a) Los tanques me serían entregados a las 3:00 de la tarde (…). (Castro 1959: 3) The tanks would be handed over to me at 3 PM.

Paul Danler

59

(4.b) Hablo del profundo sentimiento de respeto y de devoción hacia nuestros muertos, que no serán olvidados. (Castro 1959: 21) I am talking about the deep feeling of respect and devotion towards our dead who will not be forgotten. (4.c) Serán castigados solo los criminales de guerra, porque ese es un deber ineludible. (Castro 1959: 21) Only the war criminals will be punished because this is a mandatory task.

If the active voice is considered the unmarked or neutral diathesis that precedes the passive diathesis, then it can be argued that the first argument of the active diathesis turns into a facultative argument in the passive diathesis, which does not have to be actantified anymore for the sake of the well-formedness of the sentence. This allows Fidel Castro to conceal who will hand over the tanks, who will punish the war criminals, and who will remember the dead. Handing over the tanks and punishing the war criminals sound like quite momentous actions in that situation, whereas remembering the dead is presented as a moral obligation. Fidel Castro takes the political responsibility for those actions without holding anybody else personally responsible, which makes him appear thoughtful and considerate. Furthermore, he does not bind anyone to his promise of honouring the dead, but by making the promise he presents himself as very respectful. The following quotations will show what is communicatively possible thanks to the recessive diathesis: (5.a) La Revolución empieza ahora. (Castro 1959: 1) The Revolution starts now. (5.b) Esa era la situación esta mañana, que no es la situación esta noche porque ha cambiado mucho. (Castro 1959: 12) This was the situation this morning which is not the situation tonight because it has changed a lot.

There are certain verbal functors that can be used as either causative or recessive verbal predicates, such as begin, finish, start, change, etc. If they are used in the causative way, they take an agentive first argument and a patientive second argument, as in they begin the discussion, they finish the concert, they start the argument or they change the conditions. Both arguments of these bivalent verbs need to be actantified in regular standard sentences. When these verbal functors are used recessively, the second argument of the causative variant turns into the first argument, as in the

Demystifying The Importance of Seeming Earnest

60

discussion begins, the concert finishes, the argument starts or the conditions change. It is as if these new first actants contain an intrinsic force and from the perspective of the semantic cases they do not look patientive anymore, but are rather agentive. In quotation (5.a), nobody is presented as starting the Revolution, which is portrayed like a volcano suddenly erupting. The message in quotation (5.b) is that Batista’s friends still had a say in politics in the morning of January 1, but they do not have it anymore, since the situation has changed. However, a Revolution is not a volcano, just as a situation is not an organism that changes over the course of time. On the contrary, somebody started the Revolution, just as somebody changed the situation. By resorting to the recessive variants, Fidel Castro implicitly describes the Revolution as well as the circumstances of the Revolution as quasi natural forces, also presuming that nature is never wrong. From an ethical perspective, this enables Fidel Castro to present himself and his companions as those who do the right thing, whereas their opponents are seen as those who do the wrong thing. 4.1.2 The third person plural The next example illustrates that the use of the third person plural is another way to conceal possible agentive forces: (6)

Lo más criminal que se hizo, fue dejar escapar a Batista, a Tabernilla y a los grandes culpables. Los dejaron escapar con sus millones de pesos, los dejaron escapar con los 300 o 400 millones de pesos que se han robado y ¡muy caro nos va a costar eso! (Castro 1959: 11) The most criminal thing that happened was to let Batista, Tabernilla and the guilty ones escape. They let them escape with their millions of pesos, they let them escape with the 300 or 400 million pesos which they had stolen and this will cost us dearly.

As is commonly known, in pro-drop languages it is not necessary to morphologically realise the subject as pronoun or noun, provided the referent can be gathered from the context, so that there is no risk of misunderstanding. In quotation (6), in which the subject is contained in the ending of the third person plural lo dejaron escapar (they let him escape), however, it is anything but clear to whom the third person refers. They let him escape implies that they could have kept him from escaping, which is at least an implicit accusation. Yet, from an ethical point of view, it must be admitted that Fidel Castro is diplomatic enough to not accuse anybody specifically. His ideology is clear, but he is not condemning anybody personally.

Paul Danler

61

4.1.3 Participle constructions Participle constructions are another means of getting across messages without attacking anybody personally, as we will see next: (7)

Qué disciplina demostrada por el pueblo! Ni un solo caso de saqueo, ni un solo caso de venganza personal, ni un solo hombre arrastrado por las calles, ni un incendio. (Castro 1959: 3) What a discipline proved by the people! Not one act of plundering, not one act of personal vengeance, not one single man dragged in the streets, not one fire.

At the level of semantic valence, the verbal functor arrastrar (to drag) governs a first and second argument, i.e. someone drags someone or something (somewhere), which turn into actants when the syntactic structure is materialised. When the past participle of the verb is used as an attribute, there is no need to actantify the agentive force anymore, and the construction is an elliptical passive. By refraining from explicitly stating who might have or could have dragged men in the streets, Fidel Castro deescalates the situation, whereby he can only win because nobody loses their face. As to the construction of his ethos, Fidel Castro appears to be a foresighted and even clever politician. 4.1.4 Light-verb constructions Next, we are going to have a look at the so-called light-verb constructions as strategic tools for the analysis of political speeches. (8.a) (…) se habían realizado todos los preparativos para el ataque a la Plaza (…) (Castro 1959: 4). (…) all the preparations had been made for the attack on the Square. (8.b) (…) hubimos de realizar una serie de cambios, abandonar las operaciones sobre Santiago de Cuba y encaminar nuestras tropas hacia otros sitios. (Castro 1959: 4) (…) we had to make a series of changes, give up the operations in Santiago de Cuba and lead our troops to other places.

Light-verb constructions consist of verbs that are intensionally poor, such as have, make or take, for example, and, prototypically of deverbal nouns, such as hope, plan or decision, so that quite common light-verb constructions would be to have hope, to make a plan or to take a decision. From the politolinguistic point of view, these constructions are interesting because, thanks to them, the second or third argument respectively does

62

Demystifying The Importance of Seeming Earnest

not have to be made explicit in the course of the actantification of arguments. One always has to say They hoped for something, as the verb hope requires an object, but it is also possible to say They had hope. One always has to say They planned something, because plan is a transitive verb, but it is also possible to say They made a plan. Finally, one always has to say They decided something, but They took a decision is also acceptable, without specifying what kind of hope they had, what plan they made or what decision they took. Therefore, in the aforementioned quotations Fidel Castro speaks about preparations and changes without having to explicate what exactly is being prepared, or what exactly is changing, thanks to the light-verb constructions. Thereby, he does not have to go into details, does not have to give away secrets nor have to prove anything afterwards. And yet, these constructions enable him to keep many things unsaid. However, concerning the construction of his ethos, he presents himself as someone who is very communicative and anything but a mystery-monger. 4.1.5 Deverbal nouns In the following quotations we will see in what way the use of deverbal nouns helps to conceal some aspects of the political reality and to what extent they contribute to the creation of a specific ethos. (9.a) No hay satisfacción ni premio más grande que cumplir con el deber (…). Y en esto no hablo en mi nombre, hablo en nombre de los miles y miles de combatientes que han hecho posible la victoria del pueblo. (Castro 1959: 21) There is no greater satisfaction or prize than doing one’s duties (…). As to that, I do not only speak for myself, I speak in the name of thousands and thousands of combatants who made the victory of the people possible. (9.b) Hubo militares que jamás asesinaron a nadie, ni quemaron una casa, como fue el comandante Quevedo, que fue nuestro prisionero, después de una heroica resistencia en la batalla de El Jigüe. (Castro 1959: 14) There have been soldiers who never killed anyone and who never burned a single house, like Commander Quevedo who was our prisoner after a heroic resistance in the battle of El Jigüe. (9.c) Una serie de excesos han tenido lugar en la capital: saqueos, tiroteos, incendios. (Castro 1959: 3) A series of excesses took place in the capital: plundering, shootings, and arsons.

Paul Danler

63

As we can see here, the group of deverbal nouns is rather heterogeneous, both morphologically and semantically. Being mainly interested in the morphological realisations of different conceptualisations, we would like to point out the difference between nomina agentis, nomina actionis and nomina acti. As the term denotes, nomina agentis designate the agent or the origin of an action, whereas nomina actionis designate the action itself and nomina acti refer to the result of actions. In (9.a) it is el combatiente (the combatant) that we are interested in, in (9.b) la resistencia (resistence) and in (9.c) saqueos, tiroteos, incendios (plundering, shootings, arson). Alguien combate algo o a alguien or alguien combate contra algo o contra alguien means someone fights something/someone or against something/someone. Now, if the verb combatir/combat is replaced by the nomen agentis combatiente/combatant, the actual agentive first argument of the verb dissolves in the deverbal noun, and who the combatant is cannot be specified anymore. In (9.b), Fidel Castro speaks of heroica resistencia (a heroic resistance). One resists something or someone (se resiste algo o a alguien). When speaking about a heroic resistance, there is no need to specify what or who they resisted. (9.c) contains three nomina acti, i.e. saqueos, tiroteos, incendios (plundering, shootings, arson). The Spanish deverbal nouns derive from saquear (to plunder), tirotear (to shoot) and incendiar (to set fire). The three verbal functors are bivalent and govern an agentive as well as patientive argument. The derived deverbal nouns can do perfectly well without the respective arguments. The pragmatic reasons for concealing both agents and patients in all these cases are obvious: the report sounds extremely dramatic, but neither can a specific person be held responsible for it, nor can a concrete situation be identified. And what do the pictures deriving from these descriptions contribute to the construction of Fidel Castro’s ethos? He portrays himself as dutiful, generous and forgiving. 4.1.6 Blank spaces as a result of unsaturated valence The last morphological device we would like to briefly deal with in the following quotations is the issue of unsaturated valence. So far, we have seen that there are many ways of making the actantification of arguments superfluous or even impossible, light-verb constructions, participle constructions and deverbal nouns being the most prominent ones. There is, however, also the possibility of leaving the blank spaces, inherent in the verbal functor, unsaturated or, to put it differently, simply empty (cf. Danler 2007).

64

Demystifying The Importance of Seeming Earnest (10.a) Han variado mucho las circunstancias. (Castro 1959: 4) The circumstances have changed a lot. (10.b) A nosotros no nos quedaba otra alternative que atacar. (Castro 1959: 13) We had no choice but to attack. (10.c) Lo único que [el pueblo] no podrá decir jamás de nosotros es que robamos, que traicionamos, que hicimos negocios sucios. (Castro 1959: 20) The only thing the people can never say about us is that we have stolen, betrayed or that we have done dirty business.

Something changes from one state to another, someone attacks someone or something, one always steals something and one always betrays someone or something. Yet, in these quotations, Fidel Castro does not specify from what initial state to what final state the circumstances have changed. He also does not explicate who they had to attack and he also refrains from explicitly stating what they never stole and who or what they never betrayed. On the one hand, these formulations make every statement generic. On the other, everything remains without commitment. This shows that Fidel Castro is a skilful politician who, regardless of his merits or weaknesses, manages to present himself as an upright person with integrity. After dealing with some morphosyntactic key elements of political discourse analysis, we will next move on to the lexico-semantic field.

4.2 Saying it through images: metaphor and metonymy As is commonly known, metaphor and metonymy have a long history which goes back all the way to Aristotle. It is also commonly known that both of them were considered tropes for a long time. Yet, it has become clear in the meantime that they are not deviant forms that replace some corresponding original forms. In other words, they are not secondary forms replacing primary ones (cf. Kienpointner 1999: 67). Even if metaphor and metonymy were derived forms, their semantic content would never be identical to the presumed primary forms, which, however, do not exist anyway. Metaphor and metonymy have fundamental functions in language in general and in political discourse in particular. Metaphors are indispensable for thought (cf. Feng 2003: 55). Gibbs (2002: 122) claims that metaphor is the “primary mode of thought,” and Musolff (2004: 2) argues that, “if our social experiences and conceptualizations are organized in terms of metaphors, then politics, as

Paul Danler

65

part of the social domain, must also be perceived and constructed metaphorically”. Among other things, Charteris-Black points out that metaphors are likely to arouse strong feelings. This probably results from the fact that metaphors bring together two domains that at a first glance do not seem to be related. Thereby, metaphors mediate between emotion and cognition. What is important for the analysis of a political speech is the fact that those strong feelings are subsequently associated with the corresponding referents, which is obviously the orator’s objective (Charteris-Black 2005: 13 ff.). Metaphors in political discourse can consequently be used to enhance the status of the in-group and to debase the out-group (cf. Drommel and Wolff 1978). Furthermore, Charteris-Black argues that metaphors are ideal for conveying myths (2005: 22 ff.). Myths give an insight into things that cannot be explained, and, in politics, I would suggest, also into things that should not be explained to keep up the beautiful façade of the mystery world of earnestness. So far, we have mentioned that, apart from the most fundamental function of making thought possible, metaphors simplify and judge. But how does this actually occur? One of the most overwhelming insights of cognitive linguistics in the 1980s was the fact that metaphor is not linguistic but conceptual in nature, and that metaphorical expressions derive from conceptual metaphors (cf. Lakoff and Johnson 1980). The main function of conceptual metaphors is to make something accessible that otherwise cannot be understood. Understanding, however, is, according to Johnson, “never merely a matter of holding beliefs […], one’s understanding is one’s way of being in, or having, a world. This is very much a matter of one’s embodiment” (Johnson 1987: 137). A little later, Johnson (1987: 176) claims that, “a theory of meaning is a theory of how we understand things, whatever those things might be […] to ask about the meaning of something (whether it be an experience, a word, a sentence, a story, or a theory) is to ask about our understanding of it” (Johnson 1987: 190). The bodily experience being the basis for all further experiences, it seems only natural that the body and everything related to it constitute the starting point for thought, which is conceptual, and concepts are metaphorically structured (Lakoff and Johnson 1980: 52). First and foremost, however, Conceptual Metaphor Theory is concerned “with the mapping of inferences”, as Grady (2007: 191) points out. Someone who has blown off steam, which is Grady’s example, should feel less angry afterwards. It is this consequence that might be the reason for using metaphor in a speech. Three kinds of conceptual metaphors have been distinguished (Lakoff and Johnson 1980),

66

Demystifying The Importance of Seeming Earnest

namely structural metaphors, ontological metaphors and orientational metaphors. In a nutshell, it could be said that, in the case of the structural metaphor, the target domain is structured in terms of the source domain, where the source domain usually provides a complex knowledge structure for the target domain (Kövecses 2002: 33). Numerous examples of structural metaphors from different speeches by some leading politicians of the last few decades have been carefully analysed by Charteris-Black (2005), such as THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT IS A SPIRITUAL JOURNEY, POLITICAL STRUGGLE IS A HARSH LANDSCAPE (in Martin Luther King), CONSERVATIVE POLICIES ARE A MEDICINE, THE STATE IS A SERVANT (Margaret Thatcher) or MORAL ACTIONS ARE FINANCIAL TRANSACTIONS (George Bush Jr.), to name just a few. The source domain of ontological metaphors is much more poorly structured, rudimentary and basic than the one of structural metaphors. The source domain consists of objects, substances and containers without anything concrete being instantiated. The starting point is one’s being aware of being in a body, which is limited and which comes into contact with all sorts of things. The source domain of orientational metaphors is even smaller and reduced to the three dimensions. Another aspect of the nature of metaphor and metonymy is particularly important for the analysis of political speeches, namely the fact that the mapping of aspects from the source domain to the target domain is never complete. Only some aspects of the source domain are selected. This, however, does not happen randomly, but is the result of a highly selective process. Consequently, the source domain is seen in a certain light, and the target domain will obviously be seen in the same light. That this can be highly manipulative is obvious. In other words, metaphors also have a considerable creative potential which can be used – or abused – to strongly manipulate the portrayal of all kinds of things and persons. In the next sections, we will take a look at some examples of metaphor and metonymy in Fidel Castro’s speech in order to find out in what way the unsaid, which we have already talked about, but also what is said makes for the beautiful façade of the mystery world of discursive earnestness. 4.2.1 Metaphors 4.2.1.1 Structural metaphors As pointed out earlier, in the case of structural metaphors the target domain is structured in terms of a rich, semantically well-developed

Paul Danler

67

source domain. Critical Metaphor Analysis consists of three steps, i.e. first the metaphors are identified, then they are interpreted and finally they are explained (Charteris-Black 2005: 26; Lakoff and Johnson 1980). Furthermore, we would like to know in what way the given metaphors contribute to the author’s desired ethical auto-representation. The following structural metaphors can be detected in the speech under analysis: REVOLUTION IS A FINANCIAL TRANSACTION; REVOLUTION IS A JOURNEY; REVOLUTION IS A BIBLICAL STORY; SANTIAGO DE CUBA IS A FORTRESS; SOMEONE’S POSTURE IS HIS/HER ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE REVOLUTION; POLITICS IS SPORTS; POLITICS IS AN ORGANISM. We are going to illustrate how these structural metaphors work in this speech with the aid of the REVOLUTION IS A FINANCIAL TRANSACTION metaphor. The image of revolution as a transaction is characterised by the cost and effort the revolution causes, as can be observed in the following quotations: (11.a) La Revolución no será una tarea fácil, la Revolución será una impresa dura y llena de peligros. (Castro 1959: 1) The Revolution will not be an easy task, the Revolution will be a difficult venture, full of dangers. (11.b) (…) Batista, que renunciaba para ahorrar derramamiento de sangre, ¿qué les parece? (Castro 1959: 11) (…) Batista, who gave up to save bloodshed? How does this sound to you? (11.c) Yo quiero que ustedes sepan que nuestras fuerzas venían muy seriamente decididas a tomar a Santiago de Cuba por asalto. Ello hubiera sido muy lamentable, porque hubiese costado mucha sangre (…). (Castro 1959: 12) I would like you to know that our forces have come, seriously determined to take Santiago de Cuba by assault. This would have been unfortunate because it would have cost a lot of blood (…). (11.d) Reunidos los oficiales de la marina, de la policía y del ejército, se acordó (…) apoyar al Gobierno legal de la república, porque cuenta con la mayoría de nuestro pueblo, que es el doctor Manuel Urrutia Lleó. Gracias a esa actitud se ahorró mucha sangre. (Castro 1959: 14) The officials of the navy, the police and the army all gathered together, and it was decided to support the legal government of the republic, which is Dr. Manuel Urrutia Lleó, because the majority of our people stand behind it. Thanks to this attitude much blood was saved.

68

Demystifying The Importance of Seeming Earnest

The structural metaphor REVOLUTION IS A FINANCIAL TRANSACTION implies a) that financial transactions are often difficult and risky; b) that one has to pay for what one gets; and c) that sometimes saving is safer than spending. Now, in what way does the metaphor explain the “Revolution”? As has been pointed out before, metaphors are based on selectively chosen aspects of the source domain. However, since metaphors have creative potential, the image could be further developed. The aspect of the revolution explained here in terms of cost-benefit calculation is what can be gained and what can be lost. (The fact that we resort to the terms gain and lose proves that metaphors are not secondary, but primary structures.) However, many other aspects could enter the metaphorical image, such as bankers and customers, debtors and creditors, loan and rate of interest, and many more. From an ethical point of view, Fidel Castro presents himself as the one who defends the economic as well as the social advantages of the people. As to the creation of the mystery world of discursive earnestness, it cannot be overlooked that equating transactions in the seemingly fancy financial world with what is going on in the revolution contributes to it. In both domains there are impressive façades, but also violence behind the beautiful façades, albeit different in nature, and in both domains there are crises which often trigger profound changes with far reaching and dramatic consequences. 4.2.1.2 Ontological metaphors It has been said before that in ontological metaphors the structure of the source domain is much more rudimentary than in structural metaphors, and that the bodily experience is crucial for structuring the target domain. Objects, substances, containers and human beings are among the prototypical source domains. Some of the numerous examples that can be found in the speech are REVOLUTION IS A PERSON and HONOUR IS A SUBSTANCE because a soldier has to have it, responsibility is an object because it falls on General Cantillo, proclamations and declarations are persons because they say something, orders are objects because they are given to someone, history is a person because it will absolve Fidel Castro, and many more. We will have a closer look at the first of our examples, i.e. REVOLUTION IS A PERSON.2 The following quotations help elaborate this particular ontological metaphor.

2

It could be argued, of course, that this is a metonymy, as Charteris-Black pointed out in the discussion at the conference in Verona in 2013.

Paul Danler

69

(12.a) En Santiago de Cuba y en la Sierra Maestra, tendrá la Revolución sus dos mejores fortalezas. (Castro 1959: 2) In Santiago de Cuba and in the Sierra Maestra the Revolution will have its two best fortresses. (12.b) Creyó [Cantillo] que iba a ser demasiado fácil engañar al pueblo y engañar a la Revolución. (Castro 1959: 2) He [Cantillo] thought that it would be very easy to betray the people and to betray the Revolution. (12.c) Ya no podrán decir que la Revolución es la anarquía y el desorden; ocurrió en La Habana, por una traición, pero no ocurrió así en Santiago de Cuba, que podemos poner como modelo cuantas veces se trate de acusar a la Revolución de anárquica y desorganizada. (Castro 1959: 3) They cannot say that the Revolution is anarchy and disorder anymore; this happened in Havana because of treason but this did not happen in Santiago de Cuba which we can name as model whenever the Revolution is accused of being anarchic and disorganised. (12.d) He hablado de los militares para que ellos sepan que también todo lo van a recibir de la Revolución, todas las mejoras que jamás han tenido (…). (Castro 1959: 19) I talked about the soldiers so that they knew that they would also get everything from the Revolution, all the improvements they never had (…). (12.e) Esta vez la Revolución tiene al pueblo entero, tiene a todos los revolucionarios, tiene a los militantes honorables. (Castro 1959: 27) This time the Revolution has the whole people, it has all the revolutionaries, it has all the honourable militants.

The Revolution has fortresses, the Revolution can be betrayed, the Revolution can be accused of being anarchic and disorganised, the Revolution gives all the improvements to the people, and the Revolution has all the people are images we can find in the previous extracts. What is more, the Revolution being the owner of all this and the Revolution being in a position to give away part of it equate to stating that the Revolution is a person, at least conceptually, which amounts to saying that the essence of the Revolution is explained in terms of the essence of the human being. Consequently, being human beings as well, the listeners simply have to empathise with the Revolution as a fellow human being. In other words, the Revolution is just one of them that has to be protected, supported and

70

Demystifying The Importance of Seeming Earnest

defended. Fidel Castro thereby presents himself as the defender of human ideals and human needs. Besides, the Revolution as a human being is one more impressive facet in our mystery world of discursive earnestness. 4.2.1.3 Orientational metaphors The source domain structuring the target domain of orientational metaphors is the most basic one. Orientation, direction and part of a whole are among the most fundamental of this kind. Metaphor in general being a prerequisite for human thought, orientational metaphors also serve thinking in general, and political thinking in particular. The directional orientational metaphor UP-DOWN and the delimiting orientational metaphor IN-OUT are among the most common of this kind. Let us have a quick look at the first. (13.a) La caída de Batista iba a producir una desorganización en la ciudadanía (…). (Castro 1959: 3) The fall of Batista was going to cause disorder among the citizens. (13.b) (…) a los [militares] que ascendían eran a los criminales, porque Batista siempre se encargó de premiar el crimen. (Castro 1959: 14) (…) the soldiers whom they promoted [whose position they heightened] were the criminals because Batista was always out to award a prize to a crime. (13.c) El militar que tenga capacidad y tenga méritos será el que ascienda, y no el pariente, el amigo, como ha existido hasta hoy (…). (Castro 1959: 18) The soldier who has abilities and who has merits will be the one who rises, not the parent, the friend as it has been up to now (…). (13.d) Ardo en esperanzas de ver al pueblo a lo largo de nuestro recorrido hasta la capital, porque sé que es la misma esperanza, la misma fe de un pueblo entero que se ha levantado, que soportó paciente todos los sacrificios, que no le importó el hambre. (Castro 1959: 26) I am full of hope to see the people along our road to the Capital, because I know it is the same hope, the same faith of a whole people that has stood up, that patiently endured all the sacrifices, that did not mind hunger.

stands for increase, DOWN stands for decrease, and this again derives from bodily experiences and/or material sensations. When more material is added to a given quantity, the level rises, while when some material is

UP

Paul Danler

71

taken away the level drops. What is important when it comes to evaluating statements containing these metaphors is the fact that high is viewed as positive, whereas low is considered negative. If someone falls, his or her career is over. If someone stands up, he or she has courage and is willing to fight for something. And if someone rises in his or her professional field they get a better position. This seems to be a conceptual phenomenon in general, which also proves consequently true of political conceptualisations and of political speech. Batista was bad, Batista’s government was corrupt and bad. By contrast, honourable soldiers are good and people in general are good. This is Fidel Castro’s message here which makes him appear a good and fair person defending social justice and honest politics. 4.2.2 Metonymy Metonymy is as old as metaphor and, as is commonly known, it works on the basis of contiguity. It has been used as a so-called literary or rhetorical strategy or simply as a figure of speech, but there is also more to it than that. The transfer of a feature from the referent in the source domain to the referent in the target domain is probably not the essential characteristic of metonymy, but “metonymic concepts allow us to conceptualise one thing by means of its relation to something else. (…) Thus, like metaphors, metonymic concepts structure not just our language but our thoughts, attitudes, and actions” (Lakoff and Johnson 1980: 39). What is crucial here is the question of which relation between the two domains is singled out. A few more quotations from Fidel Castro’s speech will illustrate this: (14.a) (…) este va a ser un gobierno sólidamente respaldado por el pueblo en la ciudad heroica (…). (Castro 1959: 14) (…) this will be a government solidly backed by the people in the heroic city (…) (14.b) No habrá más sangre, espero que ningún núcleo haga resistencia. (Castro 1959: 17) There will not be more bloodshed, I hope that no cell will mount a resistance. (14.c) Esta vez no se podrá decir como otras veces que se ha traicionado la memoria de los muertos, porque los muertos seguirán mandando. (Castro 1959: 14) This time nobody can say, like before, that the memory of the dead has been betrayed because the dead will go on commanding.

72

Demystifying The Importance of Seeming Earnest (14.d) Nuestras armas se inclinan respetuosas ante el Poder Civil en la República civilista de Cuba. (Castro 1959: 28) Our arms respectfully bow before the Civil Power in the civil Republic of Cuba.

The heroic city in (14.a) is the place where the heroic people, or some heroic people, live. Blood in (14.b) stands for the blood of the wounded or the dead. It is not the dead people themselves in (14.c) but their legacy that will serve as political guidelines in the future, and in (14.d) it is not the arms but the soldiers carrying the arms who will bow before the new republic. The place instead of its inhabitants is something solid and deeply rooted. The blood instead of the dead is a symbol of life. The dead themselves are conceptualised as concrete, as opposed to their abstract legacy, and bowing arms are more impressive than bowing soldiers, as it is the gun that is eventually used for or against life and therefore has a strong symbolic power. Concerning the construction of his ethos, Fidel Castro turns out to be extremely respectful towards life, the ancestors and the civil Republic.

5. Conclusion We have seen that Fidel Castro indirectly paints a portrait of himself. He uses two paintbrushes: a morphosyntactic and a lexico-semantic one. The morphosyntactic one we have dealt with here is the one that allows for the construction of statements in a way that certain constituents do not appear at the syntactic surface. The lexico-semantic one draws pictures or images that may soften the contours of the focused object. Both the morphosyntactic and the lexico-semantic brushstrokes should eventually result in a portrait that expresses certain ethical ideals to be eventually pursued by the people listening to them. In the quotations related to the morphosyntactic analysis, Fidel Castro presents political achievements as collective achievements, thereby underlining the value of solidarity. By sharply criticising the politicians, without, however, personally accusing any soldiers, he appears cautious but at the same time determined to act if need be. The way he talks about the dead ancestors of the Cuban people makes him look like a respectful and considerate person. The Revolution being the right thing, Fidel Castro is obviously going for the right thing, as opposed to those who are politically on the other side. By pointing out the peace-loving side and the good will of the people, he somehow tries to deescalate the situation and thus appears a clever politician. Furthermore, as we have seen before, in the different quotations he presents himself as open and communicative, generous and forgiving, as an upright man of

Paul Danler

73

integrity. In the second part of the analysis, in which we tried to shed some light on the different kinds of metaphor and metonymy, Fidel Castro stands up for the social and economic rights of the people, presenting himself as the defender of human ideals and openly defending social justice and transparent and honest politics. Fidel Castro has painted a beautiful picture of himself. A beautiful picture is always the result of a selective choice of brushstrokes, just as a mystery world is a world where you get to see a few selective details without ever finding out how it really works.

References Castro, F. (1976). La Primera Revolución Socialista en América. México, D.F.: Siglo Veintiuno Editores. Charteris-Black, J. (2005). Politicians and Rhetoric. The Persuasive Power of Metaphor. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Danblon, E. (2002). Rhétorique et Rationalité. Bruxelles: Éditions de l’Université de Bruxelles. —. (2005). La Fonction Persuasive. Paris: Armand Colin. Danler, P. (2007). Valenz und Diskursive Strategien. Die Politische Rede in der Romania Zwischen 1938 und 1945. Tübingen: Gunter Narr. Discurso pronunciado por el doctor Fidel Castro Ruz, en el Parque Céspedes, de Santiago de Cuba, el 1ro de enero de 1959. Available at: http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/discursos/1959/esp/f010159e.html (accessed 27 May 2013). Drommel, R. and G. Wolff (1978). “Metaphern in der politischen Rede”. Der Deutschunterricht, 30, 1, 71-86. Eroms, H. W. (1974). “Asymmetrische Kommunikation. Zur Funktion von Abstraktem und Konkretem in politischer Sprache”. Sprache im Technischen Zeitalter, 52, 297-318. Feng, X. (2003). Konzeptuelle Metaphern und Textkohärenz. Tübingen: Gunter Narr. Gibbs, Jr., R. W. (2002). The Poetics of Mind. Figurative Thought, Language, and Understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gili Gaya, S. (1998). Curso Superior de Sintaxis Española. Barcelona: Vox. Grady, J. E. (2007). “Metaphor”. In D. Geeraerts and H. Cuyckens (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 188-213.

74

Demystifying The Importance of Seeming Earnest

Groarke, L. A. and C. W. Tindale (2004). Good Reasoning Matters. A Constructive Approach to Critical Thinking. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Johnson, M. (1987). The Body in the Mind. The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination and Reason. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Jung, C. G. (1964). Zwei Schriften über Analytische Psychologie. Zürich: Rascher Verlag. Kemmer, S. (1993). The Middle Voice. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Kienpointner, M. (1999). “Metaphern in der politischen Rhetorik”. Der Deutschunterricht, 5, 66-78. Kövecses, Z. (2002). Metaphor. A Practical Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lakoff, G. and M. Johnson (1980). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Maingueneau, D. (1987). Nouvelles Tendances en Analyse du Discours. Paris: Hachette. Musolff, A. (2004). Metaphor and Political Discourse. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Penny, R. (2001). Gramática Histórica del Español. Barcelona: Ariel. Quesada, J. D. (1997). “Die Spanische se-Fügung ist kein Passiv”. Zeitschrift für Romanische Philologie, 113, 65-81. Salvi, G. and L. Vanelli (1992). Grammatica Essenziale di Riferimento della Lingua Italiana. Firenze: Le Monnier. Sánchez López, C. (2002). “Las construcciones con se. Estado de la cuestión”. In C. Sánchez López (ed.), Las Construcciones con Se. Madrid: Visor Libros, 13-163. Serianni, L. (1999). Grammatica Italiana. Torino: UTET Libreria.

CHAPTER FOUR THE LISBON TREATY CONFLICT CHIARA NASTI UNIVERSITY OF NAPLES FEDERICO II

Abstract In their use of language, aimed at persuading people, politicians have to cope with the audience’s emotions and desires. As a consequence, for their potential to transport the receiver by evoking emotional responses, metaphors appear to be a basic tool for politicians in order to communicate their ideological message (Charteris-Black 2004, 2005). As one of the means through which politicians communicate their ideas, the media report and borrow politicians’ metaphorical expressions or use their own metaphorical patterns to create a scenario of the political debate under discussion. By highlighting the differences and similarities of metaphorical patterns, this paper aims to investigate the nature of the conceptual metaphors used in two different contexts – the British and Irish scenarios – and their communicative goals. It also examines to what extent the choice of specific metaphorical expressions or lexemes may possess an ideological or social implication, be a manifestation of culture-related issues, and convey positive or negative evaluations by attributing different roles to the participants in the event.

1. Introduction The process of institutional reform has been a much-debated issue among the EU Member States in recent years. After the rejection of the European Constitution by France and the Netherlands in 2005, the European Union proceeded towards the drawing up of a Reform Treaty that was later named the Lisbon Treaty. In 2007, the Lisbon Treaty was signed by all the

76

The Lisbon Treaty conflict

Heads of State and Government of the 27 Member States of the European Union, but it was not immediately ratified by all countries.1 Indeed, Ireland’s referendum rebuff on 12 June 2008 presented the European Union with a sort of “institutional crisis”, questioning its future. The Irish referendum had a remarkable impact on the British people and politicians. In their 2005 election campaign, Labour leaders had promised a referendum on each European Constitution draft to come. As a consequence, at the Inter-governmental Conference in 2007, when European leaders started to discuss the important issue of institutional reforms and how to set about drafting the Lisbon Treaty, which was described by the British press as a diluted version of the Constitution, in the United Kingdom talks about a referendum began to increase. However, the British government decided to approve the Treaty Bill without consulting popular opinion. This attitude was scathingly criticised by some newspapers and politicians, and the Irish referendum became the only possibility to suspend ratification. The hopes to bury the treaty faded, when the EU included some guarantees for the Irish people in terms of neutrality, right to life and tax autonomy. As a result, the Irish Prime Minister, Brian Cowen, decided to hold another referendum in Ireland on 2 October 2009. This time, the ballot result was positive and the procedure towards ratification was almost complete. The Czech president, who had strongly opposed the ratification, also signed the treaty, which entered into force on 1 December 2009.2 The media paid great attention to the institutional reform process within the European Union. The relations between the UK and the EU have been investigated by many scholars, and some of them (Musolff 1996; Musolff et al. 2001; Charteris-Black and Musolff 2003; Schäffner 1996) have shown how the British and German press used metaphorical language to describe the different attitudes towards European integration in the 1990s and construe a widely-shared scenario to help the potential readers to better understand European issues. Metaphors have been found in many communication settings, and scholars have studied them not only in terms of thought and language, but also in terms of discourse (Zanotto et al. 2008). Their widespread use in different discourses can be explained by the fact that metaphors appeal to the common values and beliefs of a community, and as a result can be highly persuasive. As for their persuasive function, politicians extensively use metaphors in order to achieve a specific communicative goal. In 1 2

See http://europa.eu/lisbon_treaty/news/index_en.htm. For further references see Nasti (2012), chapter one.

Chiara Nasti

77

newspapers, metaphors are often embedded in politicians’ quotations or simply used by the journalist to appeal to the reader and construe the news story. Semino and Masci (1996) claim that metaphors have been largely used in politics and the media as the structuring of one domain in terms of another can influence the way in which large numbers of people conceive of controversial aspects of their lives. Metaphors, in fact, can be used to make abstract political issues more familiar to the potential addressee. As metaphors appeal to the common values of a community they need to be shared in order to be interpreted, and because values may vary across cultures, metaphors may change or the same metaphor may be used differently.

2. The corpus The corpus consists of 1,861 articles, with a total number of 914,602 tokens, taken from 14 newspapers (three tabloids, i.e. the Daily Mail, The Mirror, The Sun and their Sunday editions, and four broadsheets, i.e. The Guardian, The Independent, The Daily Telegraph and The Times and their Sunday editions)3 downloaded from the Lexis Nexis database.4 The collection of data started on 1 June 2007 – because in that month EU leaders gathered together and laid the foundations for the drafting of the new treaty – and ended on 31 December 2009, that is, after the enforcement of the treaty. The articles were saved in .txt format in order to be processed by WordSmith Tools (Scott 2008). The articles were then chronologically ordered and divided into sub-corpora, with each newspaper considered a sub-corpus. A first analysis of the data has shown that the first article appears in October 2007 and that each corpus has a different size, as shown in Table 1 below. As the data reveal, the distribution of articles, in both the broadsheets and the tabloids, seems to follow the event of ratification even though there are some differences. Both the typologies of press pay greater attention to the Irish referenda. The quality press in particular seems to focus on the signing ceremony, while the popular press is more interested in the debate around the period from March to August 2008. These considerations are based on the temporal distribution of articles and not on their content or the distribution of metaphors in the corpus. As will be 3

Even though many quality newspapers are in tabloid size (e.g. The Times), in this paper I refer to the popular press as tabloids and to quality newspapers as broadsheets according to their original definitions. 4 The database is available at www.lexisnexis.com.

78

The Lisbon Treaty conflict

shown in the following sections, linguistic metaphors are more frequent in the referendum periods both in the quality and the popular press. Subcorpus Daily Mail The Sunday Times The Times Guardian The Daily Telegraph The Independent The Sun Mirror The Sunday Telegraph The Observer Independent on Sunday Sunday Mirror Mail on Sunday News of the World

Time span 15/10/2007-27/11/2009

No. of articles 357

No. of tokens 199,903

21/10/2007-22/11/2009

164

124,904

10/10/2007-18/12/2009 10/10/2007-30/11/2009

199 151

113,129 92,779

15/10/2007-17/12/2009

161

90,092

12/10/2007-01/12/2009

118

75,580

19/10/2007-02/12/2009 15/10/2007-18/11/2009

309 199

66,225 42,249

21/10/2007-08/11/2009

53

39,275

16/10/2007-06/12/2009

37

30,120

04/11/2007-01/11/2009

18

13,940

14/10/2007-01/11/2009

50

10,866

16/12/2007-21/11/2009

14

10,236

09/02/2008-15/03/2009

31

5,304

Table 1. Description of the corpus – time-span, articles and tokens5

3. Methodology Metaphor identification and analysis have been thorny issues for many scholars (Gibbs 1994; Steen 1994, 1999; Low 1999; Charteris-Black 2004; Deignan 2005). Some of them have argued that any metaphor identification procedure may be faulty, and as a consequence scholars have to keep in mind the difficulties they face when researching metaphors. In fact, as metaphors belong to our conceptual system, their identification is not an easy task. Charteris-Black (2004) suggests that metaphor identification and analysis cannot be pursued only by considering the conceptual nature of metaphors, and that other factors have to be taken into account. He argues that a metaphor’s pragmatic function is of equal importance and needs to be investigated as well, as 5

The data are ordered by number of tokens.

Chiara Nasti

79

metaphors are powerful tools of persuasion in discourse. In addition, Musolff (2004) suggests the necessity of empirical studies and statistical evidence of a metaphor’s use to claim that a particular metaphor is central to a specific discourse. In order to identify metaphors, Charteris-Black (2004) proposes a twofold procedure that takes into account both a qualitative and a quantitative methodology. A qualitative approach is necessary, first to identify what he calls “candidate metaphors” and then to understand the communicative purposes metaphor users have in mind. On the other hand, a quantitative method is important to attest the actual presence of those metaphors in the corpus and provide insights into their cognitive characteristics.

4. Analysis Following Charteris-Black’s methodology, the analysis was carried out in two stages. At the first stage, a sample of articles was manually read to identify possible metaphorical patterns and the relative conceptual metaphors, while at the second stage a concordance list for each metaphorical lexeme was created in order to check their metaphorical use. As a result, only concordances containing metaphorical items were saved. Concordances were expanded to also explore the co-text and see what kind of evaluation was attributed to metaphorical expressions and how they were used to construe the ratification event. The analysis of the first stage has shown that the conflict domain is the most frequent conceptual frame in the corpus (35% of the total), as shown in Tables 2 and 3 below.6 The high frequency of conflict metaphors in the corpus comes as no surprise as scholars have shown how these metaphors are widely used in political discourse (Lakoff and Johnson 1980; Gibbs 1994; Goatly 2007; Charteris-Black and Musolff 2003). Gibbs, for example, underlines how the conceptual frame of a battle is well-rooted in Western cultures when talking of politics: “[…] war metaphors are not just rhetorical devices for talking about politics, for they exemplify how people ordinarily conceive of politics” (1994: 142). It seems almost impossible to think of politics in terms of another metaphor.

6

Newspapers are abbreviated by using the first two letters plus an -s for their Sunday editions.

The Lisbon Treaty conflict

80 Conceptual Domains (Lack) Movement/ Journey/ Transport War/Conflict/ Violence Sport/ Competition/ Game Disease/ Dying People Narration/ Story Personification Group/ Container Architecture/ Construction Debate Goods/ Resources/ Materials Natural elements Boys Food Friendship/ Family Theatre Physical activity Animal Religion Business Picture Dream Love Liquids Machine Conspiracy Total

Gu

Obs

In

20.48

36.52

34.40

28.02

96.28

2.16

Te

Tes

Ti

121.95

18.87

78.93

25.63

6.40

343.19

35.72

64.56

22.20

33.10

38.01

24.02

341.92

23.24

15.88

43.04

8.88

20.37

15.91

12.01

141.48

9.70

56.44

6.62

50.22

5.09

5.30

1.32

57.39

11.86

19.92

10.58

2.55

1.77

7.64

1.77

1.08

6.62

Ins

35.87

3.23

9.96

3.97

7.17

9.96

3.97

7.17

1.32

21.52

2.16

10.58 2.16

6.64

1.32 6.62

3.32

4.31

3.32 3.32

1.11

1.11 14.35 14.35 7.17

2.16

133.37

3.33

2.40

10.18

2.65

0.80

37.97

7.64

1.77

4.00

36.70

7.64

0.88

15.28

0.88

5.09

2.65 0.88

27.12 26.94

6.19

16.76

33.52 0.80

7.64

14.35

1.32 1.32

5.30 2.55

1.60 0.80

7.17 7.17 5.09 1.32 2.55

90.54

268.92

144.22

473.46

28.66

18.14

5.09

1.32

54.63 52.97

14.35

2.16

Total

58.71 5.55

1.08

Tis

1.11 1.11 63.27

216.42

0.88 0.88 0.88 1.77 114.03

Table 2. Distribution of conceptual domains in the broadsheets

52.84

14.26 8.79 7.97 7.17 5.09 4.36 3.43 3.32 2.88 1423.7

Chiara Nasti Conceptual Domains War/Conflict/Violence Movement/Lack of Movement/ Journey/Transport Sport/Competition/Game Debate Disease/Dying People Personification Group/Container Theatre Natural elements Animal Conspiracy Architecture/Construction Friendship/Family Narration/Story Boys Goods/Resources/Materials Food Machine Total

81

Ma 5.50

Mas 166.08

Mi 49.71

Mis 193.26

Su 15.10

Now 150.83

Total 580.48

5.00

127.00

16.57

27.61

9.06

37.71

222.95

1.50

78.16 29.31

2.37 2.37 21.30

18.41 9.20 27.61 27.61 18.41 18.41 9.20

3.02 3.02 3.02 4.53

1.50 1.00

0.50 0.50

19.54 9.77 9.77 19.54 19.54 9.77 9.77

2.37

18.85

18.85 1.51 1.51

9.20 2.37 2.37 2.37 1.51 1.51

1.00 16.51

498.24

101.78

358.92

43.79

226.24

103.45 62.75 53.43 52.68 30.54 28.18 28.06 21.05 21.05 19.47 12.64 2.37 2.37 1.51 1.51 1.00 1245.48

Table 3. Distribution of conceptual domains in the tabloids

The identified conflict metaphor therefore is ARGUING ABOUT TREATY RATIFICATION IS A CONFLICT, which provides the following linguistic metaphors. (1)

Will Irish put Europe to the sword? (The Times, 12 June 2008)

(2)

But the Polish and Czech resistance indicates that Sarkozy's strategy of quarantining the Irish is unravelling (Guardian, 2 July 2008)

A possible scenario that can be drawn from examples (1) and (2), which contain two representative lexemes found in the first analysis, is that of a battlefield with two participants, namely Europe and Ireland, having different positions – Europe supports the treaty while Ireland opposes its ratification – and adopting different strategies. A further investigation in the second stage of analysis has revealed that there are three battlefields in the conflict over Lisbon – the British, the Irish and the European scenarios. The present paper only investigates the first two settings, highlighting different and/or similar metaphorical patterns to identify possible culture-related frameworks and stereotypes in the political debate.

82

The Lisbon Treaty conflict

5. The Lisbon Treaty issue The analysis of the concordances has shown that there is a varying distribution of the lexemes related to the conflict metaphor in the broadsheets and tabloids (see Table 6, Appendix A). Only some of the lexemes construing the conflict domain are used in both scenarios (see Tables 7 and 8, Appendix A). This might suggest that only some aspects of the conflict are emphasised, probably in order to communicate certain critical features or issues to appeal to the readers’ values and beliefs and mould the message to suit the purpose of politicians. In both scenarios, the occurrences of metaphorical expressions seem to follow the conflict schema shown in Tables 4 and 5 below. Conflict Stages Battlefield Start of the battle Middle of the conflict Counterattack End of the conflict A new fight

Metaphorical Lexemes Parliamentary battle Brown's surrendering of powers to Europe Brown faces bloody(bruising) battle/revolt Brown expects a lengthy battle Brown is under attack The government/Brown/senior ministers braced for revolt Brown is preparing the fight back Government passes the treaty (win/victory) Cameron's fight for a referendum Cameron's fight for the repatriations of some powers

Middle of the conflict

End of the conflict

Cameron's party split = revolt Labour members attack Cameron Cameron surrenders powers to EU (Cameron negates it)

Table 4. British scenario – conflict schema

Occurrences 3 5 4/4 1 10 3 3 4/3 5 5 3 3 3

Chiara Nasti

Conflict Stages

Metaphorical Lexemes

83

Occurrences

Yes camp attacks No camp (as a single entity)

9

No camp attacks Yes camp (Cowen/the government)

5

No camp's aggressive and ferocious attacks Middle of the conflict No camp adopts strategies/tactics The Irish government adopts strategies/tactics Ordinary people, Farmers, Christians and Trade Unions attack the Irish government The Irish government faces an uphill battle/struggle

7 6/2 9/20 5 4/3

End of the fight

No camp wins/victory

Counterattack

Re-run Lisbon (referendum)

34

Yes camp attacks No camp

2

No camp attacks Yes camp

1

Middle of the conflict No camp adopts tactics The Irish government/yes side adopts tactics End of the conflict

Yes camp victory

4

4 8 27

Table 5. Irish scenario – conflict schema

Table 4 and Table 5 show that there are two main fights corresponding to the two referenda in Ireland. In particular, it is evident that, as far as the British scenario is concerned, the Irish referenda have a great impact on the British side. Moreover, in the first part of the conflict Brown appears as a target of the action carried out by EU leaders and others who attacked him for his surrendering of powers because he signed the treaty. As a consequence, his counter attack was to fight back, always in response to attacks from his opponents. The second part of the conflict sees Cameron as the main actor on the scene. He promised to fight for the British cause (the referendum), but in the end he was depicted as a quitter by the British press and some politicians, even though he denied it. As far as the Irish conflict is concerned, we have a different battlefield (the poll, the political campaign) that might suggest a different scenario. The participants are mainly the representatives of the YES and NO side attacking each other with a crescendo of violence, especially in the first part of the fight, which ends with the victory of the NO camp. As a result, a new argument arose – whether or not to hold another referendum – which was described in terms of a re-run. As shown in Table 5, the end of the conflict was in favour of the treaty supporters and this was interpreted by the British press and some

84

The Lisbon Treaty conflict

politicians opposing the ratification as a result of the YES side’s “fear tactics”. A more detailed analysis of the two scenarios is described in the following section.

5.1 The British and Irish scenarios The analysis of the concordances has revealed that metaphorical patterns appear in different periods in the two scenarios following the political debate in each country.7 In the British scenario, metaphorical expressions frequently occur in certain particular periods of the corpus – October 2007, March 2008, June 2008, October and November 2009 – which marked significant stages in the British ratification process. In October, the informal meeting to discuss the Lisbon Treaty provisions marked a remarkable step for Britain in terms of obtaining some “red lines” concerning European policy, judicial integration, the charter of fundamental rights and foreign policy. In March 2008 there was a debate on whether to hold a referendum as Labour had promised. On March 11, despite Tory pledges to suspend ratification, the Commons voted to pass the treaty, which prompted a surge of criticism.8 In June 2008, the Irish referendum had a major impact on the British government’s decision to not listen to public opinion. It was also hoped that the referendum turnout would influence the Lords’ decision on the Treaty Bill, which was due to take place on 18 June. October and November 2009 were also highly significant for Britain. The second referendum in Ireland was problematic for the Conservatives and their leader Cameron, who had promised to hold a referendum in case of victory at the British election in 2010. However, Cameron decided to not continue with the referendum pledge and was scathingly criticised by the press and other politicians. On the other hand, in the Irish scenario the analysis of the lexical items has revealed that the majority of occurrences appear in the months preceding and following the Irish referenda held on 12 June 2008 and 2 October 2009. Some other occurrences also appear at the beginning of December 2008, when Irish proposals for guarantees in order to adopt the treaty were being debated. The negative perception of the Lisbon Treaty is clearly evident in the use of the lexemes threat and threaten, which convey the treaty as an enemy of both countries. While in the Irish scenario the treaty is stereotyped as the enemy of important social issues such as neutrality, 7

For a complete analysis of both scenarios see Nasti (2012, chapter six). Further references can be found at http://services.parliament.uk/bills/200708/europeanunionamendment/stages.html.

8

Chiara Nasti

85

abortion, employment and the tax system (4), in the British setting it is presented as a threat to sovereignty (3): (3)

Surely Gordon Brown can no longer dismiss this threat to our sovereignty. Yet his spokesman says: “His view is this is a fuss about nothing. The important thing is to focus on real issues that matter to people”. The bloody nerve! (The Sun, 15 December 2007)

(4)

THERE are many reasons to vote No to the Lisbon Treaty. Unaltered, it is a huge threat to Irish salaries and standard of living. And it threatens Ireland’s low corporate tax rate, essential to keeping jobs in Ireland. (The Sun, 14 April 2008)

What is worth noting here is that in both scenarios we have references to the treaty as actor of the verb threaten (fifteen occurrences in the Irish scenario vs. three occurrence in the British one) and as a threat (twentythree occurrences in the British scenario vs. eleven in the Irish one). This might suggest that – especially in the Irish scenario – the treaty acquires the active role of a combatant. As a consequence, its identification as an enemy to destroy is enhanced. Obviously, this representation of the treaty as an enemy and the other issues as victims has a culture-related explanation. Sovereignty is one of the most important values for the British people. As Musolff et al. (2001:11) claim, “sovereignty is [...] also a well-established ingredient of the national myth and a powerful symbol of national identity”. The concept of sovereignty as a symbol of independence, freedom and “Britishness” is a well-rooted idea, in existence since Shakespeare’s times. As a consequence, the construction of a European sovereignty and the adoption of new treaty reinforcing European institutions represent a remarkable loss for many British MPs and citizens, especially in terms of national identity and economic power. On the other hand, Irish neutrality, the abortion law and the tax system were pillars of Ireland’s own norms, and the fact that the treaty refers to the creation of a European defence and established new rules for the right to life was seen as problematic for Irish citizens and their values. As a consequence, these metaphorical lexemes are employed to express a negative evaluation of the ratification issue and to raise public awareness on important social and political values. In the Irish conflict, in order to remove this negative conceptualisation from the opponents’ minds, YES campaigners and supporters tended to express a different view by trying to undermine Lisbon’s threats and to present opposition to the treaty as a powerful enemy, as shown in example (5):

The Lisbon Treaty conflict

86 (5)

Foreign Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern has dismissed claims the treaty will threaten Ireland’s neutrality. He said: “The Bill clearly reaffirms the prohibition of Irish participation in a common defence alliance in the EU and there is no proposal at all in that respect”. (Mirror, 10 March 2008)

The analysis has also proved that in both Ireland and the UK the battles are heated and complex. However, they present some differences. In the UK Brown seems to not consciously be the initiator of the conflict, which appears to be a consequence of the Prime Minister’s signing the treaty. Brown’s action of signing is described by The Sun as a surrendering of powers to Europe and can be linked to the question of sovereignty loss. The expression itself implies that Brown has passively accepted the treaty. This passive acceptance is not tolerable, not only for those newspapers that campaigned for a referendum in Britain and which are notoriously antiEuropean (Anderson and Weymouth 1999), but also for the British people who are known to be proud of being “islanders” governed by their own rules. In this framework, the Prime Minister is depicted as a compliant leader unable to fight for his people’s will. As a result, the consequences of Brown’s surrendering are described in terms of a battle that appears to be complex and violent, as the evaluative adjectives bruising, lengthy and bloody collocating with the lexeme indicate. Brown appears to be particularly involved in the battle issue, as he is the actor of the expressions face a (bruising/bloody Commons) battle and expect a lengthy battle. In the Irish scenario, the battle – which is mainly between Yes and No campaigners – is also described in terms of difficulties; uphill emerges as one of the strongest collocates of the lexemes battle and struggle. The evaluative adjective uphill collocates with battle four times in three different sub-corpora, while it collocates with struggle three times in three different sub-corpora. In both cases it always refers to the Irish situation and suggests the image of a conflict that needs a lot of effort. This implies that the Irish discussion on the treaty is a particularly thorny issue. However, it seems that the battle is more difficult for the Irish government, as in six out of seven occurrences it is the actor of the verb face and have in the syntactic structure face/have an uphill battle/struggle. On the other hand, there is just one reference to an uphill battle faced by NO campaigners, who appear to be certain of their difficult project of rejecting Lisbon.

Chiara Nasti (6)

Groups on the No side, such as Libertas, know they face an “uphill battle” because Irish people are “generally pro-European”, but in a referendum in which the material in question is unlikely to be read in detail by voters, trust, as the e-mail put it, will be crucial. (The Sunday Times, 20 April 2008)

(7)

However, the Taoiseach is facing an uphill struggle to secure the crucial vote as farmers, trade unions and other groups have declared their intention to vote No in protest at the Government. (The Mirror, 13 May 2008)

87

In example (6), the No campaigners’ certainty is evident in the use of the attributing verb know, even though the use of the contrastive evaluator but seems to suggest that this certainty may be questioned and the situation may change. In example (7), the difficulty for the Irish Prime Minister is made more complicated by the presence of opponents who represent an important part of the Irish people: farmers and trade unions. The analysis of the Irish scenario has revealed that it is a common practice for some newspapers to present ordinary people and Christians as actors of attacks on the government, and on 26 May 2008 The Sun reports that Christians are praying for a defeat of the godless treaty. This reference to religion and Irish common people might be used in order to appeal to the widely shared Christian values of the Irish community and suggest that the treaty is not welcomed by ordinary workers. All this emphasis on ordinary people and commonly shared values was used in order to provide a negative evaluation of the Lisbon Treaty and its ratification, raise public awareness of the Lisbon issue, and persuade Irish citizens to vote against it. This aspect is not present in the British context probably because the British people are not so sensitive to the abortion issue and employment, or because the British citizens are negated the opportunity to publicly express their opinion, and as a consequence the British press cannot ask them to suspend ratification. Moreover, in the Irish scenario the analysis of concordances has revealed that there is reference to the attacks of both contenders, even though these attacks seem to differ. Treaty supporters attack the NO campaigners as a single entity and define their attacks as aggressive by emphasizing their ferocity. On the other hand, treaty opponents directly address one political leader of the Yes side or the government itself. NO campaigners’ barrage of aggressive attacks was firstly quoted by Micheál Martin, the Irish Foreign Affairs Minister, and in fact occurrences in the corpus always refer to it.

The Lisbon Treaty conflict

88 (8)

The government, which is facing a difficult final fortnight of campaigning, insisted that it was encouraged by the fact that the Yes vote was up “in spite of the incredible barrage of aggressive attacks on the treaty”. Micheal Martin, minister for foreign affairs, said: “The scale and ferocity of these attacks - threatening economic and social ruin - makes the result significant, showing the Irish public refuses to demonise the EU. We know that the attacks will continue and there are a lot of people who have still to decide. That’s why we are taking nothing for granted and are going to redouble our efforts over the next 18 days”. (The Sunday Times, 25 May 2008)

In Martin’s words, the Irish government seems to be a victim of the NO camp. The reference to the NO camp as having no specific identity might imply a communicative strategy used to present the enemy as a menace to Ireland and the YES side. As a consequence, he might be using that metaphor to persuade his potential addressee to support the treaty by voting Yes at the ballot. The crescendo of violence, in the example, contributes to creating coherence and construing the conflict schema. On the other hand, newspapers picture the attacks of treaty opponents directly addressed to politicians rather than to the YES campaigners as a group. This might imply that they are placing responsibility with those politicians for the consequences of their campaign. In particular, Mr. Martin and Cowen are those politicians to whom the attacks are addressed, and as a result criticism is also passed onto the Irish government. On the contrary, as has already been argued, Brown appears to be facing the consequences of his action and is never the actor of the verb attack, but only the goal of other politicians’ attacks. After his decision to defend red lines and not hold a referendum, Brown came under attacks, not only from his opponents, such as the Tories and David Cameron, but also from members of his own political establishment who did not agree with his attitude towards the treaty. The Tories, their leader David Cameron and Gisela Stuart, a member of the Labour Party, in fact seem to be the main actors of these attacks. Even though there is a general negative evaluation of people who attack other people (Bednarek 2006), in the instances found in the corpus this negativity seems to be neutralised by the disapproval of the British government’s attitude towards its promise of a referendum. The different representation of combatants’ attacks in the two scenarios might be explained by the fact that, in Britain, the battleground was mainly the parliamentary area, while in Ireland it was a wider context involving more people defending their positions, i.e. their values. In both scenarios, the prime ministers and their governments adopt a strategy or tactics to win. However, the occurrences of both lexemes in the

Chiara Nasti

89

scenarios have revealed that the Irish strategy (nine occurrences) or tactics (twenty occurrences) are skilfully planned, and more negative evaluation is attributed to them as the collocations with the evaluative adjectives bullying, bully-boy, scare and strong-arm indicate. (9)

Bully-boy tactics on the part of the government reveal its frustration that the electorate is being allowed to have any say in this matter at all. (The Sunday Times, 1 June 2008)

(10) Please stop bullyboy tactics, Mr Lenihan BRIAN Lenihan could not have been more emphatic: if the Lisbon Treaty is defeated, he declared on yesterday’s Morning Ireland, there is no Plan B. It was, of course, another gross oversimplification, yet another example of the bombastic scare tactics the Government has deployed time after time in this referendum campaign. (Daily Mail, 7 June 2008)

As a result, the Irish government seems to have been given the role of a powerful aggressor intent on pursuing its aim – the approval of the treaty – by threatening the weaker Irish voters. The collocation with those evaluative adjectives makes use of the bully metaphor, which is linked to A NATION IS A HUMAN BEING metaphor, where nations are represented as neighbours under attack from bullies (Deignan 2005: 129), thus implying the necessity of an intervention that, if missed, might be interpreted as a lack of moral duty. The role of the bully aggressor might find its explanation in the fact that the Irish government was indebted to the EU, as Ireland had benefited from EU financial support on many occasions, not least during the economic crisis. On the contrary, the British strategy (one occurrence) or tactics (five occurrences) do not collocate with evaluative adjectives that might suggest a negative stance, apart from two occurrences of the lexeme tactics collocating with the evaluative adjective strong-arm and the verb force through. (11) The tactics being used by the Government to force through the treaty of Lisbon, with all its erosion of sovereignty, are reducing a once great chamber to the status of parish council. (The Sunday Telegraph, 10 February 2008)

In example (11), the government’s tactics are negatively evaluated and linked to the loss of sovereignty, to Brown’s role as a compliant leader that surrenders powers to Europe, and the government’s incapacity to defend British interests. However, before the official signing ceremony in Lisbon,

90

The Lisbon Treaty conflict

Brown is also described in terms of the defender of the treaty and British national interests by his supporters, while his opponents ironically attributed that role to him as a subtle move to get the treaty passed in Britain. The scenario created by the metaphorical expressions occurring in the months preceding and following the second Irish referendum is similar to the first referendum debate, with opponents of the ratification still considering the treaty as a threat. However, the violence and complexity of the first part of the conflict seem to soften. In the Irish context, the Yes side’s difficulties in facing the battle soften. There are no references to uphill as a strong collocate of battle, or other evaluative adjectives suggesting the complexity of the conflict. Greater attention is paid to the nature of the attacks and tactics. As occurred before, the contenders attack each other and criticise the tactics of their respective opponents. YES campaigners’ tactics are described in a more negative light by both the press and treaty opponents; the collocation with adjectives such as scare, scaremongering, bullying, strong-arming and thug, and nouns with adjectival function, such as fear and terror, might suggest a negative evaluation of the YES campaign that appears to force the positive result of the ballot. The Socialist MEP Joe Higgins, for example, “accused the Yes side of running a campaign based on ‘fear tactics’” (The Sun 24 September 2009), and the leader of the anti-Lisbon Libertas group also raised his voice against the YES campaign (example 12). (12) He warns the voters not to fall for familiar scare tactics and Brussels intimidation – saying “No” to Lisbon won't damage our economic prospects. In an interview with The Sunday Times today, Mr Ganley challenges Brian Cowen and Brian Lenihan to a debate. (The Sunday Times, 13 September 2009)

In example (12), the attributing verb warn implies an involvement of the senser and negatively evaluates the attributed proposition as dangerous. The use of the verb fall for, the adjective scare and the noun intimidation seems to create a climax of force and contributes to construing the referendum campaign event. The fact that the example shows a disapproval of the European Union, metonymically referred to as Brussels, and the Irish government’s behaviour is not surprising, because the senser is Declan Ganley, the founding chairman of the anti-Lisbon treaty movement Libertas. The second referendum was described in terms of a re-run (34 occurrences) that is not positive, as shown in example (13).

Chiara Nasti

91

(13) Ireland, which allowed the referendum British voters were cheated out of by our own Government, has already voted “No” to the treaty once, in 2008. But, undeterred, the European Union insisted on a rerun and – after a campaign in which the “No” camp has been overwhelmingly outspent – it is today expected to be announced that the Irish public has been successfully bullied and bribed into changing its mind. (Daily Mail, 2 October 2009)

In the British scenario, there is no reference to a violent battle. The emphasis seems to be on Cameron’s fight for a referendum (five occurrences). In particular, the British press seems to be interested in a clarification of Cameron’s position on a possible referendum. The referendum pledge was a thorny issue for the British government and had long been advocated by the British citizens and some newspapers. However, the fight that Cameron was about to face was described by Miliband as a useless fight, as was reported by The Daily Telegraph on 23 September. (14) “It is obvious to me that if they choose to fight it they are condemning a possible Conservative government to years of endless, futile, useless fighting with the EU.” (The Daily Telegraph, 23 September 2009)

In Miliband’s words, the Tories’ fight appears to be a serious crime, the punishment of which will have negative consequences for Britain, and so they had better avoid fighting. Cameron’s attitude after the Irish result and his refusal to call a referendum by the next general election were creating a split in the Conservative Party, described in terms of a revolt. (15) David Cameron is facing a major revolt by the Conservative Party grassroots over his policy on Europe, according to a survey for The Independent. The poll of 2,205 Tory members by the Conservative Home.com website found that more than eight in 10 want him to call a referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon even if it has been approved by the next general election – a pledge he is refusing to make. (The Independent, 2 October 2009)

In order to prevent a worsening of the situation, Cameron was involved in a struggle to maintain a united front, as reported by The Independent and The Times on 5 and 6 October respectively, and appeared to fight another battle – to repatriate some powers and social laws from Brussels – in order to mitigate his referendum denial. The Daily Telegraph quotes Barry Legg, a member of a Euro-sceptic think tank and a former chief executive of the Conservative Party, who strongly criticised Cameron.

92

The Lisbon Treaty conflict (16) Barry Legg [...], said Mr Cameron needed to “come clean” with the British people. “Why is he breaking his pledge to hold a referendum?” he said. “How can David Cameron claim he'll fight to repatriate powers from Brussels when he won't even fight to implement his own words?” (The Daily Telegraph, 3 November 2009)

In example (16), Legg’s words evaluate Cameron’s claims as unclear and seem to question his authority, thus putting emphasis on his contradiction. The Times was also very critical of Cameron’s attitude towards the referendum. The newspaper was tired of Cameron’s contradictions and criticised the Prime Minister’s difficulty in accepting the Irish result, described in terms of accepting a lost battle, and asked the Conservative Party leader to be honest with his people. In both scenarios, the different roles are negatively evaluated and express the press’ strong disapproval of both governments’ actions. In particular, from the embedded quotes and the revival of a metaphorical expression, it has emerged that politicians have different attitudes towards the ratification and tend to represent their opponents as enemies or skilful leaders adopting violent tactics, thus casting a negative light on their opponents’ actions.

6. Conclusion The analysis has revealed that metaphors are powerful communicative tools capable of construing news stories and giving coherence to a text. It has emerged that conflict metaphors are used to show the different attitudes and evaluations of politicians and the press towards the event of ratification. The distribution of different lexemes of the conflict domain has shown similar patterns of public perception of the EU Treaty in terms of a threat in both scenarios. It has been argued that this lexeme has been used to communicate a negative evaluation of the treaty as a powerful enemy able to cause disasters and menacing important values for the two communities. In particular, in the Irish scenario this metaphorical pattern has been employed to raise public awareness of remarkable social issues, such as employment, neutrality and abortion that, as victims of the treaty provisions, need protection. In the British scenario, the lexeme threat has been used with a similar communicative purpose: to present sovereignty – one of the most important and dearest values to the British people – as a victim of the EU Treaty and raise public awareness on national identity and power. Some metaphorical lexemes have turned out to be particularly dramatic and vivid (surrenders powers, bullying tactics, threat) and are

Chiara Nasti

93

employed to communicate a general disapproval of the ratification process and the two governments’ actions. As has been observed, the metaphorical expression surrenders powers has been used with reference to Brown in order to express the British Prime Minister’s inability to fight for his people’s will and interests. It has been observed that this expression is linked to the metaphorical image of the treaty as a threat to sovereignty. As a consequence, assigning Brown the role of a liar and a coward, the British press condemns his behaviour as disrespectful. It has also been shown that the same expression was used with reference to Cameron in order to stress his incapacity to meet his promise of a referendum. As a consequence, Cameron appears as a liar who is dishonest because of his inability to clarify his position towards a long-standing pledge by his people. On the other hand, the metaphorical expression bullying tactics has been employed to describe the Irish Prime Minister and his government in the referendum campaign in order to express a strong disapproval of forceful and dictatorial behaviours. By attributing the role of bullies to Cowen and his government, the British press is emphasising the passive role of the Irish people and is appealing to the Irish voters’ sense of moral justice. To conclude, the analysis has revealed that metaphors provide a widely shared schema of values and beliefs that can be used to convey specific communicative goals. This paper, exploring metaphors occurring in two different contexts, has shown that context-based metaphors are also culture-related and are here specifically employed to raise public consciousness on important political developments and their possible consequences.

References Anderson, P. J. and T. Weymouth (1999). Insulting the Public? The British Press and the European Union. London: Longman. Bednarek, M. (2006). Evaluation in Media Discourse. Analysis of a Newspaper Corpus. London: Continuum. Charteris-Black, J. (2004). Corpus Approaches to Critical Metaphor Analysis. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. —. (2005). Politicians and Rhetoric: The Persuasive Power of Metaphors. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Charteris-Black, J. and A. Musolff (2003). “‘Battered hero’ or ‘innocent victim’? A comparative study of metaphors for euro trading in British and German financial reporting”. English for Specific Purposes, 22, 153-176.

94

The Lisbon Treaty conflict

Deignan, A. (2005). Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Gibbs, R. W. (1994). The Poetics of Mind: Figurative Thought, Language and Understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Goatly, A. (2007). Washing the Brain. Metaphor and Hidden Ideology. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Lakoff, G. and M. Johnson (1980). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Low, G. (1999). “Validating metaphor research projects”. In G. Low and L. Cameron (eds.), Researching and Applying Metaphor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 48-65. Musolff, A. (1996). “False friends borrowing the right words? Common terms and metaphors in European communication”. In A. Musolff, C. Schäffner, and M. Townson (eds.), Conceiving of Europe: Diversity in Unity. Aldershot: Dartmouth, 15-30. —. (2004). Metaphor and Political Discourse. Analogical Reasoning in Debates about Europe. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Musolff, A., C. Good, P. Points and R. Wittlinger (eds.) (2001). Attitudes towards Europe: Language in the Unification Process. Aldershot: Ashgate. Nasti, C. (2012). Images of the Lisbon Treaty Debate in the British Press. A Corpus-based Approach to Metaphor Analysis. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Schäffner, C. (1996). “Building a European house? Or at two speeds into a dead end? Metaphors in the debate on the United Europe”. In A. Musolff, C. Schäffner and M. Townson (eds.), Conceiving of Europe: Diversity in Unity. Aldershot: Dartmouth, 31-59. Scott, M. (2008). WordSmith Tools version 5. Liverpool: Lexical Analysis Software. Semino, E. and M. Masci. (1996). “Politics is football: metaphor in the discourse of Silvio Berlusconi in Italy”. Discourse & Society, 7, 2, 243-269. Steen, G. (1994). Understanding Metaphor in Literature. London: Longman. —. (1999). “From linguistic to conceptual metaphor in five steps”. In G. Steen and R. W. Jr. Gibbs (eds.), Metaphor in Cognitive Linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 57-77. Zanotto, M. S., L. Cameron and M. C. Cavalcanti. (eds.) (2008). Confronting Metaphor in Use. An Applied Linguistic Approach. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Chiara Nasti

95

Appendix Lexical Items Defeat Victory Fight Threaten Threat Battle Attack Rebel Run (re-run) Tactics Win Defend Torpedo Resistance Lost Struggle Surrender Resist Spearhead Revolt Embattled Strategy Allies Aftermath Army Strategist Victims United front March Assault Throw in the towel Enemy Beleaguered Hit out Bombshell Suicide Stalemate Lash out Come under fire Skirmish Scent blood Ferocity Put to the sword Cease fire Total

Tabloids

Broadsheets 144.93 146.22 84.34 65.33 53.64 46.42 53.19 7.01 46.57 21.08 37.17 27.90 38.33 20.41 16.44 9.26 16.59 0.50 21.22 6.53 17.10 10.02 6.88 22.72 18.85 0.00 11.42 4.73 4.88 1.51 0.50 3.50 5.03 5.38 3.02 1.00 0.50 3.87 2.01 0.00 0.00 0.50 0.00 0.00 986.51

66.43 50.05 88.66 45.89 50.90 57.62 39.28 79.50 31.39 51.60 33.77 29.77 3.87 19.34 21.44 24.93 17.57 32.46 8.63 23.05 11.73 16.65 18.39 1.88 1.32 14.68 3.04 7.80 6.42 9.18 7.17 3.68 1.32 0.80 2.68 3.32 3.56 0.00 1.32 1.60 1.32 0.80 0.88 0.80 896.51

Table 6. Total distribution of lexical items relative to conflict domain in the broadsheets and tabloids

The Lisbon Treaty conflict

96

Lexical Item Victory Defeat Fight Run (re-run) Battle Attack Threaten Win Tactics Embattled Threat Spearhead Aftermath Lost Strategist Struggle Strategy Resistance Defend United front Hit out Enemy Lash out Suicide Allies Surrender Beleaguered Come under fire Torpedo Assault Revolt Ferocity Resist Victims Skirmish Rebel Total

Irish Scenario Tabloids 136.11 108.77 57.77 35.80 35.35 28.20 36.59 27.42 16.06 17.10 10.04 21.22 21.22 8.90 0.00 9.26 8.02 9.70 4.53 4.73 3.87 2.00 3.37 0.00 2.51 0.00 2.01 2.01 0.50 1.51 0.50 0.50 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.50 616.08

Broadsheets 35.88 37.46 15.36 26.33 15.02 21.06 8.69 9.95 17.21 11.73 18.76 5.31 0.80 10.22 13.88 7.35 2.57 0.80 2.57 2.49 0.00 1.68 0.00 3.32 0.80 2.21 0.00 0.00 1.32 0.00 0.00 0.80 1.11 1.08 0.80 0.00 276.57

Table 7. Distribution of lexical items relative to conflict domain in the Irish scenario in broadsheets and tabloids

Chiara Nasti

Lexical Item Rebel Fight Threat Battle Defeat Torpedo Attack Revolt Defend Surrender Win Resist Lost Tactics Struggle Threaten Victory March Assault Allies Strategy Resistance United front Bombshell Beleaguered Come under fire Scent blood Suicide Enemy Strategist Skirmish Cease fire Total

British Scenario Tabloids 4.00 24.56 40.59 11.07 19.88 28.62 12.28 4.52 3.51 10.56 4.38 0.00 5.53 1.00 0.00 2.01 2.87 1.51 0.00 1.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.51 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 180.40

97

Broadsheets

Table 8. Distribution of lexical items relative to conflict domain in the British scenario in broadsheets and tabloids

77,73 49.38 11.06 27.98 9.29 0.00 14.23 21.73 17.35 8.94 14.66 14.75 10.34 10.70 9.95 7.75 4.61 3.32 4.42 3.32 4.12 2.22 1.77 0.00 1.32 1.32 1.32 0.00 0.88 0.80 0.80 0.80 336.85

CHAPTER FIVE THE NATURAL CHOICE? METAPHORS FOR NATURE IN A UK GOVERNMENT WHITE PAPER

DOUGLAS PONTON UNIVERSITY OF CATANIA

Abstract George Lakoff (1993: 203) has described metaphor as, “a major and indispensable part of our ordinary conventional way of conceptualizing the world”. But, as Charteris-Black (2005: 13) explains, this conceptualising is not simply a neutral cognitive act. Politicians, for example, understand the potential of metaphor as a persuasive rhetorical figure. In the topical public debate on the environment, where environmental discourse has achieved a certain currency thanks to the actions of pressure groups such as Greenpeace, metaphors have a key role to play in influencing attitudes. This study explores the construction of environmental discourse in a recent white paper from the British government, with a special emphasis on the persuasive power of the metaphors used. It suggests that to use the notion of “value” as a key metaphor is a questionable rhetorical strategy on many levels, though it may have some persuasive power in the corporate sphere.

1. Introduction Among the many discourses that today compete for political, scientific and popular attention, as well as for public funding, that of the environment speaks with the loudest, most urgent tones. During the Cold War, nuclear proliferation threatened the future of life on planet Earth. Now, the excesses of industrial processes have given rise to analogous visions of environmental catastrophe. Such is the background against which today’s

100

The Natural Choice?

ecological movement has taken shape. People have come together in “Green Parties”, which operate in many countries, in private organisations such as Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, The Institute for Deep Ecology, and many more. Such groups express what Castells (2009: 322), calls, “the widespread rise of deep ecological awareness”, which characterises our age. He points out that more than one billion people worldwide took part in the 2007 “Earth Day”, evidence that, on a popular level, there is a growing awareness of the importance to human beings of the environment in which we live. Environmental discourse has achieved a level of political and social influence thanks to the actions of these pressure groups. Multinational businesses now routinely incorporate ecological discourse as an element of their branding (Vasta 2005). Politicians of all persuasions must at least pay lip service to ecological values. This study explores the construction of environmental discourse in a recent white paper from the British government, with a special emphasis on the persuasive power of the metaphors used. It uses corpus analysis together with a broadly critical perspective, suggesting that ideology and political considerations may underpin the apparently natural discourse of the “value” of Nature. Ecolinguistics is an emerging field, as many linguists have responded to these social themes. A website, Language and Ecology,1 collects articles on environmental topics. Some of these are responses to Goatly’s (1996: 537) call for an “ecological critical discourse analysis”, and the current paper also has a critical orientation.

1.1 Introduction: white papers White papers are government documents on key policy issues. Their function is not legislative but rather to pave the way for future legislation (Chapin and Deneau 1978: 33). By producing a white paper, governments invite stakeholders to suggest modifications, raise public consciousness of the issues, and assess the likely popularity of their policies. White papers present government policies while at the same time inviting opinions upon them (Pemberton 1969: 49). For example, the recent UK government white paper on the National Health Service makes the following explicit request for stakeholders and members of the public to express their views: We are consulting on how best to implement these changes. In particular, the Department would welcome comments on the implementation of the proposals requiring primary legislation, and will publish a response to the 1

http://www.ecoling.net/#/articles/4563035324 (accessed 10 August 2013).

Douglas Ponton

101

views raised on the White Paper and the associated papers, prior to the introduction of the Bill. Comments should be sent by 5th October 2010, to: [email protected]

This consultative dimension is less evident in the Natural Choice White Paper on the Environment. It is mentioned that consultation has already taken place, via public surveys, and the views of respondents are incorporated into the text. The text features persuasive rhetoric, designed to convince readers of the rightness of the government’s proposals. This is not only the case with the text, however. The persuasive function affects the whole document from a wider, semiotic perspective, so that diagrams, photos, choice of colours, and so on, all play their part. This paper explores the persuasive aspect of the government document from both textual and multimodal perspectives.

2. Framing nature: reading the cover image The picture shows the cover of the 2011 white paper on the environment, “The Natural Choice: Securing the Value of Nature” (Figure 1).3 Kress and Van Leeuwen (e.g. 1996) suggest techniques for interpreting the grammars of multi-modal communication, which can be used to explore meaning in an image of this kind.

Figure 1. Cover of government white paper on the environment 2

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file /213819/dh_118612.doc (accessed 12 October 2015). 3 https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file /228842/8082.pdf (accessed 12 October 2015).

102

The Natural Choice?

The colours and features of spatial composition combine in a reassuring image, which has the clarity of a magazine advert. It shows a multi-ethnic family in a public garden, bending over a flowerbed and laughing. Green is the dominant colour, and this basic environmental colour is also used for part of the verbal banner. Such features are predictable components of a document on the environment, and help associate the message designers, the government, with ecological values. Image constructors, Kress and Van Leeuwen argue, tend to map given and new elements onto certain spatial areas, with the left side representing the former, and the right side the latter: Horizontal elongation causes a shape to lean towards the kind of structure in which what is positioned on the left is presented as “Given”, as information that is already familiar to the reader and serves as a “departure point” for the message, while what is positioned on the right is presented as “New”, as information not yet known to the reader, and hence deserving his or her special attention. (1996: 57)

Here, then, the family, visibly happy and engaged in some outdoor pursuit, represents the “Given”. It is taken for granted that British families enjoy spending time together outdoors, in a green context, interacting with the natural world, like the child here with her bucket and net. The image embraces multi-cultural Britain by including a coloured man in a scene which would otherwise picture a stereotypically “British” family in a very familiar British garden. The group’s attention is focused on the garden border, which occupies a central position, further underlining the left/right divide. The reader’s curiosity about the object of their attention, however, is disappointed by what is found on the right of the picture – the “New”, or that which is “deserving of special attention”. All that we see in this part of the picture is a combination of different natural objects – trees, lavender, grass and shrubs. The dominance of different shades of green in the “New” section gives the colour itself communicative salience. The subliminal message of the picture could be that nature can provide a satisfying and joyous focus for family activity, when encountered in the context of a well-kept garden. As Kress and Van Leeuwen (Ibid: 57) say, the principle of “vertical elongation” gives greater communicative status to the elements at the top of an image; in this case, to the text. The picture can thus be seen as a semiotic representation, or illustration, of the message given in textual form in the title. Somebody, presumably the government, is engaged in

Douglas Ponton

103

“securing the value of Nature”. This reading of the image sees it as a semiotic metaphor that underlines the rhetorical force of the text itself.

2.2 Framing nature: reading the title “Framing”, in Edwards’ succinct description (2005: 15), means, “organizing information in a way that provides a particular interpretation or meaning for the audience” (see also Jaworski and Coupland 1999: 24; Yrjölä 2011: 211). The persuasive function of framing is well illustrated by George Lakoff in his discussion of political discourse in the USA, where he shows how Republicans appeal to listeners’ experiences of parenthood to covertly enlist their support for right-wing programmes of removing social support structures.4 In a multimodal sense, framing would refer to the decision to show nature in the context of a perfectly kept garden of a college or church. A wild landscape showing nature untouched by human intervention would convey a different message. Nature is here shown to be “institutionalised”, a resource that needs the controlling, nurturing force of government intervention if its value is to be realised. Nor are the actual words of the title rhetorically neutral. The paper could have carried the straightforward label: “Government White Paper on the Environment”. Instead, the title helps frame the discourse, engaging with a specific target audience. The prominence given to the notion of value in the title serves to emphasise the “particular interpretation” that the writers aim to convey through the document as a whole.

2.3 The notion of nature’s value The following section gives an idea of the general tone of the white paper: Nature is good for human health. There is a wealth of evidence on the positive effect that spending time in the natural environment has on the health and emotional wellbeing of children. The quality of the local natural environment is one of the factors that shape our health over a lifetime. A good-quality environment is associated with a decrease in problems such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol. It is also linked with better mental health, reduced stress and more physical activity. If every household in England were provided with good access to quality green space, an estimated £2.1 billion in healthcare costs could be saved. On the 4

http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/27_lakoff.shtml (accessed: 3 August 2013).

104

The Natural Choice? other hand, a poor local natural environment can damage people’s health and contribute to health inequalities. For example, the social costs of the impacts of air pollution are estimated at £16 billion per year in the UK. (46)

The text proceeds from a series of positive general statements about the environment to the following equations, expressive of a monetary value: Access to quality green space = £2.1 billion The impacts of air pollution = £16 billion per year

These equations are frequently encountered in the text, supporting the inference that when the word “value” is used, the intended sense is monetary. Apart from the title, the text itself is full of references to value: government and society need to account better for the value of nature, particularly the services and resources it provides (2, emphasis added)

Nature is framed as a resource, with an (economic) value. For example, on p. 52, we are told: there is evidence that cyclists and walkers spend more in the local economy than visitors by car, benefiting local communities (emphasis added)

The “value” of nature, for the text creators, can be quantified. As well as the financial increments to the local communities, there are also benefits to the cyclers and walkers, of an aesthetic/cultural kind, or in terms of health. These are quantifiable too, especially the latter, and elsewhere in the document the savings to the nation’s healthcare costs from the population spending time in nature are given a financial estimation. Green Party leader Caroline Lucas commented on the white paper’s approach as follows: while the economic evaluation of the natural world might be a wellintentioned effort to convince economists and the business community of its importance, putting a price on the environment only serves to commodify it.5

5

Green Party. at http://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/green-party-says-naturalenvironment-mixed-messages-could-hamper-conservation.html (accessed 16 August 2014).

Douglas Ponton

105

I suggest below that Lucas’s insight helps to understand the emphasis on value found throughout the document. The widespread appeal of environmental discourse at a popular level, alluded to above, demonstrates that the public at large is increasingly aware of the importance of these issues to their quality of life. The government would instead seem to be targeting “economists and the business community”, using the language they understand best.

3. Metaphor Since Aristotle’s first discussions of metaphor in his Poetics and Rhetoric it has been the subject of critical attention. It has been seen as central to poetic language or that of philosophical enquiry (Perelman and OlbrechtsTyteca 1969: 403-4, Chilton 2009). Its presence has been studied in scientific discourse (Lemke 1990: 117). It has been identified as among the key components of persuasive political rhetoric (Charteris-Black 2005, 2009; Fairclough 2000: 32-3, Lakoff and Johnson 1980: 156-63, RistaDema 2008: 9-10). While for Aristotle it was an important figure of speech, especially useful in argumentation, more recent insights have tended to see it as a key, language-based resource in human cognition (Lakoff and Johnson 1980). In a recent popular work, James Geary summarises some of these developments: Metaphorical thinking – our instinct not just for describing but for comprehending one thing in terms of another – shapes our view of the world, and is essential to how we communicate, learn, discover and invent […] Our understanding of metaphor is in the midst of a metamorphosis. For centuries, metaphor has been seen as a kind of cognitive frill, a pleasant but essentially useless embellishment to “normal” thought. Now, the frill is gone. New research in the social and cognitive sciences makes it increasingly plain that metaphorical thinking influences our attitudes, beliefs, and actions in surprising, hidden, and often oddball ways. (Geary 2011: 3)

Current metaphors about nature are manifold. In his book The Politics of the Earth, John Dryzek identifies some key metaphors that have figured in environmental discourse: -

Spaceship (the idea of “spaceship earth”) The grazing commons of a medieval village (“the tragedy of the commons”) Machines (nature is like a machine that can be reassembled to meet human needs)

The Natural Choice?

106 -

Organisms (nature is a complex organism that grows and develops) Human Intelligence (ascribed to nonhuman entities such as ecosystems) War (against nature) Goddesses (treating nature in benign female form, and not just as Mother Nature) (from Dryzek 2005: 18)

Such metaphors are not simply decorative semantic devices; rather, as Dryzek claims, their purpose is frequently rhetorical, aiming to “convince listeners or readers by putting a situation in a particular light” (Dryzek 2005: 19). An example of the NATURE IS AN ORGANISM metaphor is the following phrase, from a website with an environmental theme: For our own health we must tend to the health of our environment.6

This is an instance of the category, familiar from Critical Discourse Analysis, of “presupposition”, which Jones and Stilwell Peccei (1999: 42) say can, “persuade people to take something for granted which is actually open to debate” (it presupposes that there is a relationship between our health and that of the environment). But the metaphor has deontological force as well, which derives from the associations of the phoros: if someone is sick, they must receive “treatment” and be “cured”. Support for environmental solutions and policies, therefore, is sought by means of this specific verbal formulation. This familiar “sick man” metaphor for referring to nature is also found in the white paper: A healthy, properly functioning natural environment is the foundation of sustained economic growth, prospering communities and personal wellbeing. (3)

The tie between a healthy environment and material prosperity is characteristic of the text. Once again, presupposition is involved, since the writers never spell out details of the cause/effect processes that connect unpolluted environments with economic success. The proposition is, in fact, questionable. The most successful global economy is currently that of China, a country notorious for its assault on its natural environment, and

6

http://www.johnpaulcaponigro.com/blog/9081/environmental-metaphors-robertand-shana- Parkeharrison (accessed 15 August 2013).

Douglas Ponton

107

industrial processes in all countries have always been associated with environmental damage. The aim is to explore the metaphors used by the white paper’s authors, and to try to account for them in terms of an “imagined reader” (Coulthard 1994: 3) on whose behalf the persuasive attempt is being made. As Charteris-Black (2004: 34) says in his explanation of the purpose of Critical Metaphor Analysis, the aim is to uncover the covert, possibly unconscious, intentions of the creators of the text.

3.1 Metaphors in the Natural Choice white paper Charteris-Black’s work on metaphor has also provided a methodological guide. I have followed the procedure outlined in his 2004 book, which envisages: a close reading of a sample of texts with the aim of identifying candidate metaphors [...] words that are commonly used with a metaphoric sense are then classified as metaphor keywords and it is possible to measure the presence of such keywords quantitatively in the corpus. (Charteris-Black 2004: 35)

In Table 1 below, I have recorded all instances of the first three candidate metaphors found during the close reading7. Other metaphors have only selected instances recorded. Metaphor Keyword / Occurrences Health / 6

Healthy / 32

Instances Connecting through nature’s health service Water bodies in England will be in excellent health The health of the country’s natural resources Their health is essential for our wellbeing Improve the health of ecosystems The health of our natural resources A healthy, properly functioning natural environment Healthy natural environments The benefits of a healthy natural environment Economic development and a healthy natural environment The economic and social benefits of a healthy natural environment Biodiversity, healthy soils, clean air Our seas to be clean, healthy A healthy environment is essential to long-term growth

7 Repeated instances are omitted from the “instances” column but counted as occurrences.

108

The Natural Choice? Landscapes with healthy soils Healthy peat vegetation Healthy, fertile soils Healthy well-functioning ecosystems Healthy neighbourhoods Healthy functioning ecosystems A healthy, resilient natural environment A healthy planet A healthy ecosystem The healthy soils Healthy ecosystems Healthy water bodies Healthy places to live Healthy soil

System(s) / 16

Nature is a complex, interconnected system The way that nature works as a system The value of natural systems And functioning natural systems Natural systems support us Natural water systems

Value / 75

Nature’s intrinsic value A network of 50 Natural Value Ambassadors To value natural capital The global value of natural resources The value of natural capital High nature conservation value The value of the natural world The value of England’s natural capital The value of natural resources The highest biodiversity value in the world The wildlife value of the site The value of coastal wetlands The value of natural services Value of their green spaces Ecological value Protecting natural value High-value areas In recognition of their particular value Capturing the value of nature The economic value of the natural environment Nature’s value to society The real value of nature Innate value of nature Biodiversity value Goods, services and amenity value The economic and social value of nature Add value to a local area’s development The value of the natural environment The value of natural systems The value of physical environmental assets

Douglas Ponton

109

The value of environmental resources Its real value The true value of nature

Table 1. The Natural Choice white paper metaphors (i)

The optimum scenario is clearly to consider all instances involving the keyword, which permits the appreciation of nuances. For example, the human, institutional associations of the National Health Service are present in: connecting through nature’s health service. (46)

The next instance involves a standard phrase, “to be in excellent health”, which rather suggests a doctor’s report on a patient, or a patient’s communication with a relative: water bodies in England will be in excellent health. (29)

For reasons of space, however, other keywords have only one instance recorded (see Table 2 below). Metaphor Keyword / Occurrences Access / 21

Instances

Metaphor Scenario

Connecting through better neighbourhood access to nature

Nature is a closed space

Assets / 13

Developing countries to value and enhance their own natural assets

Nature is a resource

Benefits / 7

Too many of the benefits we derive from nature

Nature is an investment

Capital / 95

The value of natural capital

Nature is a resource

Functions / 8

Valuable natural functions have already been degraded

Nature is an organism

Improvement / 13

Support Nature Improvement Areas

Nature is an artefact

Network / 22

A resilient and coherent ecological network across England

Nature is a system

Partnership / 10

We will establish Local Nature Partnerships

Nature is a business

The Natural Choice?

110 Rebuild / 1

A new, restorative approach which rebuilds nature

Nature is a house

Recovery / 1

A clear institutional framework to achieve the recovery of nature

Nature is a patient

Resources / 5

Look after our natural resources

Nature is a resource

Restore / 10

We will restore natural capital where it is degraded

Nature is a work of art/or a patient

Service(s) / 150

Beneficiary of a natural service a wide range of ecosystem services, including the inspiring beauty of our coasts

Nature is a servant

Table 2. The Natural Choice white paper metaphors (ii)

I was interested in recovering metaphors for nature from the text, so my close reading was directed towards the co-text of the words nature and natural, and this paper deals with these terms only. There are, however, many other ways of referring to nature, and it is also true that metaphors are involved in the use of terms such as green (itself a metaphor), biodiversity, environment/al, and ecology/ical, among others. These are only considered where they show up in the data beside an identified keyword (for example, biodiversity value). It is also possible to come across metaphors that seem to provide no keywords: Nature itself also stands to gain from an economy which better reflects its real value. (35)

The figurative sense is once more in the area of profit/loss. The metaphors that emerge from the analysis of the keyword co-text can also be found in stretches of text without these keywords. For example, the metaphor that NATURE IS A PATIENT, clearly involved in the text using the keywords health/y, is also found in the following: nature in England is highly fragmented and unable to respond effectively to new pressures such as climate and demographic change. (3)

This metaphor is suggestive of nature as a clinically depressed patient, unable to cope with the stresses of modern life. Figure 2 below shows the values for each keyword:

Douglas Ponton

111

Figure 2. Frequency of metaphor keywords

Two principal domains of metaphoric reference are clearly visible. Firstly that of business (capital, value, services, benefits, partnership, assets, resources), and secondly that of health (health, healthy, restore, recovery). A third, smaller group can be identified that refers to system (system/s, network).

3.2 Discussion: metaphors in “the Natural Choice” In all, 80% of the metaphors are found in the domain of business, which is less surprising than it might be, given what has been said about the orientation of the white paper. Among the most common collocates for nature are the terms value, partnerships, services, benefits, economy/economic, businesses and markets, a finding that underlines the centrality of this semantic field.

112

The Natural Choice?

The business metaphors emphasise a special understanding of nature that sees it primarily as a social resource on which a monetary value can be put. Value, of course, is a term that does not necessarily imply a monetary sense, and it is not always possible to identify the precise semantics of each case. At times, the context makes it plain that the “ordinary sense” is intended, as in its first appearance here: Most people rightly believe in the innate value of nature [...] But the value of nature to our economy and society, and to our personal wellbeing, is also clearer than ever. (7, emphasis added)

The second instance, however, by referring to nature’s contribution to the economy, suggests a monetary value. Although the reference to personal wellbeing seems to include non-monetary notions of value, elsewhere in the document such apparently abstract notions are brought down to earth: If every household in England were provided with good access to quality green space, an estimated £2.1 billion in healthcare costs could be saved. (46)

Nature, then, is indeed “commodified” in these metaphors. Green spaces are not simply good for people in a vague, general sense. Instead, a precise, monetary value can be placed upon them. Such equations allow for activities like jogging, walking the dog, or kids having green spaces to play in to figure in the annual budgets of central government. The same applies to metaphors involving the keyword assets. One of the OED’s first definitions of the term refers to the realm of business: an item of property owned by a person or company, regarded as having value and available to meet debts.

Britain is thus metaphorically identified as a company, and its natural resources are seen as assets with a monetary value. This is also the case with the term capital, one of the most frequent metaphors. The OED defines this as: wealth in the form of money or other assets owned by a person or organization or available for a purpose such as starting a company or investing.

The term frequently collocates, in the text, with natural in the noun phrase natural capital (94 instances). This referential strategy may have a predicational purpose, and could be an example of grammatical

Douglas Ponton

113

presupposition (Treanor 2013) in which the use of natural as an adjective presupposes that there is such a category of capital (see also Van Dijk 2003: 100, Götzsche 2009: 176). The term is, in fact, current among economists (Ekins et al. 2003). Once more, the metaphor affirms that the main evaluation of nature’s significance is in terms of its contribution to the economy: The Government will take action to capture the value of natural capital on the nation’s balance sheet. In doing so, we will end the situation where gains and losses in the value of natural capital go unrecorded and unnoticed. (36)

The metaphor aligns the natural world with the interests of a capitalist society. In contrast to a scenario in which the capitalist project and the natural world are in conflict, nature is included in the capitalist world view. The most frequent of all metaphors for nature sees it as the provider of services of one kind or another. Services come in different forms: -

Provisioning services, including crops, livestock, fish, energy (wind power), water supply, etc. Cultural services including recreation, landscape and cultural heritage Regulating services including carbon storage, flood management, pollination, improving water, soil and air quality. (27)

Nature is positioned as humanity’s benefactor, as it “freely provides us” with all these things that, like spoilt children, we too often “take for granted” (2). The authors’ familiar strategy once more appears, as we are told: There are multi-million pound opportunities available from greener goods and services, and from markets that protect nature’s services. (4)

Rather than as a manservant performing errands for humanity, perhaps it is closer to the mark to see nature as one of the service industries – health, education, or transport – operating on a massive scale, its activity benefitting the whole society. These metaphors operate as a kind of systematic web throughout the whole document, and carry a message that may at times be subliminal, but is made explicit so often that it appears central to the communicative purpose of the text as a whole.

114

The Natural Choice?

The other two metaphorical domains encountered – that of nature as system and as patient – are related to this overarching message. To view nature as a system relates it to patterns of human organisation, such as bureaucratic, transport or business systems. What is of interest in the metaphors from the realm of health, meanwhile, is the connection the writers presuppose between a pristine natural environment and economic prosperity: economic development and a healthy natural environment. (10) the economic and social benefits of a healthy natural environment. (3) a healthy environment is essential to long-term growth. (10)

Once more the writers make a specific claim about the financial benefits of a “healthy” environment: we reject the outdated idea that environmental action is a barrier to growth or that achieving economic development and a healthy natural environment are incompatible objectives [...] protected natural areas can deliver economic returns that are 100 times greater than the cost of their protection and maintenance. (10)

The white paper’s message, then, is clear. It is also clear why the writers regard “protecting the value of nature” as a “natural choice”. There are sound economic reasons behind environmentally friendly policies, and the metaphors play an important part in developing the argument.

3.3 The “National Ecosystem Assessment” The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Right Hon. Caroline Spelman, states in her foreword to the white paper: Over 500 scientists from around the world have now developed a tool by which we can assess more accurately the value of the natural world around us. (2)

She is referring to the “National Ecosystem Assessment”, a British government initiative introduced in response to the publication, in 2005, of the global Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. This report on the current state of the world’s ecosystems, by more than a thousand prominent scientists, stimulated individual countries to produce their own ecosystem assessments. Britain’s was the first to be completed. The point of the tool is precisely that it attempts to assess the range of “services” nature

Douglas Ponton

115

provides in terms susceptible to economic analysis. Figure 3 below shows the division of the UK environment into eight broad habitat types. Of special interest is the way so-called cultural services (recreation and tourism, aesthetic values, cultural heritage, spiritual values, education, sense of place, health benefits) are tabulated together with regulating services (e.g. flood and wildfire regulation) and provisioning services such as food, timber and pharmaceutical products.

Figure 3. From the National Ecosystem Assessment8 (17) 8 http://uknea.unep-wcmc.org/Resources/tabid/82/Default.aspx (Synthesis of Key Findings) (accessed 12 October 2015).

116

The Natural Choice?

Among other questions posed by the report is why the economic values of ecosystem services should be incorporated into decision making. Some of the language is reminiscent of that found in the white paper itself: ecosystem services are clearly crucial to the more than 3,000 million outdoor recreational visits which UK residents make each year. Analyses conducted for the UK NEA shows that these visits generate a social value in excess of £10,000 million annually. (42)

In its report on the release of the National Ecosystem Assessment, The Guardian newspaper quoted Bob Watson, co-author of the report, as saying: Putting a value on these natural services enables them to be incorporated into policy in the same way that other factors are. We can't persist in thinking of these things as free..9

Later in the article, the newspaper specifies some of the NEA’s findings: The health benefits of living with a view of a green space are worth up to £300 per person per year, in part by providing areas for people to exercise but also because simply looking at nature lifts people's spirits, according to scientific research. Living close to rivers, coasts and wetlands is also a boon – the benefits to residents are about £1.3bn a year.

The prominent role given to economic aspects of value found in the white paper is thus continuing a discourse also found in the earlier study.

3.4 Political context White papers are not produced in a political vacuum. On the contrary, they represent policy tools of the current government, and as such are not free from ideological traces. The Natural Choice white paper was published in 2011, during the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition government led by David Cameron. It would, therefore, seem to make sense to interpret the framing strategy displayed in terms of the underlying political constraints on the Conservatives, the dominant party in the governing coalition. The Conservative Party has two important strands of support historically associated with it. On the one hand it is seen as the British party par excellence of industry and business, the natural ally of capitalist 9 http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/jun/02/uk-green-spaces-value (accessed 15 August 2013).

Douglas Ponton

117

enterprises. On the other, it is associated with the countryside, with the conservation of rural areas and traditions. Former Prime Minister John Major was making an appeal to the country voter when he famously predicted: Fifty years on from now, Britain will still be the country of long shadows on cricket grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers and pools fillers and, as George Orwell said, “Old maids bicycling to holy communion through the morning mist”. 10

The white paper recognises that public concern for the environment has reached unprecedented levels (“Most people already recognise that nature has an intrinsic value”, 2). By inference there must be some people excluded from this (“most” is not the same as “all”). If this were not the case, there would be no need for government initiatives to protect nature. Given the emphasis on “value” throughout the text, it can also be inferred that the people not recognising nature’s intrinsic value are the very people whose activity does the most damage to it, i.e. industrial corporations, multi-nationals, and capitalists in general – social actors for whom the profit motive is the paramount factor in decision-making. The Conservative Party has always numbered these among its traditional supporters. Multinational businesses have become accustomed to incorporating ecological discourse as an element of their branding, as if, far from being the cause of environmental degradation, they were working in harmony with local ecosystems (see Vasta 2005). Harré et al. (1999: 115) speak of, “the seemingly incompatible accreditations of scientific, moral and economic discourses”. The writers of the document, then, transcend the apparently irreconcilable opposition between the needs of business and respect for the environment by emphasising the monetary value of the latter. The aim could be to keep on board both factions of their traditional support. However, this is to assume a strict connection between white papers and the government producing them, which may be unwarranted. The white paper on the environment, in fact, though published under the Conservative Lib-Dem coalition, must have been conceived some time before they came to office, during New Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s premiership. The rhetoric of business applied to environmental issues sits less comfortably with Labour ideology, however far to the right they may have moved under Tony Blair’s leadership. 10

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Major (accessed 15 August 2013).

118

The Natural Choice?

What seems more likely is that the actual branding decisions were not taken by politicians at all, but by bureaucrats at the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), influenced by the National Ecosystem Assessment that, as we have seen, was another government document published in the same year (2011). How far the logic of financial evaluation is consistent with the ideology of Whitehall would make a fascinating study, although data collection would represent a significant hurdle.

4. Conclusion We have explored the metaphors used in the white paper on the environment and seen their role in an attempt to convince readers of the financial benefits of smart environmental policies. In part, I suggested, the persuasive effort is directed towards those whose actions have most impact, for good or ill, on the environment. The principal argument in this sense, to which the metaphors make their contribution, would seem to be: SINCE the only language corporate enterprises understand is that of money, and SINCE their activities put nature at risk but SINCE it is possible to make money through environment-friendly economic activity, THEREFORE Such firms should engage more and more in such activity. How convincing they may find this argument is a matter, in the end, for the corporate businesses themselves. The population in general, I have suggested, is already aware of “the innate value of nature”. Having said as much, however, the public, consultative character of white papers should not be forgotten. They are not private documents, designed for circulation among a target audience, in this case the business community. It may be that a discourse of the economic value of nature can be accounted for with reference to wider social trends, even to the prevailing climate of global financial unrest. Many people across the UK

Douglas Ponton

119

are exploring their relationship with the natural world, uncovering unexpected sources of income and possibilities of employment.11 Some observers have expressed doubt over whether monetary values can be attributed to intangible aspects of our interaction with the environment at all. In a report for DEFRA, for example, R. K. Turner, using the term “existence values” to describe these, comments: Existence value derives from individuals who feel a benefit from just knowing that, for example, an ecosystem and/or its component parts, exist and will continue to exist somewhere on the planet. The economic valuation literature has yet to reach a comprehensive consensus on whether use and non-use value can be formally distinguished using standard welfare economic measures.

The risk of this approach to nature would seem to be precisely that raised by Caroline Lucas, which commodifies our environment by attempting to put a price on every aspect of our interaction with it. It is questionable, though, how far economic values can really be attached to an ecological phenomenon such as a natural park. For many visitors to the Lake District, for example, the experience may represent a recharging of batteries that will lead, in turn, to an economic benefit in terms of improved workplace performance. But for a romantic poet, the inspiration of contact with nature could lead them to produce a “Daffodils” or “Kubla Khan”. What economic value, one wonders, would DEFRA place on these?

References Castells, M. (2009). Communication Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chapin, H. and D. Deneau (1978). Citizen Involvement in Public Policymaking: Access and the Policy-making Process. Ottawa: Canadian Council on Social Development. Charteris-Black, J. (2004). Corpus Approaches to Critical Metaphor Analysis. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. —. (2005). Politicians and Rhetoric: The Persuasive Power of Metaphor. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

11

See, for example, Balcony Growing: http://www.pottyinnovations.co.uk/feature-raisedbed-balcony-gardening.html#.Ug4qJ9KTQig, or Allotments: http://www.nsalg.org.uk/ (accessed 15 August 2013).

120

The Natural Choice?

—. (2009). “Metaphor and political communication”. In A. Musolff and J. Zinken (eds.), Metaphor and Discourse. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 97-115. Chilton, P. (2009). “Reading sonnet 30: Discourse, metaphor and blending”. In A. Musolff and J. Zinken (eds.), Metaphor and Discourse. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 40-58. Coulthard, M. (1994). “On analysing and evaluating written text”. In M. Coulthard (ed.), Advances in Written Text Analysis. London: Routledge, 1-11. Dryzek, J. S. (2005). The Politics of the Earth: Environmental Discourses. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Edwards, L. Y. (2005). “Victims, villains, and vixens. Teen girls and internet crime”. In S. R. Mazzarella (ed.), Girl Wide Web: Girls, the Internet and the Negotiation of Identity. Bern: Peter Lang, 13-30. Ekins, P., S. Sandrine, L. Deutsch, C. Folke, and R. de Groot (2003). “A framework for the practical application of the concepts of critical natural capital and strong sustainability”. Ecological Economics, 44, 165-185. Fairclough, N. (2000). New Labour, New Language. London: Routledge. Geary, J. (2011). I is an Other: The Secret Life of Metaphor and How It Shapes the Way We See the World. New York, NY: Harper Collins. Goatly, A. (1996). “Green grammar and grammatical metaphor, or language and myth of power, or metaphors we die by”. Journal of Pragmatics, 25, 537-60. Götzsche, H. (2009). “Presupposition”. In S. Chapman and C. Routledge (eds.), Key Ideas in Linguistics and the Philosophy of Language. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 173-179. Harré, R., J. Brockmeier and P. Mühlhaüsler (1999). Greenspeak. A Study of Environmental Discourse. London: Sage publications. Jaworski, A. and N. Coupland (eds.) (1999). The Discourse Reader. London: Routledge. Jones, J. and J. Stilwell Peccei (1999). “Language and politics”. In L. Thomas, S. Wareing, I. Singh, J. Stilwell Peccei, J. Thornborrow and J. Jones (eds.), Language, Society and Power. An Introduction. Second edition. London/New York: Routledge, 35-54. Kress, G. and T. Van Leeuwen (1996). Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London: Routledge. Lakoff, G. (1993). “The contemporary theory of metaphor”. In A. Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and Thought. Second edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 202-249.

Douglas Ponton

121

Lakoff, G. and M. Johnson (1980). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lemke, J. (1990). Talking Science: Language, Learning, and Values. Westport: Ablex. Pemberton, J. E. (1969). Government Green Papers. Library World 71, 49. Perelman, C. and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca (1969). The New Rhetoric. A Treatise on Argumentation. Paris: University of Notre-Dame Press. Rista-Dema, M. (2008). “Language register and the impacts of translation”. In S. Gyasi Obeng and A. S. Hartford Beverly (eds.), Political Discourse Analysis. New York: Nova Science, 1-22. Treanor, F. (2013). “Ideological presuppositions – six German higher education policy documents”. Academia.edu. Available at: http://www.academia.edu/4039613/Ideological_PresuppositionsSix_German_Higher_Education_Policy_Documents (accessed 14 August 2013). Turner, R. K. (2013). “A pluralistic approach to ecosystem assessment and evaluation”. DEFRA. Available at: http://cserge.ac.uk/sites/default/files/edm_2010_07.pdf (accessed 14 August 2013). Van Dijk, T. A. (2003). “The discourse-knowledge interface”. In G. Weiss and R. Wodak (eds.), Critical Discourse Analysis: Theory and Interdisciplinarity. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 85-109. Vasta, N. (2005). “‘Profits & principles: Is there a choice?’ The multimodal construction of SHELL’s commitment to social responsibility and environmental care in and across advertising texts”. In G. Cortese and A. Duszak (eds.), Identity, Community, Discourse: English in Intercultural Settings. Bern: Peter Lang, 429452. Yrjölä, R. (2011). “Visual politics and celebrity humanitarianism. How colonial culture is revitalised in the West”. In M. Stocchetti and K. Kukkonen (eds.), Images in Use. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 199224.

SECTION II: CONTRASTIVE ANALYSES OF POLITICAL LANGUAGE

CHAPTER SIX CRAFTING AN EFFECTIVE MESSAGE FOR THE MASSES, OR THE ART OF POPULISM: AN ANALYSIS OF NEW POPULIST RHETORIC FROM A TEXTUAL PERSPECTIVE

MARIA IVANA LORENZETTI UNIVERSITY OF VERONA

“La politique est l’art de se servir des hommes, en leur faisant croire qu’on les sert” —Louis Dumur

Abstract Populism is an ambiguous term in political science referring at the same time to demagogy and demophily (Mazzoleni 2004) that ultimately entails putting into question the institutional order by constructing an underdog as a historical agent in opposition to the way things stand in society. This paper investigates the language of populism from a contrastive perspective, based on a corpus of American and Italian election campaign speeches between 2009 and 2016. The approach adopted is interdisciplinary, encompassing the historical, social, textual (De Beaugrande and Dressler 1981) and critical discourse analysis perspectives (Wodak 2007), with a main focus on the rhetorical strategies employed, including metaphor (Lakoff and Johnson 1980) and framing (Lakoff 2004). Our findings show that, while each populist politician tends to evoke a specific idealised past in the form of identity narrative, drawing on different domains to shape their oratory, i.e. advertising slogans, cinema and satire, they all emphasise a profound “us and them” dualism in society between the people and the political establishment. However, the fact that the rhetorical devices employed do not differ consistently from those of non-populist politicians,

126

Crafting an effective message for the masses, or the art of populism

but only imply different framing strategies, leads us to conclude that some topics more easily lend themselves to be viewed as part of a populist oratory, and that populism is ultimately an ontological category (Laclau 2005a), rather than a precise form of ideology.

1. Introduction The last few years saw the rebirth and spread of many political movements and parties increasingly promoting their candidacy as aligned with the spirit and benefit of “the people” in contrast with usurpers or power groups throughout Europe and America. Forza Italia (Go Italy!), Il Popolo della Libertà (The People of Freedom), La Lega Nord (The Northern League), Il Movimento Cinque Stelle (The Five-Star Movement) in Italy, The Freedom Party in Austria, Le Front National (National Front) in France, The UK Independence Party (UKIP) in the United Kingdom, Podemos in Spain, Syriza in Greece, and The Tea Party in the USA are just a few examples of parties that have been variously labeled as populists by the media and that to different degrees are founded on the ideal of popular sovereignty. Recently, the resurgence of populist rhetoric from parties of different political orientations in several areas in the world (Europe, USA, Latin America) has led scholars to speak of the “rise of a new populism” (Canovan 1999; Zaslove 2008). Populism is an inherently ambiguous concept, and as a type of political outlook or movement is notoriously hard to grasp, the only constant being its pejorative connotation. Agreement on what qualifies as populist is difficult to find, since, as Panizza (2005:1) argues, “unlike other equally contested concepts such as democracy, it has become an analytical attribution, rather than a term with which most political actors would willingly identify”. Before turning into a trendy delegitimising term used by politicians to criticise the modus operandi of their opponents, thus suggesting that they are ‘authoritarian demagogues’ or ‘manipulative puppeteers declaiming empty slogans’, the term populism, etymologically derived from the Latin populus1, was originally used to refer to the People’s Party in the USA in 1

The noun populus in Latin has two senses: a) the whole of the residents of a constituted state or city, i.e. the people as a whole; and b) the whole of non-noble citizens, and after that the multitude, the populace, i.e. the lowest classes. Taguieff (1995) underlines that this ambiguity is crucial in modern populism and the leader’s audience is affected by the same variation of extension and comprehension between the people/nation and the people/lower classes.

Maria Ivana Lorenzetti

127

the mid-1890s. Since then, many different political parties and leaders in various historical periods and countries have been classified as populists, although hardly any of them has ever acknowledged this definition. Populism within political philosophy can simultaneously refer to both demagogy and demophily (Mazzoleni 2004), while scholars disagree as to whether it should be classified as an ideology, a mentality or just a rhetorical style (Taguieff 1995). Such uncertainty in providing a clear definition of this concept2 is to some extent due to the fact that populism has taken different political directions, shifting from radical left-wing to radical right-wing in different historical periods and countries. A climate of uncertainty and disillusionment over the ability of the ruling class favours the rise of these political movements, which feed upon the contradictions inherent in the theory and practice of democracy, presenting themselves as revolutionary models for radical change but often proving to be incapable of offering a real “root and branch” reform. Starting from a perspective of both textual (De Beaugrande and Dressler 1981) and critical discourse analysis (Chilton 2004; Wodak 2007), the aim of this paper is to analyse the language of populism, an aspect that so far has not been systematically investigated. The study is contrastive and examines the rhetorical style of some politicians who in recent years have been characterised as populists in the USA and Italy. In the American context, speeches delivered by Tea Party members Rand Paul, Sarah Palin, Mike Lee and John David Lewis in the time period 2009-2016 are examined and their rhetorical strategies are contrasted with those of American President Barack Obama, as a non-populist leader example, expressing democratic values in his oratory. As for the Italian corpus, the language of Silvio Berlusconi, Matteo Renzi and Beppe Grillo in the time period 2013-2015 is analysed. Speeches by the former PD (Democratic Party) leader Pierluigi Bersani are also considered for comparison. The language of each politician has been examined concerning the lexicon, register, and the usage and framing (Lakoff 2004) of metaphor (Lakoff and Johnson 1980), in an attempt to delineate similarities and differences, and to assess whether we can actually speak of a truly “populist rhetoric”.

2

The slippery character of populism and the difficulties in providing a unique characterisation of this phenomenon have been pointed out by Canovan (1981), Taggart (2000), Tarchi (2003), Mazzoleni (2004), Laclau (2005a; 2005b), Panizza (2005), and Zaslove (2008), among the others.

128

Crafting an effective message for the masses, or the art of populism

2. Theoretical background: political discourse Politics has to do with acquiring, maintaining and possibly increasing one’s power, and political discourse has been described as “a complex form of human activity” (Chilton and Schäffner 1997: 207), based on the recognition of the crucial role played by language as an instrument of politics, and as the primary means and mode of communication that politicians have at their disposal to persuade their audience. The label “political discourse” can be fuzzy, since a wide range of texts can be described as political to a certain extent. Moreover, this is also an inherently hybrid form of discourse, and even if it can be primarily characterised as argumentative in nature, i.e. designed “to promote acceptance or evaluation of some beliefs or ideas as true vs. false, positive vs. negative” (De Beaugrande and Dressler 1981:184), it also shares many features with other text types, most notably narrative and informative ones (Lorenzetti 2008). As Van Dijk (2002) argues, political discourse is crucially shaped by contextual variables, namely the identity of the speaker, their overall purpose, the identity and social role of the target addressee and the specific setting in which communication takes place, rather than being primarily defined by topic or style. As a core medium of the social construction of reality, language in political campaigns is carefully selected by politicians and their tacticians to persuade people and shape their emotions and attitudes about the candidates. Each speech will have been thoroughly prepared in advance, being a form of scripted speech, or “the speaking of what has been written to be spoken” (Hillier 2004: 120). Even though there might be visual contact between speaker and immediate audience, communication in this context is almost entirely monological, the audience being merely limited to non-verbal signs, such as applause, or phatic markers to indicate approval. The target audience, however, also includes the electorate in general through the mediation of television or other media. A significant feature of political discourse, and especially political election speeches in terms of audience design, as defined by Bell (1984), is that it usually presents a complex web of audience roles. On the one hand, it can be viewed as a non-specialist text directed to a wide audience, with the aim to maximise consensus, while on the other, speakers also direct the same message, but with a different intended meaning, to their adversary candidate as a secondary auditor. The latter is not usually directly addressed, but is nonetheless crucial in shaping the speaker’s style. In Lorenzetti (2008) I applied the theory of text complexity developed by Merlini Barbaresi (2003) to political speeches in an attempt

Maria Ivana Lorenzetti

129

to evaluate their overall level of complexity, concluding that, even though they display the interaction of many different strategies and phenomena at the same time, political speeches are not highly complex, which is also in line with the tenet that these texts are aimed at maximising audience consensus. In order to foster consensus, politicians typically rely on specific rhetorical strategies, such as the use of irony, metaphor and the telling of myths (Charteris-Black 2011). The interplay of different rhetorical strategies makes political communication more effective, in that it conceals the contribution of the single strategy, thus avoiding alerting the audience that they are potentially being manipulated (Van Dijk 2006). Dealing with a more specific kind of political discourse, such as the discourse of populism, our approach in this paper is interdisciplinary, since we argue that such a complex domain of analysis can only be adequately investigated by taking into account and integrating the various dimensions pertaining to discourse together. Therefore, we firstly extensively drew on political sciences and philosophy to situate the broader sociopolitical and historical context in which the discursive practices of populism are embedded, and then we investigated the immediate language or text internal co-text, as well as the intertextual and interdiscursive relationship between utterances, texts and genres. Texts are viewed here as processes, as procedural units, the sum of operations by which the producer controls the course of communicative events and produces instructions for the receivers to reconstruct the relations of coherence, a continuity on both semantic and pragmatic levels, according to the text linguistics model proposed by De Beaugrande and Dressler (1981). The rhetorical features expressed by the politicians analysed are investigated following the text linguistics approach, the tenets of Conceptual Metaphor Theory, as first introduced by Lakoff and Johnson (1980) and framing (Lakoff 2004). This will enable us to evaluate how language is exploited to construct positive self- and negative otherpresentations, as exemplified by the recurring populist themes, and to present potentially ambivalent messages that contribute to maximise consensus, insofar as they can be directed to a wider audience, and enable the speaker to deny any responsibility for any unwanted interpretation of their message.

3. Data set and methodology The data for our analysis are drawn from two corpora of speeches in American English and in Italian.

130

Crafting an effective message for the masses, or the art of populism

The American English corpus comprises approximately 14,462 words, and includes speeches from the Tea Party members Rand Paul (Remarks after President Obama’s 2013 State of the Union Address, 12 February 2013; 2015 Campaign Launch 7 April 2015), Sarah Palin (GOP Convention Speech, 3 September 2008; Speech for Donald Trump’s Endorsement, 20 January 2016), Mike Lee (Official Tea Party Rebuttal to the State of the Union, 28 January 2014), and John David Lewis (Charlotte Tea Party Speech, 20 April 2009) between 2009 and 2016. The Italian corpus (15,893 words) includes both speech transcripts and You Tube videos that have been transcribed for the purpose of this study. They are speeches by Silvio Berlusconi (End of the Campaign speech, 23 March 2013), Beppe Grillo (Warrior Words, speech in Rome, 25’32’’, 23 February 2013) and Matteo Renzi (Speech to the Senate, 22 February 2014), in the period 2011-2014. These speeches have been chosen based on similar length and type, since they are all political election campaign speeches or remarks made after an official presidential statement within a comparable time period. Other speeches from non-populist leaders have also been examined for comparison, such as Barack Obama’s 2008 election campaign speeches and his 2013 State of the Union Address and former PD leader Pierluigi Bersani’s 2013 election campaign speeches. Our analysis is qualitative, but the examples reported have been carefully selected in order to offer the most relevant features concerning the usage of ideology, metaphor and framing strategies.

4. Populism: a multifaceted phenomenon As pointed out earlier, populism has taken on many different connotations and flags through time and in different countries, shifting from right-wing to left-wing orientation, and due to its quintessentially mercurial characteristics scholars have repeatedly argued that, “it is profoundly difficult to construct a generalized description, let alone a universal and comprehensive definition of populism as an idea or as a political movement” (Taggart 2000: 2). Berlin (1968) warns against falling into the trap of what he terms “the Cinderella complex of populism”, that is the fact that many different political parties can be found to possess populist traits, and that clusters of common attributes that populist movements share (or have shared through time) have been repeatedly identified (Canovan 1984; Taguieff 1995; Taggart 2000; Zaslove 2008) might erroneously lead us to believe that somewhere we might come across “a pure form of populism”, as the foot

Maria Ivana Lorenzetti

131

perfectly fitting our shoe, while there is actually always something eschewing our definition. On the other hand, another danger that should be avoided in this enterprise is believing that the word populism is simply a homonym, and that contemporary populist movements in America, Russia or Europe are totally unrelated. Laclau (2005a) also argues that trying to isolate the core features of populism is ultimately a frustrating task leading to circularity, since we are inevitably confronted with a multitude of exceptions and different options, which would lead to a never-ending revision of our preliminary definition. Moreover, the linguistic meaning that we can associate with the term populism does not point to any clearly identifiable referent.

4.1 A historical overview of populism Although according to the Oxford English Dictionary the term populism is attested only starting from 1891, with reference to The People’s Party in the USA, the practice of populism, which ultimately rests on the ideal of giving voice to the people, can be traced back to antiquity. The following is an excerpt from what both ancient and modern historians consider the first populist speech ever pronounced: Our constitution does not copy the laws of neighbouring states; we are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves. Its administration favours the many instead of the few; this is why it is called a democracy. If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences; if no social standing, advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity, class considerations not being allowed to interfere with merit; nor again does poverty bar the way, if a man is able to serve the state, he is not hindered by the obscurity of his condition. The freedom which we enjoy in our government extends also to our ordinary life. (Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War, Book 2.34-46)3

The seminal ideas of democracy, “favouring the many and not the few”, equality and equal justice for all can be observed in this famous speech by the Athenian leader Pericles (495-429 BC) in 461 BC after the first battles of the Peloponnesian War. Pericles, arguably the most prominent and influential Greek statesman, an orator and general of Athens during the Golden Age, had a profound influence on Athenian society, introducing 3

“Pericles’ Funeral Oration from the Peloponnesian War”, in Thucydides (c.460/455-c.399 BCE), History of the Peloponnesian War. Translated by Richard Crawley, New York, NY, E. P. Dutton and Company Inc., London, J. M. Dent, 1910.

132

Crafting an effective message for the masses, or the art of populism

huge political reforms to reduce the privileges of the upper classes, thus gaining consensus among the people. He believed that it was necessary to raise the demos,4 in which he saw an untapped source of Athenian power and the crucial element of military dominance, and for all these reasons he is viewed as the prototypical demagogue. Another early example of a populist leader embodying the dark side of populism, also ready to foment and use violence, is Masaniello, the leader of the Neapolitan revolt in July 1647 against Spain and economic oppression. A fishmonger from the lowest classes of the population, he experienced a very brief success as the head of the revolt that lasted only 10 days and ended with his untimely execution. His fleeting success, however, was long enough for him to make history and be remembered as the first example of capopopolo, a rabble rouser stirring up the masses. His origin as “one of the people” matches one of the main features of the typical populist leader – that of being an outsider. The first time the word populism was actually employed in a language other than English to designate some kind of socio-political movement was with the narodniki5 (populists) in Russia in the 1860s. Narodnichestvo,6 as the whole ideology was called, referred to a movement of the urban intelligentsia directed at farmers, promoting an anticapitalistic and utopian ideology and designed to catalyse the peasants into rebellion against the tsarist regime, so as to transform the old order with a new revolutionary vision. While this movement passed from the

4

A first element of ambiguity, that we have also observed with the Latin word populus, stems from the polysemous character of the Greek word demos, which could simultaneously refer to: a) the village, the smallest administrative unit of the Athenian state; b) the people, the collective body of the citizens; c) the assembly of the citizens governing the state (Blackwell 2003). 5 The terms narodnik and narodnichestvo derive from the word narod meaning both ‘people’ and ‘nation’ with a polysemous and rich significance similar to that of German volk. As Pipes (1964) argues, it is worth mentioning that the conventional use of the term narodnichestvo now and that of when it was originally coined diverge. Now the term denotes a type of agrarian socialism of the second half of the 19th century, suggesting that Russia could bypass the capitalist stage of development and turn to socialism through a stage of peasant community. On the contrary, around 1875, when the term started being used, it concerned a new humility towards the people, a new attitude within the movement, which led the narodniki to hold that intellectuals should turn to the people, not with abstract and complicated ideas, but adapting to their needs and wisdom, in order to help them promote resistance to the government. 6 For a detailed analysis of Russian populism, see Venturi (1973).

Maria Ivana Lorenzetti

133

idealisation of a utopian society to tighter forms of organisation later7, and can be viewed as paving the way for the revolutionary movement that culminated in the Bolshevik uprising in 1917, these intellectuals were guided by the belief that it was in the peasantry that lay the great wisdom of the Russian past and a new hope for the future. The essential feature of Russian populism, as Canovan (1981) argues, is that, unlike later movements, this was not a movement of the people, but directed at waking up a new conscience in the people, with an idealisation of rural life and a society based upon peasant traditions. Populism as an actual bottom-up mass movement of the people can only be observed for the first time with the People’s Party in the USA in the 1890s, which started as a grassroots movement of farmers discontented with the crop lien system and taxation. Heavily relying on a rhetoric based on the themes of moral decay, the essential goodness of the ordinary people and a thieving elite betraying the mass of the working classes, the case of the People’s Party is seen as the prototypical case of populism (Taggart 2000). Coming to the 20th century, populism as a concept has been increasingly associated with radical right-wing authoritarian and reactionary politics, represented by the nationalistic and xenophobic ideologies of Nazism and Fascism. Another example of populism, which in the literature is usually treated as a case on its own, is Latin American populism. The many cases of populist leadership in Latin America in the mid-20th century (Vargas in Brazil, Péron in Argentina and, more recently, Menem in Argentina and Chavez in Venezuela, among others) lead scholars to see populism as a type of regime deeply rooted in the Latin American continent, and strongly associated with the transition from traditional to industrial society, in which processes of modernisation are coextensive with and directly tied to processes of social mobilisation (Savage 2011). However, Latin American populism significantly differs from other types of populist movements, such as the People’s Party, for example, in that it is not a bottom-up mobilisation but represents a top-down type of movement personalised around the central figure of a charismatic leader. Moreover, the hybrid and ambiguous nature of this type of regime has been repeatedly pointed out, suggesting that Latin American populism often includes contrasting components, such as a claim of equality of political rights and universal participation for the common people, but blended with authoritarianism 7

The revolutionary groups Zemlya i Volya (Land and Freedom) and Narodnaya Volya (People’s Will) in the late 1870s.

134

Crafting an effective message for the masses, or the art of populism

and features from the most disparate ideologies, such as nationalism and appeals to a revolution. Juan Domingo Péron represents the most significant case of a populist leader in Latin America. He presented himself as a political outsider, coming from a military career, where he had also developed an admiration for some of the ideas introduced by Mussolini in politics and had understood the importance of having mass consensus on his side, seeing labour movements as a potential source of support. He defined himself as a conductor,8 a leader who guides the people, i.e. the ‘army’ of the shirtless people (los descamisados), almost in a Caesarian sense, suggesting that the goal of a leader is that of acting for the people, and that he receives inspiration from the people.9 Nowadays, when we hear or read about populism, most of the time the intended type is the so-called “new populism”, a collection of movements usually, but not only, on the (radical) right of the political spectrum that have emerged in many established liberal democracies (USA,10 as well as in many Western European countries), challenging existing parties and mainstream policies and have appeared in the same period, thus highlighting a historical simultaneousness and similar attitude, which cannot be dismissed as mere coincidence (Taggart 2000; Canovan 2004). They combine different political imaginaries and traditions and evoke different nationalist pasts, emphasising a range of diverse issues in everyday politics (Wodak 2015), while the position and values they express and campaign for depend on local concerns and the faction they are opposing. New populist parties share a deep distrust of political institutions and adopt new ways of organising themselves as parties as an embodiment of their rejection of the prevailing mode of politics. Placing themselves ideologically outside the centre of existing party systems, they immediately evoke not only their bond with the common people but also 8

The usage of the appellative conductor, with which Péron referred to his mission in politics, has significant parallels in history. On the one hand, the fact that the Spanish verb conducir derives from the Latin dnjco highlights the military component of Péron’s personal background, also linking him to the ancient political leaders and generals, such as Ceasar. On the other, it shows some similarity with Mussolini who was called duce/dux, thus displaying a similar connection with Ancient Roman leaders. 9 “El conductor político es un hombre que hace por reflejo lo que el pueblo quiere. Él recibe la inspiración del pueblo, él la ejecuta” (Péron, Lecciones de Conducción Política, Extractos del Film del director de La Hora de los Hornos, Fernando “Pino” Solanas). 10 For an analysis of the dynamics of populism in the USA see Piccone (1995).

Maria Ivana Lorenzetti

135

the need for a radical change in politics. They display a strong rhetorical commitment to the active and direct participation in party life and membership, but at the same time usually rely on the personalised leadership of key individuals. Canovan (2004) highlights the difficulties in defining the extent to which these movements are populists and what they have in common with other past and present similar phenomena labelled with the same name. The problems with populism as an umbrella term newly emerge since virtually every example of “catch-all” political tactics, even those used by politicians such as Barack Obama or Tony Blair with an appeal to the people, can potentially be labelled populist, although no clearly acknowledged common history, ideology or social base that all these new populist parties or movements would share can be identified. Our analysis in the following sections will be on these new and recent forms of populism.

4.2 The core features of populism Populism ultimately means putting into question the institutional order by constructing an underdog as a historical agent in opposition to the way things stand in society, and exploiting the gap between promise and performance in politics11 to gain consensus. Despite the problems in providing a comprehensive characterisation of populism that to some extent have been highlighted in the previous sections, we argue that it is nonetheless important to isolate the core features of this phenomenon, bearing in mind that what these populist parties share is sometimes a very loose connection similar to Wittgenstein’s (1953) notion of family resemblance. These core features, as we shall see, are somehow intertwined. Modern liberal democracies always face a tension between liberalism, concerning individual rights and universal principles expressed in the constitution, and purely democratic ideals based on popular sovereignty and typically expressed by referendums. Populists believe that politics should be the expression of the general unmediated will of the people and that the only acceptable form of democracy gives voice and power to the people. The Movimento Cinque Stelle (henceforth M5S), for example, among the parties we shall examine in our analysis, strongly promotes participation in the life and activities of the movement through 11 Sartori, G. (1987). The Theory of Democracy Revisited Vol. 1, Chatham, NJ: Chatham House. Quoted in Canovan (1999).

Crafting an effective message for the masses, or the art of populism

136

online referendums and surveys among members, so that a form of popular sovereignty, albeit within the party only, is respected, but also advocates the extensive usage of referendums for the direct involvement of the citizens in politics in general. A purely democratic ideology in this sense, however, is hard to implement in modern and complex democracies, and power to the people can only be granted through institutions and complex mechanisms that can result in people’s frustration from not feeling adequately represented or involved in the political life of their country.12 This is also crucially connected with another important theme characterising the populist belief, namely the deep distrust of mainstream politics and institutions, conceived as managed by deceitful corrupt elites and therefore seen as enemies of the people, according to an “us and them” dichotomy. The people in the populist creed are viewed as an idealised and incorruptible entity and as possessing innate wisdom, in contrast with the rotten manoeuvres of politicians. An appeal to the people, scholars argue, represents the crucial and most basic node in populist ideology. Commitment to the people, Taggart (2000) suggests, is best seen as derived from a sense of heartland, because the notion of people can mean different things for different populists. The inherent ambiguity of the key notion ‘people’ has also been stressed by Canovan (1984), who contends that much of populism’s vagueness of reference lies in the polysemous character of the word people.13 She identifies several senses in political discourse for the term people, which can also be blended (Canovan 1984; 1999): a) b)

12

the people as a nation: the whole political community of a country, the ‘united people’, in a very inclusive sense. the people as an ethnic group: this sense is derived and often merged with the sense of unity in a), though somehow also in contrast with it. The appeal here is to “our people”, but while

It must also be pointed out that the danger of the populist emphasis on popular sovereignty can also threaten pluralism and democratic representative institutions. Hence, we can say that populism has an ambiguous relationship with democracy. 13 This ambiguity is not surprising, given that people is one of the lexical items Halliday and Hasan (1976) treat as general nouns, on the borderline between grammatical and lexical cohesion. They are a small set of nouns having generalised reference within the major noun classes, such as ‘human noun’, ‘place noun’ and the like. In addition, the polysemous character of people is also borne out by the same behaviour highlighted earlier in the cases of the Latin populus and Greek demos.

Maria Ivana Lorenzetti

c)

d)

137

the former sense has an inclusive function of creating common ground (Clark 1996) among the whole citizens of a country, this second sense is exclusive, i.e. our people vs. those who were not born here, such as immigrants, for example. the people as underdogs, a sense that is more restricted than the previous one and can be contrasted with some elite group or power class to refer not to the entire community, but to the less privileged majority of it. the common people, a sense highlighting the egalitarian ideal in the appeal to the people, which in this case refers to “people in general”.

The logic of populist articulation is anti-institutional and based on the conceptual construction of an enemy in many ways, be it the political ruling class, or external forces outside the heartland that are somehow alleged to threaten the stability, purported homogeneity14 and virtue of the people. While many populist parties conceptualise the enemy as internal to their country or society and represent it as the political elites or power groups exercising power from above15 (see also sense c) of people above), other right-wing populists mainly focus their attention and rhetoric on some ethnic/religious/linguistic/political minority from outside the country (senses a) and b) above) that they construe as a scapegoat and blame for all current woes, and subsequently represent as a threat to “our” nation, 14

A significant observation by Laclau (2005a) is that society is hardly a homogenous entity. On the contrary, within society, especially in the populist ideology, there are internal factions and society is highly heterogeneous, while the construction of a popular subjectivity like “the people”, “is possible only on the basis of producing discursively empty signifiers [...] thus reducing to the minimum the particularistic content” (Laclau 2005b: 40), where an empty signifier is any ambiguous and vague identity, insofar as it is unable to constitute itself as a precise difference within a closed totality. The notion of empty signifier seems also to resemble what Orwell (1946) terms meaningless words, i.e. words that are either meaningless or that have several meanings that cannot be reconciled with one another, and are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, “the person who uses them has his/her own private definition, but allows his/her hearer to think he/she means something quite different” (32). 15 Pelinka (2013) contends that the current focus of populism is rather the perceived enemies from abroad. We subscribe to this observation, while also differentiating between left-wing populist parties, more against the perceived power authority inside the country, and right-wing populist parties, focused instead on ethno-nationalism.

138

Crafting an effective message for the masses, or the art of populism

society, security, economy and cultural values (Richardson and Colombo 2013; Hogan and Haltinner 2015), thus enacting what Wodak (2015) terms a “politics of fear”. Offering simple16 and clear-cut solutions to problems that are presented as extremely simplified, scapegoating, tapping into traditional collective stereotypes and the construction of conspiracy theories are among the paramount strategies aimed at promoting fear and legitimating a politics of exclusion and hatred. Freud (1921) examines the psychological foundations and characteristics of the notion of ‘people’ in the sense of group, a mass of individuals, and following Le Bon he states that within a group individuals lose their distinctiveness by acquiring new characteristics, and most prominently a feeling of omnipotence17 due to numerical considerations. The psychological group, he argues, is a provisional being made of heterogeneous elements combined for a moment based on some particular reason or bond. However, it is also extremely credulous and open to influence, and can be taken to extremes if guided by the stimulus of the right leader.

16

Chomsky (2002) lists ten major manipulating strategies employed by the media, but I argue that some of them are particularly relevant, even in the context of politics. They are: 1) Distract, to divert public attention away from important issues and changes; 2) Create problems, and offer solutions, that is stage or instigate violence to make the public susceptible to safety laws and policies to the detriment of individual freedom; 3) Change gradually, which has to do with introducing unfavourable changes in society drop by drop; 4) Defer, by presenting an unpopular decision as a painful necessity, in order to improve the people’s future, so that it will be better accepted; 5) Infantilise, employing a patronising tone, as if addressing a child or a mentally deficient person; 6) Provoke emotions, not reflection, causing a short circuit on rational analysis and critical thinking, thus making it easier to implant ideas and ideologies, evoke anxiety, fear, desire, hate, and eventually induce behaviours; 7) Keep the public ignorant, by making the quality of education for lower social classes as poor and mediocre as possible, so that the gap of ignorance towards upper social classes will be impossible to fill; 8) Promote mediocrity, by encouraging the idea that vulgarity, stupidity and mediocrity are fashionable; 9) Play on self blame, having individuals blaming themselves for their misfortune as for some failure; 10) Know them better (than they know themselves), that is create a growing gap between public knowledge and what is owned and operated by the dominant elites. 17 “[…] By the mere fact that he forms part of an organized group, a man descends several rungs in the ladder of civilization. Isolated, he may be a cultivated individual; in a crowd, he is a barbarian, that is, a creature acting by instinct. He possesses the spontaneity, the violence, the ferocity, and also the enthusiasm and heroism of primitive beings.” (Le Bon, quoted in Freud 1921: 6).

Maria Ivana Lorenzetti

139

The populist leader is usually a charismatic individual capable of stirring such enthusiasm. He appears as strong and resolute, portrays himself as an outsider, also professing to being driven into politics not by a desire of power, but by commitment to the people’s welfare and a sense of duty to the people. Guided by a desire to be closer to the people, he will employ a language of common sense and a political message intended for ordinary people.

5. The language of populism: some cases for analysis In this section we are presenting an analysis of the language of populism, focusing on election campaign speeches by politicians of different political orientations in the USA and in Italy in recent years. Section 5.1. will be about the Tea Party rhetoric in the USA, while in section 5.2. we shall concentrate on the language of some Italian politicians who made a breakthrough in politics in the last few years, namely Silvio Berlusconi (Forza Italia and Il Popolo della Libertà), Matteo Renzi (PD) and Beppe Grillo (M5S).

5.1 Tea Party rhetoric This section presents excerpts from the speeches of members of the Tea Party, a recently formed18 American political movement known for its conservative positions within the Republican party, and often characterised as adopting radical populist overtones. The Tea Party does not have a unitary agenda, but is chiefly characterised by an antigovernment stance, neo-liberal policies and Christian religious fundamentalism. As a comparison, we are starting our analysis with the language employed by current American president Barack Obama, a politician who can hardly be characterised as populist. (1)

18

[…] As I've traveled around Iowa and the rest of the country these last nine months, I haven't been struck by our differences – I've been impressed by the values and hopes that we share. In big cities and small towns; among men and women; young and old; black, white, and brown – Americans share a faith in simple dreams. A job with wages that can support a family. Health care that we can count on

The Tea Party was founded in 2007 on the 234th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party (16 December, 1773), a watershed movement in the struggle for independence from the United Kingdom.

Crafting an effective message for the masses, or the art of populism

140

and afford. Education and opportunity for our kids. Common hopes. American dreams. (B. Obama, Battendorf, IA, 7 November 2007)

This speech, delivered during the first phase of the 2008 Presidential election campaign, when the current American president was not yet the Democratic nominee for the White House, summarises all the recurring tropes and imagery at the core of Obama’s campaign. A crucial element in (1) is the presence of in-group marking devices, such as our and we (our differences; hopes and dreams that we share), to create common ground (Clark 1996) with the audience, while affirming and highlighting his followers’ social identity (Schroedel et al. 2013). Moreover, a contrast anticipates the use of a marked structure for topic highlighting (I haven’t been struck/impressed) and parallelism can be noticed, as in In big cities and small towns; among men and women; young and old; black, white, and brown. (2)

These are dreams that drove my mother. A single mom – even while relying on food stamps as she finished her education, she followed her passion for helping others, and raised my sister and me to believe that in America there are no barriers to success – no matter what color you are, no matter where you're from, no matter how much money you have. And these are the dreams that led me to Chicago. (B. Obama, Battendorf, IA, 7 November 2007)

In both (1) and (2), we notice the presence of some of the recurring evocative terms of Obama’s rhetoric, namely hope, values and dreams. Such lexemes, as well as positive verbs like share and believe, and elsewhere his positive mantra of change, which was recurrent in his 2008 election campaign, convey a positive visionary aura to his message, strengthening its import and appeal for the audience. The dream in the first place is also always somehow associated with the American dream, through which he offers a hopeful vision of America based on social identity and opportunity. Charteris-Black (2011) in this respect argues that the persuasive power of Obama’s rhetoric lies in mixing and merging multiple tropes and images in his speeches, and in proposing an inclusive social narrative that combines a white myth with a black myth. (3)

We are citizens. It’s a word that doesn’t just describe our nationality or legal status. It describes the way we’re made. It describes what we believe. It captures the enduring idea that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future generations; that our rights are wrapped up in the rights of others;

Maria Ivana Lorenzetti

141

and that well into our third century as a nation, it remains the task of us all, as citizens of these United States, to be the authors of the next great chapter in our American story. (B. Obama, 2013 State of the Union Address)

Excerpt (3) stresses again the inclusive focus of his rhetoric, showing that citizens are not solely defined by nationality. However, a crucial feature in this passage is the expression of the progressive values of the nurturant father morality (Lakoff 1996), namely that democracy is based on the idea that individual responsibility is crucially linked to social responsibility, and that democracy is about caring about each other as citizens. The characteristics of Obama’s rhetoric we have highlighted will be useful for the following analysis, where we are examining the rhetoric of some members of the Tea Party. (4)

People say America is exceptional. I agree, but it’s not the complexion of our skin or the twists in our DNA that make us unique. America is exceptional because we were founded upon the notion that everyone should be free to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. (Rand Paul 2013, Response to the State of the Union Address, 12 February 2013)

A primary difference from Obama’s rhetoric is highlighted in (4), where, despite the presence of inclusive we, as identified in the case of Obama, the American dream in Paul’s speech is reframed in terms of the pursuit of individual happiness, according to the strict father morality model, where competition is necessary for a moral world (founded upon the notion the everyone should be free to pursue life, liberty and happiness), and democracy gives individuals the liberty to maximise their self-interest, without responsibility for the interest or well-being of others. (5)

These principles and these policies will work – and will put Americans back to work. Not just by cutting big government, but by fixing broken government. Not just by making government smaller but by promoting bigger citizens, stronger families and more heroic communities. Our goal should be an America where everyone has a fair chance to pursue happiness – and find it. (Mike Lee, SOTU Response, 28 January 2014)

(6)

This was the spirit that brought me to the governor's office when I took on the old politics as usual in Juneau, when I stood up to the special interests and the lobbyists and the Big Oil companies and the good old boys. Suddenly, I realized that sudden and relentless reform

Crafting an effective message for the masses, or the art of populism

142

never sits well with entrenched interests and power brokers. That's why true reform is so hard to achieve. But with the support of the citizens of Alaska, we shook things up and in short order we put the government of our state back on the side of the people. (Sarah Palin, GOP Convention Speech, 3 September 2008)

In contrasting the government policies about the recent economic crisis, a similar remark is made by Senator Mike Lee in (5), where the idea that all citizens have a right to happiness is newly highlighted, thus displaying the salience and unifying potential of the American dream as a myth in American rhetoric, a concept that, it should be borne in mind, is sufficiently vague to be adopted to stress one’s ideas and key points also with different interpretations. Tea Party politicians adopt a sharply critical stance towards the government, here termed “big government”,19 a negative expression referring to the fact that the government is viewed as too intrusive in many areas of the citizens’ life, exercising too much control over business, than it would be supposed to, but is also large in size and expensive to run. The government is characterised as big and broken, and as something that must be fixed, in the same sense as the “big oil companies” in (6) that have strong entrenched interests alien to those of the people. The same adjective big, on the other hand, is used with a positive connotation when applied to the citizens in (5), in a crescendo together with other positive adjectives in the comparative form referring to everlarger groups of people (bigger citizens, stronger families, more heroic communities). (7)

We have come to take our country back from the special interests that use Washington as their personal piggy bank, the special interests that are more concerned with their personal welfare than the general welfare. The Washington machine that gobbles up our freedoms and invades every nook and cranny of our lives must be stopped. (Rand Paul, 2016 Presidential Candidacy Announcement 7 April 2015)

The political elite in Washington in (7) is criticised for having special interests alien to those of the people, and for considering the Congress as its own “piggy bank”, thus using an animal personification of greed. 19

The expression “big government” owes its success to former American President Ronald Reagan (1981-1989), who expressed an aversion to centralised government also in line with the founding myth of the American nation.

Maria Ivana Lorenzetti

143

Moreover, the intrusiveness of the government in people’s lives is again reinforced with the verb gobble up, depicting a sort of Big Brother government, and one that only aims at increasing its power at the expense of the people (GOVERNMENT IS GREEDY). (8)

Something very bad has happened in America over the last century. A cancer has implanted itself in the land of the free. A cancer has grown in our government and in our society. The cancer is the idea that government is no longer to be the defender of our rights, but rather the grantor of wishes. (John David Lewis, 2009 Charlotte Tea Party Speech, 15 April 2009)

In line with criticism over big government, the metaphor GOVERNMENT IS can be observed in (8), where the government is associated with a serious and potentially fatal disease spreading and implanted at the very core of what John David Lewis terms “the land of the free”, another recurring trope in American rhetoric. This idea is newly stressed in (9), where the government is seen as the personification of a monster that the nation must get rid of (expunge), together with another reference to the general values of liberty and the pursuit of happiness, as in the conservative view of the American dream. CANCER

(9)

If we are going to challenge this monstrosity, if we are going to expunge this cancer, then we need to regain the vision of ourselves held by the American Founders. We need to stand up, and assert ourselves as autonomous moral beings with rights to our own life, liberty and the pursuit of our own happiness. (John David Lewis, 2009 Charlotte Tea Party Speech, 15 April 2009)

In (10), the Obamacare healthcare reform is defined as “an inequality Godzilla”, displaying the usage of the personification of a giant destructive dinosaur-like monster from the cinema to refer to the government policy, while suggesting that it only spreads inequality among the (good) people, the working citizens, and deprives them of their money. (10) Obamacare – all by itself – is an inequality Godzilla that has robbed working families of their insurance, their doctors, their wages and their jobs. (Mike Lee, SOTU Response, 28 January 2014)

More negative judgements about the government can be observed in examples 11-15 from Rand Paul’s Response to the 2013 State of the

144

Crafting an effective message for the masses, or the art of populism

Union Address. In both (11) and (12), the presence of the inclusive we to create common ground and cohesion with the audience can be observed, which in (11) is also contrasted with another element according to an “us and them” logic. The contrasting term indicating separation from “us” as the working hard people in this case is “the president”, metonymically standing for the entire “big government” that is responsible for taking more and more money away from them (squeezing). In (12), taxes are negatively framed as rising dramatically at the expense of the people. Adam Smith, as the personification of liberalism that Conservatives have, is mentioned in (13), while a more negative stance towards the government can be observed both in (14) with the expression “sacred cows” as a fake god and in (15) with “shameful display of incompetence” and “lack of seriousness”. (11) We are in danger of forgetting what made us great. The President believes that we should just squeeze more money out of those who are working. (12) We must stand firm. We must say NO to any MORE tax hikes. (13) What America needs is not Robin Hood but Adam Smith. In the year we won our independence, Adam Smith described what creates the Wealth of Nations. (14) Both parties have been guilty of spending too much, of protecting their sacred cows. (15) Senate Democrats have not even produced a budget in the time I have been in office, a shameful display of incompetence that illustrates their lack of seriousness.

Overall, the Tea Party members display a strong dichotomisation of the “us and them” opposition, where, in line with the typical populist features, the people are conceptualised as good, wholesome and hard-working, while the government is framed as the big and evil entity alien to the wellbeing of the American people, and only interested in depriving honest citizens of their money. The negative attitude of the Tea Party towards the government and its policies is also apparent in the negatively connoted lexical items associated with it in all the examples presented (cancer, monster, monstrosity, broken government, piggy banks, shameful display of incompetence, lack of seriousness, gobble up, squeeze) and in the many examples of the outlined personifications.

Maria Ivana Lorenzetti

145

5.2 Media moguls, scrappers and talking crickets: the multiple faces of populism in Italy In the last few years, Italy has seen the spread of many different populist forces. As observed in the previous sections, populism often emerges in moments of crisis, and the collapse of the previous Italian party system in the early 1990s and the end of the “prima repubblica” as a result of the Tangentopoli (Bribesville) corruption scandal, which caused the arrest of some of the leading politicians of the time, paved the way for the emergence of new forces outside the mainstream political environment. This also triggered radical changes in the language of politics, which passed from politichese, a cryptic language used by politicians between the 1950s up until the early 1990s and “designed as a means of arcane communication among adepts” (Croci 2001), hardly understandable to the layperson, to a more informal style characterised by (staged) simplicity and clarity, though this by no means implies that the new language of politics has no manipulative intent. The pioneer in this change was Silvio Berlusconi, a well-known entrepreneur, president of a successful football team and owner of TV channels and media empire Mediaset, who in 1994 decided to take the field (scendere in campo),20 founding his first party Forza Italia (Go, Italy!), that immediately gained consensus, leading him to become prime minister. This marked his first success in politics and led to 20 years of alternating fortunes, and later to the creation of another party Il Popolo della Libertà (The People of Freedom). Much has been written about the reasons behind his success, which also owes a great deal to the media support and attention he always had. A lot, however, rests on the fact that he successfully framed himself as the new man who would lead the country to prosperity and change, as a perfect embodiment of the populist leader. His style of course evolved through the years, but even when in positions of political office he never ceased to portray himself as an outsider, and as the only one truly wanting 20

The football metaphor of “taking the field” is an invention of Berlusconi’s himself, and the semantic field of football gave him the chance to exploit an extremely popular source domain to stay away from difficult and abstruse terminology, thus attracting many supporters, while using a clear lexicon that many people could understand. The party name Forza Italia makes reference to a typical chant made by supporters during football matches, strengthening the allusion with one of the clearest examples of unity and national identity. For an analysis of Berlusconi’s usage of football metaphors, see Semino and Masci (1996).

146

Crafting an effective message for the masses, or the art of populism

the benefit of the people, as opposed to the government that only aims at deceiving hard-working citizens with more bureaucracy and taxes. The language of antipolitics entered the parliament with him (Campus 2010). Here, we report some examples from Berlusconi’s 2013 political election campaign. At that time he was in the opposition party coalition with his party Il Popolo della Libertà, trying to gain ground after years of sex scandals and other legal problems. In (16) we notice the presence of biblical metaphors with the parallel structures “buona volontà, buona fede, buon senso” (“good will, good sense, good faith”), which have the purpose of framing Berlusconi’s electorate as good and full of positive qualities, as opposed to other parties’ supporters, who are those “of bad faith” and stand with the government. Hostility towards professional politicians and the vindications of the primacy of the wisdom and common sense of the people are recurring elements in his rhetoric. (16) Grazie di cuore di essere qui con me, con noi, tutti insieme a rappresentare l’Italia degli italiani di buona volontà, l’Italia degli italiani di buon senso, l’Italia degli italiani di buona fede. (Many thanks for being here with me, with us, all together to represent an Italy made of Italians of good will, an Italy of Italians of good sense, an Italy of Italians of good faith.)21 (Berlusconi, 23 March 2013 Rome)

Displaying a similar stance to that of the Tea Party in section 5.1., the government in (17) is negatively represented as an entity not caring about the real problems (“problemi veri degli Italiani”) of the people, while the hyperboles tax bombing (“bombardamento di tasse”) and made these crucial issues disappear (“fatto sparire questi problem reali”) strengthen the idea of the government as “the other”, as the one bombing good citizens with taxes (POLITICS IS WAR metaphor), according to an “us and them” dichotomy, but also using deceitful tricks similar to magic against them. The careful selection of words with a positive connotation to talk about himself and his intentions, so as to create a contrast with the opponents, can also be observed with “problemi very” (real problems) and “questioni reali” (crucial issues), in contrast to the abstract problems far from the people presented by the government, and with the opposition create vs. disappear. These dichotomies are useful in his narration to emphasise his image of the pragmatic self-made man who has the right expertise to understand the real problems of the citizens, empathise with 21

The translations of the Italian examples are mine.

Maria Ivana Lorenzetti

147

them and propose the right solutions to solve them. On the other hand, they also contribute to reinforce the negative presentation of the government as alien and deceitful, potentially playing tricks on the common people (GOVERNMENT IS DECEITFUL). Moreover, in (18) the government and the leading politicians in it are characterised as irresponsible people, out of reality, who are neither willing to listen to the people’s sufferings nor capable of empathising with them. It should also be pointed out that here Berlusconi tries to appeal to the entire electorate, including different social classes “il Paese/ gli imprenditori/ i disoccupati” (the Country, the entrepreneurs, the unemployed), and the focus here is on the self-made man as the saviour. (17) Io ho fatto la campagna elettorale pensando ai problemi veri degli italiani: fermare il bombardamento di tasse; creare le condizioni per avere nuovi posti di lavoro [..] un minuto dopo il voto, questi signori hanno fatto sparire queste questioni reali. (I made my electoral campaign thinking about the real problems of the Italian people, like stopping this tax bombing, creating new jobs […] one minute later, these misters made these real issues disappear.) (Berlusconi, 23 March 2013 Rome) (18) Sono irresponsabili. Sono fuori dalla realtà perché non sanno ascoltare la sofferenza del Paese. Non capiscono il dramma degli imprenditori. Non capiscono il dramma dei disoccupati. (They’re irresponsible, cut off from reality, because they cannot listen to the country’s sufferings. They don’t understand the drama of entrepreneurs. They don’t understand the drama of the unemployed.) (Berlusconi, 23 March 2013 Rome)

In example (19) I want to present the way freedom is framed in his purported liberal ideology, as opposed to the ideal of the Democratic Party PD, in the words of its former leader Pierluigi Bersani in (20). Berlusconi employs the encompassing term freedom several times in this excerpt, professing himself as democratic, stressing his right to protest, but freedom and liberalism are deliberately left undefined in his mix of freemarket ideology and American dream rhetoric. On the contrary, in (20), where an excerpt from a speech by Bersani is reported, freedom is framed as a value represented in the image of a plant, with roots and branches, and as a common path that all the citizens should walk together for a better future, thus embracing the nurturant father morality ideology, deliberately set within an encompassing conceptualisation of democracy with deeply rooted beliefs.

148

Crafting an effective message for the masses, or the art of populism (19) Siamo il Popolo della Libertà. Siamo noi il Popolo della Libertà, e abbiamo come religione la libertà, abbiamo come prima e assoluta missione la difesa della libertà. E anche per questo siamo qui oggi, tutti insieme, ad esercitare un nostro assoluto diritto, garantito da tutte le democrazie, quello di manifestare in piazza per protestare contro ciò che non ci piace, che non ci pare giusto, che non accettiamo, o a favore di ciò che vogliamo e che ci appare sacrosanto. (We are the people of Freedom. It’s we who are the People of Freedom and we have freedom as our religion. Freedom defence is our primary and absolute mission. This is why we are gathered all together here today, to exercise our absolute right given by all democracies, that is that of publicly protesting against what we do not like, what we do not accept or in favour of what we pursue and hold as sacrosanct.) (Berlusconi, 23 March 2013 Rome) (20) La pace può venire solo dalla libertà. Noi siamo amici di ogni donna e di ogni uomo che nel mondo ha la forza di alzarsi in piedi e battersi per la sua libertà e per la sua dignità. Così siamo noi. E sono questi valori che ci fanno più forti delle nostre debolezze. Questi valori sono le radici, i rami e le foglie della nostra pianta. Sono la strada che abbiamo fatto e quella che abbiamo davanti. Questi valori fanno sentire nostra una storia di emancipazione, di progresso, di democrazia. (Peace can only come from freedom. We are friends of every man and woman in the world who stand up and fight for their freedom and dignity. That’s the way we are. And these are the values that make us stronger than our weaknesses. These values are the roots, the branches and the leaves of our plant. They are the path we have walked and the one ahead. These values make a history of emancipation, progress and democracy our history.) (Bersani, Closing Statement at the PD Convention, 9 September 2012, Reggio Emilia)

Matto Renzi is the current Italian prime minister and leader of the Democratic Party PD. The former mayor of Florence, he entered Italian politics quite recently, immediately adopting an aggressive and arrogant tone against the old power elite that he termed “the caste”, thus associating power with the Indian social stratification system, where people at the top of the hierarchy have privileges, while those at the bottom of the scale have no rights or properties.

Maria Ivana Lorenzetti

149

This led the media to depict him as a populist leader, and as a scrapper (rottamatore22), due to his emphasis on the need for radical change in politics, including scrapping the entire political elite (“Dobbiamo rottamare questa classe dirigente”) made of elderly people who refuse to give up their privileges, but at the same are not acting for the benefit of the people. For the usage of a simple, expressive and informal language often derived from marketing and television and imbued with commercial slogans, he has often been compared to Berlusconi (Bordignon 2014), and like him he presented himself as the personification of change. On the other hand, besides his reliance on a reader-friendly style, some of his key features are storytelling modelled on Obama’s, and the usage of rhetorical figures, such as paradox or paromasia (Di Cuia 2014). In (21), the usage of an evocative lexicon based on contrasts, such as “fiducia/crisi”; “recuperare/uscire” (faith/crisis; restore/get out of) can be observed. The urgent need to overcome a period of crisis is highlighted thanks to the heavy reliance on figurative images of decadence, where the old style of doing politics is conceptualised as a swamp (OLD POLITICS IS A SWAMP), leading the country to quicksand, or as a prison (OLD POLITICS IS A PRISON), creating a broken country in chains (cf. the reference to big government in the Tea Party), while the need for urgent change is emphasised. Both (22) and (23) highlight Renzi’s visionary conceptualisation of change as well as his idea of dream. Lexical choices in this case evoke a positive idea of change, dream, in dreaming bigger, which is connected with having a new hope in the country’s ability to overcome obstacles and facing new challenges with a new courage to make crucial decisions with audacity and ambitions. This kind of narration also enables him to associate his discourse with that of Obama, but also with the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs, as a revolutionary pioneer of modern times, thus highlighting his close link with crucial icons in the collective imaginary of younger generations. (21) Pensiamo che l'Italia abbia la necessità urgente e indifferibile di recuperare la fiducia come condizione per uscire dalla situazione di crisi in cui ci troviamo. Il nostro è un Paese arrugginito, un Paese 22 Renzi’s heavy reliance on the lexicon popularised by TV and the media can be observed starting from the usage of the verb rottamare (to scrap). The latter became especially popular thanks to an Italian government TV advertising campaign of a scrappage programme for the replacement of old vehicles with new and more modern ones in the late 1990s and 2000s.

150

Crafting an effective message for the masses, or the art of populism impantanato, incatenato da una burocrazia asfissiante, da regole, norme e codicilli che paradossalmente non limitano l'illegalità. (We think that Italy has the urgent need that cannot be postponed to restore its faith as a prerequisite to get out of the current crisis. Our country is rusty, in quicksand and chained by an asphyxiating bureaucracy, rules and norms that paradoxically are not preventing illegal conduct.) (Renzi, Senate Speech, 24 February 2014) (22) Dobbiamo provare a fare dei sogni più grandi rispetto a quelli che abbiamo svolto sino ad oggi e contemporaneamente accompagnarli da una concretezza puntuale, precisa. (We must try to dream bigger than we have been used to do so far, while still being pragmatic and focused at the same time.) (Renzi, Senate Speech, 24 February 2014) (23) O si ha il coraggio di operare delle scelte radicali e decisive, o perderemo questa sfida […] siamo qui per proporre una visione audace e in qualche misura innovativa. (Either we have the courage to make radical and decisive choices, or we will lose this challenge. We are here to propose an audacious and to some extent innovative vision.) (Renzi, Senate Speech, 24 February 2014)

The last politician I am going to examine here is Beppe Grillo23, the founder of the M5S, a new political force that burst into Italian politics in 2009 and, thanks to a unique combination of grassroots organisation, personal charisma, a rock-star style road tour, being internet savvy and the skilled usage of social media, became one of the largest parties in the country. Grillo, a former comedian turned activist known for his sharp tongue, is particularly incisive with respect to Italy’s political parties, characterised as grotesquely overfunded by the taxpayers, seemingly incapable of rejuvenation, and corrupt in many areas and at many levels. However, considering the state of things in 201324, while his criticisms were particularly accurate, the solutions proposed were either simplistic or utopian. As a showman, he skilfully adopts a wide range of strategies to attract and enthuse his audience, from constant leaps in argumentation to keep the 23

Grillo’s lastname in Italian means ‘cricket’. The organisation inside M5S has developed and changed a bit compared to our period of analysis, and Beppe Grillo, while still being a leading figure in the movement, in 2015 removed his name from the party logo, signalling that he may soon step aside. 24

Maria Ivana Lorenzetti

151

public’s attention during his monologues, to using his background as an outsider as an asset on the political market (Bordignon and Ceccarini 2013). His story of a comedian excluded from mainstream TV channels for many years and who, as a result, had to reinvent himself works as a parable or rebirth and success. Moreover, his usage of a coarse everyday language, often on the edge of insult, emphasises at the same time his distance from mainstream politicians as well as his close connection to the common people. In (24),25 we can observe the use of idealisation, where the “us” focuses on the M5S electorate. Moreover, in both (25)26 and (26) Grillo makes reference to the idea of the dream, which is common to many of the politicians analysed, and to the metaphor of the light-bearer Prometheus, giving the fire of knowledge (FIRE CREATES KNOWLEDGE) and wisdom to the people. The usage of this figurative imagery shows that, while portraying himself as one of the people, Grillo also somehow depicts himself as the leader, or guru, of the movement. (24) Non siamo più un movimento, siamo una comunità. (We are no longer a movement, we are a community.) (25) Credere in un sogno condiviso con milioni di persone. (Believing in a dream shared by millions of people.) (26) Abbiamo dato fuoco a una miccia. (We started a fire.)

By contrast, (27) and (28) exemplify Grillo’s hyperbolic critical tones against the political establishment responsible for a world of invisible cities populated by zombies (OLD POLITICS IS DESTRUCTION metaphor). (27) E’ finita per questa gente, si è disintegrato tutto in macerie invisibili, non solo economiche e politiche, ma anche sociali, di rapporti umani attraverso città invisibili. (It is over for these people, it is all broken into invisible bits and pieces, not just economic and political, but also social, of human relationships, in invisible cities.) (28) Non hanno capito niente. Sono morti. (They did not understand a thing. They are dead.)

25

Grillo’s examples are all gathered from the Warrior Words (Parole Guerriere) Speech, held in Rome on 22 February 2013.

152

Crafting an effective message for the masses, or the art of populism

His background as a comedian makes Grillo the perfect emblem of the political outsider. In his speeches, he heavily relies on the most disparate sources, including slogans and puns from the domains of the cinema ((28) and (31)) with the movie Highlander (1986), football (30) and literature, as in (32), where a reference is made to the beat generation poem “Howl” by Allen Ginsberg (1955), popularised through the “revolution” song “Dio è morto” by Francesco Guccini (1967), very well known to the Italian public. (29) Arrendetevi. Siete circondati. (Surrender! You’re surrounded.) (30) Tutti a casa! (Go home.) (31) Come Highlander, ne resterà soltanto uno. (Like Highlander, there can be only one.) (32) Ho visto i miei figli, i vostri figli, le menti migliori del paese andare via. (I saw my children, your children, the best minds of the country go away.)

Finally, another typical characteristic of Grillo’s style is his irony and heavy reliance on personification, used to ridicule his opponents, mocking some of their physical defects or peculiarities. Each main politician has his own nickname, so Berlusconi becomes the Psycho-dwarf (Psiconano), Bersani is depicted as Gargamel, the Smurfs’ enemy, while Renzi is called Renzie, a reference to the Italian name of one of the leading characters of the 1970s-80s American series “Happy Days”, the Fonz (“Fonzie” in Italian). This ridiculing technique enables him to depict a world of untrustworthy fictional and laughable characters (POLITICS IS FICTION). The choice of the domain, similarly to other images and references proposed (Highlander, “Howl”), is also consistent with the target audience of his speeches, generally comprising younger voters.

6. Conclusion In this paper, I presented an analysis of the language choices of some politicians both in the USA and in Italy that, to different degrees, display some of the core features outlined for populism, namely a strong “us vs. them” dichotomisation usually directed against the political establishment, an appeal to the people and the presence of a charismatic leader portraying

Maria Ivana Lorenzetti

153

himself as an outsider, a friend of the people, who will drag them out of the crisis and propel them into a new era of change and renovation. Both in the American and the Italian corpora examined, the politicians on the one hand recur to some of the key features of general political rhetoric, as outlined in Lorenzetti (2008), namely positive selfpresentation as opposed to the negative presentation of their opponent, and the creation of common ground through the usage of collective markers, such as we or our, but they also consistently emphasise a markedly negative judgment of the political establishment. They present themselves as the right leaders who, in contrast, have the benefit of the people as their political mission. Harsh criticism of the political elite is implemented in their oratory in different ways. Tea Party politicians stress the necessity to recover the “true” vision of the American dream that matches the strict father morality model (Lakoff 1996) while fighting “big government”. The latter is conceptualised not only as too big or too intrusive in the lives of the citizens, but is also framed as a potentially fatal disease (GOVERNMENT IS CANCER) or a monster that might lead to the country’s dissolution, away from the original ideals of the founding fathers. The analysis of the rhetorical strategies employed by the Italian politicians examined shows a similar attitude towards the political establishment, although they bend their message to their personal aims, thus stressing specific aspects. Berlusconi frames his electorate as made up of good men with good sense, using religious images, while portraying the government as incapable of listening to or empathising with (GOVERNMENT IS DUMB) the problems of good, hard-working citizens. Moreover, the government also oppresses the people, bombing them with taxes (POLITICS IS WAR). Renzi, on the other hand, especially underlines the need to change and the contrast between an old, stale way of doing politics that has led the country to a financial crisis (OLD GOVERNMENT IS A SWAMP) and his audacious dream of renovation. In this sense, we can say that he does not present the view of an idealised past but rather of an idealised future. Grillo employs the tools of satire to ridicule the country’s mainstream politicians, portraying them as group of untrustworthy fictional characters (POLITICS IS FICTION/POLITICS IS UNTRUSTWORTHY), but also recurring to slogans derived from popular culture (cinema, music, football) to stress the need of renovation and move away from the current wasteland (POLITICS IS DESTRUCTION). A similar behaviour and similar metaphors are employed by leaders of different political background, and in all the cases examined their programs to overcome this critical phase recur to a visionary lexicon,

154

Crafting an effective message for the masses, or the art of populism

mentioning the ideas of change and dream and the need to believe in one’s capacities that are prominent in Obama’s rhetoric, but also appear rather vague and not punctual. The question of whether a unique populist rhetoric actually exists, we argue, remains unanswered. Populist rhetoric operates a purposeful simplification of the reality continuum, creating a strong dualism between an ambiguous view of the people conceptualised at the same time as one homogeneous group and as the underdog, and the oppressive establishment. This simplification of reality occurs, as Laclau (2005b) states, thanks to abstract and empty signifiers. Therefore, the discourse of populism tends to be vague, just because it must accommodate an entire heterogeneous demos under the same umbrella term. As a result of the analysis carried out, we argue that populism can best be seen as an ontological category that serves to describe and represent reality. Moreover, due to the impossibility of producing a unique and encompassing characterisation of populism, and the fact that the rhetorical strategies employed by populist leaders in certain respects do not differ markedly from standard political rhetoric, so that virtually any politician that makes an appeal to the people could be labelled as populist instead of asking if a given party or politician is populist, we argue that it is preferable to ask to what extent it/he could be characterised this way.

References Bell, A. (1984). “Language style as audience design”. Language in Society, 13, 145-204. Berlin, I. (1968). “To define populism”. Government and Opposition, 3, 2, 137-180. Blackwell, C. W. (ed.) (2003). DƝmos: Classical Athenian democracy. The Stoa: A Consortium for Electronic Publication in the Humanities. www.stoa.org. Bordignon, F. (2014). “Dopo Silvio, Matteo: Un nuovo ciclo personale? La democrazia italiana tra berlusconismo e renzismo”. Comunicazione Politica, 3, 437-459. Bordignon F. and L. Ceccarini (2013). “Five Stars and a cricket. Beppe Grillo shakes Italian politics”. South European Society and Politics, 18, 4, 427-449. Canovan, M. (1981). Populism. New York, NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovic. —. (1984). “‘People’, politicians and populism”. Government and Opposition, 19, 3, 312-327.

Maria Ivana Lorenzetti

155

—. (1999). “Trust the people! Populism and the two faces of democracy”. Political Studies, XLVII, 2-16. —. (2004). “Populism for political theorists?”. Journal of Political Ideologies, 9, 3, 241-252. Campus, D. (2010). Antipolitics in Power. Populist Language as a Tool for Government. Creskill, NJ: Hampton Press, Inc. Charteris-Black, J. (2011). Politicians and Rhetoric. The Persuasive Power of Metaphor. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Chilton P. (2004). Analysing Political Discourse: Theory and Practice. London: Routledge. Chilton, P. and C. Schäffner (1997). “Discourse and politics”. In T. Van Dijk (ed.), Discourse Studies. A Multidisciplinary Introduction. Vol 2: Discourse as Social Interaction. London: Sage, 506-530. Chomsky, N. (2002). Media Control – The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda. New York, NY: Seven Stories Press. Croci, O. (2001). “Language and politics in Italy: From Moro to Berlusconi”. Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 6, 3, 348-370. Clark, H. C. (1996). Using Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. De Beaugrande, R. A. and W. U. Dressler (1981). Introduction to Text Linguistics. London: Longman. Di Cuia, F. (2014). “La comunicazione politica di Matteo Renzi”. Hermes, Journal of Communication, 2, 21-34. Freud, S. (1921). Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. New York, NY: Liveright. Halliday, M.A.K. and R. Hasan (1976). Cohesion in English. London: Longman. Hillier, H. (2004). Analysing Real Texts: Research Studies in Modern English Language. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Hogan, J. and K. Haltinner (2015). “Floods, invaders and parasites: Immigration threat narratives and right-wing populism in the USA, UK and Australia”. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 36, 5, 520-543. Laclau, E. (2005a). On Populist Reason. London: Verso. —. (2005b). “Populism: What’s in a name?”. In F. Panizza (ed.), Populism and the Mirror of Democracy. London: Verso. Lakoff, G. (1996). Moral Politics. What Conservatives Know that Liberals Don’t. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. —. (2004). Don’t Think of an Elephant! Know your Values and Frame the Debate. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing. Lakoff, G. and M. Johnson (1980). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

156

Crafting an effective message for the masses, or the art of populism

Lorenzetti, M. I. (2008). “Text complexity and political discourse”. In M. Bertuccelli Papi, S. Bruti and A. Bertacca (eds.), Threads in the Complex Fabric of Language. Linguistic and Literary Studies in Honour of Lavinia Merlini Barbaresi. Pisa: Felici Editore, 591-599. Mazzoleni, G. (2004). “Media e populismo: Alleati o nemici?”. Working Papers del Dipartimento di Studi Sociali e Politici. Milano: Università degli Studi di Milano (available at http:// www. sociol. unimi. it/ papers/ Mazzoleni. Pdf). Merlini Barbaresi, L. (2003). “Towards a theory of text complexity”. In L. Merlini Barbaresi (ed.), Complexity in Language and Text. Pisa: Edizioni Plus, 23-66. Orwell, G. (1946). Politics and the English Language. London: Penguin Classics. Panizza, F. (ed.) (2005). Populism and the Mirror of Democracy. London: Verso. Pelinka, A. (2013). “Right-wing populism: Concept and typology”. In R.Wodak, M. KhosraviNik and B. Mral (eds.), Right-wing Populism in Europe: Politics and Discourse. London: Bloomsbury. Piccone, P. (1995). “Postmodern populism”. Télos, 103, 45-86. Pipes, R. (1964). “Narodnichestvo: A semantic inquiry”. The Slavic Review, 23, 3, 441-458. Richardson, J. E. and M. Colombo (2013). “Continuity and change in antiimmigrant discourse in Italy. An analysis of the visual propaganda of the Lega Nord”. Journal of Language and Politics, 12, 2, 180-202. Savage, R. (2011). “Populist elements in contemporary American political discourse”. The Sociological Review, 2, 167-188. Schroedel, J., M. Bligh, J. Merolla and R. Gonzales (2013). “Charismatic rhetoric in the 2008 presidential campaign: Commonalities and differences”. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 43, 1, 101-128. Semino, E. and M. Masci (1996). “Politics is football: Metaphor in the discourse of Silvio Berlusconi in Italy”. Discourse & Society, 7, 2, 243-269. Tarchi, M. (2003). Italia Populista. Dal Qualunquismo a Beppe Grillo (Second Edition 2015), Milano: Il Mulino. Taggart, P. (2000). Populism. Buckingham, PA: Open University Press. Taguieff, P. A. (1995). “Political science confronts populism: From a conceptual mirage to a real problem”. Télos, 103, 9-43. Van Dijk, T. (2002). “Political discourse and political cognition”. In P. Chilton and C. Schäffner (eds.), Politics as Text and Talk. Analytical Approaches to Political Discourse. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 204-236.

Maria Ivana Lorenzetti

157

—. (2006). “Discourse and manipulation”. Discourse & Society, XVII, 2, 359-383. Venturi, F. (1973). Il Populismo Russo. Vol. 3: Dall’Andata nel Popolo al Terrorismo, Milano: Einaudi. Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophical Investigations. London: Blackwell. Wodak, R. (2007). “Pragmatics and critical discourse analysis”. Pragmatics and Cognition, 15, 1, 203-225. —. (2015). The Politics of Fear. What Right-Wing Populist Discourses Mean. London: Sage. Zaslove, A. (2008). “Here to stay? Populism as a new party type”. European Review, 16, 3, 319-336.

CHAPTER SEVEN UNDERSTATEMENT AND OVERSTATEMENT: TWO POWERFUL PERSUASIVE TOOLS IN ENGLISH AND ITALIAN POLITICAL SPEECHES

ELISA MATTIELLO UNIVERSITY OF PISA

Abstract The main purpose of this paper is, on the one hand, to show the relevant role played by understatement and overstatement in English and Italian political speeches (see also Mattiello 2013), and, on the other, to show the persuasion they entail, especially when combined with other figures of speech. The theoretical framework I adopt in the paper is that of Relevance Theory (Sperber and Wilson 1986). The analysis of data selected from online archives and videos of political addresses demonstrates that, in English and Italian political discourse, rhetoric occurs not only in the form of metaphor, but also, and persuasively, in the form of overstatement (especially hyperbolic statement) and understatement. The analysis also shows that, from the speaker’s stance, the two phenomena of overstatement and understatement are cognitively different, in that the production of overstatement always involves a broadening operation, whereas the creation of understatement may involve either a broadening or a narrowing process, depending on the trope (meiosis, euphemism or litotes) the speaker uses.

1. Introduction The present paper investigates two opposite linguistic phenomena – understatement and overstatement – at work in English and Italian political

Understatement and overstatement

160

discourse, with special reference to political speeches. Political speeches, such as inaugural addresses or speeches delivered during electoral campaigns, predominantly belong to the argumentative (and partly narrative and informative) text type. They generally inform the citizens about the politician’s intentions as a leader, reveal their past life, or use anecdotes about real people’s experience (Atkins and Finlayson 2012), but the language they use indicates that a persuasive function is intended to be prominent (Vasta 1996). Persuasion is often obtained through strategies that involve the use of rhetorical figures, including metaphor (Lakoff 1996; Semino and Masci 1996; Musolff 2004, 2011; Charteris-Black 2011), but also euphemism and hyperbole (Lorenzetti 2008), or, more generally, under and overstatement (Mattiello 2013; see Duarte Martin 1991 for legal language). In a recent study on the language of politicians (Mattiello 2013), I have shown that British political speeches are typically characterised by attenuated (euphemistic and understated) assertions, especially created to mitigate negative perlocutionary effects upon the voters or to minimise a party’s merits and achievements. By contrast, Italian political speeches tend to be hyperbolic and egocentric, that is, oriented towards the politician, and meant to strengthen the illocutionary force of their utterances or highlight the positive consequences of their election. Here are some excerpts from British (1)-(4) and Italian (5)-(8) political addresses that partly illustrate the two opposite tendencies, and partly disconfirm expectations: (1)

At a time when people felt uncertainty, even fear. Here was the challenge: To make an insolvent nation solvent again. (D. Cameron, British Political Speech Archive)

(2)

Two and a half years later of course I can’t tell you that all is well, but I can say this: Britain is on the right track. (D. Cameron, British Political Speech Archive)

(3)

We can do big things. We saw it this summer. The Jubilee, the Olympics, the Paralympics […] the best country in the world […] and let’s say it: with our Queen, the finest Head of State on earth. (D. Cameron, British Political Speech Archive)

(4)

So let us take the lead in building a new economy for the new century. An open, outward looking economy in the world’s biggest single market. A strong, balanced economy built on productive investment, not debt-fuelled consumption. An innovative, inventive economy driven by advances in science and research. And yes, a

Elisa Mattiello

161

clean, green economy too, powered by the new low-carbon technologies. Britain leading the world. (N. Clegg, British Political Speech Archive) (5)

Abbiamo individuato nell’imposizione dell’IMU sulla prima casa l’atto più dissennato e odioso del governo tecnico, l’atto che ha dato il via alla crisi. (We consider real estate tax on primary residence as the most senseless and hateful act of the technocrat government, the act which started off the crisis.) (S. Berlusconi, “In onda: Le parole di Silvio Berlusconi”, YouTube)

(6)

Certamente hanno pesato due elementi di fondo, non occasionali, il primo è quello della crisi, la crisi più grave al dopoguerra, la recessione più grave al dopoguerra, dalla guerra anzi, la disoccupazione giovanile al diapason […] (Certainly, two background, not fortuitous, elements mattered. The first element is the crisis, the most difficult post-war crisis, the most serious post-war recession, even war recession, the highest level of unemployment […]) (P. L. Bersani, “La nostra proposta per un governo di cambiamento”, YouTube)

(7)

[…] noi dobbiamo vincere senza raccontare favole. Non sarà semplice, ma il Paese ha bisogno di questo. ([…] we must win without claptraps. It won’t be easy, but our country needs this.) (P. L. Bersani, “Il discorso del dopo vittoria di Pier Luigi Bersani”, YouTube)

(8)

In un momento di particolare difficoltà per l’Italia, in un quadro europeo e mondiale turbati, il Paese deve vincere la sfida del riscatto […] (In particularly hard times for Italy, in an upset European and world scene, our country must win the challenge of redemption […]) (M. Monti, “Il discorso di Mario Monti dopo aver ricevuto l’incarico”, YouTube)

In the English quotes, the use of euphemisms (uncertainty, insolvent),1 which are less strong than the more explicit terms doubt and bankrupt, and the litotes I can’t tell you that all is well, substituting the unambiguous sentence There are still many problems to solve, mirror the emblematic British attitude of saying less and meaning more. Yet, hyperbolic expressions and extreme case formulations (the best country in the world, 1

The euphemistic words uncertainty and insolvent are morphologically marked by negative prefixes, which convey a morphopragmatic meaning of cautiousness (Mattiello 2009).

Understatement and overstatement

162

the finest Head of State on earth, the world’s biggest single market, Britain leading the world) clearly express the opposite exaggerated attitude, which is typical of overstatement. In the Italian quotes, both of the above-mentioned tendencies are again exemplified. On the one hand, hyperboles (l’atto più dissennato e odioso del governo tecnico, l’atto che ha dato il via alla crisi, la crisi più grave al dopoguerra, la recessione più grave al dopoguerra, la disoccupazione giovanile al diapason) tend to strengthen the politicians’ speech act force, whereas, on the other hand, litotes (Non sarà semplice) and euphemism (un quadro europeo e mondiale turbati) tend to mitigate the negative effects produced upon the audience. These preliminary observations make us conjecture that, (a) the division between the use of understatement and the use of overstatement may not be clear-cut in English and Italian political discourses, in which both strategies seem to play an essential part in different circumstances, and (b) the preference of one strategy over the other may be neither culturally nor linguistically bound, but may depend on many variables, including the politician’s ideology, their party line, the speech situation, the addressee, and so on. In this paper, I examine understatement and overstatement within the framework of relevance-oriented Lexical Pragmatics. Recent discussions of these notions from a cognitive perspective and in connection with Relevance Theory (Sperber and Wilson 1986) can be found in Herrero Ruiz (2008, 2009). The aim of this paper is to explain (a) the semantic processes involved in the production of two opposite strategies (attenuation and exaggeration), and (b) how we can interpret politicians’ non-literal word meanings. In the paper, I assume that: (a)

Whereas the production of overstatement strictly entails a semantic process of broadening, the creation of understatement is more complex, and may entail either a narrowing or a broadening process (cf. Carston 1997), depending on the trope (litotes vs. meiosis, euphemism) involved.

(b) In political discourse, persuasion is often generated by a combination of tropes, as in hyperbolic metaphors, demonstrating the legitimacy of a continuity view between literal utterances, approximations, hyperboles and metaphors (Wilson and Carston 2006).

Elisa Mattiello

(c)

163

Sometimes, hyperbolic expressions and extreme case formulations may be interpreted literally, and activate a mental image that evokes an illusory (ideal) world in the voter’s mind.

The evocative element of hyperbole seems to play a dominant role in political discourse, and a still more central value in commissive speech acts, such as (3)-(4) where the politician states his future intentions and makes promises, or in acts of disapproval, such as those in (5)-(6) where he criticises other politicians’ policies and the negative consequences of their administration on society. In this study, I will claim that both understatement and overstatement can be considered powerful persuasive tools in political speeches.

2. The data and the methodology The data I have used for this study is drawn from three small corpora of approximately the same length (around 10,500 words) comprising political speeches in British English, American English and Italian. More specifically:

–

–

–

2

The British corpus (11,086 words) includes three speeches from the British Political Speech Archive, namely David Cameron’s general election victory speech delivered in London (2010), the Prime Minister’s speech held in Birmingham (2012), and Nick Clegg’s speech held in Brighton (2012); The American corpus (10,366 words) consists of speeches taken from the Political Speeches and Presidential Rhetoric Archives, i.e. Bill Clinton’s Democratic Convention speech (Charlotte, North Carolina, 5 September 2012, 49'53''),2 Mitt Romney’s campaign speech (Boston, Massachusetts, 6 November 2012), Barack Obama’s “Fired up! Ready to Go!” speech (Des Moines, Iowa, 6 November 2012, 9'39''), and the President’s election night victory speech (Chicago, Illinois, 7 November 2012, 30'07''); The Italian corpus (10,762 words) gathers videos available on YouTube, which have been personally transcribed for the purpose of this study. The transcripts include Beppe Grillo’s speech to humankind (30 June 2011, 30'59''), his electoral campaign speech

When a video of the speech is available, its length is also indicated after the date on which it was delivered.

164

Understatement and overstatement

(22 February 2013, 6'34'') and post-election speech (25 February 2013, 8'23''), Mario Monti’s inaugural address (14 November 2011, 2'22''), Pier Luigi Bersani’s post-victory speech at the primaries (2 December 2012, 14'22''), his electoral campaign speech (13 January 2013, 26'02''), and his post-election speech (27 February 2013, 34'35''), Matteo Renzi’s speech after the primaries (3 December 2012, 11'44''), and Silvio Berlusconi’s electoral campaign speeches (25 January 2013, 7'10''; 4 February 2013, 3'49''). Video searches and speech selections have been made according to two criteria: on the one hand the homogeneity of the type of addresses (chiefly, inaugural and election victory speeches or electoral campaign speeches), and on the other the heterogeneity of the addressers, namely politicians belonging to different or opposite parties and generally showing diverse demeanours in their electoral fights. The English and Italian corpora have been primarily examined from a qualitative perspective, and only marginally from a quantitative viewpoint. The analysis conducted in section 3 intends to illustrate the role played by rhetorical figures, such as meiosis, litotes, irony, hyperbole and others, in both English and Italian political language. An investigation of these tropes within the framework of Relevance Theory (Sperber and Wilson 1986) is meant to explain in more detail the semantic processes involved in their production and interpretation (section 4).

3. The role of rhetoric in English and Italian political language Political language as a type of specialised discourse has been the object of study for scholars for many years and from different perspectives. From a cross-cultural perspective (Bayley 2004), the culture-bound peculiarities of political language have been highlighted. From a (critical) discourse analysis perspective (Viberg 2011), the main linguistic features of political discourse have been studied. From a rhetorical analysis perspective (Atkins and Finlayson 2012), the persuasive strategies at work in political language have been stressed. In particular, political metaphors have been demonstrated to be a powerful and influential mechanism of the language of politicians in the UK (Musolff 2004, 2011), in the USA (Lakoff 1996; Charteris-Black 2011), and in Italy (Semino and Masci 1996). I agree that metaphorical language is often used in political speeches, but I intend to show that other forms of figurative language may be used with a similar persuasive function, namely, the tropes of understatement,

Elisa Mattiello

165

including meiosis, litotes, euphemism and irony, and those of overstatement, especially hyperbole and extreme case formulations. In this paper, I will not analyse cases of ironic mention (see Mattiello 2011), nor cases of litotes with antiphrastic purposes, as in Beppe Grillo’s claim Però non sono dati scoraggianti (‘But they are not discouraging data’) referring to definitely disappointing figures. Table 1 shows the results of an investigation of metaphorical language, overstatement and understatement in the corpora collected. CORPORA OF POLITICAL SPEECHES

METAPHORICAL LANGUAGE

OVERSTATEMENT

UNDERSTATEMENT

BRITISH CORPUS (11,086 WORDS) AMERICAN CORPUS (10,366 WORDS) ITALIAN CORPUS (10,762 WORDS)

33 metaphors

33 hyperboles and extreme case formulations 30 hyperboles and extreme case formulations 17 hyperboles and extreme case formulations

6 meioses, 6 litotes, 4 euphemisms (16 examples)

14 metaphors

64 metaphors

10 meioses, 6 litotes, 4 euphemisms, 1 ironic mention (21 examples) 4 meioses, 9 litotes, 13 euphemisms, 4 ironic mentions (30 examples)

Table 1. Metaphorical language, overstatement and understatement in corpora of political speeches

Although the small sizes of the corpora do not allow a quantitative analysis, the figures reported in Table 1 confirm our assumption that both hyperbole and the tropes of understatement play a fundamental role in political discourse. In the British corpus, the number of hyperboles and extreme case formulations coincides with the number of metaphors (33), but is unexpectedly higher than the number of understatements (16). In the American corpus, hyperboles and extreme case formulations (30) occur more frequently than both metaphors (14) and understatements (21). Lastly, in the Italian corpus the use of understatement (30), especially in the form of euphemism (13) and litotes (9), prevails over the use of overstatement (17), although the most common trope is confirmed as

166

Understatement and overstatement

metaphor (64).3 These findings are rather striking, in that they do not conform to the general British tendency to understate or the typical Italian tendency to overstate (cf. Mattiello 2013). This is the reason why these two strategies and their linguistic means certainly deserve a finer-grained analysis. The approach I have adopted for this analysis is that of Relevance Theory (RT) (Sperber and Wilson 1986).

4. Understatement and overstatement in Relevance Theory 4.1 Narrowing and broadening In order to study the cognitive processes that underlie the generation (and interpretation) of understatement and overstatement, we should draw first on Sperber and Wilson’s (1986) view of ad hoc concept construction and their notions of narrowing and broadening, which are crucial within the field of inferential pragmatics. According to Relevance Theory (Sperber and Wilson 1986; Carston 1997), lexically encoded concepts merely act as starting points for inferential comprehension, and our powerful inferential capabilities enable us to construct ad hoc concepts out of encoded concepts during our online interpretation of utterances. Within this theory, the two main varieties of ad hoc concept construction are the “narrowing” (sometimes called “enrichment” or “strengthening”) of a lexically encoded concept and its “broadening” (initially called “loosening” or also “weakening”; cf. the notion of “mitigation” in Herrero Ruiz 2008). It is these processes I want to consider in this paper and their contribution, if any, to the production and reading of understatement and overstatement. In lexical narrowing, a word (or phrase) is used to pick out only a subpart of the linguistically-specified denotation. For instance, David Cameron’s utterance I can’t tell you that all is well picks out not all possible conditions or situations where something may be well and some other thing may not be, or where only some problems need to be resolved, but the ad hoc concept ALL GOES WRONG*. Similarly, Pier Luigi Bersani’s utterance Non sarà semplice ‘It won’t be easy’ selects only a part of the 3

The most recurrent types of metaphors in the three corpora investigated here are:

POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS ARE BATTLES or FIGHTS (14 Italian Corpus; 12 British Corpus; 1 American Corpus), POLITICAL PLANS ARE JOURNEYS (5 British Corpus; 3 American Corpus; 2 Italian Corpus), and POLITICAL TASKS ARE CHALLENGES or GAMES (14 Italian Corpus; 1 British Corpus; 1 American Corpus).

Elisa Mattiello

167

concept which is not covered by the adjective semplice ‘easy’, and specifically the concept (MOLTO) DIFFICILE* (‘(very) hard’). In this paper, I argue that considerations of relevance play a crucial role in determining the degree and direction of narrowing. When the encoded meaning is too general to satisfy the hearer’s expectation of relevance, they can narrow it until the utterance is relevant in the expected way. So, by saying Non sarà semplice, a speaker can communicate that the circumstances will be hard and complicated. The comprehension process would involve constructing an ad hoc concept HARD*, modelled on the concept HARD but with a narrower denotation. In lexical broadening, by contrast, a word is used to apply to objects, events or actions that strictly speaking fall outside its linguisticallyspecified denotation. Thus, approximation, category extension, hyperbole and metaphor can all be satisfactorily analysed as varieties of broadening (see Carston 2002; Wilson and Sperber 2002; Mattiello 2012 for broadening in metaphors). In (3), for instance, the concepts THE BEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD and THE FINEST HEAD OF STATE ON EARTH are broadened to cover all good countries, including Britain, and all very fine heads of state, including the British Queen. Thus broadening, like narrowing, is triggered by the search for relevance, and involves the construction of ad hoc concepts based on information made accessible by the encyclopaedic entry of the encoded concept. Enrichment and loosening are the other two terms used and developed within the relevance-theoretic context. In the context of RT, enrichment operations, which involve the adaptation of a concept to its contextual requirements, allow a form of pragmatic inference known as explicature or “explicitly communicated assumptions” (Ruiz de Mendoza and Peña Cervel 2005: 263) to be derived. By contrast, loosening refers to the idea that sometimes a speaker chooses to express an utterance which is a less-than-literal (i.e. loose) interpretation of the thought they intend to convey (Carston 2002). These notions have been recently refined by Ruiz de Mendoza and Peña Cervel (2005), who use a still different terminology, i.e. strengthening (or reinforcement) and mitigation. In their account, Ruiz de Mendoza and Peña Cervel (2005) seem to imply that mitigation is involved in cases of hyperbole, whereas strengthening is related to instances of understatement. This may be true if we only identify the operations performed by the hearer. Yet, from a traditional pragmatic viewpoint, we tend to adopt the speaker’s perspective. This is the reason why many scholars, including myself (see Mattiello 2013 and the literature therein), consider overstatement as a sort of reinforcement, strengthening

168

Understatement and overstatement

or exaggeration, and understatement as a kind of mitigation. Herrero Ruiz (2008) instead proposes to solve this problematic issue by considering that both strengthening and mitigation perform a crucial role in both overstatement and understatement, but the relationship between these operations and the related phenomena varies depending on the speaker’s or the hearer’s stance. Although I agree with Herrero Ruiz (2008), in this paper I will only adopt the speaker’s stance to examine the narrowing and broadening operations intervening in the production of understatement and overstatement. Moreover, I will show that the terms “understatement” and “overstatement” cannot be used as diametrically opposite words. Indeed, whereas we can establish a common model for the production and processing of overstatement, we shall distinguish between two different kinds of understatement as regards its mental creation and interpretation. In my paper, I distinguish between litotes, on the one hand, and meiosis and euphemism on the other.

4.2 The production (and interpretation) of underand overstatement In Mattiello (2013: 207) I define “overstatement” as an exaggeration, a tendency to increase the strength, importance, seriousness, etc. of a concept or thing in order to create a contrast with the reality of facts. In the literature, it is usually referred to as hyperbole and described as the opposite, or the complementary, of understatement (Muecke 1980: 81). In this paper, I wish to clarify some basic notions concerning overstatement. Although most of the illustrative examples of the phenomenon are classifiable as hyperboles (see Claridge 2011), “overstatement” is the superordinate term that encompasses hyperbole and other phenomena related to exaggeration and excess (cf. “extreme case formulations” in Pomerantz 1986 and Norrick 2004).4 Furthermore, I will keep the term “overstatement” to maintain the contrast with the general term

4

Pomerantz (1986) claims that, while hyperbole tends towards metaphorical and imagistic expressions, extreme case formulations include extreme expressions such as absolutely, completely, every, no, etc. One of her examples for the distinction is the following, describing an emotionally cold person: iceberg of a woman (hyperbole) vs. absolutely unfeeling (extreme case formulation). However, as we shall see in examples (29)-(32) of this paper, there exist cases including extreme expressions in combination with metaphor (e.g. there is no silver bullet, the government is always the enemy).

Elisa Mattiello

169

“understatement”, but I will show that the two phenomena are not necessarily produced by opposite processes. While discussing the operations that characterise overstatement, Herrero Ruiz (2008: 792-793) basically describes it as “the process whereby we can represent (prototypically scalar) concepts that are actually at a lower level by means of referring to the higher-level magnitudes”. In relevance-oriented pragmatics, the process involved is one of broadening (4.1), in that words or expressions are used to convey a more general sense, with consequent widening of the linguistically-specified denotation (Wilson 2003). Some examples of overstatement that are commonly used in political speeches include the following: (9)

To the best campaign team and volunteers in the history of politics – (cheers, applause) – the best – the best ever. (B. Obama, Political Speeches Archive)

(10) And we did the right thing by our older people too – the biggest ever cash rise in the state pension. (N. Clegg, British Political Speech Archive) (11) I want to thank my friend and partner of the last four years, America’s happy warrior, the best vice president anybody could ever hope for, Joe Biden. (B. Obama, Political Speeches Archive) (12) […] siamo di fronte alla più grossa crisi dal dopoguerra ad oggi. Abbiamo problemi enormi in questo Paese, a cominciare dal problema numero uno: il lavoro. ([…] today we are facing the biggest crisis since the post-war period. We have huge problems in this country, including the number one problem: jobs.) (P. L. Bersani, YouTube) (13) Sentiamo nel nostro cuore di essere vicini ad un risultato storico. (We feel in our heart that we are close to a historical result.) (S. Berlusconi, YouTube)

In these examples, the characteristics of a team, a cash rise, a vicepresident and so on are represented as being greater or bigger or better than they actually are. In order to accomplish this complex mental operation, the speaker broadens some concepts (THE BEST CAMPAIGN TEAM, THE BIGGEST EVER CASH RISE, THE BEST VICE PRESIDENT, etc.) to include those he wishes to suggest (A VERY GOOD CAMPAIGN TEAM*, A VERY BIG CASH RISE*, A VERY CAPABLE VICE-PRESIDENT*, etc.).

170

Understatement and overstatement

Contrast here plays a crucial role in the interpretation of overstatement, in that it allows the speaker to distinguish between expected and ensuing concepts, and the hearer to understand the actual meaning in their search for relevance. In line with the relevance-theoretic comprehension heuristic (Wilson and Carston 2006), in metaphor or hyperbole interpretation5 the hearer should follow a path of least effort, testing the most accessible referents, contextual assumptions and implications, and stop at the first overall interpretation that satisfies their expectations of relevance, namely a good team, etc. Is the interpretation process of understatement similar to the comprehension process involved in overstatement? Let us now explore the phenomenon of understatement. I define “understatement” – traditionally “say less and mean more” (from the Latin minus dicere et plus significare) – as a statement that decreases the strength, importance, seriousness, etc. of a concept or thing, either to protect the speaker or to prevent the hearer’s unwelcome negative reaction (Mattiello 2013: 205-206). There are various figures of speech whereby an utterance may be understated. The first figure – called “meiosis” – can be defined as the process whereby we refer to higher-level dimensions by using lower-level magnitudes (e.g. It’s just a scratch referring to ‘a sizeable wound’). An illustrative sample from the language of politicians is represented below: (14) So your effort will be properly rewarded. So the task of making ends meet is made that little bit easier. (N. Clegg, British Political Speech Archive) (15) I know that political campaigns can sometimes seem small, even silly. (B. Obama, Political Speeches Archive) (16) So I asked her for her endorsement. And she said, “I tell you what, Obama – I will give you my endorsement if you come to my hometown of Greenwood, South Carolina.” And I think I had a little bit of wine during dinner, because right away I said “okay.” (B. Obama, Political Speeches Archive)

5

According to relevance theorists, metaphor and hyperbole are closely aligned, in that they are both part of a continuum that also includes approximation and literal meaning (Wilson and Carston 2006).

Elisa Mattiello

171

(17) Un miliardino li prendiamo dai rimborsi elettorali dei partiti con effetto retroattivo. (We take a little billion from parties’ electoral reimbursement with retroactive effect.) (B. Grillo, YouTube)

Again – and perhaps unexpectedly – we can account for how the production of meiosis is accomplished via broadening (cf. “mitigation” and “strengthening operations” in Ruiz de Mendoza and Peña Cervel 2005). The speaker represents concepts that are greater or bigger or more serious, etc. as being smaller or less serious. They broaden some concepts (THAT LITTLE BIT EASIER, CAN SOMETIMES SEEM SMALL, A LITTLE BIT OF WINE, etc.) to include those they wish to suggest (MUCH EASIER*, ARE SMALL*, A GREAT AMOUNT OF WINE*, etc.). The same broadening operation can explain cases of euphemism, where, for instance, morphologically marked terms with a cautious function are used to imply more negative concepts (unfair pay standing for ‘awful pay’, unattractive woman for ‘ugly woman’, etc.) (cf. Mattiello 2009): (18) Boy, that was a nonstarter, and they threw him out. (B. Obama, Political Speeches Archive) (19) It was a highly inconvenient thing for them in our debates that I was just a country boy from Arkansas, and I came from a place where people still thought two and two was four. It’s arithmetic. (B. Clinton, Political Speeches Archive) (20) L’altro elemento che ha giocato è certamente questo rifiuto della politica così come si è presentata in questi anni, di questi tempi, anche con le ultimissime vicende, istituzioni inefficienti e una politica non credibile. (The other element which played a part is of course the refusal of politics as it is nowadays, especially after the latest events, inefficient institutions and a politics which is not believable.) (P. L. Bersani, YouTube)

In (18)-(20) euphemistic terms (nonstarter, inconvenient, non credibile) and the concepts they entail are broadened to imply ruder concepts (i.e. *LOSER, *PROBLEMATIC, *FALSO ‘fake’). Thus, the hearer’s process of disambiguation is close here to the one triggered when interpreting meiosis. The operation behind the production of litotes is instead different, and its interpretation path is even more complex than in the previous understatements constructed on meiosis and euphemism.

172

Understatement and overstatement

“Litotes” has been defined in the literature (see Hoffmann 1987) as the denial of the opposite or contrary of which otherwise would be used (e.g. He is not a very good politician meaning ‘he is a bad politician’), although this is not true at all times. In fact, when a speaker negates a certain word or expression, the concept entailed covers any point within the semantic space left out after the denial (e.g. from ‘rather good politician’ to ‘awful politician’). However, in this specific example, the concept the speaker wants to convey is generally the latter. For instance, in: (21) It’s not always a straight line. (B. Obama, Political Speeches Archive) (22) […] And the state representative said she was going to organize a little meeting for us, and we walked in and there are about 20 people there. And they’re all kind of wet, too, and they don’t look very excited to see me. (B. Obama, Political Speeches Archive) (23) E siccome non è consueto, voglio chiedervi anche scusa per alcune cose di cui non siamo stati in grado, perché di solito i politici difficilmente chiedono scusa. (And since it is not common, I want to apologise for something we were not able to do, because, usually, politicians hardly apologise.) (M. Renzi, YouTube) (24) Mi ricordo di come vivi, non ti prometto miracoli, ma sarò al tuo fianco […] (I remember how you live. I do not promise you miracles, but I will be by your side […]) (P. L. Bersani, YouTube)

the concepts encoded by negating a certain word or expression (IT’S NOT ALWAYS A STRAIGHT LINE, THEY DON’T LOOK VERY EXCITED TO SEE ME, NON È CONSUETO, NON TI PROMETTO MIRACOLI) are wider than the values the politicians wish to express. As a corollary, the entailed concepts (IT’S RARELY A STRAIGHT LINE*, THEY ARE ANNOYED TO SEE ME*, È RARO* ‘it is rare’, TI PROMETTO PICCOLE COSE* ‘I promise you small things’) are narrower than the encoded concepts. In lexical narrowing, indeed, words are used to convey a more specific sense than the encoded one, resulting in a restriction of the linguistically-specified denotation (Wilson 2003). Therefore, the hearer’s interpretation is oriented towards understatement, especially when the speaker’s negated form is exaggerated (very excited, miracoli ‘miracles’), and the concept is gradable (not always, very

Elisa Mattiello

173

excited). By contrast, with non-gradable adjectives, a literal interpretation is preferably required: (25) But I am telling you the claim that President Obama weakened welfare reform’s work requirement is just not true. (B. Obama, Political Speeches Archive)

In (25), NOT TRUE equates *FALSE, in that the negation of a non-gradable adjective immediately implies the affirmation of its opposite, with no necessary narrowing operation from the speaker’s part.

4.3 Literal meaning, hyperbolic meaning and persuasion When else is literal meaning activated in the hearer’s mind? In particular, is there a dividing line between literal and hyperbolic meaning? Relevance theorists such as Sperber and Wilson (1986), Carston (2002), Wilson and Sperber (2002), and Wilson and Carston (2006) defend a unitary approach, considering hyperbole as part of a continuum that includes literal utterances, approximations and metaphors. In support of this unified view, political texts show that there is often no precise distinction between hyperbole and literal reading. Extracts (26)-(28), for instance, are rich in hyperbolic expressions that may also accept a literal interpretation: (26) We’re getting our entrepreneurial streak back: last year the rate of new business creation was faster than any other year in our history. Let me repeat that. The rate at which new businesses started – faster than any year on record. We’re making things again. We had a trade surplus in cars last year for the first time in almost 40 years. And it’s not just the old industries growing, it’s the new. We’re number one in the world for offshore wind. Number one in the world for tidal power. The world’s first green investment bank. Britain leading; Britain on the rise. (D. Cameron, British Political Speech Archive) (27) This country has more wealth than any nation, but that’s not what makes us rich. We have the most powerful military in history, but that’s not what makes us strong. Our universities, our culture are all the envy of the world, but that’s not what keeps the world coming to our shores. What makes America exceptional are the bonds that hold together the most diverse nation on Earth, the belief that our destiny is shared […] (B. Obama, Political Speeches Archive)

174

Understatement and overstatement (28) Now, I like – I like – I like the argument for President Obama’s reelection a lot better. Here it is. He inherited a deeply damaged economy. He put a floor under the crash. He began the long, hard road to recovery and laid the foundation for a modern, more wellbalanced economy that will produce millions of good new jobs, vibrant new businesses and lots of new wealth for innovators. (B. Clinton, Political Speeches Archive)

The hearer could properly interpret the politicians’ words as literal, rather than as overstatements, as it may be plausible for Britain to be considered the number one in the world for offshore wind, or for America to have the most powerful military in history, or for Obama’s economy to produce millions of good new jobs. Since in disambiguation the hearer tends to follow a path of least effort, literal reading should be their first choice in the literal-loose-hyperbole-metaphor continuum. In their search for relevance, only contextual information or prior knowledge can suggest to the hearer whether a literal interpretation would suit the actual situation. Again, in support of the unified view, political texts also show that there is often no clear-cut distinction between hyperbole (or extreme case formulation) and metaphor. Excerpts (29)-(32) provide examples of metaphors combined with exaggeration: (29) But the truth is this: there is no silver bullet that will instantly solve all our economic problems. (N. Clegg, British Political Speech Archive) (30) And for us Conservatives, this is not just an economic mission – it’s also a moral one. It’s not just about growth and GDP […] it’s what’s always made our hearts beat faster – aspiration; people rising from the bottom to the top. (D. Cameron, British Political Speech Archive) (31) Unfortunately, the faction that now dominates the Republican Party doesn’t see it that way. They think government is always the enemy, they’re always right, and compromise is weakness. (B. Clinton, Political Speeches Archive) (32) But all of you are a family. No matter what you do or where you go from here, you will carry the memory of the history we made together. (B. Obama, Political Speeches Archive)

In (29)-(32), expressions that are typical of extreme case formulation (no, instantly, always, all) contribute to lay emphasis on the metaphors of a

Elisa Mattiello

175

silver bullet used to solve economic problems, of Conservatives’ hearts beating for aspiration, of the American government viewed as the enemy, and of the Americans considered as a family. These examples involve both a qualitative difference between the concept encoded and the concept contextually constructed, as typical of metaphor, and a quantitative difference, as in hyperbole and extreme cases. We could therefore consider them as cases of hyperbolic (or exaggerated) metaphors. Among the phenomena explored in this paper, hyperbolic metaphors and hyperboles in general constitute a very persuasive discursive strategy. Their tendency to exaggerate can be viewed: –

–

from a literal perspective, as the speaker’s self-confidence and challenge to persuade the hearer by presenting them a model world that the speaker believes to be the real one (e.g. the best country, the strongest party, the most productive economy, etc.); from a hyperbolic perspective, as the speaker’s hypocrisy and attempt to convince the hearer by triggering an imaginary, or even an ideal world in their mind where the concept contextually constructed is both qualitatively and quantitatively above the truth of facts.

5. Conclusion In this paper I have investigated two well-known phenomena – understatement and overstatement – from a cognitive perspective and accommodated them within the framework of Relevance Theory (Sperber and Wilson 1986). In the investigation, I have adopted the speaker’s stance (Herrero Ruiz 2008, 2009) and shown that overstatement is a sort of strengthening or exaggeration, whereas understatement is a kind of mitigation (Mattiello 2013). From the cognitive viewpoint, however, the two phenomena are not diametrically opposite, in that the production of overstatement always involves a broadening operation, whereas the creation of understatement may involve either a broadening or a narrowing process, depending on the trope the speaker chooses. A broadening process is involved when the speaker represents concepts that are greater, or bigger, or more serious, etc. as being smaller or less serious, as with meiosis or euphemism. A narrowing process, by contrast, is involved in litotes, i.e. when the speaker, by negating a certain word or expression, points to a semantic space that is wider than the one they actually mean. The analysis of data taken from three comparable corpora of political speeches in British English, American English and Italian shows that:

176

–

–

–

Understatement and overstatement

in all languages examined, rhetoric plays a dominant role, not only in the traditional form of metaphor, but also in the form of underand overstatement; whereas hyperbole seems to be particularly frequent in both British and American political addresses, the various means of understatement are persuasive tools not only in English, but also – and above all – in Italian political discourse; hyperbole and extreme case formulations may be viewed as persuasive strategies especially when they are combined with metaphorical language use, or when they may invite the hearer to a literal interpretation and create an illusory political world in their mind.

References Atkins, J. and A. Finlayson (2012). “‘... A 40-year-old black man made the point to me’: Everyday knowledge and the performance of leadership in contemporary British politics”. Political Studies, 1-17. Bayley P. (ed.) (2004). Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Parliamentary Discourse. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. British Political Speech Archive. Available at http://www.britishpoliticalspeech.org/ (accessed 7 November 2013). Carston, R. (1997). “Enrichment and loosening: Complementary processes in deriving the proposition expressed?”. Linguistische Berichte, 8, 103-127. —. (2002). Thoughts and Utterances: The Pragmatics of Explicit Communication. Oxford: Blackwell. Charteris-Black, J. (2011). Politicians and Rhetoric: The Persuasive Power of Metaphor. Second edition. Basingstoke/Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Claridge, C. (2011). Hyperbole in English: A Corpus-based Study of Exaggeration. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Duarte Martin, N. (1991). “Understatement and overstatement in closing Arguments”. Louisiana Law Review, 51, 3, 651-666. Available at: http://digitalcommons.law.lsu.edu/lalrev/vol51/iss3/11 (accessed 7 November 2013). Herrero Ruiz, J. (2008). “Overstatement & cognitive operations”. In R. Monroy and A. Sánchez (eds.), 25 Años de Lingüística en España: Hitos y Retos / 25 Years of Applied Linguistics in Spain: Milestones and Challenges. Murcia: Edit.um, 791-797.

Elisa Mattiello

177

—. (2009). Understanding Tropes. At the Crossroads between Pragmatics and Cognition. Bern: Peter Lang. Hoffmann, M. E. (1987). Negatio Contrarii. A Study of Latin Litotes. Assen: van Gorcum. Lakoff, G. (1996). Moral Politics. What Conservatives Know that Liberals Don’t. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Lorenzetti, M. I. (2008). “Text complexity and political discourse”. In M. Bertuccelli Papi, A. Bertacca and S. Bruti (eds.), Threads in the Complex Fabric of Language. Linguistic and Literary Studies in Honour of Lavinia Merlini Barbaresi. Pisa: Felici Editore, 591-599. Mattiello, E. (2009). “A morphopragmatic analysis of English and Italian negative prefixes”. Studi e Saggi Linguistici, XLVII, 125-156. —. (2011). “New perspectives on echoic irony: The case of the US sitcom Friends”. In G. Di Martino, L. Lombardo and S. Nuccorini (eds.), Challenges for the 21st Century: Dilemmas, Ambiguities, Directions, Vol. 2. Roma: EdizioniQ, 93-102. —. (2012). “Metaphor in tourism discourse: Imagined worlds in English tourist texts on the web”. Textus, 1, 69-84. —. (2013). “Understatement and overstatement: The language of politicians in the UK and in Italy”. Rassegna Italiana di Linguistica Applicata, 1, 199-212. Muecke, D. C. (1980). The Compass of Irony. London/New York: Methuen. Musolff, A. (2004). Metaphor and Political Discourse. Analogical Reasoning in Debates about Europe. Houndmills/Basingstoke/ Hampshire/New York: Palgrave Macmillan. —. (2011). “Metaphor in political dialogue”. Language and Dialogue, 1, 2, 191-206. Norrick, N. R. (2004). “Hyperbole, extreme case formulation”. Journal of Pragmatics, 36, 1727-1739. Political Speeches Archive. Free Videos & Print Transcripts of Famous Political Speeches. Available at http://www.politicalspeeches.net/ (accessed 7 November 2013). Pomerantz, A. (1986). “Extreme case formulations: A way of legitimizing claims”. Human Studies, 9, 219-229. Presidential Rhetoric Archive. Available at http://www.presidentialrhetoric.com/ (accessed 7 November 2013). Ruiz de Mendoza Ibañez, F. J. and M. S. Peña Cervel (2005). “Conceptual interaction, cognitive operations and projection spaces”. In F. J. Ruiz de Mendoza Ibañez and M. S. Peña Cervel (eds.), Cognitive

178

Understatement and overstatement

Linguistics: Internal Dynamics and Interdisciplinary Interaction. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 249-280. Semino, E. and M. Masci (1996). “Politics is football: Metaphor in the discourse of Silvio Berlusconi in Italy”. Discourse and Society, 7, 2, 243-269. Sperber, D. and D. Wilson (1986). Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell. YouTube. Available at http://www.youtube.com/ (accessed 7 November 2013). Vasta, N. (1996). “Political discourse in editorial comments: Persuasion and point of view in a socio-semiotic perspective”. In D. R. Miller and N. Vasta (eds.), Il Discorso Persuasivo. Padova: CEDAM, 141185. Viberg, B. (2011). In the Name of Freedom – A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Political Discourse in the Inaugural Speeches of George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama from a Postcolonial Perspective. Goteborg: University Essay, University of Goteborg. Wilson, D. (2003). “Relevance and lexical pragmatics”. Italian Journal of Linguistics/Rivista di Linguistica, 15, 273-291. Wilson, D. and R. Carston (2006). “Metaphor, relevance and the ‘emergent property’ issue”. Mind & Language, 21, 404-433. Wilson, D. and D. Sperber (2002). “Truthfulness and relevance”. Mind, 111, 583-632.

CHAPTER EIGHT « LE SPREAD EST UN IMBROGLIO » : MANIPULATIONS DISCURSIVES AUTOUR DU MOT SPREAD, REFLETS CROISÉS EN ITALIE ET EN FRANCE

MATHILDE ANQUETIL UNIVERSITÀ DI MACERATA

Abstract This study provides a contrastive analysis of the technical word spread as used in French and Italian political discourse. The analysis focuses on the different social usages of this word in the French and Italian media and reveals contrasting attitudes to the English loan. The paper discusses how differences in the way French and Italian media dealt with the topic of ‘spread’ nearly led to a diplomatic incident. This happened in 2012 when Berlusconi made the following comment: “Lo spread è un imbroglio!”. This state of affairs suggests the dismay of politicians in relation to an indicator that is imposed by an external body and conditions their potential for action.

Résumé Notre intervention portera sur une analyse comparée de l’usage social du mot spread dans les discours politiques repris et glosés dans la presse italienne et française dans des attitudes différentes vis-à-vis de l’emprunt anglais issu du lexique technique. L’opposition dans le traitement médiatique de l’objet, en particulier dans la mise en scène de son usage chez l’autre, cousin transalpin/cisalpin, fait que l’on frôle l’incident diplomatique entre les deux pays à propos d'une déclaration de Berlusconi en 2012 (« Lo spread à un imbroglio! »). Mais cela trahit surtout dans les

180

« Le spread est un imbroglio »

deux camps le désarroi des hommes politiques par rapport à un indicatif dicté par une instance externe conditionnant leur potentiel d’action.

1. Introduction Le 11 décembre 2012 Berlusconi, trois jours après son retour sur la scène politique italienne après la démission de Monti, déclarait dans une intervention au téléphone pour sa chaîne privée Canale 5 : « Per quanto riguarda lo spread, ma smettiamo di parlare di questo imbroglio ! Prima non ne avevamo mai sentito parlare, se n’è sentito parlare solo da un anno, cosa ci importa ».1 L’objectif principal du gouvernement provisoire dirigé par Monti ayant été justement de ramener le spread sur un taux défini par les médias comme « taux Monti », la déclaration a un effet retentissant dans la presse italienne mais aussi internationale, friande des sorties provocatrices de l’ancien chef du gouvernement italien. La déclaration de Berlusconi est alors reprise par l’AFP comme « Le “spread” est un imbroglio, une invention pour faire tomber mon gouvernement », l’italianisme d’effet trahissant le sens original conservé dans le mot embrouille, ou supercherie, marché de dupes. TF1 News n’hésite pas à titrer : « Quand Berlusconi joue au nul en éco... ». Le correspondant du Monde signe un article intitulé « Monti et Berlusconi, ces obsédés du ‘spread’ ». En effet le matin même, dans ce qui a été glosé comme un duel à distance, Mario Monti, tentant de justifier l’omniprésence du terme dans son discours dans un entretien sur la chaîne publique Rai 1, avait déclaré à la question suivante du journaliste : - Non ci preoccupiamo un po’ troppo dello spread, Presidente? Fino a un anno e mezzo fa, voglio dire, gli italiani nemmeno conoscevano questa parola. Adesso la mattina ci svegliamo e insieme alle previsioni del tempo ci chiediamo… - Posso, posso raccontare un piccolo anedotto…(et il raconte que son petit fils est surnommé “spread” à l’école maternelle) Tanto questa parola è entrata nel linguaggio quotidiano.2

Le spread, mot du quotidien ou fastidieuse obsession de technocrates, un véritable imbroglio ! C’est en assistant à ces diatribes autour du mot 1

Traduction : « Pour ce qui est du spread, mais arrêtons donc de parler de cette supercherie ! On n’en avait jamais entendu parler avant, ça fait depuis un an qu’on en parle, qu’est-ce qu’on en a à faire! » 2 En ligne : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvT41Wkks6A.

Mathilde Anquetil

181

spread, de sa légitimité en tant qu’objet discursif dans l’espace public, que nous nous sommes interrogée sur ce mot dans le discours politique italien et en reflet dans le discours médiatique français qui manifeste, par des stigmatisations à l'encontre des politiques italiens, un terrain de relations bilatérales détériorées. Et en tant qu’enseignante-chercheure de français dans une faculté de Sciences Politiques en Italie, en réponse à l’appel de ce colloque, nous avons souhaité approfondir la question des enjeux autour de cet emprunt technocratique, nouveau dans les discours politiques médiatisés mais qui semble avoir quelques difficultés à s’insérer dans le langage ordinaire de la politique, vu les interactions polémiques qu’il n’a de cesse de provoquer. Nous avons recueilli une cinquantaine de documents (articles de presse italiens et français et passages vidéos disponibles en ligne) lors de l’événement du 11 décembre créé par le duel Berlusconi-Monti mais aussi dans l’année qui l’a précédé et dans les usages actuels en Italie. Notre corpus n’est pas systématique et ne fera pas l’objet d’un traitement lexicologique mais plutôt d’une tentative d’analyse sur l’évolution du traitement discursif de cet emprunt en analyse comparée du discours médiatico-politique entre l’Italie et la France entre 2010 et 2012, dans le souci de participer à la formation de professionnels italiens de la politique qui puissent opérer en médiateurs dans les relations politiques bilatérales avec la France, car la finalité d’un cours de langue en Sciences Politiques est d’intégrer les compétences linguistiques des étudiants dans un parcours de réflexion métalinguistique, métadiscursive et interculturelle attentive à la réception des discours politiques et médiatiques auprès du partenaire européen, proche voisin. Notre étude emprunte donc des outils de l’analyse du discours (Chareaudeau 2005 ; Sarfati 2008) pour produire une lecture critique des textes médiatiques dans une visée d’éducation à l’interprétation active des médias, mettant ainsi en acte la conception de la linguistique comme « science d’intervention » (De Mauro 2012). L'analyse véhicule une dimension critique du fait qu'elle tente de rendre intelligible certaines manipulations discursives des discours médiatico-politiques tant en France qu'en Italie. Notre posture tentera cependant de contenir la tentation de la dénonciation, ou critique normative, non pas en affichant une posture de recherche de neutralité objectivisante,3 mais par reconnaissance explicite d'une posture engagée (Bourdieu 2002) dans la vie publique : la défense de l'instance citoyenne, face à la puissance émergente d'une nouvelle instance 3

Sur la question de l'engagement du chercheur entre discours de dénonciation (normatifs, militants) et analyse descriptive (scientifique, neutre, objective) voir la revue Argumentation et Analyse du Discours, n°11, 2013.

182

« Le spread est un imbroglio »

de pouvoir, celle des « marchés ».4 Cependant le contrat que l'on sollicitera ici du lecteur (Charaudeau 2013) reconnaît que l'engagement du chercheur se doit, pour être éthiquement recevable, de se départir du jugement personnel pour se concentrer sur l'observation et l'analyse du fonctionnement des discours sur un sujet particulier, ici les effets engendrés par l'emprunt d'un mot technique issu du domaine des marchés dans les discours politico-médiatiques, en se distançant des partis pris par rapport aux divers courants d'expressions idéologiques autour de ce mot et de ses enjeux sur la scène politique. Notre visée est de fournir aux futurs acteurs des relations bilatérales franco-italiennes, non spécialistes de langue étrangère, non pas un discours d'inculcation obligée mais un parcours raisonné d'observation mettant en œuvre des instruments d'analyse du discours à partir d'un corpus contextuel, les « textes d'actualité », ainsi que quelques éléments de repérage des stéréotypes et représentations qui surdéterminent et encombrent la voie de la reconnaissance réciproque des différences de point de vue comme des intérêts communs dans les relations bilatérales. L’exercice académique classique en langue étrangère est de demander aux étudiants de résumer (à la française) le texte d’actualité puis d’exprimer leur point de vue, qui résulte souvent peu armé pour une approche comparée. Notre objectif est de leur fournir un exemple méthodologique de lecture critique accessible pour des locuteurs apprenants, mais incluant des instruments d’analyse textuelle selon un courant linguistique français, pour enrichir leurs futures lectures de la presse nationale et internationale.

2. Traitement médiatique de l'emprunt spread, du canon à la doxa Notre question de départ sera : l’objet discursif véhiculé par le mot spread, omniprésent dans les discours de gouvernance, est-il ou non en train de construire un sens commun dans l'opinion publique ? Le mot est difficile à intégrer dans les langues latines en tant qu’anglicisme technocratique, quoique la classe politique italienne soit beaucoup plus accueillante pour les emprunts à l'anglais qu’on ne l’est en France. Indicateur économique abscons au plus grand nombre, il représente dans les discours l'instance impersonnelle des marchés, 4

Bourdieu (2012) suggère en particulier au chercheur engagé, d'engager son savoir pour fournir aux acteurs sociaux des instruments « en particulier des instruments contre l’effet symbolique qu’exercent les experts engagés auprès des grandes entreprises multinationales. » (En ligne : http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2002/02/BOURDIEU/16120)

Mathilde Anquetil

183

invoquée comme justificatif de politiques de rigueur. Rejet du mot étranger, nouvel intrus du vocabulaire politique, et dénonciation des conséquences des mesures publiques prises en son nom, se mêlent ainsi et on observe diverses manipulations du mot hors de son contexte canonique. Cela trahit le désarroi des instances politiques traditionnelles, face à la montée concurrentielle d’une instance de pouvoir économique, le marché, qui ne s’exprime que par des chiffres immédiatement disponibles, chiffres qui lui confèrent un effet de vérité mais dont la valeur d'autorité est l’objet de contestations. Le mot spread, monosyllabique phonétiquement percutant, est particulièrement opaque d'un point de vue lexical pour l’opinion publique des pays de langue latine, et de là rendu disponible à diverses manipulations. Son étymologie saxonne (to spread out) se réfère à concept dynamique d’ « extension » difficilement traduisible : « envergure », « expansion », « étalage », et ce n’est que vers 1929, selon le dictionnaire étymologique OED,5 que le mot est attesté dans le domaine économique comme degré de variation. Le terme se précise alors comme différentiel entre des taux financiers (Maldussi 2013), puis se restreint encore en contexte européen, donc dans un contexte où l’anglais est lingua franca, comme écart de rendement entre les taux d’intérêts sur les titres de la dette publique entre un des pays de l’UE et ceux que le marché accorde aux obligations d’État allemandes (les Bund), élevés au rang de benchmark, autre anglicisme co-textuel indiquant l’étalon, l’indicateur de référence. Le mot acquiert donc une valeur déictique particulière selon le pays où il est utilisé, manifestant le pouvoir économique de l'Allemagne comme pôle de référence. Le terme est apparu dans l’espace médiatique européen dans ce sens restreint lors de la crise financière de 2008-2009, au moment où malgré l’adoption d’une monnaie commune avec une fonction anti-spéculation et dans l’espoir de constituer le premier pas vers une union politique, les taux d’intérêts pour financer les emprunts d'état se différencient de nouveau en particulier en fonction du poids des dettes publiques accumulées par les différents états de l’UE.

5

En ligne : http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=spread&allowed_in_frame=0

184

« Le spread est un imbroglio »

Figure 1. Source : Asset Allocation & Macro Research, consulté sur http://www.zerohedge.com/news/decision-time-europe-definitive-presentationfuture-or-lack-thereof-eurozone

Mathilde Anquetil

185

Ce schéma fait clairement apparaître l’origine temporelle du phénomène référentiel comme du mot dans son acception canonique. C’est à partir de 2009 qu’a commencé à se développer ce que Sarfati (2008) appelle une « opérativité de compétence topique » de type instituante ou fondatrice dans un groupe sociolectal restreint : ici celui des analystes financiers européens. Nous emprunterons à ce même auteur la description des phases qui marquent l’intégration d’un nouveau mot : la phase initiale de la création de sens commun, le canon, est suivie par la vulgate puis par la doxa. La vulgate. Sa visée est celle de la reprise du sens commun codifié par le canon, à l’occasion de procès de reformulations qui ont pour objet de préserver et d’exposer l’essentiel de ses attendus [...]. Cette forme de typification du sens commun linguistique est une particularité de la geste didactique, notamment des discours de transmission. La doxa désigne un nouveau stade de reformulation des contenus canoniques qui opère à partir des possibilités ouvertes par la vulgate. Le savoir partagé dont elle s’empare – au point de n’en retenir que des bribes simplifiées mais significatives – devient véritablement savoir commun. La doxa déroge aux contraintes qui sont celles de la vulgate, ses contenus comme ses formes tendent à verser dans le domaine public [...]. Ce mode de typification du sens commun obéit au principe de la diffusion par contamination. Il est par excellence le lieu de la naturalisation du sens. (Sarfati 2008 : 102)

Ces catégories nous seront utiles à l’analyse partielle que nous proposons, en diachronie et en synchronie sur deux pays, dans quelques pratiques attestées de notre corpus issu d’une veille médiatique entre 2010 et 2012, où nous avons repéré des réitérations qui sont indiquées par Sarfati comme faisant partie du processus d’inculcation, « garant de la pérennisation [de l’institution de sens] et de l’hégémonie que celle-ci prétend exercer » dans une visée véridictoire. (Sarfati 2008 : 102).

3. Diffusion de la vulgate du mot spread en Italie, une opération de manipulation de l'opinion publique ? Nous constatons dans notre corpus italien datant de 2011 que le terme est amplement glosé dans le discours médiatique, ce qui correspond à la phase de divulgation. Nous ne nous arrêtons pas sur les dispositifs de marquage de la glose, marquage graphique par guillemets ou parenthèses, connecteurs, etc. – voir la revue Mots sur « l'escorte métalinguistique » des emprunts (Steuckardt et Honoré 2006), car c’est la perspective diachronique et comparative qui nous intéresse en priorité. La Repubblica,

« Le spread est un imbroglio »

186

journal d'orientation centre-gauche, de large diffusion, publie par exemple, en octobre 2011, une fiche active en hypertexte sur le mot spread, dans une visée clairement pédagogique en procédant par définition de ce qu’il est mais surtout de ce qu’il fait.6 (1)

Cos’è lo spread ? Spread: dal sostantivo inglese “apertura”, “scarto”. È il differenziale di rendimento tra un’obbligazione e un’altra, solitamente meno rischiosa e perciò detta benchmark, “di riferimento”. Lo spread determina gli interessi che si pagheranno sul debito pubblico, e indica il rischio percepito di chi emette l'obbligazione (se è un titolo di stato si parla di rischio-paese). Uno spread troppo ampio fa lievitare gli interessi passivi, rende difficile emettere nuovo debito e compromette il rating, che è il giudizio di solvibilità dell'azienda o del paese emittente. Nella cronaca dei mercati lo spread indica lo scarto tra il Bund tedesco – l’emissione più solida d’Europa – e i titoli di stato di paesi con maggiori probabilità di insolvenza. Nell’ultimo mese lo scarto tra il Btp italiano a dieci anni e il Bund con simili caratteristiche s’è aperto da 200 a quasi 400 punti base. Significa che la Germania può indebitarsi a un tasso di circa il 2,5% l’anno, mentre l’Italia deve pagare agli investitori anche oltre 6%, per il sovrapprezzo dato dallo spread. La Repubblica, 31/10/2011

On constate dans ce texte que le spread est agentivisé, il lui est attribué une puissance de faire, impropre par rapport au canon qui le définit comme un indicateur qui résulte d'un calcul de la part d'opérateurs financiers et programmeurs d'analyse, somme de décisions qui déterminent le marché non seulement lors des émissions primaires mais lors des échanges secondaires. Or la formulation à l'actif (« le spread détermine les intérêts qu'il faudra payer, [...] les fait gonfler... ») occulte l'instance qui a déterminé ces mêmes taux d'intérêt ; dans la métaphore filée le spread rend difficile, il compromet... C'est une donnée qui fait que l’Allemagne peut, tandis que l’Italie doit. Pouvoir d’autant plus paradoxal que ce qu’il indique est présenté comme relevant du subjectif : le risque perçu, le risque-pays, le jugement, des probabilités. Aucun agent humain n’est nommé dans ce texte, le mot est seulement localisé comme terme repris de la presse spécialisée émanant des « marchés » (« la chronique des marchés »).

6

Mis en évidence en caractères gras dans la citation.

Mathilde Anquetil

187

Il Sole 24 Ore, journal économique d’assez large diffusion car expression d’une certaine société civile entrepreneuriale, publie en annexe d’un article d’opinion, une fiche intitulée « Perché lo spread è molto importante ». L’énonciateur adopte une forme dialogique de ton didactique afin d’expliquer « pourquoi le spread est très important », affichant sa volonté de combler la distance qui se creuse entre les milieux financiers et l’opinion commune, dont il prend en charge une question implicite. Cet article n’est pas exempt des effets d’autorité analysés par Bourdieu (2001) comme « discours d’importance ». (2)

Perché lo spread è molto importante? [...] A questo punto, potrete chiedere: d'accordo, l'Italia paga più interessi della Germania, ma perché questa differenza è così importante? Risposta: per almeno tre ragioni. Questioni di fiducia e questioni di soldi. Prima ragione: se lo Stato spende di più per interessi e non dobbiamo aumentare il deficit vuol dire che dovremo ridurre altre spese o aumentare le imposte. Dato che la nostra economia già stenta a crescere, togliere soldi o servizi pubblici dai cittadini vuol dire spargere sale sulle ferite. Seconda ragione: se lo Stato italiano paga più interessi dello Stato tedesco finisce che anche le imprese italiane pagheranno tassi più alti rispetto alle imprese tedesche. Quindi, le imprese italiane si trovano svantaggiate rispetto alle imprese tedesche. Lo spread è un termometro. Terza ragione: se i risparmiatori – italiani e stranieri – che sottoscrivono i titoli pubblici italiani perdono fiducia nel debitoreStato, le conseguenze possono essere terribili. Dato che noi abbiamo un grande debito pubblico e tanti titoli emessi in passato scadono ogni mese, per i risparmiatori è facile esprimere la loro sfiducia. Non è necessario sottoscrivere nuovi titoli: basta non rinnovare quelli che scadono. Se il mercato non rinnova i titoli lo Stato italiano fallisce, la fiducia di imprese e famiglie crolla, l'economia affonda e si scatena una crisi gravissima, con ripercussioni internazionali. Questa è la ragione per cui si guarda ansiosamente allo spread, come si guarderebbe al termometro di un paziente sotto osservazione. Il Sole 24 Ore, 05/09/2012

Nous observons ici une stratégie de dramatisation des conséquences du spread sur l’économie du pays et la vie privée du citoyen, avec une série de métaphores dans le champ lexical de la maladie et de la catastrophe. De plus dans cette forme dialoguée qui autorise l’usage de formulations de « sagesse populaire » et argumentations simplifiées, on entretient pour le

« Le spread est un imbroglio »

188

lecteur l'illusion d'obtenir en quelques lignes des réponses claires et définitives sur un sujet complexe. Des sujets humains sont ici nommés : les épargnants italiens et étrangers. Le mot épargnants sollicite l’éthos positif du petit épargnant, l’épargne comme vertu privée, et l’Italie est singularisée par son fort taux de petits épargnants, contrairement à l’image stéréotypée de l’Italien dépensier. Il est vrai que la dette des ménages italiens est restée longtemps assez faible, contrairement à la dette de l’état qui est une des plus fortes en Europe. La manipulation à laquelle se livre le journaliste, consiste cependant à mettre en analogie le monde des épargnants, qui flatte l’autoreprésentation du lecteur, et celui du marché, dominé par des groupes d’investisseurs internationaux, dans deux phrases de structure syntaxique parallèle7 avec une séquence d’hypothèses menant à des conséquences aussi péremptoires qu’inéluctables. Nous observons la même stratégie de recours à l’analogie avec l’expérience commune du petit investisseur, qui banalise au lieu d’expliquer un phénomène relevant de stratégies bancaires globalisées, sur le site Diritto di critica, où le journaliste indépendant inscrit dans la rubrique « Vocabolario economico » sa version d’un texte de genre désormais canonique « Cos’è lo Spread ? » ; notons qu’il ressent encore le besoin en 2011 d’en indiquer la prononciation correcte : (3)

Lo spread (pronuncia: sprèd) non è una bevanda alcolica, ma un numero, che indica una differenza percentuale, ad esempio fra rendimenti. Lo spread a cui si fa spesso riferimento in questi giorni è quello fra il rendimento dei Bund tedeschi e dei Btp (buoni del tesoro poliennali) italiani, di durata decennale. Bund e Btp sono obbligazioni governative (rispettivamente tedesche e italiane), ossia titoli grazie ai quali gli stati incassano subito dei soldi, per esempio quando i cittadini vanno in banca e comprano tali obbligazioni, per poi restituirli dopo un certo numero di anni, con gli interessi. Diritto di critica, 17/11/ 2011

Nous verrons ultérieurement que la première glose définitionnelle relève implicitement de l’intertextualité avec un texte du politicien satirique Grillo.8 On note ici la déictisation qui rapproche le concept technocratique de la vie quotidienne, de ce dont on entend parler un peu partout (« lo spread a cui si fa riferimento in questi giorni »), ainsi que la technique de 7

Eléments soulignés en caractères gras dans la citation : « Et les épargants perdent confiance… Et si le marché ne renouvelle pas les titres… ». 8 Celui-ci avait fait le lien, par contiguïté phonétique, entre le spread et le spritz, un apéritif alcoolisé.

Mathilde Anquetil

189

l’exemplification – simplification faisant appel à l’expérience privée du particulier qui souscrit un bon du trésor. Nous passons dans une phase de doxa : on livre des bribes simplifiées pour le grand public. Or le marché financier international auquel se réfère le spread dans le processus actuel de monétarisation globale de l'économie des échanges (Fumagalli 2012), ne suit plus la logique des petits épargnants italiens, qui avant le passage à l’euro, achetaient volontiers, aux côtés des gros investisseurs internationaux, des obligations d’état aux taux attractifs.9 Rappelons qu’il s’agissait alors surtout d’une stratégie de défense des familles aisées par rapport à l’inflation, mais que cela a justement eu pour conséquence la croissance démesurée de la dette italienne, tout en favorisant l’exportation des produits industriels avec une monnaie dévaluée. On se souviendra que le passage à l'euro nécessita en Italie l'institution d'un gouvernement d'experts (governo tecnico) dirigé par Giuliano Amato, qui imposa une politique de rigueur budgétaire et une forte levée d'impôts immobiliers pour rentrer dans les paramètres du système financier européen. Mais revenons sur le texte du Sole 24 Ore : on note que le spread entre dans cet article dans un processus de métaphorisation. Il est défini d’abord comme étant un thermomètre, un instrument de mesure, donc du domaine du scientifique inéluctable : le thermomètre constate, il traduit fidèlement une donnée ainsi objectivée ; alors que nous avons vu que le spread est issu d’estimations spéculatives sur le risque, de la part des agences financières. Mais la métaphore renforce l’effet de réel, et c’est ainsi qu’il est reçu par les hommes politiques qui fondent sur cet indicateur leur pouvoir de décision, comme celui de lever l’impôt et d'imposer des restrictions budgétaires. Leur pratique politique s’en trouve objectivée et légitimée comme seul mode de réception de l’indicateur. Nous notons aussi que la seconde occurrence de thermomètre convoque le champ lexical du pathologique et du médical. L’Italie est ainsi qualifiée de malade sous observation, minorée dans son autonomie, qui inquiète l’observateur-médecin expert en position d’extériorité ou de supériorité, ainsi autorisé à prescrire des purges. Il y a là une intériorisation en boucle du « risque-pays » : le marché dicte le taux, estimant le pays malade, le malade assume qu’il l’est puisque le marché le conçoit comme tel. S’agit-il là de la part de ce média italien d’une attitude dérivant d’une mauvaise conscience collective par rapport au dérapage préalable de la dette ?

9

Les BOT (Buoni Ordinari del Tesoro) avaient en 1992 un rendement de 15,2%. (En ligne : http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buono_Ordinario_del_Tesoro)

« Le spread est un imbroglio »

190

Quoi qu'il en soit, on constate que dans cette presse on retrouve le biais bien étudié par Lejeune (2004)10 quant au brouillage énonciatif du journaliste généraliste qui, s'adressant au grand public, reprend à son compte les sources des analyses économiques pour mettre en scène sa parole comme experte, et qui sous couvert de s'adresser au lecteur profane tente de s'insérer dans le champ périlleux des experts de la prédiction économique pour conforter sa position professionnelle, voire s'adresser implicitement aux acteurs du marché : Cependant, une comparaison systématique du document-source (les Notes de l'INSEE) et du discours citant (les articles) fait apparaître en filigrane un journaliste se mettant énonciativement en scène comme un expert ayant voix au chapitre dans la discussion des prévisions économiques et utilisant à sa guise de façon parfois fort cavalière les informations contenues dans le document de l’Insee. Les éléments qui contribuent à la construction de l’image de l’expert sont variés : un des plus significatifs est le brouillage énonciatif. […] Il [notre travail] met toutefois le doigt, nous semble-t-il, sur la façon dont un certain journalisme spécialisé « installé » se préoccupe plus de conforter sa position dans le champ professionnel que de donner à des lecteurs-citoyens les moyens de se forger un jugement propre dans des domaines peu accessibles au départ en raison de leur technicité (Lejeune 2005 : 49-53).

On note ainsi dans le Sole 24 ore du 22 avril 2012, entre les deux tours des élections présidentielles, un titre alarmant : « Perché il fantasma Hollande spaventa Borse e spread » où le journaliste n'hésite pas à rapporter les propos d'initié d'un expert bancaire italien qui semble miser sur une spéculation « intéressante » quant à la hausse du spread franco-allemand : (4)

10

In Francia l'esito delle elezioni politiche potrebbe offrire nuovi motivi di tensione, spiega Sergio Capaldi del Servizio Studi e ricerche di Intesa Sanpaolo [...]. Il timore che l'approccio del nuovo esecutivo possa essere meno rigoroso sul piano fiscale e più orientato a ricette che sostengano la crescita potrebbe destabilizzare il mercato […] accrescendo le probabilità di attacchi speculativi. [...] in un'ottica di breve termine riteniamo interessanti strategie di allargamento dello spread Francia-Germania.11 www.ilsole24ore.com, 22/04/2012

Cité dans Janot (2012). Souligné par nos soins. (En ligne : www.ilsole24ore.com/art/finanza-emercati/2012-04-23/perche-fantasma-hollande-spaventa-111705_PRN.shtml) 11

Mathilde Anquetil

191

La presse française grand public, quoique non exempte de ces ambiguïtés, apparaît cependant comme plus critique dans sa façon de traiter du spread.

4. Introduction du mot dans la presse généraliste en France : une distanciation critique Pour la France nous nous référons à un article de 2010, reportant une émission sur France-Inter, intitulée « L’obsession du ‘spread’ ». Cet article donne le ton sur la façon dont le mot s’insère dans le discours médiatique français : avec une connotation très souvent péjorative. (5)

L'obsession du “spread” […] Confidence récente de François Fillon (c'était mardi, devant les députés UMP) : « tous les jours, la première chose que je fais, c'est regarder le ‘spread’ entre la France et l'Allemagne ». En février 2009, à la télévision, Nicolas Sarkozy, lui aussi, avait avoué que « tous les jours, il observe l'évolution des spreads ». Le “spread޵, c'est effectivement un indicateur économique intéressant : c'est le terme (anglais) pour désigner l'écart de taux entre la France et l'Allemagne, l'écart entre les rendements d'une obligation d'Etat française et d'une obligation d'Etat allemande (le “Bund޵ allemand, qui sert de référence en Europe). www.franceinter.fr, 10/06/2010

Ici le décrochage introduit par la glose définitionnelle du mot toujours mis à distance par les guillemets, se situe après la présentation subtilement ironique sur « l’obsession » de Fillon et Sarkozy sur le spread consulté comme la météo du jour au petit matin, ce qui pointe sur le manque de contrôle de l’exécutif quant à la variabilité de l’indicateur et met en évidence le rapport d’impuissance entre les décideurs et cette nouvelle instance que l’on consulte avec anxiété, en concurrence avec la consultation de l’état de l’opinion publique, dont on sait qu'elle est « capricieuse ». On constate que le journaliste manifeste dans son discours une certaine distanciation critique par rapport au langage expert qui a tendance à « naturaliser » son discours pour en dissimuler les enjeux : le « discours politique dépolitisé » dont parlait Bourdieu (1982, cité dans Siroux 2008). Le thème médiatique récurrent de « l'obsession du spread » de la part des hommes politiques, a sans doute fait que ceux-ci se sont progressivement abstenus d'utiliser ce terme en France. Cela a eu un reflet dans les articles critiques à l'encontre de Monti et de Berlusconi, lorsque les journalistes français ont constaté l'omniprésence du terme sur la scène

« Le spread est un imbroglio »

192

politique italienne. Il est important pour l'opérateur des relations bilatérales de noter que l’attitude critique des journalistes français s’est exercée d’abord contre leurs représentants nationaux avant qu'ils n'épinglent ce même travers au sujet des représentants italiens. Ceci afin que de telles attitudes critiques ne renforcent pas un réflexe de défense contre « l'arrogance des Français » à l’égard des étrangers, un préjugé très actif en Italie. En septembre 2011, Le Monde pointe sur le manque d’efficacité des politiques de rigueur sur le spread franco-allemand : (6)

Parmi les indicateurs les plus scrutés par le ministère de l'économie et des finances, mais aussi par l'Elysée et Matignon, figure le “spread” franco-allemand. Cet indicateur mesure la différence entre les rendements des emprunts d'Etat français et allemands à dix ans. Le nouveau plan de rigueur annoncé lundi 7 novembre par François Fillon visait notamment à réduire ce fossé mais, au lendemain de sa présentation, on constate qu'il n'a pas atteint son but pour l'heure. En quelques mois, le “spread” a connu une hausse spectaculaire. Et alors que les deux plans de rigueur lancés par le gouvernement depuis l'été devaient contribuer à le faire baisser, signe que la confiance dans les perspectives de l'économie française redevenait meilleure, c'est en fait le contraire qui s'est produit. […] La France bénéficie de la meilleure note des agences de notation, le triple A, qui lui permet d’emprunter à bas coûts sur les marchés qui trouvent facilement preneur, car ils sont jugés sûrs. Cependant le 18 octobre, Moody’s a annoncé que le AAA de la France était placé sous surveillance, laissant planer une menace pour la note de la dette, ce qui augmentera encore son rendement. Pour ‘rassurer les marchés’, selon l’expression consacrée, il est parfois nécessaire de faire des gestes, de prendre des mesures fortes. Les deux plans d’économies de François Fillon visaient en partie ce but. Au vu de l’évolution des “marchés” suite à l’annonce du second plan de rigueur, on ne peut pas dire qu’il soit atteint. Le Monde, 09/09/2011

On constate que le mot spread (toujours glosé et mis à distance par des guillemets) est lié à la co-occurence « plan de rigueur », mais contrairement à la doxa, le lien entre les deux est présenté comme inefficace ; de même que le lien entre le spread et les agences de notation est présenté comme peu fiable, sujet à des estimations peu transparentes. Des expressions idéologiquement chargées comme « rassurer les marchés » sont remises en question par des procédés énonciatifs autonymiques. Quelques mois plus tard, Le Monde publie une fiche sur le spread avec schémas et explications didactiques sous le titre : « L’autre notation

Mathilde Anquetil

193

des marchés : le spread franco-allemand ». La courbe indique l’influence d’événements politico-économiques sur l’évolution du spread. Mais l’explication introduit un point de vue critique sur le système : (7)

L’écart est également scruté par les agences de notation. Leur attitude peut apparaître paradoxale : l’évolution du taux dépend du marché, et donc des craintes des investisseurs à prêter à la France. Craintes qui sont alimentées entre autres par les agences de notation, lorsqu’elles indiquent par exemple qu’elles mettent la note française sous surveillance. Une perte de la note AAA française entraînerait immédiatement une forte hausse des taux d’intérêts pour les obligations d’Etat françaises. Le coût du déficit exploserait, de même que le “spread” avec l’Allemagne. Le Monde, 22/11/2011 12

Des instances humaines sont ici nommées : les investisseurs, les agences de notation ; la qualification de « paradoxale » introduit un germe de suspicion quant à un possible emballement du processus d'évaluation du risque, alimenté en boucle dans un système auto-référentiel entre agences de notation et investisseurs. Ainsi le spread tend, dans l’espace médiatique français, à être mis en doute comme indicateur fiable et comme prescripteur de politique de rigueur, tandis que dans la presse généraliste italienne, il est de façon très récurrente désigné comme « thermomètre » (donc indicateur scientifique) d’une crise, d’une pathologie, assumée comme telle, symptôme d’une perte de confiance tant interne qu’externe d’un pays qui se sent au bord du gouffre mais ne doute pas que la raison profonde soit sa dette intérieure, donc une crise endogène mise en évidence par une instance d’observation externe dont l’extériorité garantirait la fiabilité, une représentation souvent constatée dans ce pays estérophile. Notons encore dans le texte du Monde l’indication explicite et mise à distance, par une reprise autonymique, du nouveau destinataire des prises de décision politique : « faire des gestes, prendre des mesures pour “rassurer les marchés”, selon l'expression consacrée ». Mais ici cette modalité du discours de gouvernance est remise en question y compris du point de vue objectif de son efficacité. En contraste, nous observons dans le discours technocratique italien, en particulier celui de Monti, repris fidèlement par les journalistes économiques, un véritable dédoublement de la scène énonciative du discours politique qui tente de s’adresser à deux instances aux intérêts inconciliables : les marchés et les citoyens. On 12

En ligne : http://www.lemonde.fr/election-presidentielle-2012/visuel/2011/11/22/lautre-notation-des-marches-le-spread-franco-allemand_1607698_1471069.html

194

« Le spread est un imbroglio »

s’adresse au marché (pour lui demander solennellement de respecter les temps de la démocratie, par exemple, dans le discours de Monti, voir extrait en note)13 derrière le discours aux citoyens, en présentant comme naturelle, évidente, une pleine coïncidence des enjeux pour ces deux destinataires, le tout étant présenté comme conciliable avec l’exercice de la démocratie. Cette différence de traitement du phénomène entre la France et l’Italie reflète-t-elle des différences entre instances médiatiques et opinions publiques nationales, reflet d’un différentiel de conscience politique, d’accès à une culture économico-politiques différentes ? Reflet de situations économiques objectivement différentes ? Les journalistes du Monde ont-ils été formés et mis en garde par la lecture d’analyses de discours comme celles de Lejeune (2004 ; 2005 ; 2012) quant au rôle des journalistes vis-à-vis du public-citoyen dans les articles de divulgation économique ?

13

Traduction d’un extrait de la conférence de presse de M. Monti, Président du Conseil du gouvernement provisoire, le 14 novembre 2011, alors qu’il vient de recevoir la charge de former un gouvernement provisoire prenant le relais du gouvernement Berlusconi, après démission de celui-ci au vu de la crise du spread et tandis que les marchés sont encore instables quoiqu’ayant accueilli favorablement ce changement par une baisse du spread : « Je souhaite souligner, moi que l’on ne soupçonnera certes pas de négliger l’importance des marchés, je souhaite ici souligner, ici où nous nous trouvons, un lieu prestigieux dans l’une des deux branches du Parlement, que nous agissons dans le cadre de la démocratie, et ce gouvernement auquel j’ai été appelé par le Président de la République s’inscrit lui aussi pleinement dans un parcours démocratique parlementaire, et son exercice recquiert des temporalités déterminées. Si vous me le consentez, la considération que de nombreux observateurs ont exprimé, et aujourd’hui le quotidien Le Monde a même tenter de quantifier [...] l’effet des deux derniers jours de la semaine passée l’effet déterminant que l’orientation du Président Napolitano sur la formation du futur gouvernement a eu sur les marchés et sur le spread. Il me semble absolument naturel qu’il faille aujourd’hui, aux yeux du marché oui, mais aussi, je le répète, avant tout aux yeux de la collectivité italienne et de nous tous, qu’il faille arriver sans délais à la formation d’un gouvernement, d’une équipe ministérielle qui, je vous l’assure, sera convainquante et efficace, et qu’il faille passer à une prise de mesures incisives. Je suis donc certain que les marchés manifesteront une impatience tempérée par la rationalité. » (En ligne : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yPWF8MUlbg).

Mathilde Anquetil

195

5. De la glose au détournement subversif par métaphorisation: le spread comme synonyme de crise économique globale et point d’ancrage de la contestation sociale populiste en Italie Il Fatto quotidiano, journal critique indépendant, publie le 27 décembre 2011 un billet d’humeur sur le spread : (8)

Senza alcuna ombra di dubbio, il termine prima conosciuto da pochissime persone dal 2011 è entrato nel vocabolario degli italiani. La storia del “differenziale”, prima che la parola diventasse un incubo per gli italiani. Una parola che dice tutto ciò che c’è da sapere. Sei lettere diventate un incubo, e non solo per gli operatori. Spread, ovvero ampiezza, divario, differenziale. Per antonomasia, almeno per il pubblico italiano, il premio richiesto dagli investitori per acquistare Btp a dieci anni invece degli omologhi tedeschi, i solidissimi e rispettabilissimi Bund. In altre parole la misura del rischio d’insolvenza del nostro Paese nel sempre più impietoso confronto con la prima economia del Continente. Insomma, per chi ancora avesse dei dubbi è semplicemente la parola dell’anno. A ben vedere la storia è tutta qui. E che storia, verrebbe da dire. La variazione di rendimento tra i nostri titoli di Stato e quelli di Berlino ha letteralmente invaso la vita quotidiana dell’ultimo semestre. Nell’ordine : ha scatenato la crisi nel Paese, ha cambiato la percezione della stessa presso i cittadini, ha contribuito a far cadere un governo e, particolare importante, ha alimentato in Italia un interesse mai sperimentato prima per le vicende finanziarie. Spread come termometro della crisi, spread come psicosi collettiva, spread come chiacchiera da bar, manco fosse il bel tempo, il gossip o la moviola. Insomma, è stata una rivoluzione. Pagata a caro prezzo. Il Fatto quotidiano, 27/12/2011

Nous notons que le mot, défini « mot de l’année », est associé à une glose (différentiel) mais aussi à une tentative de traduction du sens premier (spread, c’est-à-dire amplitude, écart), très en amont par rapport au canon dans le champ de l’économie, ce qui ne fait que renforcer la xénité du mot dans le contexte affectif où il est mis en scène. Le pathos exprimé par l’auteur sur la signification sociale effective du mot (« un incubo » : « un cauchemar »), auquel on attribue le scénario catastrophique des effets de la crise, est présenté comme un fond représentationnel collectif qui vire dans l’irrationnel. L’auteur observe que le spread est devenu argument de

« Le spread est un imbroglio »

196

conversation de comptoir, un sens commun sur la vulgate est en cours de construction dans l’espace public italien. Une personnalité médiatique va alors investir le mot spread pour le malmener lexicalement et l’utiliser à ses fins de captation d’audience, chevauchant le mécontentement de l’opinion publique quant aux conséquences sociales d’une politique qui prend le spread comme mètre de mesure de sa politique d’austérité. Le 5 novembre 2011 le comique gênois Beppe Grillo lance un pavé dans la mare en jouant sur l’assonance de deux xénismes qu’il joint en paronomase : « Dallo spritz allo spread »14. Il ridiculise ainsi l’omniprésence du mot dans les discours communs et dénonce le ferment de destruction sociale d'une évolution qu’il dit constater dans la culture partagée au comptoir des bars (le spritz est un apéritif dans le nord de l'Italie) : les discussions conviviales, autour de l'apéro, signe d’une société d’abondance due à l’opérosité « naturelle » de la population, ont fait place selon lui à d'illusoires spéculations sur une finance factice. La formule qui a fait choc est alors source de citations intertextuelles réitérées. Le cadre de la doxa explose par contamination dans le discours commun. Le bouffon du roi désacralise l’aura du mot technocratique. Les usages satiriques du mot se multiplient alors en Italie : à Naples le plus gros pétard de l’année est baptisé spread, on va jusqu’au trivial « Ti faccio uno spread così ! », du comique Grozzi, imitant Angela Merkel s'adressant à Berlusconi. Mais on parlera aussi de spread sanitario, de spread assicurativo, de spread numerico : indiquant par là des phénomènes d’écart social qui minent l’égalité sociale. Le terme recouvre alors ce qu'en France on désigne par fracture : frature sociale, frature numérique, etc. Mais on verra dans les déclarations de Grillo se succéder des usages qui passent de l’ « impertinence » cotextuelle, qui en réalité dénote une marque d’appropriation par le truchement du registre satirique, à un usage proprement polémique de dénonciation de l’emprise des marchés, ainsi dans le calembour « il colpo di spread » (où on lit en palimpsteste : « le coup d’état ») : (9)

14

15 novembre 2011: Il colpo di spread Lo spread ha sostituito il corpo elettorale. Il colpo di spread al posto del vecchio colpo di Stato. Nessuno spargimento di sangue, nessuna manifestazione di piazza o autunno caldo. Lo spread al posto dello spritz. Un centinaio di punti in più tra il titolo italiano e il bund tedesco e il gioco è fatto. Nessuno rimpiange Berlusconi, ma tutti

En ligne : www.beppegrillo.it/2022/11/05/dallo_spritz_al.html.

Mathilde Anquetil

197

dovremmo rimpiangere la democrazia. Se il Parlamento è composto da nominati da pochi segretari di partito, il professor Monti è stato eletto dallo spread. Se i mercati dovessero ricredersi sul suo conto, se si dimostrasse troppo tenero con i contribuenti, sarebbe sufficiente un nuovo colpo di spread per scatenare il terrore negli italiani. www.beppegrillo.it /2011/11/15/il_colpo_di_spr.html

Nous reprendrons ultérieurement l’analyse de la dénonciation politique sous-jacente à la verve de Grillo en terme d’émergence dans le jeu publique d’une instance dominante concurrente par rapport aux instances du discours politique classique : le comique réussit à faire passer par des procédés relevant de l'éthos d'identification (par opposition avec l'éthos de crédibilité mis en œuvre par Monti, le technocrate sérieux qui rassure les marchés) une véritable critique contre l’importance accordée à l’expression des marchés qui mine les fondements du débat démocratique entre instance politique et instance citoyenne (Charaudeau 2008). Monti, dénonce Grillo, n'est pas un représentant fondant sa légitimité sur des élections démocratiques, il a été « élu par le spread ». (10) 8 dicembre 2012. Lo spread non si mangia L'agenda Monti, sottoscritta con voluttà dal pdmenoelle, prevedeva un solo punto: lo spread, ma lo spread non si mangia e soprattutto non dipende da Monti, ma dalle agenzie di rating internazionali. Lo spread che è salito alle stelle in estate (colpa dei mercati?) e sotto i 300 punti a dicembre (merito di Monti?) è una variabile indipendente dal governo. E' un guinzaglio per tenere sotto controllo la politica italiana, una corda che si stringe a piacere in mano alla finanza internazionale. Non si vive di solo spread, e di spread, con la politica di Rigor Montis, si può solo morire. www.beppegrillo.it/2012/12/08/lo_spread_non_si_mangia.html

Cette ultérieure bordée de Grillo marque un passage à la rhétorique populiste : la rhétorique du ventre, la dénonciation de manœuvres mortifères. Cependant de l'attaque personnelle contre Monti, il passe à la désignation du « véritable coupable » occulte : ici les agences de notation sont dénoncées comme étant les véritables manœuvriers de la politique. Le comique trouve ici un créneau pour chevaucher la contestation sociale, comblant sans doute le vide laissé par la frilosité des critiques émanant de la presse proche d'un parti démocratique soucieux de prouver sa capacité de gouvernance en soutenant les différents gouvernements « techniques » mis en place.

198

« Le spread est un imbroglio »

6. « Lo spread è un imbroglio » : manipulations d'un discours non-autorisé C'est dans ce contexte qu'explose la polémique internationale autour de la déclaration de Berlusconi du 11 décembre 2012. Nous étudierons ici son événementialisation et son reflet dans la presse française. Retracer le texte original de la déclaration de Berlusconi n’est pas chose aisée, mais en recoupant différents segments de vidéos mis en ligne de la part de différents organes de presse et sur les sites de journalistes indépendants comme celui de buoblu.com, on peut restituer le discours suivant : (11) Ma guardi, l’anticipo di un mese delle elezioni per le dimissioni di Monti è assolutamente risibile, non c’è assolutamente una ragione vera perché i mercati si debbano si possano agitare. Per quanto riguarda lo spread, ma smettiamo di parlare di questo imbroglio! Prima non ne avevamo mai sentito parlare, se n’è sentito parlare solo da un anno, cosa ci importa di quanto gli interessi che il nostro debito pubblico paga a chi investe nei nostri titoli rispetto a quello che pagano agli investitori che investono nel debito pubblico tedesco? E’ la Germania che a un certo punto ha fatto una cosa nei suoi interessi, ha ordinato alle sue banche di vendere tutti i titoli del tesoro italiano [...] Gli altri fondi americani hanno pensato, beh, se la Germania vende, ci sarà qualcosa sotto e hanno venduto anche loro [...] e gli investitori hanno ritenuto di chiedere un premio per il rischio solamente teorico per investire in questi titoli, e hanno chiesto degli interessi del 6 % all’Italia. Ma che cosa ci importa questa differenza del 1-2 % rispetto alla Germania, quello che ci importa è che gli interessi sui nostri titoli siano aumentati di un 2 %, che si aggiungono al costo del debito. Quindi tutto quello che si è inventato sullo spread è un vero e proprio imbroglio. Berlusconi, 11/12/2012.15

L’agence Reuters à Rome publie la dépêche suivante qui deviendra sans doute la source principale des différents journalistes en Italie comme en France. (12) ROMA (Reuters) 11 dicembre 2012 – Silvio Berlusconi ha detto oggi che l'attenzione all'allargamento dello spread è stata solo “un imbroglio e un'invenzione” per abbattere il suo governo. “Lo spread è un imbroglio, un'invenzione con cui si è cercato di abbattere una maggioranza votata dagli italiani e che governava il 15

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=By-hSH-UWYs.

Mathilde Anquetil

199

Paese”, ha detto l'ex premier parlando alla telefonata di Belpietro su Canale 5. “Prima non ne avevamo mai sentito parlare, se ne parla solo da un anno, e cosa ce ne importa?”, ha aggiunto. Tredici mesi fa il governo Berlusconi ha dato le dimissioni con lo spread che superava i 500 punti base. Con il governo Monti lo spread è sceso sotto i 300, per risalire in area 350 in questi giorni dopo l'annuncio delle dimissioni del premier.

Analysons donc le dit et la mise en scène médiatique du dit rapporté. On identifie aisément l’opération de segmentation et de narrativisation du discours rapporté dans la dépêche. La formule choc est rapportée de façon tronquée comme copule définitionnelle : « lo spread è un imbroglio e un'invenzione » ; le slogan définitionnel simpliste engendre, selon Charaudeau, une illusion rationnelle : « Le slogan vise à produire auprès de ceux qui le reçoivent un effet d'adhésion passionnelle masquée par une illusion rationnelle, parce que le sens qu'il véhicule est empreint d'une raison émotionnelle qui excède largement ce qu'il dit explicitement » (Charaudeau 2005 : 77). Mais l’agence de presse avait cependant eu le soin d'encadrer précédemment la phrase dans la thématisation synthétique qui précède : c'est l'attention portée à la hausse du spread, et non le spread lui-même, qui est désigné comme réfèrent de l’ « embrouille » ; de plus le verbe copule est au passé (« è stata »), ce qui n’est pas seulement dû à la concordance des temps avec le verbe modalisateur neutre « ha detto ». Cela intègre l’élément référentiel dans le temps : c’est l’attention accordée au spread depuis un certain temps qui est dénoncée, dans la déclaration initiale de Berlusconi, comme étant une supercherie, et non l’entité référentielle du spread en soi. Le journaliste intègre par ailleurs la déclaration de Berlusconi dans un contexte temporel (« Il y a 13 mois... ») en élucidant la séquence des faits qui l’ont précédée et qui se déroulent simultanément. La thèse proférée par Berlusconi se trouve cependant invalidée par cette mise en perspective narrative, sans qu’il soit besoin de connecteurs logiques, ni de déductions explicites. Le spread est implicitement présenté comme agent actif de la chute du gouvernement Berlusconi, l’indicateur variant selon la courbe de sa vie politique. Aussi l'opinion de ce dernier « che ci importa »16 est-elle présentée comme particulièrement choquante et inopportune par rapport à la réalité sociale et politique, minant ainsi la crédibilité de l'homme politique. 16

Traduction : « On s'en moque ! Qu'est-ce que ça peut bien faire ! »

200

« Le spread est un imbroglio »

Non que l’on veuille défendre la thèse de Berlusconi, mais il faut reconnaître que la voie indiquée par celui-ci, c'est-à-dire de continuer à faire comme si de rien n’était, de ne pas se soucier du spread, suivant en cela le rejet populaire vis à vis de l’indicateur, est complètement délégitimée par le journaliste, du seul fait des procédés de troncation et de narrativation de sa déclaration.

7. Manipulation des propos de Berlusconi dans la presse française La presse européenne se gausse alors ouvertement du Cavaliere en reprenant, et déformant ultérieurement, les propos tronqués de la dépêche. On lit en France : « Italie : Berlusconi se fiche bien des spreads » (L’expansion),17 « Berlusconi joue au nul en éco » (TF1).18 (13) Le jour où Silvio a découvert les « spreads » Les marchés financiers n’ont qu’à bien se tenir ! Pour Silvio Berlusconi qui vient de faire un retour fracassant dans la vie politique italienne les « spreads » ne sont qu’une invention des marchés dont il n’a que faire ! « le ‘spread’, je n’en avais jamais entendu parler auparavant, on n’en parle que depuis un an ! Qu’est-ce qu’on en a à faire ? » a-t-il lancé lors d’une interview téléphonique diffusée hier sur Canale 5, une chaîne de télévision appartenant à son empire médiatique. Le « cavaliere » a ajouté que le spread, c’est-à-dire le différentiel entre les taux italiens et allemands, considéré comme baromètre de la confiance des marchés, était un « imbroglio » (ce qui signifie à la fois « imbroglio » et « arnaque » en italien) […] Boursier.com 11.12.12

On remarque au passage que le magazine financier Boursier.com est le seul à ne pas être tombé dans le piège du « faux ami » imbroglio, qu’il traduit justement par « arnaque », marquant cependant une chute de niveau de langue dans la traduction, élément récurrent dans les reprises des sorties de Berlusconi : « cosa ci importa » (peu importe) traduit par « se fiche bien » qui renvoie au « me ne frego » de Mussolini, ou au qualunquismo, version italienne du poujadisme, comme rejet populiste du discours expert.

17

L'Expansion.com avec AFP - publié le 11/12/2012. En ligne : http://lci.tf1.fr/economie/conjoncture/quand-berlusconi-joue-au-nulen-eco-7723535.html. 18

Mathilde Anquetil

201

Les propos de Berlusconi sont traités avec une certaine légèreté dans cette stratégie de dénigrement systématique : RTBF19 traduit « non ne avevamo mai sentito parlare » par « je n’en avais jamais entendu parler ». Or le « nous » de Berlusconi fait partie de sa stratégie de tribun du peuple, alors qu’il se serait délégitimé comme expert en déclarant à la première personne qu'il n’en avait jamais entendu parler. Si l’on examine les propos de Berlusconi, on observe que celui-ci avait eu soin de montrer qu’il savait fort bien de quoi il parlait, puisqu’il glose le terme dans sa vulgate. La synthèse de son message serait « peu importe le différentiel avec l’Allemagne, le problème est que le taux d’intérêt augmente, ce qui alourdit le poids de notre dette ». Cette considération, qui ne manque pas de légitimité en soi, est cependant englobée dans un discours populiste dont la visée selon son énonciateur est de démontrer que son gouvernement a été victime d’un complot orchestré par l’Allemagne, où le pouvoir politique aurait ordonné à « ses banques » de vendre les titres italiens entraînant une crise de confiance des marchés. Or il est attesté, et Berlusconi a dû le reconnaître ultérieurement, que c'est la Deutsche Bank, groupe privé, et non la Bundes Bank, banque centrale allemande, qui a effectivement vendu en masse ses titres italiens, entraînant une accentuation de la perte de confiance du marché. Cet épisode fait partie des exemples donnés comme manœuvre spéculative typique (Fumagalli 2012). Mais il n'est en aucun cas prouvé que l'opération ait été pilotée par le pouvoir politique allemand pour faire tomber le gouvernement de Berlusconi. On voit en effet se développer en Allemagne une âpre lutte entre les instances bancaires, opposées à toute régulation et tout contrôle politique, et le pouvoir politique qui du moins déclare soutenir la politique anti-spéculative de la Banque Centrale Européenne, gouvernée par l'italien Mario Draghi. Berlusconi narrativise donc lui-même à sa façon une séquence de faits, recréant une réalité qu’il peut ainsi maîtriser, se donnant l’image du redresseur de torts, de démystificateur, dans un jeu manipulatoire qui sera à son tour manipulé par les médias « autorisés ». La duplicité de Berlusconi est redoutable auprès d’une opinion publique peu experte, qui d’ailleurs n’a pas été instruite non plus lors de cet épisode, car la manœuvre spéculative effective n'a guère été dénoncée dans la presse autre que berlusconienne, tandis que la presse consensuelle (agences officielles, journaux grand public, comme expression d'un large consensus d’orientation libérale) n’a fait que démonter la première phrase choc de 19 En ligne : http://www.rtbf.be/info/monde/detail_silvio-berlusconi-le-spread-uneinvention-pour-faire-tomber-le-gouvernement?id=7890595.

202

« Le spread est un imbroglio »

Berlusconi pour le délégitimer dans l’espace politique, sans démonter la théorie du complot qui suivait. L’ambiguïté a certes été entretenue par Berlusconi lui-même qui, voyant que sa petite phrase avait remonté l’audimat sur sa personne, s’est empressé de la répéter : l’homme de média existe si l’on en parle, peu lui importe comment. Je citerai ici Chareaudeau dans ses « Réflexions pour l’analyse du discours populiste » : L’espace de circulation de la parole politique, on le sait, met en présence une instance politique et une instance citoyenne, qui entrent en relation par le biais d’une instance de médiation. L’instance politique, en position de conquête ou d’exercice du pouvoir, est toute tendue vers un « agir sur l’autre » à des fins d’adhésion de cet autre à ses promesses ou à son action. C’est en raison de cette obligation que le sujet politique est conduit à jouer de stratégies discursives diverses : construction d’images de lui-même, de façon à se rendre, d’une part, crédible aux yeux de l’instance citoyenne (éthos de crédibilité), d’autre part attractif (éthos d’identification) (Charaudeau 2005) ; présentation des valeurs, de sorte que le citoyen adhère à celles-ci avec enthousiasme. Il en résulte que le discours politique est un lieu de vérité piégée, de « faire semblant », où ce qui compte n’est pas tant la vérité de cette parole lancée publiquement, que sa force de persuasion (Chareaudeau 2011 : 101).

8. Les ornières de l'anti-populisme et la réactivation des stéréotypes croisés italo-français Dans Le Monde apparaît alors l'article que nous avons évoqué en introduction, sous le titre « Mario Monti et Silvio Berlusconi, ces obsédés du spread », où le journaliste opère un amalgame entre les deux hommes politiques. (14) Le spread, qu'est-ce qu'on en a à faire ?, a lâché M. Berlusconi. « C'est une invention avec laquelle on a cherché à faire tomber une majorité élue par les Italiens et qui gouvernait le pays ». La veille, il avait soutenu que la montée des taux d'intérêt était une manoeuvre délibérée “de l'étranger” pour racheter à moindre coût des entreprises transalpines. Toujours pince-sans-rire, M. Monti a argué à peu près le contraire. « L'Italie, il y a treize mois, était dans une situation très, très difficile. Nous pouvons considérer avoir fait de très grands progrès, qui cependant ont eu un coût : à court terme, il n'y a pas eu de croissance », a-t-il concédé. Visant directement son prédécesseur au pouvoir pendant près de douze ans, il a poursuivi : « Il aurait été opportun de trouver une recette il y a quelques années, lorsqu'il n'y avait pas à

Mathilde Anquetil

203

gérer de grandes difficultés économiques. » Mais le “spread” ? Comment allait-il répondre ? Pour mieux démontrer à quel point cet instrument de mesure lui est cher, il a révélé que son petit-fils, encore à la crèche, était surnommé “spread” par ses puéricultrices. Celle-là, même Berlusconi n'aurait pas osé l'inventer. Le Monde, 12/12/2012 20

Par effet de halo, Monti est lui aussi présenté comme un bonimenteur, à propos de sa petite anecdote sur son petit-fils surnommé spread. Une analyse de la vidéo de la séquence, en particulier de la gestuelle et du ton de Monti lors de ladite anecdote, amène cependant à penser que celle-ci n’était peut-être pas entièrement mensongère : on y voit un Monti d’ordinaire si compassé donnant quelques signes d’affectivité et d’embarras, lui si peu habitué au registre de l’affectif qu'une journaliste lui offrit en février 2013, lors d'un entretien à la télévision, un petit chien dénommé Empy, pour l'encourager sur la voie de l'empathie… On remarque, lors de cet épisode, combien Berlusconi peut nuire à l’image du pays en réactivant tous les stéréotypes négatifs sur la collectivité italienne auprès de certains journalistes français qui n'hésitent pas, dans leur stratégie de captation, à les relayer auprès du public. La dénonciation du populisme de Berlusconi, comme de Grillo, finit par amener la presse à polluer les relations franco-italiennes. Les bordées de Berlusconi assurent un succès d’audience ; les journalistes ne devraient-ils pas s’interroger de façon plus conforme à la déontologie du métier, sur le traitement qu’il faut leur réserver dans le cadre de leur mission qui est d’éclairer l’opinion publique ? Or on constate que Berlusconi fait l’objet d’une démolition systématique moins sur ces arguments que sur son éthos : il ne correspond pas à l’éthos que l’on attend d’un homme politique dans le cercle des élites de la profession. Il n’en partage pas la langue de bois, il dérange l'idéologie dominante moins par son programme officiel que par son discours et sa façon d'être. Pierre-André Taguieff présente bien le danger que court à son tour le discours anti-populiste, qu’il dénonce comme instrument de défense des élites : Au lieu de réviser leurs certitudes, les doctrinaires du consensualisme, experts ou commentateurs autorisés, tendent à dénoncer et récuser comme “populistes” toute forme d’écart par rapport à leur modèle. C’est ainsi que, selon E. Todd, les élites en place s’emploient à défendre autant leurs certitudes que leurs privilèges. Les évolutions sociopolitiques non 20

En ligne : www.lemonde.fr, sous la plume de P. Ridet, correspondant à Rome.

204

« Le spread est un imbroglio » conformes aux visions préétablies sont rejetées dans l’enfer de l’irrationnel, de l’archaïsme, du passionnel, bref du populisme. (Targuieff 2011 : 11). La critique politique de la posture antipopuliste revient à décrypter en celle-ci une crainte irrationnelle des “masses”, des classes populaires, des laissés pour compte de la mondialisation et du turbo-capitalisme (Targuieff 2011 : 15).

On a ainsi beau jeu en France de traiter les hommes politiques italiens d’« obsédés du spread », quand le problème a des proportions plus contenues dans son propre pays. Les normes de stabilité européenne se traduisent en Italie par des politiques de rigueur d’une destructivité assez inouïe du point de vue des droits sociaux (d’où le calembour de Grillo surnommant l’impassible Monti, « Rigor Monti », par allusion tant à la politique de rigueur qu’à la rigor mortis) qui auraient sans doute amené le corps social français à l’émeute si on lui faisait subir le même traitement. Le spread franco-allemand présenté comme sujet d’alarme lors du gouvernement Sarkozy dans le Monde, est par ailleurs si bas par rapport au spread italo-allemand, que les Italiens s’interrogent à leur tour sur cette solidité apparente de la France. On note à ce sujet la réactivation d’un autre stéréotype, cette fois concernant la France, dans le discours italien : la Grandeur. « Lo spread della Grandeur salva Hollande » signe dans son éditorial La Stampa du 21 novembre 2012, stupéfaite de voir la France perdre en cotation de la part des agences de notation, mais conserver un spread assez bas. Mais l’interprétation qui fait appel à la Grandeur (concept gaulliste non traduit dans le texte) réactive le complexe d’infériorité-supériorité qui empoisonne les relations franco-italiennes. Les journalistes se révèlent bien démunis dans leur analyse des phénomènes financiers pour recourir à ces imaginaires désuets et les renforcer auprès du public ! Quoi qu'il en soit, il faut reconnaître que sur le thème du spread, les boutades de Berlusconi comme de Grillo ont eu un effet de catharsis, qui fait que le mot a considérablement chuté dans le vocabulaire politique, les hommes politiques ayant enfin saisi que l’électorat n'accepte plus d'être gouverné au nom du spread. Lors de la conférence de presse conjointe de Letta et Hollande le premier mai 2013,21 le président du conseil italien, de même que le président français, ont réussi l’exploit d’auto-contrôler leur 21

En ligne : http://www.elysee.fr/conferences-de-presse/article/point-de-presseconjoint-du-president-de-la-republique-avec-m-enrico-letta-president-du-conseildes-ministres-de-la-republique-italienne/.

Mathilde Anquetil

205

discours de sorte à ne pas prononcer une seule fois le mot jusque là omniprésent, parlant plus sobrement du problème du taux d’intérêt sur la dette italienne, car si le mot est banni le fait référentiel subsiste.

9. Considérations finales sur la collaboration italo-française pour le « bouclier anti-spread » Signalons en conclusion, qu’au-delà des discours médiatiques souvent peu à même d’informer de façon adéquate leur public sur des sujets techniques complexes, et traversés par des rivalités nationales non résolues, les relations franco-italiennes peuvent parfois aboutir à une collaboration plus constructive. C’est le cas de l’action conjointe Hollande – Monti, en juin 2012, lorsqu’à l’initiative de Mario Monti, les deux chefs de l’exécutif lancent une offensive contre les dogmes libéristes de la BCE avec leur proposition de « bouclier anti-spread ». M. Monti fait alors preuve d’une certaine pugnacité : l’ancien commissaire européen connaît bien les rouages du pouvoir à ce niveau, et réussit alors à faire plier la résistance d’Angela Merkel, en butte de son côté aux limites de l’exécutif allemand face au pouvoir de sa banque centrale. La démarche consiste à introduire un mécanisme de régulation pour freiner les montées spéculatives des spreads afin d'enrayer les engrenages qui mènent les pays touchés à la récession. L'expression « anti-spread » est reprise dans la presse française comme « bouclier anti-spéculation ». (15) Hollande apporte son soutien à Monti sur le bouclier antispéculation. A l'avant-veille de la réunion de la BCE qui doit valider le bouclier anti-« spread » et le rachat de titres sur le marché secondaire, Rome et Paris affichent une convergence de vues « totale ». LesEchos.fr, 04/09/2012

Le phénomène spread, au-delà du seul indicateur économique, trouve là, nous semble-t-il, sa juste dénomination dans le champ politique : la spéculation à laquelle se livrent les opérateurs du marché. La presse française semble généralement plus avisée que la presse italienne (dans les limites de notre corpus) dans sa fonction citoyenne car elle replace généralement le phénomène du spread dans le contexte d'une réflexion économico-politique globale et critique, ce qui l'amène à utiliser uniquement le mot différentiel d'un point de vue technique, afin de ne pas heurter une opinion publique aux réactions de rejet désormais épidermiques vis-à-vis de l'angliscisme technocratique, tout en dénonçant la hausse des taux d'intérêt des dettes publiques dans le cadre d'une analyse des épisodes de spéculation monétariste (voir : Janot 2014).

206

« Le spread est un imbroglio »

Cependant le pouvoir politique hexagonal semble assez démuni quant à la mise au point d'un discours performant face aux « pouvoirs du marché » ; on se réfère autant aux déclarations du Parti Socialiste français que de celles du ministre du redressement productif A. Montebourg :22 la personnalisation des accusations contre la chancelière allemande, la réitération stérile et incantatoire du Pacte de croissance, la réindustrialisation colbertiste de la France, tout cela apparaît assez inopérant et discrédite l’instance du politique comme logos ; la culture économique et la connaissance des rouages du pouvoir économique européen ne semble pas toujours à la hauteur des défis. La politique n’est pas seulement affaire de discours, elle doit exercer son pouvoir décisionnel face à cette nouvelle instance de pouvoir que sont les agences de marchés, une instance de pouvoir concurrentielle qui mine les institutions démocratiques, broyant les instances politiques dans une « double contrainte » : d'un côté « donner un signal aux marchés » en adoptant des mesures de rigueur, de l'autre asseoir son pouvoir décisionnel et sa légitimité vis-à-vis de l'électorat en dénonçant ces mêmes marchés. L'Italie, deuxième puissance industrielle européenne après l'Allemagne, gouvernée par intervalle (les gouvernements d’experts appelés à la rescousse aux moments de crise) par d'habiles stratèges technocrates,23 a des atouts dans ce combat. Une action politique conjointe Italie-France pourrait avoir un effet décisif, à condition que chaque partie se donne les moyens de comprendre les discours contextuels de l’autre, sans tomber dans le piège de stéréotypes dépassés, saisisse combien les deux pays peuvent jouer des rôles complémentaires dans un jeu politique dont dépend leur destin commun, et que les journalistes économiques (Lejeune 2012) s'avisent d'éclairer mieux l'instance citoyenne quant aux enjeux en cours entre les « marchés », les politiques et le corps social. Mais on entre là dans le domaine de l'opinion personnelle sur laquelle il s'agira en cours d'interpeler les étudiants dans un débat politique authentique, comptant sur les qualités de discernement amenées d’une part par leur formation politico-économique et de l’autre par les instruments d'analyse discursive proposés. 22

En ligne : http://www.lemonde.fr/le-magazine/article/2013/08/30/arnaudmontebourg-agent-pas-si-provocateur_3468130_1616923.html. 23 On analysera à ce propos la conférence de presse de Monti le 14 novembre 2011, lorsqu'il s'adresse presque directement « aux marchés », leur rappelant solennellement les règles du contexte démocratique, et les appelant explicitement à la patience et à la raison... (en ligne : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yPWF8MUlbg) mais aussi le rôle déterminant de Mario Draghi auprès de la BCE dans la mise en place du bouclier antispéculation.

Mathilde Anquetil

207

Quoi qu’il en soit du point de vue de l’analyse politique contextuelle, nous constatons du point de vue lexicologique, que le cas du mot spread constitue un cas très particulier d’échec d’insertion d’un mot dans l’espace public au terme d’une trajectoire passant pourtant par les phases de la vulgate et de la doxa (selon les catégories de Sarfati), et cela sans doute en raison de l’excès de manipulations idéologiques qu’on lui a fait porter dans le discours politique. Révélateur de dysfonctionnements majeurs dans la régulation démocratique des pouvoirs, il a finalement été rejeté par le corps social pour retourner dans la sphère des technicismes sectoriels.

Références Bourdieu, P. (1982). Ce que parler veut dire. Paris : Fayard. —. (2001). Langage et pouvoir symbolique. Paris : Points Seuil. —. (2002). « Pour un savoir engagé ». Le Monde Diplomatique, février 2002. Charaudeau, P. (2005). Les médias et l’information. Bruxelles : De Boek. —. (2008). Le discours politique, les masques du pouvoir. Paris : Vuibert. —. (2011). « Réflexions pour l’analyse du discours populiste ». Mots, 97, 101-116. —. (2013). « Le chercheur et l'engagement, une affaire de contrat », Argumentation et analyse du discours, 11. (En ligne : http://aad.revues.org/1532) De Mauro, T. (2012). « Pour une linguistique d’intervention », conférence plénière d’ouverture du colloque Linguistiques d’intervention : Des usages socio-politiques des savoirs sur le langage et les langues, Colloque annuel Société d'Histoire et d' Epistémologie des Sciences du Langage /UMR 7597 HTL – 27 et 28 janvier 2012, Paris. Fumagalli, A. (2012). Sai cos’è lo spread ? Lessico economico non convenzionale. Milano-Torino : Pearson Italia-Bruno Mondadori. Krieg-Planque, A. (2012). « Glossaires et lexiques militants: pratiques profanes de la critique du langage politique ». In L. Aubry et B. Turpin, Victor Klemperer, repenser le langage totalitaire. Paris: CNRS Editions, 299-313. Dewitte, J. (2010). « La lignification de la langue ». Hermès, 58, 47-54. Janot, P. (2012). « Histoire d'une crise, histoire d'un terme : de quelques stratègies discursives autour du terme subprime dans la presse généraliste française et italienne ». In L. Gautier (éd.), Les discours de la bourse et de la finance. Berlin : Frank & Timme, 47-62.

208

« Le spread est un imbroglio »

Janot, P. (2014), « L’escorte métalinguistique de “spread” dans les discours de vulgarisation économique traduits de l’italien vers le français : quels enjeux discursifs pour le traducteur ? ». Cahiers de Recherche de l’Ecole Doctorale en Linguistique française, 8, 111127. Lejeune, P. (2012). « Le mot marché(s) dans les compte-rendus boursiers entre métonymie et personnalisation ». In L. Gautier (éd.). Les discours de la bourse et de la finance. Berlin : Frank & Timme, 159177. —. (2004). Discours d'experts en économie. Paris : Lambert-Lucas. —. (2005). « Le journalisme documentaire au Monde : neutralité de façade ? ». La revue nouvelle, 5, 48-53. Longhi, J. (2008). « Sens commun et dynamiques sémantiques : l’objet discursif INTERMITTENT ». Langages, 170, 109-124. Lorda, C.-U. (2001). « Les articles dits d’information : la relation de déclarations politiques ». Semen, 13. (En ligne : http://semen.revues.org/2625) Maldussi, D. (2013). « Le spread dans ses dimensions conceptuelle, culturelle et cognitive : une approche termontographique ». In P. Ligas, Lexique, lexiques, Théories, méthodes et perspectives en lexicologie, lexicographie, terminologie et phraséologie. Verona : Quiedit, 97-118. Sarfati, G.-E. (2008). « Pragmatique linguistique et normativité : remarques sur les modalités discursives du sens commun ». Langages, 170, 92-108. Siroux, J.-L. (2008). « La dépolitisation du discours au sein des rapports annuels de l’organisation mondiale du commerce ». Mots, 88, 13-23. Steuckardt, A. et J.-P. Honoré (2006). « L’emprunt et sa glose ». Mots, 82, 5-8. Targuieff, P.-A. (1998). « Populismes et anti-populismes : le choc des argumentations ». Mots, 55, 5-26.

CHAPTER NINE NATION ET NARÓD : ANALYSE SEMANTIQUE D’UN COUPLE DE FAUX-AMIS FRANCO-POLONAIS DOROTA SIKORA UNIVERSITÉ DU LITTORAL – CÔTE D’OPALE HLLI EA 4030

Abstract The aim of this paper is to bring into focus conceptual and semantic discrepancies between the French lexeme NATION and the Polish one NARÓD. According to bilingual dictionaries, they are perceived as semantically equivalent. Indeed, corpora provide a huge sample of similar uses, especially in the domain of legal discourse. Notwithstanding this fact, an analysis of the way French and Polish speakers deal with NATION and NARÓD in every day communication reveals significant differences with respect to both semantic content of these lexemes and the underlying concepts. Within the frame of Explanatory and Combinatorial Lexicology, the article explores semantic networks organized around these lexemes as well as their combinatorial properties. The results of the investigation lead to the conclusion that there is a crucial difference between the linguistic status of NATION in French and the linguistic status of NARÓD in Polish. While the former displays properties of an abstract noun with a lexical content determined by a set of features that the members of a national community are supposed to share, the semantics of the latter puts forward the relational nature of the group. As a matter of fact, NARÓD seems to be connected to the same conceptual paradigm as RODZINA (family) and it clearly functions as a concrete term in the Polish lexical system.

210

NATION ET NAROD

Résumé Le présent article propose une analyse comparée des lexèmes nominaux NATION en français et NAROD en polonais. Conformément aux dictionnaires bilingues, ces deux lexies devraient être considérées comme sémantiquement équivalentes et de fait, on trouve fréquemment des exemples d’emplois confirmant cette équivalence, notamment dans le domaine juridique. Il est frappant de constater cependant que, en dehors du discours légal, l’usage que les locuteurs des deux langues font de ces termes permet de repérer des différences significatives sur le plan conceptuel et sémantique. En adoptant le cadre méthodologique de la Lexicologie Explicative et Combinatoire, l’article s’intéresse aux réseaux de relations paradigmatiques et syntagmatiques construits autour de ces lexèmes dans les systèmes lexicaux du français et du polonais. L’analyse de ces liens sémantico-syntaxiques revèle des différences suffisamment marquantes pour considérer que NATION et NAROD sont en réalité de fauxamis. En français, le nom collectif NATION se définit par un ensemble d’attributs partagés par les membres de la collectivité à une certaine étape de l’histoire sociale. Il possède ainsi toutes les caractéristiques d’un nom abstrait. Pour un polonophone, NAROD dénote une communauté définie par un ensemble de relations qui existent entre ses membres. Le lexème polonais s’inscrit dans le même paradigme conceptuel que RODZINA (famille) et fonctionne de ce fait en tant que nom concret.

1. Introduction 1.1 Présentation : NATION et NARÓD – amis ou faux-amis ? Chacun le sait : en politique et dans le discours politique, on se méfie de faux amis tout autant qu’on s’efforce de distinguer des faux-amis, lorsque l’on apprend une langue étrangère. En didactique des langues, le terme de faux-amis désigne des paires de lexèmes, respectivement dans les langues L1 et L2, qui, en dépit d’une similarité de signifiants, ont des signifiés différents. RECEPTA en polonais et RECETTE en français, abordés en synchronie, en sont un cas d’école : le premier dénote une ‘ordonnance délivrée par un médecin’, le second une ‘indication détaillée de la manière de préparer un mets’ (Le Petit Robert 2011).1

1 On remarquera cependant que RECETTE avait autrefois le sens médical de ‘formule et manière de préparer (un remède)’ qui indique un étymon commun.

Dorota Sikora

211

Dans le présent article, nous nous intéressons aux vocables NATION2 en français et NARÓD en polonais et, plus précisément, à leurs sens politiques, c’est-à-dire aux lexèmes NATION et NARÓD I dénotant une collectivité. Selon les dictionnaires bilingues courants, leurs sens ne diffèrent guère. Traduits l’un par l’autre, ils présentent effectivement un certain nombre d’emplois similaires, dans lesquels ils désignent un acteur collectif de la vie politique. Il suffit de comparer les Constitutions des deux pays pour s’en convaincre. Ainsi, le titre III, article 20 de la Constitution française stipule que « Le Gouvernement détermine et conduit la politique de la nation »,3 alors que le chapitre IV de Konstytucja Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej précise, dans l’article 104, que « Posáowie są przedstawicielami Narodu. » (Les députés sont des représentants de la Nation).4 En dehors de ces emplois juridiques, NARÓD est largement employé par les locuteurs du polonais dans des contextes qui ont de quoi étonner un francophone. « Czy kochasz swój naród ? » (Aimes-tu ta nation ?) – titrait récemment un quotidien polonais, en présentant un sondage mené auprès d’un public de jeunes qui, par ailleurs, ne s’étonnaient nullement d’avoir à répondre à une telle question. Or, traduite en français, la question semble provoquer, au contraire, un léger malaise dû à une forte coloration nationaliste. L’objectif de cet article est de montrer que NATION et NARÓD malgré un air de famille certain, sont en réalié de faux-amis, même si pour cerner les différences de sens, moins patentes que pour le couple RECETTE – RECEPTA, il nous faudra aller au-delà des emplois constitutionnels, somme toute peu révélateurs de différences, car relevant de la terminologie, pour étudier ce que ce « mot », politique par excellence, signifie pour l’ensemble des utilisateurs des deux langues. Cela nous semble important, car comprendre les différences conceptuelles qui se manifestent dans le lexique d’une langue est essentiel pour éviter des projections souvent réductrices, responsables de jugements hâtifs.

2

Le vocable, transcrit en petites capitales, est un ensemble d’unités lexicales (lexies, sens, acceptions), directement ou indirectement liées sur le plan sémantique, qui ont le même signifiant (voir : Mel’þuk, Clas et Polguère 1995 : 159). La Lexicologie Explicative et Combinatoire conceptualise la polysémie comme apanage du vocable, et non pas de l’unité lexicale. En bref, un vocable polysémique regroupe au moins deux, et souvent plusieurs sens (acceptions, lexèmes, lexies, unités lexicales). 3 En ligne : http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/connaissance/constitution.asp#titre_2. 4 En ligne : http://www.sejm.gov.pl/prawo/konst/polski/kon1.htm.

212

NATION ET NAROD

1.2 Cadre théorique et méthodologique Notre réflexion s’appuie sur le travail lexicographique du Réseau Lexical du Français (RL-fr),5 base de données lexicales développée dans le cadre théorique et méthodologique de la Lexicologie Explicative et Combinatoire (Mel’þuk, Clas, Polguère 1995, désormais la LEC). Parmi plusieurs champs lexicaux en cours de traitement figure celui de la politique, avec le vocable NATION. Cependant, une description lexicographique n’est qu’une dernière étape d’un travail complexe d’analyses menées sur plusieurs plans : conceptuel et sémantique, syntaxique. On est ainsi amené à traiter plusieurs types d’entités linguistiques. Dans un souci de clarté, nous nous efforcerons de différencier les entités linguistiques mentionnées par des choix typographiques. Ainsi, les vocables et les lexèmes sont transcrits en petites capitales, mais les premiers sont en plus indiqués en gras (voir section 1.1, note 2). L’objectif de notre article est double. D’une part, il s’agit de mettre en évidence les différences conceptuelles lexicalisées par NATION et NARÓD. Pour ce faire, nous commencerons, dans la section 2, par un examen attentif des informations disponibles dans les dictionnaires courants de français et de polonais. La section suivante sera consacrée à l’analyse des moyens lexicaux que les deux langues mettent en œuvre pour désigner un ou plusieurs individus appartenant à la collectivité. La quatrième partie examinera les liens syntagmatiques qui structurent les collocations formées autour de NATION et de NARÓD (4.1) et les indices lexicaux fournis par la combinatoire libre de nos lexèmes (4.2) ; un bilan d’étape en sera proposé en 5. Ces analyses nous conduiront vers l’hypothèse exposée et discutée dans la section 5 : NATION et NARÓD sont tous les deux des noms collectifs, mais le premier est un nom abstrait, alors que le second présente toutes les caractéristiques d’un nom concret. Plutôt que de conclure, nous proposerons, dans la section 7, une ébauche des définitions lexicographiques pour les deux lexèmes. Notre second objectif est plus général. Au-delà du cas particulier qui nous occupe ici, nous tenons à montrer une fois de plus6 à quel point les 5

La première phase du projet, réalisé sous la direction d’Alain Polguère (Université de Lorraine & ATILF-CNRS) au Laboratoire ATILF-CNRS (UMR 7118), s’étale de 2011 à 2014. Pour une présentation détaillée, voir : LuxPogodalla et Polguère (2011). 6 De nombreux travaux s’inscrivant dans le cadre théorique de la LEC, et plus largement dans celui de l’approche Sens-Texte, ont déjà montré à quel point l’appareillage conceptuel qu’elles proposent est précieux pour les analyses

Dorota Sikora

213

concepts et les formalisations de la LEC sont des outils précieux pour l’analyse et description des données multilingues. Par sa rigueur, cet outillage sert de fil conducteur, en balisant une réflexion qui avance sur deux chemins parallèles.

2. Analyse de données dictionnairiques Nous commencerons cette section par une comparaison des structures polysémiques des vocables NATION et NARÓD, pour nous intéresser ensuite aux composantes sémantiques qui permettent de définir leurs sens politiques, c’est-à-dire les lexèmes NATION et NARÓD.

2.1 Polysémie « fuyante » de NATION versus deux sens stables de NARÓD Du côté français, il est frappant de constater combien les structures polysémiques du vocable NATION diffèrent d’un dictionnaire à l’autre. Le Petit Robert 2011 en identifie six sens. Le Trésor de la Langue Française dans sa version informatisée (TLFi) en distingue quatorze, parmi lesquels on trouve des acceptions que nous qualifierions d’historiques. En effet, elles correspondent à ce que ce nom signifiait pour les locuteurs du français à certaines périodes de l’histoire. Ainsi, au Moyen-Âge, on appelait NATION (acception B-1.b dans le TLFi) un « groupement de maîtres et d’étudiants à l’intérieur des universités, selon un découpage linguistique », alors que sous l’Ancien Régime, ce nom était réservé au Tiers État. La description du vocable NATION dans le TLFi rend ainsi compte des formes que prend la vie en société. Les sens se construisent selon les conditions historiques et les régimes politiques successifs, et ils sont de ce fait directement liés au cadre institutionnel dans lequel ils fonctionnent. Se pose dès lors une question plus large, demeurant valide pour toute une série de notions dont le contenu évolue avec la vie sociale : faut-il, dans un dictionnaire, rendre compte de tous les changements que subit un sens à travers l’histoire ? La réponse est négative, et ceci pour au moins deux raisons. Premièrement, en élaborant une paraphrase définitoire, en l’occurrence celle du lexème NATION, le lexicographe est tenu d’y intégrer des informations sémantiques, et non pas historiques. Ces dernières intéresseront plutôt les auteurs d’entrées encyclopédiques. Deuxièmement, contrastives dans un contexte multilingue. Voir, à titre d’exemple : Elnitsky et Mel’þuk (1984), Iordanskaja et Mel’ þuk (1997).

NATION ET NAROD

214

un locuteur contemporain du français emploie le lexème NATION, sans nécessairement connaître les aléas de son évolution en diachronie.7 Comparativement, NARÓD est parfaitement consensuel sur le plan de sa structure polysémique. Les sens historiques sont absents de tous les dictionnaires que nous avons consultés. Comparée aux fluctuations du vocable NATION, la polysémie de NARÓD fait preuve d’une grande stabilité d’un dictionnaire à l’autre. On retrouve partout les deux acceptions suivantes, reliées par une relation de métonymie allant d’un tout à une partie : (I)

‘Ogóá mieszkaĔców pewnego terytorium mówiących jednym jĊzykiem, związanych wspólną przeszáoĞcią i kulturą, i mającą ĞwiadomoĞü tej wspólnoty’ (Sobol, 2003 : 502) Totalité des habitants d’un territoire, parlant une même langue, liés par un passé et par une culture communs, conscients de cette communauté.8

(II)

‘Ludzie, táum’ Des gens, une foule (Sobol, 2003 : 502) Exemple : Górnicy, to taki dziwny naród, co lubi pracowaü. Les mineurs, c’est un naród étrange, qui aime bien travailler.9

2.2 Composantes définitionnelles Parmi les quatorze acceptions de NATION décrites dans le TLFi, nous avons sélectionné celle qui semble la moins « chargée » du point de vue historique et de ce fait, indépendante des connaissances que peut (ne pas) avoir le locuteur actuel du français. Désormais, nous ne parlerons que de NATION au sens défini ci-dessous. Du côté polonais, nous prendrons en compte uniquement NARÓD I. En nous focalisant sur ces lexèmes, nous n’indiquerons plus leurs numéros. Dans le cas de NATION, il serait difficile 7

Loin de nous l’idée de nier l’intérêt des recherches en diachronie au sujet notamment de NATION. La démarche qui est celle du RL-fr repose sur l’analyse du fonctionnement des unités lexicales en synchronie, car celui-ci est décisif pour la combinatoire de la lexie et pour l’identification de sa place dans le réseau que forme le lexique. 8 C’est nous qui traduisons les paraphrases proposées par Sobol (2003). Par ailleurs, tous les exemples et citations sont traduits par nos soins. 9 Dans les traductions de nos exemples, nous ne remplaçons pas NARÓD par un équivalent français pour éviter, autant que faire se peut, l’influence du concept lié à NATION en français. C’est dans le souci d’en faciliter la lecture que nous abandonnons les gloses spécifiant des informations grammaticales telles que la partie du discours, le cas ou le temps grammatical.

Dorota Sikora

215

d’en appliquer un d’entrée de jeu, dans la mesure où notre intention est de décider, en fonction des faits de langue exposés, si le vocable NATION est polysémique ou non. Concernant NARÓD, nous espérons que la présente mise au point suffira pour éviter les confusions. En analysant le micro-champ sémantique que forment, en français, les lexèmes ÉTAT, NATION, PATRIE, PAYS, PEUPLE, Rémi-Giraud (1996) distingue trois traits fondamentaux – humain, géographique et structurel – que l’on retrouve dans les définitions des dictionnaires consultés. Le trait humain est instancié par des formules telles que « ensemble d’êtres humains » pour PEUPLE, « groupe humain » pour NATION et « groupement humain » pour ÉTAT. Les syntagmes « territoire défini » dans le cas de PAYS et « fixé sur un territoire déterminé » dans celui de NATION précisent le trait géographique, alors que le trait structurel s’exprime par des formules telles que « institutions », « communauté politique », etc. Tout en gardant cette grille d’analyse, nous parlerons non pas de traits fondamentaux, mais de composantes définitionnelles. En effet, les paraphrases du RL-fr sont des définitions aristotéliciennes, structurées autour d’une composante centrale (désormais CC), exprimant le genre prochain de la lexie définie, à laquelle se rattachent des composantes périphériques (CP), qui en précisent les différences spécifiques.10 Comparons à présent les définitions de NATION et de NARÓD. Les composantes humaine, géographique et structurelle sont indiquées en gras. Le tableau 1 réunit leurs formulations en français et en polonais. NATION, nom

féminin Groupe humain stable, établi sur un territoire défini constituant une unité économique, caractérisé par une auto-conscience ethnique (marquée par l’idée de la communauté d’origine et de destinée historique), une langue et une culture communes, formant une communauté politique personnifiée par une autorité souveraine et correspondant à un stade évolué du mode et des rapports de production. (TLFi) NARÓD, nom

masculin Ogóá mieszkaĔców pewnego terytorium mówiących jednym jĊzykiem, związanych wspólną przeszáoĞcią i kulturą, i mającą ĞwiadomoĞü tej wspólnoty. (Sobol 2003 : 502) ‘Totalité des habitants d’un territoire, parlant une même langue, liés par un passé et par une culture communs, conscients de cette communauté.’

10

Certaines acceptions nécessitent l’introduction de composantes présuppositionnelles. Pour une présentation détaillée des défnitions du RLF, voir Sikora (2012).

216 composante humaine géographique structurelle

NATION ET NAROD NATION (TLFi) groupe humain

établi sur un territoire défini x [territoire défini] constituant une unité économique x formant une communauté politique personnifiée par une autorité souveraine et correspondant à un stade évolué du mode et des rapports de production

Tableau 1. Composantes définitionnelles de 2003)

NATION

NARÓD (Sobol, 2003) ogóá mieszkaĔców totalité des habitants pewnego terytorium d’un territoire

–

(TLFi) et de

NARÓD

(Sobol

Deux points importants doivent être soulignés. Premièrement, dans les deux cas, la CC porte le trait ‘humain’. Nous tenons cependant à souligner une différence qui, ténue à cette étape de notre exposé, ne tardera pas à renforcer d’autres indices linguistiques mis en avant dans nos analyses. Il s’agit de la formulation adoptée par les lexicographes. En français, on recourt au syntagme « groupe humain », qui a une structure syntaxique « N Adj ». Le nom collectif NATION est défini par recours à un nom général ou métacollectif (Lammert 2008) tel que GROUPE. Or, les métacollectifs se caractérisent par une homogénéité interne liée au fait que tous les éléments qu’ils réunissent (un groupe est nécessairement un groupe des X, peu importe le moyen d’expression adjectival ou nominal de l’actant X) sont présentés comme appartenant à une seule et même catégorie. En polonais, le syntagme « ogóá mieszkaĔców », que nous traduisons par « totalité des habitants », a une structure que l’on pourrait représenter comme « N1 N2Génitif pl ». N1 est un élément nominal, qui quantifie les individus dénotés par N2, élément pivot de la CC. Autrement dit, la CC définit NARÓD non pas par un métacollectif catégorisant, mais comme une pluralité quantifiée d’individus. Deuxièmement, la définition du lexème NATION révèle l’importance des liens institutionnels pour le concept correspondant. Dans la définition, la composante structurelle est de loin la plus développée, puisqu’elle est reprise par deux formulations (voir Tableau 1). Du côté polonais, la

Dorota Sikora

217

composante structurelle est absente de la paraphrase. Il est donc possible de définir NARÓD sans y recourir. L’analyse sémantique coïncide ainsi avec des observations de sociologues. Les propos de G. Gurvitch au sujet de l’idée même de NATION en tant qu’entité collective offrent un contraste frappant avec les remarques quelque peu amères de L. Dorn11 à propos de celle de NARÓD : Mais la présence de l’état en lequel la nation tend à prendre conscience d’elle-même reste un moyen commode de repérer une nation. Peut-on d’ailleurs parler de nation là où il n’y a pas d’état ? (Frantext) Zawsze byliĞmy narodem dąĪącym do niepodlegáoĞci, ale jednoczeĞnie apaĔstwowym. Nie antypaĔstwowym, ale wáaĞnie apaĔstwowym. Dla Polaków wáasne paĔstwo zawsze byáo czymĞ, co sobie cenimy, natomiast istniejące paĔstwo staje siĊ dla Polaków albo problemem, albo tworem, z którym nie czują gáĊbokiego związku.12 Nous avons toujours été un naród[Instrumental sg] aspirant à l’indépendance, et en même temps a-étatique. Non pas anti-étatique, mais justement aétatique. Pour les Polonais, l’état a toujours été quelque chose d’appréciable, mais une fois qu’il existait, il devenait pour eux soit un problème, soit une construction à laquelle il ne se sentaient pas profondément attachés.

3. Noms collectifs et leurs X 3.1 De l’intérêt de la fonction lexicale Sing & S1 En tant que noms collectifs, nos deux lexies, tout en restant grammaticalement au singulier, dénotent plusieurs entités X. Dans le cas de NATION et NARÓD, malgré le mode différent sous lequel cette pluralité se présente (définie par un métacollectif pour le premier et par un nom pluriel quantifié pour le second), les X sont avant tout des individus. On peut donc légitimement s’attendre à ce qu’il existe un lexème dénotant l’individu X. Autrement dit, compte tenu de la structure sémantique d’un lexème collectif L1, on peut s’attendre à la présence, dans le lexique d’une langue, d’un lexème nominal L2, dénotant l’individu X qui est membre de la collectivité. Nous avons ainsi affaire à une relation lexico-sémantique que la LEC modélise sous forme de la fonction lexicale standard S1.13 11

Homme politique et député, Ludwik Dorn est sociologue de formation. En ligne : http://www.polskatimes.pl/artykul/267468,ludwik-dorn-jestesmyslabym-panstwem-bez-ducha,id,t.html?cookie=1. 13 Pour une présentation des fonctions lexicales, voir Mel’þuk (2007), Polguère (2007). 12

NATION ET NAROD

218

Cette fonction lexicale (désormais FL) est considérée comme standard, car elle existe potentiellement dans toutes les langues. Dans le cas des noms collectifs, on peut s’attendre néanmoins à deux façons de dénoter les membres d’une collectivité. Il est possible qu’une unité lexicale L2 singularise un seul X faisant partie de l’ensemble dénoté par L1 (en l’occurrence, NATION et NARÓD). La lexie L2 est alors reliée à L1 par un double lien lexico-sémantique : elle dénote à la fois son premier actant S1 et une « unité minimale régulière » (Mel’þuk, Clas et Polguère 1995 : 134) qui forme le designatum d’un nom collectif. On parle ainsi de la FL complexe Sing & S1.

3.2 National, citoyen, ressortissant ? Le français dispose du lexème nominal NATIONAL (nom masculin) et de son quasi-synonyme NATIONALE (nom féminin)14 vers lesquels pourrait pointer la FL Sing & S1, notamment lorsque l’on pense à l’importance de la composante structurelle que nous avons discutée dans la section 2.2. L’exemple (1), extrait du Web, illustre ce sens : (1)

Un national français peut ne pas être résident fiscal français. (En ligne : http://www.nodula.com/Article_du_mois185.html)

Le fait qu’il s’agisse d’un dérivé morphologique semble renforcer cette hypothèse. Ce qui nous intéresse cependant, ce n’est pas le lien morphologique, mais la relation lexico-sémantique entre NATION (L1) et la lexie nominale NATIONAL (L2). La question est de savoir si l’on peut dériver sémantiquement L2 de L1. La réponse serait positive, si le sens de L2 était construit sur celui de L1. Dans ce cas, la définition de L2 devrait recourir au sens de L1 : on dirait qu’un NATIONAL (L2) est un « individu qui fait partie d’une NATION (L1) ». Or, il n’en est rien, puisqu’un NATIONAL se définit en tant que citoyen d’un état. Autrement dit, on n’emploie pas la lexie NATION (L1) pour expliquer le sens de NATIONAL (L2). Celui-ci est un quasi-synonyme de CITOYEN et RESSORTISSANT, dont la définition comprend une entité sociale telle que ÉTAT ou PAYS. La seule façon de désigner l’individu qui fait partie d’une nation consiste à parler de lui ou d’elle comme d’un « membre de la nation ». Or, la lexie MEMBRE n’est pas sémantiquement dérivé de NATION : elle dénote un individu appartenant à une collectivité. Cela signifie que le français ne dispose pas de lexème dénotant spécifiquement un membre de la nation. 14 Pour une analyse détaillée et une proposition de traitement lexicographique approprié des noms d’individus, voir Delaite et Polguère (2013).

Dorota Sikora

219

3.3 NAROD et son dérivé sémantique Sing & S1 Le lien Sing & S1 qui part de NARÓD nous conduit, en polonais, vers les lexèmes RODAK (nom masculin) et RODACZKA (nom féminin). Il s’agit d’unités lexicales de haute fréquence d’emploi qui s’incrivent dans un registre courant plutôt que juridique. RODAK ,

nom masculin Czáowiek tej samej narodowoĞci, co i kto drugi; krajan, ziomek, wspóáziomek. (Sobol 2003 : 847) Individu de la même nationalité que quelqu’un d’autre ; [Quasi-Syn] krajan, ziomek, wspóáziomek.15

Précisons que seul le nom masculin est défini dans les dictionnaires, alors que la description de son correspondant féminin se limite à la simple mention de son existence. Au contraire, la démarche propre au RL-fr consiste à proposer un traitement lexicographique complet des deux noms. En reformulant la définition ci-dessus conformément aux exigences du RL-fr,16 on paraphrasera ainsi RODAK et RODACZKA : RODAK, nom masculin Individu X, qui fait partie du même NARÓD que l’individu Y RODACZKA, nom féminin Individu X, de sexe féminin, qui fait partie du même NARÓD que l’individu Y

Si NARÓD apparaît bien dans les deux définitions, ce qui est frappant pour RODAK et RODACZKA, c’est le caractère relationnel de ces sens. En effet, l’individu X se définit comme RODAK ou comme RODACZKA non pas directement en rapport avec NARÓD, mais dans sa relation avec un autre individu. Observons que cet aspect relationnel place RODAK et RODACZKA dans le paradigme conceptuel dont relèvent également certains noms de relations familiales. En définissant le nom KUZYN (COUSIN), on précisera tout d’abord que l’individu X est le cousin de l’individu Y (et vice versa) pour indiquer ensuite leur appartenance à une même famille.

15

Les quasi-synomynes KRAJAN, ZIOMEK, WSPÓàZIOMEK ont un sens plus général (i.e. moins spécifique, donc moins riche) que RODAK, puisqu’ils s’appliquent également à quelqu’un qui vient d’une même région, d’une même ville, d’un même village, etc. 16 Pour une présentation de la structure des définitions dans le RL-fr, voir Sikora (2012).

220

NATION ET NAROD

En suivant le lien Sing & S1, on constate une asymétrie lexicale. En français, le réseau lexical construit autour du lexème NATION n’a pas lexicalisé de nom spécifique pour l’individu X appartenant à la nation. Du côté polonais, au contraire, les noms communs RODAK et RODACZKA dénotent l’individu X à travers les relations horizontales qu’il entretient avec un autre ou avec les autres individus X. L’absence de la composante structurelle que nous avons pu constater dans la section 2 s’accompagne ainsi d’une très forte charge humaine et relationnelle.

4. NATION, NAROD et leurs combinatoires Cette section étudie deux types de collocations que peuvent former NATION et NARÓD avec des lexies verbales. Nous nous intéressons aux syntagmes collocationnels dont ces deux lexèmes constituent la base. Faute de place, nous nous limiterons, dans la sous-section 4.1, aux collocatifs Oper1 et CausFunc0. Nous passerons ensuite, en 4.2, à la discussion de quelques énoncés libres dans lesquels NATION et NARÓD occupent une position de sujet.

4.1 Combinatoire restreinte de NATION et NAROD L’exploitation que nous nous proposons de faire des liens syntagmatiques Oper1 et CausFunc0 tient bien compte du fait que leurs contenus sémantiques sont tributaires des lexies qu’ils permettent de relier sur le plan syntaxique. Ainsi, sans nous attarder sur les collocatifs verbaux euxmêmes, nous les utiliserons comme des voies de navigation : nous suivrons les liens syntagmatiques que la LEC modélise sous forme de FL Oper1 (section 4.1.1) et CausFunc0 (section 4.1.2) pour vérifier quelles sont les lexies qu’ils rattachent à NATION et à NARÓD. 4.1.1 Fonction lexicale Oper1 ou qu’est-ce qui appartient à NATION et NARÓD ? Dans le cas de nos lexies collectives NATION et NARÓD, la FL Oper1 permet de verbaliser la relation entre X et la collectivité, i.e. construire une collocation exprimant l’appartenance de X à la collectivité. La lexie dénotant X se trouve en position de sujet, alors que NATION occupe une position de complément. Le français dispose à cet effet du verbe APPARTENIR et de la locution verbale FAIRE PARTIE illustrés dans les exemples (2) et (3) ci-dessous :

Dorota Sikora (2)

Je vote parce que j’appartiens à une Nation, une communauté de gens qui ont leur avis à donner. (En ligne : http://www.koztoujours.fr/choisir-pour-un-chretien)

(3)

Rahm E., ancien secrétaire général de la Maison-Blanche, fait partie de la nation américaine, tout comme Bernard K. fait partie de la nation française. (En ligne : http://www.courrierinternational.com/article/2010/10/07/l-etat-juifpeut-nuire-a-la-democratie)

221

Les liens Oper1 permettent de repérer une différence intéressante : en polonais, seules des lexies dénotant des êtres humains apparaissent en position de sujet d’un Oper1 de NARÓD, alors qu’en français, X n’est pas nécessairement un individu. Il n’est pas rare, en effet, de trouver en position de sujet un nom d’entité non animée. Observons les exemples (4) et (5) : (4)

Cette province aurait été albanisée et islamisée à l’époque du « joug turc ». En revanche, pour les Albanais, elle fait partie de la nation albanaise et a été un des fiefs du renouveau national au XIXe siècle. (En ligne : https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/1997/11/CHICLET/5005)

(5)

La monnaie est un élément qui capte ces trois dimensions : introduite et garantie par l’État, elle est utilisée par un peuple parce qu’elle fait partie de la nation. (En ligne : http://www.memoireonline.com/09/06/209/m_analyse-heterodoxemonnaie-euro11.html)

Des lexies dénotant des entités à la fois géographiques, économiques et/ou sociales telles que PROVINCE ou MONNAIE peuvent ainsi entretenir, avec NATION, le même lien sémantico-syntaxique Oper1, que les individus X. La possibilité, pour la locution FAIRE PARTIE, de sélectionner un sujet non animé corrobore l’analyse sémantique de NATION que nous avons présentée dans la section 2.2. Rappelons qu’outre la composante géographique, le trait institutionnel est très fortement présent dans son sémantisme, ce qui explique à notre avis pourquoi, en français, un Oper1 peut relier à NATION le nom d’une entité géographique, économique, politique ou sociale.

NATION ET NAROD

222

4.1.2 Fonction lexicale CausFunc0, son S1 ou qu’est-ce qui construit NATION et NARÓD ? La fonction lexicale Func0 relie respectivement NATION ET NARÓD, placés en position de sujet, à un verbe dont l’apport sémantique se limite à l’expression du fait d’exister, d’avoir lieu ou encore de se produire.17 Mais ce qui nous semble particulièrement révélateur pour la conceptualisation de NATION et de NARÓD dans les deux langues, c’est le rapport de causation Caus qui s’ajoute à la FL Func0 pour créer une FL complexe CausFunc0 qu’illustrent les verbes CONSTRUIRE dans l’exemple (6) et TWORZYû (CRÉER) dans (7) : (6)

Qu’on adhère ou pas, les Français ont construit une nation souveraine et républicaine. (En ligne : http://www.bladi.info/threads/echangesdiscussions-scientifiques.334914/page-13)

(7)

Kultura tworzy naród. (En ligne : https://www.usosweb.ukw.edu.pl/kontroler.php?_action=actionx:kata log2/przedmioty/pokazPrzedmiot%28kod:0000-PF-KNI-NP%29) La culture crée naród.

Ces deux exemples permettent de comparer le premier actant S1 de la FL CausFunc0 en français et en polonais. L’exemple (6) montre que le S1 mène vers un ou plusieurs individus dont la démarche volontaire a pour objectif de « faire qu’une nation existe ». Or, ce type de causation agentive (Kahane et Mel’þuk 2006; Mel’þuk 2012) est difficilement concevable en polonais. Certes, il existe des verbes susceptibles d’exprimer le lien CausFunc0, tels que TWORZYû (CRÉER) de notre exemple (7). Cependant, en polonais, le premier actant n’est pas un agent de causation, mais plutôt un élément causateur. Parmi les S1 de la FL CausFunc0, on trouve les lexies telles que CNOTA (VERTU), WIĉħ (LIEN), ZWIĄZEK (RELATION) dans les syntagmes cnoty/wiĊzi/związki, które tworzą naród (vertus/liens/relations qui créent naród). Non seulement elles sont dépourvues de tout caractère agentif, mais elles dénotent des caractéristiques que l’on attribue aux individus X qui… forment (Oper1) NARÓD. 17 Il nous est impossible, dans cet article, d’énumérer toutes les formules possibles de la relation d’existence formalisée par la FL Func0. Elles dépendent de la nature du sens dénoté par la base qui sélectionne le collocatif. La glose d’un Func0 change donc selon qu’il s’agit d’un phénomène atmosphérique (PLUIE) qui se produit ou d’un son tel KLAXON au sens de bruit, qui est émis.

Dorota Sikora

223

4.2 De la combinatoire libre ou de ce que peuvent faire NATION et NAROD ? Si la combinatoire libre d’une lexie n’est pas formalisée au moyen de FL paradigmatiques et syntagmatiques, elle n’en est pas moins soumise à un système de micro-règles sémantiquement liées aux lexies que l’on combine. Elle fournit de ce fait des indices intéressants sur le sémantisme des lexèmes impliqués. Dans cette section, nous nous intéressons uniquement aux verbes dont NATION et NARÓD sont les sujets grammaticaux. Autrement dit, nous essaierons de répondre à la question de savoir ce que font NATION et NARÓD, pour comprendre comment ils sont. Dans les deux langues, NATION et NARÓD sont souvent personnifiés, notamment par l’emploi de verbes qui dénotent des activités réservées aux humains. (8)

La nation assure à l’individu et à la famille les conditions nécessaires à leur développement. (Frantext)

(9)

Naród sprawuje wáadzĊ przez swoich przedstawicieli lub bezpoĞrednio. (Konstytucja Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, 1997)18 Naród exerce le pouvoir par ses représentants ou directement. (Constitution de la République de Pologne, 1997)

La personnification, on le sait, consiste à présenter l’entité dénotée comme s’il s’agissait d’un être humain. Certains noms, par exemple des noms abstraits tels que JUSTICE, FRATERNITÉ, ÉGALITÉ, etc., sont soumis à ce procédé rhétorique plus souvent que d’autres. Or, en dehors des emplois personnifiés communs à nos deux lexèmes, NARÓD apparaît souvent, voire majoritairement, comme sujet des verbes dénotant des activités quotidiennes d’un individu. Observons les exemples suivants : (10) 100 lat mija od urodzin (6.02.1905 r.) Wáadysáawa Gomuáki. Byá to facet, który uwaĪaá, Īe skoro nie lubi naturalnej kawy, to i naród moĪe piü zboĪówkĊ. (Narodowy Korpus JĊzyka Polskiego, désormais NKJP) Il y a 100 ans naissait (le 6/02/1905) Wáadysáaw Gomuáka. C’était un type qui considérait que puisque lui n’aimait pas le vrai café, naród, lui aussi, n’avait que boire de la chicorée.

18

En ligne : http://www.sejm.gov.pl/prawo/konst/polski/kon1.htm.

224

NATION ET NAROD (11) Nasz naród wraca z pracy i podchodzi do telewizora. (NKJP) Notre naród rentre du travail et va voir la télé.

Tout comme assurer à qqn les conditions nécessaires, les syntagmes verbaux, piü zboĪówkĊ (boire de la chicorée), wracaü z pracy (rentrer du travail) prennent comme argument sujet un être humain. Cependant, la démarche que nous observons dans les exemples (10) et (11) n’est pas celle de personnification. Il s’agit non pas de faire apparaître NARÓD comme une seule personne, un être humain responsable de ses gestes et de ses comportements. On lui attribue, au contraire, des actions, des activités, des comportements ou encore des attitudes qui caractérisent la majorité, sinon la totalité de ses membres. De même, quand on choisit le lexème FAMILLE (au sens de parenté) pour dire « la famille s’est mise à table », on ne la personnifie pas, mais on signifie que chacun de ses membres y a pris place. Plutôt que d’unifier les individus pour les présenter comme un seul homme, les locuteurs semblent voir NARÓD comme une multitude d’individus s’adonnant aux mêmes activités. Les phrases (10) et (11) appellent ainsi une lecture distributive.

5. Bilan de différences entre un nom collectif abstrait et un nom collectifs concret Avant de proposer des conclusions, nous faisons dans cette section un bilan d’étape des analyses menées, afin de vérifier si les faits de langue dégagés forment une image cohérente permettant de saisir les modes de conceptualisation qui se manifestent dans le sémantisme de NATION et de NARÓD. En français, la polysémie de NATION est fuyante, difficile à saisir. Ses sens évoluent à travers les siècles et semblent directement liés aux formes que prend la vie politique dans un contexte historique particulier. C’est la raison pour laquelle certains dictionnaires incluent des informations encyclopédiques dans les paraphrases définitoires. Par ailleurs, les dictionnaires mettent en évidence l’importance des composantes structurelles. Dans le réseau lexical qui s’organise autour de NATION, on note l’absence de lexie dénotant spécifiquement un ou plusieurs de ses membres. Sur le plan syntagmatique, la FL Oper1 permet de combiner NATION avec des noms d’individus, d’entités politiques ou sociales. Le lien S1CausFunc0, qui pointe vers un agent causateur, laisse penser que les locuteurs du français voient dans NATION une entité conceptuelle qui

Dorota Sikora

225

ressemble à un artéfact, puisqu’elle peut être créée par une personne ou par une institution. Du côté polonais, on remarque tout d’abord une polysémie stable, faite de deux acceptions que l’on retrouve dans tous les dictionnaires consultés. Le sens politique examiné ici se caractérise par l’absence de composante structurelle : il est possible de définir NARÓD en tant que pluralité d’individus, sans référence à une entité politique telle qu’un état. En revanche, le réseau que forment autour de NARÓD les lexies reliées par les liens paradigmatiques et syntagmatiques fait apparaître l’importance de la composante humaine et des aspects relationnels. Les dérivés sémantiques S1 sont tous des noms relationnels : ils définissent l’individu X dans son rapport avec un autre individu appartenant à la collectivité. Les liens syntagmatiques confirment l’importance des aspects humains et relationnels : seules des lexies dénotant des individus peuvent être reliées à NARÓD par le lien syntagmatique Oper1. Contrairement au français, la FL S1CausFunc0 conduit non pas vers un agent susceptible de gestes volontaires et contrôlés, mais vers des noms de caractéristiques que l’on peut attribuer aux membres de la collectivité. Ce sont elles qui apparaissent dans le réseau lexical comme éléments causateurs de l’existence même de l’entité collective dénotée par NARÓD. Les indices apportés par la combinatoire libre complètent le tableau : à la différence de NATION, personnifié de manière à unifier la collectivité, NARÓD est souvent employé comme sujet des verbes dénotant des actions ou des activités humaines sans qu’il s’agisse de personnification. Plutôt que de conduire à une lecture unifiante, une interprétation distributive est de rigueur : les faits que dénotent ces verbes sont attribués individuellement à tous ou du moins à une majorité des X. De plus, ils sont, pour la plupart d’entre eux (boire de la chicorée, rentrer du travail, regarder la télé), directement perceptibles dans leur réalisation.

6. Nom concret versus nom abstrait Les faits de langue mis au jour dans les sections précédentes convergent vers une hypothèse explicative du fonctionnement linguistique si différent de NATION et NARÓD, permettant de comprendre pourquoi ces deux lexies sont des faux-amis. En effet, si les deux lexèmes sont bien des noms collectifs, NATION a tout d’un nom abstrait, alors que NARÓD présente des caractéristiques d’un nom concret. En dehors des éléments que nous avons mis en avant, cette hypothèse permet d’expliquer un certain nombre de phénomènes culturels.

226

NATION ET NAROD

Commençons, dans la sous-section 6.1 par le concret (NARÓD), pour nous tourner vers l’abstrait avec NATION en 6.2.

6.1 NAROD en tant que nom collectif concret On s’accorde généralement pour reconnaître que l’entité dénotée par un nom concret préexiste à sa dénomination,19 souvent en raison de son caractère matériel20 et accessible aux sens. Ces caractéristiques la rendent – jusqu’à un certain point – indépendante de la langue. Du point de vue de la sémantique lexicale, un nom concret possède donc une extension immédiate : pour un nom collectif comme NARÓD, ce sont les individus auxquels il s’applique. En effet, ses membres X semblent mener une existence indépendante de la lexie qui les dénote, faite d’activités et d’actions directement perceptibles. L’appartenance à la collectivité se fait sur la base des relations qui relient un X à d’autres membres de la collectivité. De ce point de vue, la structure sémantique de NARÓD ressemble fortement à celle qu’ont, respectivement en polonais et en français, les lexèmes RODZINA et FAMILLE en tant qu’ils renvoient à un ensemble d’individus apparentés, à une parentèle. Un tel ensemble, défini par les relations entre ses membres, préexiste, lui aussi, à sa dénomination et en est indépendant. On comprend dès lors pourquoi le titre du sondage Czy kochasz swój naród ? (Aimes-tu ton naród ?), contrairement à sa traduction française, est dépourvu de charge nationaliste pour un polonophone. Si, comme nous le pensons, NARÓD est un nom collectif concret, conceptualisé – comme FAMILLE – à partir des relations entre les individus X, il présente peu d’intérêt pour un discours nationaliste,21 car il n’est pas discriminatoire. En effet, on peut difficilement penser que le fait de ne pas être née dans la famille Kowalski, mais d’appartenir à la famille Sikora, entraîne une discrimination ou une exclusion. De même, un individu qui n’appartient pas à un NARÓD, en a forcément un autre, le sien. De plus, on peut supposer qu’un nom collectif concret peut difficilement servir d’élément fédérateur dans des propos idéologiques, a fortiori lorsque son usage quotidien montre clairement que NARÓD s’avère porteur des mêmes qualités et des mêmes défauts que les individus qui le forment (il n’est pas 19

Pour une discussion de la notion de dénomination, voir Kleiber (1984; 2012). Bien que la pertinence du critère de matérialité soit fort contestable. Pour une discussion, voir, entre autres, Galmiche et Kleiber (1996), Wilmet (1996). 21 Une recherche rapide effectuée sur un portail d’orientation nationaliste polonais nous a permis de repérer à peine trois occurrences de NARÓD. Remarquons cependant que l’adjectif NARODOWY y est abondamment employé. 20

Dorota Sikora

227

rare de trouver NARÓD qualifié par les adjectifs signifiant bête, sympa, déconneur, etc.). A. Wierzbicka (communication personnelle) insiste sur l’importance de la composante affective dans la structuration du concept de NARÓD en polonais, bien plus forte que celle que l’on peut trouver en anglais et en français. Notre hypothèse en fournit une explication plausible : il semble naturel qu’un ou plusieurs individus auxquels l’on se sent lié suscitent des sentiments plus intenses – positifs ou négatifs – qu’un concept dénoté par un nom abstrait. Remarquons qu’une telle structuration du concept lexicalisée dans la langue trouve des répercussions jusque dans l’organisation de la vie politique, puisque le système juridique polonais sépare clairement la question de la nationalité et celle de la citoyenneté.

6.2 NATION en tant que nom collectif abstrait Face à l’extrême diversité des noms abstraits, une grande prudence s’impose pour toute généralisation. En effet, on trouve parmi eux des noms de qualités (COURAGE, GÉNÉROSITÉ), de sentiments (MÉLANCOLIE, TRISTESSE), de figures géométriques (CARRÉ, TRIAGLE), voire des noms dits syncatégorématiques tels que BLANCHEUR [de X] (Kleiber 1996), auxquels nous nous apprêtons à ajouter NATION.22 Néanmoins, tous ces noms partagent une caractéristique essentielle à nos yeux : l’entité qu’ils dénotent est ontologiquement dépendante du lexème. Pour l’identifier, il faut passer par l’intension du nom abstrait, c’est-à-dire circonscrire la combinaison d’attributs qu’on lui accorde. C’est la raison pour laquelle Goddard et Wierzbicka (2014) parlent de réification qu’opèrent les noms abstraits : ils permettent aux locuteurs d’isoler une portion de réalité et de la constituer en « quelque chose », en la nommant. Sur le plan lexical, on retrouve cette combinaison d’attributs dans l’ensemble des composantes sémantiques qui forment la définition du nom abstrait. On pourra ainsi aller jusqu’à dire que l’entité dénotée doit son existence, toute relative d’ailleurs, au système lexical d’une langue donnée, au nom qu’on définit pour elle. Les faits de langue que nous avons dégagés permettent de constater qu’en français le lexème NATION présente toutes les caractéristiques d’un nom abstrait. Ainsi, sa polysémie quelque peu « fuyante » s’explique par les modifications d’attributs constitutifs du concept sous-jacent au lexème 22

Pour une analyse du lexème anglais Stecconi (2011).

NATION

en tant que nom abstrait, voir

228

NATION ET NAROD

NATION dans des conditions historiques et politiques particulières : sous l’Ancien Régime, ces attributs ne sont pas ceux que définit la Constitution de la Ve République. C’est parce que le concept évolue qu’il est tellement difficile de le circonscrire dans une définition lexicographique. La tentation est forte dès lors de décrire non pas le sens lexical, mais les formes successives du concept. Or, comme le notent Goddard et Wierzbicka (2014), le sens d’un nom abstrait comprend, certes, un invariant sémantique, mais il inclut inévitablement une part de vague. Le français dispose de moyens lexicaux permettant d’exprimer l’appartenance à la nation, i. e. le fait, pour un individu X, de posséder les attributs requis par la définition, mais contrairement au polonais, la langue a peu, voire pas du tout, lexicalisé les relations horizontales, c’est-à-dire celles qui pourraient relier les individus X entre eux. La collectivité ne préexiste pas à sa dénomination, elle est au contraire identifiée et délimitée en fonction des attributs qui structurent le concept. Ce caractère construit par assemblage de traits constitutifs se réflète dans les liens lexicaux tissés par la lexie NATION (voir notre analyse de la FL S1CausFunc0 dans la section 4.2). Le caractère abstrait de NATION en français est une explication possible de certaines réactions négatives que nous avons perçues lors des échanges avec des locuteurs du français. Elles se manifestent souvent par une prise de distance, voire par un jugement négatif à l’égard du lexème NATION, ressenti comme idéologiquement chargé et potentiellement discriminatoire. Deux raisons motivent ces attitudes. Tout d’abord, si NATION est un nom abstrait défini en fonction des attributs qu’on lui assigne, chacun des membres de la collectivité est supposé les posséder individuellement. Cela signifie a contrario que ceux qui ne les vérifient pas en sont exclus. On retrouve ici l’une des caractéristiques des noms abstraits discutées dans Goddard et Wierzbicka (2014). Les auteurs soulignent qu’un nom abstrait fonctionne comme un prédicat au sens logique du terme : le locuteur dit quelque chose de l’entité qu’il désigne, en l’occurrence des individus appartenant à la nation. Deuxièmement, les fluctuations du concept qui se manifestent dans le vague définitionnel23 des noms abstraits laissent une certaine marge de liberté dans le choix des attributs retenus comme critères d’appartenance. Le contenu du concept est modulable, nous l’avons dit, en fonction de conditions politiques et sociales, mais il peut l’être également selon les 23

Rappelons ce qu’est le vague d’une expression linguistique : « Une expression lexicale est vague si et seulement si son sens correspond alternativement à plus d’un réfèrent extralinguistique, alors qu’elle-même correspond à une seule lexie » (Mel’þuk, Clas et Polguère 1995 : 60).

Dorota Sikora

229

convictions de celui ou de celle qui l’utilise sans que toute modification soit lexicalisée. Le vague définitionnel laisse au locuteur la possibilité de manipuler les attributs que doivent avoir les individus X pour appartenir, et a contrario pour ne pas appartenir, à la nation. Ce qui explique à nos yeux la méfiance manifestée à l’égard de cette lexie, dont l’usage peut facilement devenir discriminatoire.

7. Définir pour conclure Une fois que nous avons pu cerner les différences conceptuelles qui font de NATION et de NARÓD de faux-amis, il nous faudra les traduire en composantes définitionnelles pour construire des définitions lexicographiques. Le tableau 2 ci-dessous permet de comparer les paraphrases que nous proposons pour les deux lexèmes. lexème composante centrale (CC) composantes périphériques (CP)

NATION,

nom féminin Ensemble d’individus qui possèdent des attributs définis et requis par une entité sociale.

NARÓD I,

nom masculin Individus qui se sentent liés entre eux par des relations linguistiques et culturelles et_ou géographiques

Tableau 2. Parahrases définitoires de NATION et de NARÓD I

On remarquera que seule la lexie NARÓD est numérotée : en effet, il convient de la distinguer de son copolysème NARÓD II (‘grand nombre d’individus’, ‘foule’, voir section 2.1). En français, au contraire, le vocable NATION est monosémique : il compte une seule acception qui doit être suffisamment vague pour inclure toutes les formes que peut prendre une nation. Les CC des deux lexèmes se différencient par la présence du terme métacollectif ENSEMBLE II que l’on trouve du côté français. Or, on sait qu’un tel regroupement se fait sur la base de propriétés communes à tous les X. Du côté polonais, la CC marque seulement la pluralité du denotatum. L’adjonction d’une expression quantifiante telle que ‘grand nombre de X’, ‘plusieurs X’) devrait être envisagée, mais à ce stade, nous avons voulu cette CC aussi simple que possible. Voyons à présent les composantes périphériques. Concernant NATION, la CP ‘qui possèdent des attributs définis et requis par une entité sociale’ est destinée à rendre compte du caractère abstrait et construit de ce

230

NATION ET NAROD

sens, tout en gardant la part du vague en ce qui concerne les attributs assignés aux individus X. La formule ‘définis et requis par une entité sociale’ prend en charge la composante structurelle. Une fois de plus, nous tenons à rester vague en ce qui concerne les aspects institutionnels pour que notre définition s’applique non seulement aux emplois repérés dans la Constitution de la Ve République, mais également à ceux que l’on peut faire de ce lexème en rapport avec d’autres réalités politiques et sociales. Le vague structurel marque ainsi la relation de dépendance entre une entité sociale, qui peut être aussi bien un état qu’un parti politique, et les attributs sélectionnés pour appartenir à la nation. Enfin, la définition que nous proposons fait l’économie de la composante géographique, car l’attachement d’une nation à un territoire peut soit faire partie d’attributs choisis (l’appartenance de X à une nation tient alors au fait d’habiter un territoire), soit être lié à l’entité sociale et/ou politique, qui s’étend généralement dans un périmètre bien précis. Du côté polonais, la CP a une construction disjonctive pour indiquer le caractère non nécessaire des liens d’un type particulier. En effet, il se peut que le sentiment d’appartenance ne tienne qu’à des relations culturelles ou familiales, mais pas géographiques, notamment pour les membres de la diaspora. Cette formulation de la CP doit rendre compte de la structuration horizontale des relations entre les membres de la collectivité. Il va de soi qu’aussi bien pour NATION que pour NARÓD, il ne s’agit que de premières ébauches, destinées à traduire en composantes défintionnelles les différences conceptuelles que nous avons cherché à cerner, et à expliciter le faux air de famille entre ces deux lexies si proches en apparence et si éloignées par le sens qu’elles lexicalisent.

Remerciements Je tiens à remercier Cliff Goddard et Anna Wierzbicka de m’avoir communiqué leurs analyses à paraître. Je suis reconnaissante à Veronika Lux-Pogodalla, à Sandrine Ollinger, à Alain Polguère et à Roger Pouivet pour toutes les discussions sur le fonctionnement de NATION en français. Je remercie chaleureusement Paolo Frassi pour sa lecture attentive et pour ses commentaires. Toutes les incompréhensions sont entièrement de mon fait.

Dorota Sikora

231

Références Assemblée Nationale. (En ligne : http://assemblee-nationale.fr) Centre National des Ressources Textuelles et Lexicales. (En ligne : http://www.cnrtl.fr) Delaite, C. et A. Polguère (2013). « Sex-Based Nominal Pairs in the French Lexical Network : It’s Not What You Think ». In V. Apresjan, B. Iomdin et E. Ageeva (éds.), Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Meaning-Text Theory (MTT’13), 29-40. Elnitsky, L. et I. A. Mel’þuk (1984). « Toward the Lexicographic Description of the Cooccurrence of « Parametric » Lexemes in French and Russian ». Lingvisticæ Investigationes, 8, 2, 269-284. Galmiche, M. et G. Kleiber (1996). « Sur les noms abstraits ». In N. Flaux, M. Glatigny et D. Samain (éds.), Les noms abstraits. Histoire et théories. Villeneuve-d’Ascq : Presses universitaires du Septentrion, 23-40. Goddard, C. et A. Wierzbicka (2014). Words and Meanings : Lexical Semantics Across Domains, Languages, and Cultures. Oxford : Oxford University Press. Iordanskaja, L. et I. Mel’þuk (1997). « Le corps humain en russe et en français. Vers un Dictionnaire explicatif et combinatoire bilingue ». Cahiers de lexicologie, 70, 1, 103-135. Kahane, S. et I. A. Mel’þuk (2006). « Les sémantèmes de causation en français ». In S. Hamon et M. Amy (éds.), Linx, 54, 247-292. Kleiber, G. (1984). « Dénomination et relations dénominatives ». Langages, 76, 77-94. —. (2012). « De la dénomination à la désignation : le paradoxe ontologico-dénominatif des odeurs ». Langue française, 174, 45-58. Lammert, M. (2008). « Ensemble, groupe et collection : des noms collectifs bien particuliers ». Scolia, 23, 85-107 Lux-Pogodalla, V. et A. Polguère (2011). « Construction of a French Lexical Network. Methodological Issues ». Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Lexical Resources, WoLeR 2011. An ESSLLI 2011 Workshop, Ljubljana, 54-61. (En ligne : http://alpage.inria.fr/~sagot/woler2011/WoLeR2011/Program_%26_P roceedings.html) Mel’þuk, I. (1993). Cours de morphologie générale (théorique et descriptive). Vol. 1. Introduction et Première partie : Le mot. Montréal – Paris : Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal – CNRS. —. (2007). « Lexical Functions ». In H. Burger, D. Dobrovol’skij, P. Kühn et N. Norrick (éds.), Phraseology. An International Handbook

232

NATION ET NAROD

of Contemporary Research. Berlin/New York : W. de Gruyter, 119131. —. (2012). Semantics. From meaning to text. Volume 1. Amsterdam, Philadelphia : John Benjamins Publishing Company. —. (2013). « Tout ce que nous voulions savoir sur les phrasèmes, mais… ». Cahiers de lexicologie, 1, 129-149. Mel’þuk, I., A. Clas et A. Polguère (1995). Introduction à la lexicologie explicative et combinatoire. Louvain-la-Neuve : Duculot. Polguère, A. (2007). « Lexical Functions Standardness ». In L. Wanner (éd.), Festschrift in Honour of Igor Mel’þuk, Amsterdam-Philadelphia : John Benjamins, 43-95. Sejm Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej. (En ligne : http://www.sejm.gov.pl) Sikora, D. (2012). « Définir le sens dans un réseau lexical ». Studia Romanica Posnaniensia, 39, 3, 63-79. Sobol, E. (éd.) (2003). Nowy sáownik jĊzyka polskiego. Warszawa : PaĔstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe. Stecconi, S. (à paraître/2011). « Per un’analisi di concetti chiave dell’ambito politico secondo il Natural Semantic Metalanguage : un confronto italiano inglese ». MA thesis. Catholic University of Milan. Wierzbicka, A. (1999). Semantics, Culture and Cognition. Universal Human Concepts in Culture-Specific Configurations. Oxford : Oxford University Press. (2011) « What’s wrong with « happiness studies ». The cultural semantics of happiness, bonheur, Gluck and scast’e ». Slovo i Jazyk, 155-171. Wilmet, M. (1996). « À la recherche du nom abstrait ». In N. Flaux, M. Glatigny et D. Samain (éds.), Les noms abstraits. Histoire et théories. Villeneuve-d’Ascq : Presses universitaires du Septentrion, 67-76.

SECTION III: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

CHAPTER TEN LES MOTS DE LA POLITIQUE À TRAVERS LES SIÈCLES

STEFANIA CERRITO UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI INTERNAZIONALI DI ROMA UNINT ET ATILF-CNRS

Abstract The genesis of an important part of basic terms of the current political lexicon can be traced back to medieval times. Translations of texts of political philosophy of Greek antiquity, ancient history and the Roman juridical tradition were important lexical sources. These words adjusted themselves across the centuries to the transformation of society. The article shows the evolution of some of these words in texts and ancient dictionaries.

Résumé La genèse d'une partie importante de termes fondamentaux du lexique politique actuel se situe dans les siècles médiévaux. Les traductions de textes de la philosophie politique de l'Antiquité grecque, de l'histoire ancienne, et naturellement de la tradition juridique romaine furent d'importantes sources lexicales. Ces mots s'adaptèrent à travers les siècles aux transformations de la société. L'article suivra l'évolution de quelques termes dans les textes et dans les anciens dictionnaires.

236

Les mots de la politique à travers les siècles « Le cueur du roy est en la main de Nostre Seigneur, il le enclinera là où il vouldra ». Et doncques, benoist soit Dieu, car il a le vostre noble cueur encliné à faire mettre en langaige françois la science de politiques. » (Nicolas Oresme à Charles V)

1. XIIIe-XIVe siècles: la genèse du vocabulaire politique français 1.1 La Politique d'Aristote en français En chascun art et en chascune science sont aucuns termes ou mots, et propres à tel art et à telle science. Et pour ce, les moz qui sont propres à ceste science de politiques, ou qui ne sont pas en commun parler, sont icy exposez et mis en table selon l'ordre de l'abc...1

La fameuse table de forz mots figurant en appendice à la Politique d'Aristote que, dans les années soixante-dix du XIVe siècle, Nicolas Oresme traduisit pour la première fois en français sur la demande de Charles V, est présentée au lecteur par cette brève note, du plus grand intérêt. Le secteur spécialisé qu'Oresme nomme science de politiques affirme son statut parmi les arts et les sciences médiévaux, pour se situer à la tête de la hiérarchie des savoirs car, comme l'explique le traducteur avec richesse d'arguments dans son prologue, « de toutes les sciences mondaines, c'est la principal, et la plus digne, et la plus prouffitable ». Un vocabulaire propre à tel art se constitue en langue française, composé de mots forz, dont le sens difficile et technique rend indispensable la glose. Le glossaire d'Oresme représente ainsi un des premiers exemples de lexicographie spécialisée de cette science émergente (Brucker 2001 ; Fiocchi 2007 ; Finoli 1996 ; Städtler 2007).2 La science politique médiévale résulte de la tradition de l'Antiquité politique et juridique romaine et de la découverte des traités de l'Antiquité grecque, qui furent, par un travail intellectuel patient, méticuleux, parfois 1

Plutôt que de l'édition Menut (1970), je tire mes citations de l'incunable qu'Antoine Vérard imprima à Paris en 1498, ayant pour titre Le livre de politiques d'Aristote (BnF, Rés. E 56), sans foliotation. Le glossaire occupe les derniers feuillets du volume. 2 Le DMF dispose d'un Lexique de Nicole Oresme, par Ch. Brucker. (En ligne : http://www.atilf.fr/dmf/Oresme, ATILF-CNRS & Nancy-Université)

Stefania Cerrito

237

épistémologiquement extravagant, intégrés au sein de la pensée chrétienne. Dans le vocabulaire politique naissant confluèrent ainsi les termes créés pour rendre en français les fonds lexicaux de ces différentes traditions textuelles (Bertrand 2011). Le rôle dont Nicolas Oresme est investi par son roi est d'une importance majeure car, en traduisant le texte pilier de la philosophie politique grecque, il transmet au français un vocabulaire véhiculant la tradition prestigieuse des réflexions sur l'état et sur l'art de bien gouverner de la Grèce ancienne, où naissent des catégories politiques actuelles telles que cité (polis), monarchie, aristocratie, démocratie, oligarchie, tyrannie, etc. Le point de départ de ce bref parcours dans l'histoire de quelques mots de la politique ne pourrait être que le mot politique même, dont l’usage se répand rapidement en ces dernières décennies du XIVe siècle et qui est le titre du traité aristotélicien qu'Oresme met en français.3 À l'aide d'une étymologie vague et approximative, le mot découpe dans la table oresmienne sa spécificité sémantique par rapport à ceux qui lui sont proches : « Politique est chose appartenant à police, ou science de police, car icos en grec c'est science ». Il se situe ainsi dans la famille de termes issus de manière indirecte de polis, qui compte dans la table police « l'ordre de princey et offices publiques », policie « l'ordonnance du gouvernement de toute la communité ou multitude civille » et enfin le verbe dont la forme oscille entre politizer et politiquer « disposer les gens à police ».4 Le mot politique était devenu français autour de 1268, grâce à Brunet Latin qui rend dans cette forme le latin tardif politica.5 Le chapitre du Trésor intitulé Del governement des citez est introduit de la manière suivante : Es premiers livres devant sont devisées les natures et li commencement des choses dou siecle, et les enseignemenz des vices et des vertuz, et la doctrine de bone parleure ; mais en ceste derraine partie veult monstrer Brunez Latins et acomplir à son ami ce que il li avoit promis entor le commencement dou premier livre, là où il dist que ses livres defineroit en politique, ce est à dire le governement des citez, qui est la plus noble et haute science, et li plus nobles offices qui soit en terre, selon ce que

3

Gdf C, TL et DMF s.v. politique ; FEW IX 131a politicus. Gdf, DMF s.v police et policie ; FEW IX, 129b politia. 5 Tlfi et RobHist s.v. politique2. 4

238

Les mots de la politique à travers les siècles politique comprent generaument toutes les ars qui besoignent à la communité des homes. (Chabaille 1863 : 575)6

C'est à Brunet que nous devons d'ailleurs également la première attestation du mot en italien, dans la Rettorica qu'il rédigea quelques années auparavant (TLIO).7 Environ un siècle plus tard, politique commencera à s'affirmer avec force parmi les termes désignant l'art de gouverner, aussi bien dans ses aspects théoriques que pratiques, en concurrençant policie et police, issus de politia latin, et au détriment desquels il s'imposera dans les siècles. Policie sera amené à disparaître, tandis que police trouvera dès le XVIIe siècle une nouvelle spécificité sémantique. Si au XIVe siècle Oresme complète sa traduction par une table de forz mots, ce n'est pas seulement que, comme il l'observe, les termes qu'il y insère sont propres de l'art de gouverner, mais surtout qu'une partie de ces mots apparaît pour la première fois en français. Les quelques 140 lemmes qui composent son glossaire sont souvent des néologismes, 35% au moins sont des hellénismes, 80% sont du domaine de la politique, tous s'y rattachent dans l'argumentation aristotélicienne. Bien qu'il traduise Aristote, ce savant artisan du mot ne compte pas le grec parmi ses matériaux. Pour sa traduction de la Politique, Oresme utilise la traduction latine en huit livres par Guillaume de Moerbeke, datant d'environ 1270 (Susemihl 1872 ; Brams 2003 : 105-131). Certains traits morphologiques et sémantiques des nouveaux éléments lexicaux sont ainsi fortement influencés par le latin de cet extraordinaire traducteur flamand, précis et consciencieux, dont la contribution à la création du lexique politique occidental, à travers le vocabulaire de son corpus aristotélicien en latin, n'a pas été suffisamment soulignée. Les forz mots oresmiens sont pour la plupart l'adaptation des termes latins de Moerbeke au système morphologique du français savant naissant. Destinés à connaître un succès durable, certains de ces néologismes montrent leur vitalité jusqu'en français contemporain. Quatre termes désignant les différentes formes de gouvernement sont mis en exergue par le traducteur dans son introduction, car ils sont indispensables à la compréhension du traité aristotélicien :

6

Le passage est conforme au manuscrit de base de l’éd. Chabaille, BnF fr.12581, f.218r°b, daté de 1284, sauf la variante ...là où il dist que ses livres defineroit en, qui y est omise. 7 TLIO-Tesoro della lingua italiana delle origini. (En ligne : http://tlio.ovi.cnr.it/TLIO/, s.v. politica)

Stefania Cerrito

239

Item pour bien et facilement entendre cest livre, sçavoir la significacion de ces quatre motz : aristocracie, commune police, democratie et oligarchie, lesquelz sont propres à ceste science.

Le système aristotélicien prenant en compte six formes d'état, il faudra y ajouter royaume et tyrannie, déjà largement consolidés dans la langue politique médiévale. Selon l'ordre de l'abc, le premier néologisme mis à l'attention du lecteur est aristocratie, avec ses dérivés aristocratique et aristocratiser. Le terme véhicule le sens qu'il a dans la philosophie politique de l'Antiquité, de « gouvernement d'un petit nombre de personnes vertueuses », le lignage ou la qualification sociale étant les critères pour définir ce groupe restreint destiné à gouverner.8 Selon la glose : Aristocracie est une espece de police selon laquelle, ou en laquelle, ung petit nombre de personnes bons et vaillans tiennent le princey, et ont domination sur la communité et entendent à gouverner au prouffit commun, et est dit de aros en grec, qui est vertu, et de archos qui est prince ou princey, car c'est princey de gens vertueulx.

À partir de cette première attestation, le mot aura le sens technique de « gouvernement des meilleurs », et son usage ne sera qu'assez restreint. Son succès date de l'époque révolutionnaire, quand une acception sociologique s'ajoute au sens étymologique, et aristocratie désignera, plus souvent qu'une forme de gouvernement, une classe sociale. La locution commune police ne s'explique qu'à la lumière de la difficulté que présente pour le traducteur le texte aristotélicien, où le terme politeia intervient comme hypéronyme et hyponyme à la fois, désignant aussi une forme particulière de gouvernement. La solution traductive d'Oresme est bien expliquée dans la glose : Commune police est la où une grande multitude tient le princey au prouffit publicque, aussy comme en aristocracie ung petit nombre tient le princey, et en royaume ung seul le tient et tout au prouffit publicque, et ceste police est bonne, et aristocracie est meilleur[e], et royaume est tres bonne. Et ceste police Aristote appelle thymocracie ou XIIIe chapitre du VIIIe d'Ethiques, mais en cest livre il appelle police par commun nom, et pour faire difference je l'ay toujours nommee commune police.

Créée afin de lever l'ambiguïté entraînée par cette double fonction sémantique de politeia, la locution n'aura pas de fortune, et son attestation 8

DMF aristocratie ; FEW XXV aristokratía.

240

Les mots de la politique à travers les siècles

chez Oresme ne restera qu'isolée, même dans l'histoire des traductions d'Aristote en français. Son synonyme thymocratie n'aura pas plus de fortune, et restera du domaine exclusif de la philosophie ancienne, désignant la première étape de dégénérescence de la Cité platonicienne. Il indiquera ainsi la forme de gouvernement basée sur le désir des honneurs, ou la forme de gouvernement aristotélicienne basée sur la richesse.9 Le traducteur de Charles V introduit en français un autre terme pilier de nos états occidentaux, democratie, avec ses dérivés democratique et democratizer.10 Le commentaire personnel et la légitimation du pouvoir royal n'étant pas rares dans ses gloses, Oresme partage le jugement négatif d'Aristote sur cette forme de gouvernement, entraîné par le sème « à leur propre prouffit » qui en compose le sens : Democracie est une espece de police en laquelle la multitude populaire tient le princey à leur propre prouffit, et n'est pas bonne police [...]

Avec aristocratie et democratie, le français pourra faire de -cratie, issu du grec kratos « force », « pouvoir », un suffixe productif. Chaque époque en créera ses néologismes, pour attribuer une étiquette aux nouveaux phénomènes de pouvoir, de bureaucratie, technocratie ou gérontocratie, jusqu'aux plus récents kléptocratie et bédouinocratie, qui en montrent la souplesse dans la langue politique contemporaine, où sa fonction est surtout d'exprimer une critique sociale plus ou moins âpre. À cette époque naissent également certains termes à suffixe -archie, calque du grec arkos. Parmi eux, oligarchie11 avec ses dérivés olygarchique et olygarchiser, dont la définition souligne la fonction de ses composants grecs : Olygarchie est une des six especes generales de police [...] et est la où les gens riches et puissans, qui sont en petit nombre, tiennent le princey ou gouvernent à leur propre prouffit, et contre le prouffit publique. Et est police pire que n'est democracie, et moins mauvaise que tyranie, et est dit de olygon en grec, qui est peu ou petit nombre, et de archos qui est princé.

De même que democracie, olygarchie est connoté négativement de par la présence du sème « pour son propre prouffit », mais à la différence du gouvernement du peuple, cette connotation l'accompagnera au fil du temps. 9

Le Livre des Ethiques, éd. Menut, VIII §13 : « Les bonnes sont royalme, aristocratie ; et la tierce puet estre appelee convenablement tymocratie ». DMF tymocratie. 10 GdfC, DMF democratie ; FEW demokratia. 11 GdfC, DMF oligarchie ; FEW oligarchia.

Stefania Cerrito

241

Si c'est Oresme qui forge monarche, monarchie était par contre déjà largement attesté dans le sens de « gouvernement d'une seule personne ».12 C'est encore à Brunet Latin que nous devons ce terme en son acception étymologique ; quelques années plus tard, dans le Couronnement de Louis, celui qui gouverne s'identifiera avec un roi héréditaire, acception qui prélude au sens moderne. La glose d'Oresme partage les monarchies en royaume, à connotation positive, et tyrannie, mauvaise monarchie, où le tyrant exerce le pouvoir contre le bien public. Selon ce schéma conceptuel aristotélicien, les termes désignant les formes de gouvernement organisent leur sens autour de deux axes fondamentaux : le nombre de personnes qui détiennent le pouvoir – une seule personne, un petit nombre, une multitude – et, en écho à l'idée platonicienne de la perfection des idées dégénérant dans les formes mondaines, le caractère de perfection ou de corruption de sa réalisation. En résultent trois couples antinomiques sur l'axe bon / mauvais – royaume/tyrannie ; aristocratie/olygarchie ; commune police ou tymocratie/ democratie – la valeur morale s'explicitant dans les sèmes « pour le bien public » ou « pour son propre profit ». [...] les trangressions ou corruption de trois polices devant dictes sont tyrannie, qui est transgression de royaume, et olygarchie qui est trangression de aristocratie, et democratie qui est trangression de police.

Cette opposition entre forme pure et forme altérée s'effacera dans le binôme commune police et democratie, le modèle social qui s'instaure dès le XVIIIe siècle faisant au contraire de la démocratie la forme idéale d'état. Une démarche inverse caractérise le mot tyrannie, qui ne se colore que progressivement de teintes sombres. La tyrannie deviendra une véritable hantise de la pensée politique médiévale, car elle représente l'envers dégradé et immoral de la monarchie. À partir de Thomas d'Aquin, fleurit une riche littérature sur le tyran, qui, à la lumière de la foi chrétienne, sanctionne sévèrement cette figure de mauvais détenteur du pouvoir, et admet jusqu'au tyrannicide, qui était d'ailleurs déjà inscrit dans la loi romaine. La riche glose d'Oresme en est le miroir, et trois acceptions du termes y sont exemplifiées : 1. une personne qui gouverne contre le bien public, la tyrannie étant ainsi l'envers mauvais du royaume ; 2. plusieurs personnes qui gouvernent contre le bien public, tyrannie étant ainsi un synonyme d'olygarchie ; 3. plus en général, tyran est « celluy qui fait aucune crudelité, sicomme l'en dit que Dyocleciain et Maximian furent

12

FEW VI/ 3 71.

242

Les mots de la politique à travers les siècles

tyrans contre les Chrestiens », et cela bien que, selon l'histoire, « ilz ne preferoient pas leur propre prouffit au bien publicque ». Un néologisme ultérieur naît au sein de ces réflexions sur le pouvoir absolu ou illégitime (Gauvard, de Libera et Zink 2004 : 1412-1414) : potentat est quant le prince ou princes se attribuent plaines postés, et usent de puissance ou de voulenté, ou de nouvelles loix que ilz font à leur plaisir, et non pas des loix anciennes et justes, et est aussy comme ce que l'en dit de plenitudine potestatis, et est chose reprouvee en ceste science.

C'est sous l'effet du latin ecclésiastique que le terme indiquera, outre que le pouvoir politique absolu, la personne qui exerce ce pouvoir.13 À ces mots indiquant l'exercice, de la part d'un chef d'état, d'un excès de pouvoir, s'oppose anarchie, pour en dire au contraire, l'absence. Ce terme apparaît chez Oresme avec une valeur sémantique contextuelle, pour désigner un état où les affranchis peuvent recouvrir des charges publiques, comme l'explique le traducteur : anarchie est quant l'en franchist aucuns serfs et met en grans offices. Et est dit de ana en grec qui est environ et de archos qui est prince.

Le sens courant du mot, qui est d'ailleurs celui qui se transmet du grec d'Hérodote « absence d'un chef » au latin médiéval anarchia « désordre politique dû à la carence ou à la faiblesse du pouvoir », ne réapparaîtra que deux siècles plus tard, en 1561 chez François Bonivard.14 L'autosuffisance étant la condition indispensable pour la réalisation heureuse de la polis selon Aristote, autarchie naît sans la connotation vaguement péjorative dont le recouvre aujourd'hui l'économie libériste, qui condamne le protectionnisme. La glose d'Oresme souligne au contraire le bien vivre qui la caractérise : autarchie est par soy souffisante, c'est à dire avoir tout ce qu'il fault pour bien vivre selon possibilité humaine, et est dit de archos en grec, qui signifie ce mesme ou celle chose, et de archia qui est souffisance.

Les mécanismes morphologiques ou sémantiques qui donnent vie aux néologismes qui reposent sur l'étymologie latine sont très variés. L'influence du latin ecclésiastique se révèle dans populaire, qu'Oresme par calque sémantique sur popularis, utilise dans l'acception de « laïc »,15 en EM4 934, GdfC X 387. RobHist s.v. anarchie. 15 Forcellini IV 735b. 13 14

Stefania Cerrito

243

opposant prestres et populaires. Une francisation sans effort permet l'introduction dans le vocabulaire juridique de legislateur, du latin legislator, « celui qui fait et ordonne et publie la loy ou qui les interprete », et legislation, du latin legislatio « c'est l'oeuvre du legislateur, lequel trouve les loix, ou les promulgue ou les autorise »,16 ou encore d'illegal, du latin médiéval illegalis, défini comme « celluy qui ne ne veult garder les loix ordonneez pour le bien publique, et celluy qui ne tient pas bien ses convenans, et telz gens », qui concurrence illicite, de matrice classique. L'intérêt du glossaire oresmien ne se limite pas à ses néologismes. La présence de mots déjà attestés en français nous en montre le caractère technique, leur appartenance à un vocabulaire qui est autre par rapport au commun parler, d'où la nécessité d'une glose qui vise à en expliquer le sens général ou contextuel à un lecteur peu versé dans la théorie politique. Quelques termes de la Politique oresmienne n'ont pas une fortune immédiate, et ne resurgiront que des siècles plus tard, essentiellement à l'époque révolutionnaire. Les calques peuvent d'ailleurs disparaître et réapparaître selon les besoins des différentes époques, la stabilité de la tradition de l'Antiquité constituant un répertoire lexical, grec ou latin, toujours disponible pour en forger à nouveau. Demagogue, qu'Oresme accompagne du verbe demogogizer, restera ainsi, sauf erreur, la seule attestation de ce mot jusqu'à la fin du XVIIe.17 Le sens est stable dans les siècles, comme on peut le lire dans la glose : Demagogue est qui par adulation ou flaterie demaine le commun peuple à sa voulenté, et qui les esmeut à rebellion contre les princes ou prince. Et tel fut ung en Flandres appelé Jacques Daternelle. Et est dit de demos en grec qui est menu peuple et gogos qui est meuvement.

Concurrencés par des synonymes, d'autres termes oresmiens n'auront qu'une vie éphémère, démontrant que, dans l'économie du français, l'hellénisme est souvent superfétatoire. Le champ onomasiologique dans lequel s'insère banause « tout homme qui fait oeuvre servile... », calque du grec banausos à travers le latin de Moerbeke, était déjà suffisamment riche – le français disposant déjà d'ouvrier, villain, pour ne citer que quelques exemples – pour que ce mot s'affirme dans le vocabulaire sociologique. Resteront également des hapax les termes d'Oresme à préfixe androcomme androkalgachie « bonté de homme, car en grec andros, c'est homme, et kagaton, c'est le bien bon », ou à préfixe gyne- tels gyneconomos « ung office sur la discipline ou doctrine des femmes et sur 16 17

Forcellini IV 53a s.v. legislatio et legislator. Tlfi s.v. démagogue 2a.

244

Les mots de la politique à travers les siècles

l'aornement d'elles », et gyneconomie, ou gynothocratie « office de jurisdiction tenue par les femmes », bien que l'histoire lexicale du français montre combien ces préfixes sont précieux. Si pecuniative qui « est art ou industrie d'acquerir pecunes ou richesses » n'aura pas de fortune, pecunieux, bien que rare, survit encore de nos jours. L'adjectif autarque, dans la cité ou region autharques ou par soi souffisante, restera une attestation isolée. Le XXe siècle reforgera autarchique, ajusté ensuite en autarcique.

1.2 La Rome ancienne Si cette vague lexicale à étymologie surtout grecque, transmettant Aristote, fut un phénomène isolé, le fond lexical latin conflua dans le vocabulaire français par une myriade de textes, et il nous serait impossible de retracer ici les multiples voies que le latin politique et juridique emprunta pour acquérir une forme française. Les traductions d'histoire romaine constituent une source importante de termes de l'administration et de la politique, outre que naturellement du domaine militaire. Si le XIVe fut le siècle de l'activité la plus intense des traducteurs qui, confrontés à la difficulté de dire en français ce qui n'avait pas encore été dit, se montrèrent spécialement sensibles aux aspects lexicaux de leur travail, les compilations des siècles précédents eurent un rôle non moins important. Dictature apparaît ainsi dans les dernières décennies du XIIIe siècle dans la traduction de Végèce de Jean Priorat de Besançon ; vers 1160 apparaît dans l'Eneas pour la première fois senateur. Parmi ces compilations, les Faits des Romains (Flutre et Sneyders de Vogel 1935-1938) eurent un rôle majeur dans la création des mots pour raconter l'organisation politique de l'ancienne Rome. C'est à leur auteur anonyme que nous devons la première attestation de senat, ou de mots pour dire de différents phénomènes de la vie politique, tels sedition ou interregne. Nous lui devons également asile, mot que le latin connaissait depuis Varron, et qui au XIIIe siècle renvoyait encore à une réalité du monde romain, soit le temple que Romulus imagina comme un lieu inviolable, et qui offrait refuge à ceux qui étaient en danger. À partir du sème « refuge » la notion de droit d'asile se consolidera à travers les siècles, pour être enfin consacrée comme valeur de la République française dans la Constitution du 27 octobre 1946. En puisant à Salluste, à Suétone ou à Isidore de Séville, un bref chapitre ayant pour titre Quiex dignités il ot à Roume avant que Julius Cesar crut puis le nombre, introduit à la lecture des Faits en résumant l'histoire politique romaine des sept rois jusqu'à César, à travers la nature

Stefania Cerrito

245

et les fonctions de toutes ses dignités : roi et roiaume, senator, preudome, consele, tribun, questor, edile, vesque, pretor, patrice, censor, cyliarque, centurion, decurion, empereor sont les termes désormais français pour raconter les charges publiques et militaires de la Rome ancienne, qui constituent une sorte de petit glossaire à vocation encyclopédique des institutions politiques, aux définitions riches et précises. Très satisfaisante est, par exemple, la description de Senat : Cil (i.e. : Romulus) establi .x. cors de senators. En chascune cort en avoit par .iii. foiz .x., ce sont .xxx., atant i avoit de ces senators. Ce estoient ancien home, qui par lor senz aidoient la cité à gouverner, coume li peres fait son enfant, et les apelloit l'en peres par escriz, car quant Romulus les ot esleus, il escrit lor nonz en une table d'or avant que il les nomast au menu pueple. (Faits des Romains, ms. BnF, fr.23082 f.1v°)

Plus brèves, mais exhaustives, sont les définitions de tribun « tribun estoient cil qui donnoient aide et droiture au pueple et aus chevaliers. Ceus eslit li pueples de Roume I an aprés les dictators » ou de questor « questor estoient li enquereor des drois et des tors » (f.2r°). Environ cent-cinquante ans plus tard, vers 1355, Pierre Bersuire fut chargé par Jean le Bon de traduire les Decades de Tite-Live (Tesnière 2006 ; Tesnière 2011). Comme Oresme après lui, le traducteur souligne la difficulté lexicale de la tâche qu'il entreprend : Or veuil je rendre raison qui est cause pour quoy j'ay fait le chappitre qui s'ensuit, car en nom Dieu cestui acteur, en parlant de la maniere d'armes et aultrement, use en plusieurs lieux, quant le cas y eschiet, de trop de mos qui ont moult grandes significations, et si n'avons en françois nulz propres mos semblables, qui toutes celles choses puissent signiffier ... (Decades de Tite-Live, ms. BnF fr.35, f.1v°)

Le chapitre qui suit est une table des mots que Bersuire définit d'estranges, et qui précède sa traduction (Duval 2005 : 43-64). Environ 30% de ces mots estranges relèvent du domaine de la politique, 40% du domaine militaire, beaucoup d'entre eux sont des néologismes. C'est le cas par exemple de magistrat, dont la glose est construite autour de son statut d'hyperonyme des différentes charges publiques qui y sont énumérées : Sachiez que en ces offices publiques estoient appellez magistras en general, si comme estoient interroy, ditateur, consul, preteur, censeur, tribun ou esteur, et edille. (ms. BnF, fr.35, f.4)

Ce n'est pas rare que Bersuire réutilise, voire reforge, les mots des Faits des Romains, et c'est une évidence que les descriptions lexicales des

246

Les mots de la politique à travers les siècles

dignités, précises et détaillées, ont conflué dans le glossaire du Tite-Live. Mais si on y retrouve des termes désormais consolidés, la traduction berchorienne est aussi pour nous une source de premières attestations. C'est Bersuire qui forge faction « action séditieuse », qu'il glose par une riche synonymie « conjuracion, ou conspiracion, ou machination » ; qui dérive seditieux de sedition des Faits, qui obtient transfuge du latin transfuga. Bien qu'il ne l'insère pas dans sa table, c'est Bersuire qui utilise pour la première fois le verbe promulguer. Les définitions berchoriennes sont construites avec soin. Dans le long chemin qui mènera à la naissance de république, celle de chose publique n'est pas sans intérêt : chose publique ce n'est aultre chose que l'estat publique, et est nom général ou commun en tous estas de terres, païs, royaumes ou cités, ou quelconques aultres communaultez de gens.

1.3 La bibliothèque politique de Charles V Dans ce XIVe siècle qui fut celui des traductions des ouvrages de l'Antiquité, et de la création lexicale qui en dériva, le véritable mécène de la langue de la politique fut Charles V. En continuité avec le propos entrepris par son père, il voulut constituer une riche bibliothèque en français de l'art de bien gouverner, et pour ce faire, il commandita aux plus grands savants de son entourage la traduction de textes fondamentaux de la science politique. À la traduction du corpus aristotélicien par Oresme, s'ajoutèrent, entre autres, celle du Policraticus de Jean de Salisbury par Denis de Foulechat (Brucker 1969 : 317-324 ; Brucker 1994) ; ou l'autotraduction du Somnium Viridarii par Évrard de Trémaugon, le Songe du Vergier (Schnerb-Lievre 1982). Non sans quelques perplexités dues à son âge avancé, Raoul de Presles se plia à la volonté de son souverain et accepta la lourde tâche de traduire un autre texte pilier de la pensée politique médiévale, cette fois-ci de matrice chrétienne : la Cité de Dieu de saint Augustin (Bertrand 20132015). Une tradition manuscrite copieuse – 58 témoins, dont trois provenant de la bibliothèque de Charles – et deux éditions imprimées, datant de 1486 et de 1531, témoignent du succès de cette traduction. Un courant politique, qui prendra par la suite le nom d'augustinisme (Arquillière 1934), ayant dans le traité de ce Père de l'Église son autorité, se répandra rapidement. Un vocabulaire politique de matrice morale et chrétienne, qui module le sens de termes tels corruption, obedience, militant etc., en ajoutant, par le néologisme sémantique, une acception politique aux termes de la langue religieuse, se consolidera (Bertrand 2003 ;

Stefania Cerrito

247

Stumpf et Cerrito 2013). Les riches gloses illustrent minutieusement le complexe cheminement de sens du latin d'Augustin au français de Raoul, les interprétations possibles, les implications politiques, morales et culturelles de la pensée augustinienne dans sa réception médiévale. Plus encore que dans la formation du néologisme, qui n'est pas absent – on y lit, entre autres, la première attestation de proletaire – , l'extraordinaire contribution de Raoul de Presles au vocabulaire politique naissant est dans la réutilisation en de nouveaux contextes d'un vocabulaire politique qui se définit et s'enrichit dans un discours dont l'envergure fut d'une importance majeure.

2. Le XVIe siècle 2.1 Le Prince de Machiavel On ne pourrait pas ignorer, ne serait-ce que pour le citer, une étape miliaire dans l'histoire de la pensée politique de la Renaissance : en 1532 paraît Il Principe de Nicolas Machiavel. Traduit une première fois par Jacques de Vintimille, puis à nouveau par un traducteur anonyme, qui fut peut-être Jean Charrier, Le Prince sera imprimé en français à partir de 1553, quand deux nouvelles traductions, qui sont l'œuvre respectivement de Guillaume Cappel et de Gaspard d’Auvergne, paraissent à Paris et à Poitiers (Dal Corso 1994).18 Suivra la traduction par Jacques Gohory, imprimée à Paris en 1571 chez Robert Le Mangnier (Gorris Camos 2008). Si on a souvent souligné le caractère novateur du vocabulaire politique de Machiavel, qui amplifie et module le sens de termes tels principauté, etat, monarchie, republique etc. (Ménissier 2008), une étude du vocabulaire politique de ses traductions reste à faire. Indice lexical du retentissement de son œuvre, en 1611 machiavelisme est attesté dans le Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues de Randle Cotgrave, qui le définit « subtill policie », « cunning roguerie ».

2.2 La politique dans la lexicographie Quel fut le regard des lexicographes des siècles suivants sur ces mots de la politique forgés au Moyen Âge? L'art de gouverner ne semble pas avoir une place privilégiée dans cet extraordinaire travail de classement de la langue française par ses mots et par ses locutions qui, commencé par 18 Le Prince de Nicolas Machiavel..., par Guillaume Cappel, Paris : Charles Estienne ; Le Prince de Nicolas Macchiavelli..., Poitiers : Enguilbert de Marnef.

248

Les mots de la politique à travers les siècles

Robert Estienne dans le Dictionarium latinogallicum (DLG),19 se poursuivit par le renversement entre lemme et définition dans le Dictionaire françois-latin (DFL),20 et, grâce à ses continuateurs, aboutit d'une part au Thresor de Jean Nicot de 1606, et de l'autre au Grand dictionaire françois-latin (GDFL) (Quémada 1967).21 Trois niveaux d'attestation caractérisent nos mots de la politique dans le DLG,22 qui sont le reflet de leur niveau de vitalité dans la langue de la Renaissance, ou de la perception de leur vitalité de la part du lexicographe : absence du terme latin et de sa forme française, présence du terme latin et absence de sa forme française, présence du terme latin et de sa forme française. Les forz mots d'Oresme ne figurent qu'en partie dans la nomenclature. Les hellénismes – anarchie, aristocratie, autarchie, oligarchie etc. – sont absents, le Dictionarium ignorant la forme française comme la racine étymologique latine de ces termes. Seul democratia y apparaît, avec sa belle définition « principatus populi », « le gouvernement qu'ung peuple ha de soy et de sa republique, sans avoir autre superieur ou gouverneur, fors les officiers par luy etablis ». En revanche, le mot democratie qui en dérive est absent de la glose et, sauf erreur, n'est jamais attesté dans le dictionnaire. Ce deuxième niveau d'attestation, où le lemme latin n'est suivi que de sa définition, sans référence au lexème français qui en dérive, n'est d'ailleurs pas rare. Le même traitement sera réservé aux termes politia, « Le faict et gouvernement d'une Republique », et politicus, dans sa forme adjectivale, « Qui entend bien, ou s'entremet et aime le faict d'une Republique ». Il en est de même pour certains néologismes oresmiens d'origine latine : legislator n'aura d'autre traduction française que la paraphrase qui le définit « qui fait une loy ». Bien que déjà attesté en français depuis le début du siècle, et que Robert Estienne l'utilise largement dans ses définitions, le syntagme res publica n'évoquera pas republique. Placé dans l'article res, sous l'acception « L'estat et condition d'ung chascun », seule la définition « l'estat commun » et, par opposition, les syntagmes res privata, res familiaris, res uxoria, en illustrent le sens. 19

1eéd. 1538, 2eéd. 1544, 3eéd. 1552. 1e éd. 1539, 2e éd. 1549, 3e éd. 1564, 4e éd. 1573. 21 e 1 éd. Stoer 1593, puis entre autres Baudoin 1607, Marquis 1609, Poille 1609. La contribution de R. Wooldridge est fondamentale pour l'étude de ces dictionnaires : Lexicologie du français de la Renaissance. (En ligne : http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~wulfric/cv/e-pub.htm#lexicoren) 22 Dictionarium latinogallicum. [...], Lutetiae, Rob. Stephani typographi Regii, 1544. 20

Stefania Cerrito

249

Les termes issus de l'organisation politique romaine sont en général définis de façon précise, mais ce n'est pas toujours le mot à mot latinfrançais qui structure l'article. Seule la forme latine est attestée dans l’article dictator (Stumpf et Cerrito 2013 : 200-205) : Le souverain magistrat anciennement à Rome qui n'estoit point ordinaire, ains seulement estoit creé en temps de necessité, ou de guerre, ou de sedition civile, et ne duroit que six mois.

L'article tyrannus souligne que la connotation négative du terme n'est pas dans son sens originaire : « Il signifioit anciennement ung roy ou seigneur. Depuis c'est prins pour ung mauvais et cruel roy ou seigneur ». Si la forme française tyrant n'apparaît pas dans cette définition, elle est largement utilisée dans celles des dérivés tyrannicida « Qui a tué un tyrant » et tyrannicidium, « Le faict de tuer un tyrant ». Tyrannis, tyrannidis ne sera traduit que par tyrannie, et l'adverbe tyrannice par « tyranniquement, cruellement ». Le recours, dans la structure de l'article, au terme français pour expliquer le sens du mot dont il dérive témoigne d'un haut degré d'intégration dans la langue commune. C'est le cas de regnum « royaume », lex « loy », populus « unius civitatis multitudinem significat », « ung peuple et nation » ; princeps « prince ou princesse », senatus « senat », senator « senateur », etc. Potentatus renverra à la définition de potentia « puissance et authorité ». La première édition du Dictionaire François-Latin est sans variations importantes. Ce n'est qu'avec l'enrichissement de la nomenclature qui eut lieu dans sa 2e édition qu'on peut percevoir une nette sensibilité aux mots de la politique. La partie qui s'avère alors non seulement la plus riche, mais également la plus intéressante, concerne les syntagmes et la phraséologie, qui se nourrissent d'une vaste littérature latine et surtout, pour notre domaine, de l'œuvre de Guillaume Budé (Wooldridge 1989). Le Gallicus forensium verborum index23 est intégré avec un soin méticuleux dans le dictionnaire, en réorganisant sa matière dans les différents articles. Dans l'édition 1593 du Grand dictionnaire françois-latin, continuateur du Dictionaire françois-latin, l'article roy, glosé de manière tautologique par « rex », présente au lecteur un répertoire richissime de syntagmes et de formules. Suite au renversement entre lemme et définition, de différents articles du DLF avaient convergé sous cette entrée : c'est le cas de « Petit roy à qui la quatrième partie d'un royaume estoit donnée en 23

Gallicus forensium verborum index cui ex adverso respondet Latina ex Gulielmi Budaei Forensibus collecta interpretatio, Lutetiae, Rob.Stephani typographi Regii, 1545.

250

Les mots de la politique à travers les siècles

droict de royaume » qui explique le sens du latin tetrarcha ; de « Le temps qui estoit anciennement depuis le trespas d'un roy jusques à la creation d'un nouveau » qui reprend, en l'abrégeant, la glose de interregnum du DLF, toujours sans faire mention de la forme interregne forgée au XIIIe siècle. Si la disproportion entre lemme et définition saute aux yeux dans les parties provenant du DLF, un meilleur équilibre se rétablit entre français et latin dans les matériaux dont Budé fut la source. Les formules se font écho selon la différente typologie des deux langues, et non sans révéler le goût pour la réduplication synonymique de l'époque, comme dans donner à quelqu'un et conformer le tiltre de Roy pour « appellare regem » ou, pour dire l'usurpation du pouvoir, prendre le nom et tiltre de Roy « asciscere sibi nomen regium » ; ou encore, dans l'article regnum, jetter ou pousser quelqu'un hors de son Royaume, « Detrudere, siue deducere aliquem ex regno ». Toujours grâce à Budé, l'article procés s'étend désormais sur sept pages, avec une richesse inégalable de formules juridiques. On y lit avoir un procés contre aucun, delaisser un procés, un procés peri, un petit procés, procés qui se peuvent et doibvent promptement vuider, un procés remis par unes lettres royaux, revoir un procés, le procés est vuidé, procés vuidé par arbitrage, pour ne citer que quelques exemples. Disparaissent les définitions circonstancielles, du genre Quand..., qui n'étaient pas rares dans la DLF, comme Dare iudicium in aliquem « Quand à la requeste du demandeur le Magistrat deputoit ung commissaire pour congnoistre de quelques matiere, ou le defendeur [...] ». Dans l'article parlement, à la définition du sens généraliste suit une riche explication de l'acception politique : parlement aussi est une cour souveraine seant en la ville capitale de son ressort. On dict selon cela cour et cour de parlement, et telles cours ont ce nom, par ce que les advocats, ores du costé dextre ores du senestre, parlemente, parle et confere sur l'arrest qu'il convient là dessus donner. Aucuns le rendent en latin Senatus, peu proprement, autres Curia suprema, autres simplement Curia, mais qui vouldroit representer l'energie du mot, pourroit le rendre par Curia colloquij.

L'article cour précisera que le mot « vient de Curia latin, et par ce se doibt escripre sans t ». Quelques lexies françaises absentes dans l'édition de 1544 du DLF acquièrent désormais le statut d'entrée. Apparaissent police « le faict et gouvernement d'une republique », politia avec son dérivé policer dans les syntagmes policer une ville, et citez bien policées, et où il y a bonne police

Stefania Cerrito

251

« Bene moratae et bene constitutae civitates », et legislateur, glosé par « qui fait une loy », et par ses synonymes latins Scriptor legum, Legislator, Legifer. Legislation est en revanche encore absent, comme d'ailleurs illegal, le GDFL continuant de préférer la forme classique illicite. La nomenclature s'enrichit de quelques termes politiques dont l'usage se diffuse au XVIe siècle. C'est le cas de patrie, qui introduit au syntagme Qui a trahi sa patrie « Proditor patriae », ou de republique, dont l'entrée mène directement à l'exemple aegrota republica, où la métaphore cicéronienne de la maladie de l'état est rendue par « qui va tresmal ». Les hellénismes aristocracie, anarchie, autarchie, oligarchie etc. demeurent toujours absents.

2.3 Une nouvelle traduction de la Politique d'Aristote La longévité de la Politique d'Oresme témoigne de l'excellente qualité de la traduction, comme de la fortune du vocabulaire utilisé ou créé par son traducteur. Plusieurs fois recopiée au XIVe et au XVe siècles, elle fut imprimée par Antoine Vérard en 1499 (McFarlane 1900 : 5 ; Winn 1997).24 Le traité d'Aristote ne sera traduit à nouveau qu'en 1568 par Louis Le Roy, pour la première fois sur la base du texte grec et non pas de sa traduction latine. Quelques brèves remarques sur cette deuxième traduction nous permettent de vérifier la fortune des termes forgés dans les siècles médiévaux dans le domaine spécialisé du discours aristotélicien. Malgré le rajeunissement de la langue, beaucoup de termes oresmiens sont confirmés par le traducteur du XVIe siècle, ce qui est un indice de leur intégration progressive au système de la langue politique. Dans l'édition de 1599, sont réutilisés, entre autres, aristocracie, oligarchie, autarchie, anarchie, democracie, cité et citoyen, magistrat, monarque, legislateur. La nouveauté qui saute aux yeux consiste surtout en l'emploi de republique, éventuellement décliné au pluriel, pour traduire politeia dans le sens de « chose publique », d' « organisation politique de l'état », qui remplace ainsi la plupart des occurrences de police d'Oresme. Là où Oresme annonçait qu'Aristote devise les differentes formes de police, titre de son chapitre XX du troisième livre, Le Roy intitule son chapitre De la division et definition des republiques, et de leurs transgressions. Voici comment le bref passage de ce même livre, où Aristote présente les outils lexicaux de son traité, est traduit : 24 Une vingtaine de manuscrits transmettent cette traduction d'Oresme, dont celui conservé à Avranches, BM 223, considéré comme l'autographe.

252

Les mots de la politique à travers les siècles Nous avons accoustumé appeller la republique où un commande regardant au bien publique, Royauté ; celle où peu d'hommes, mais plus qu'un, Aristocratie, ou pour ce que les bons gouvernent, ou pour ce qu'ils pourvoyent au bien de la cité, ou de ceux qui y communiquent. Quand la multitude gouverne pour l'utilité publique, on l'appelle Republique par le nom commun de toutes les republiques.

À royaume d'Oresme, Le Roy préfère royauté, et c'est republique qui résout l'emploi aristotélicien du mot générique pour désigner une forme spéciale de gouvernement, qui mena Oresme à créer la locution commune police. L'usage de politique comme substantif masculin, pour indiquer celui qui s'occupe de politique, désormais répandu, apparaît souvent en cooccurrence avec legislateur. Disparaît, sauf erreur, le terme demagogue, remplacé par le syntagme conducteur du peuple.

3. Les ‘dictionnaires d'autrefois’ Observatoire de prestige sur l'histoire des mots, les différentes éditions du Dictionnaire de l'Académie enregistrent avec attention l'évolution du vocabulaire politique du XVIIIe au XXe siècles. Suivre au fil des siècles l'histoire des articles que ce(s) Dictionnaire(s) consacrèrent aux mots de la politique permet de voir leur transformation au changement du climat politique, comment leur sémantisme s'adapte aux nouveaux contextes, comment les anciennes acceptions disparaissent pour en faire apparaître des nouvelles. Le choix des académiciens de forger eux-mêmes les exemples rend la phraséologie conforme à l'utilisation réelle d'une lexie, en les soustrayant à l'aléas des attestations littéraires, ce qui en accroît l'intérêt pour notre domaine (Pruvost 2003). Le tableau qui suit, rédigé à l'aide de l'outil informatique du projet Dictionnaires d'autrefois, permettant la consultation de cinq éditions du Dictionnaire,25 montre la date d'enregistrement de quelques uns de nos termes, ou de leurs dérivés.

25

En ligne : http://dictionnaires.atilf.fr/dictionnaires/.

Stefania Cerrito 1e éd. (1694) anarchie anarchique anarchisme anarchiste aristocratie aristocratique aristocratiser aristocrate autarchie démagogue démocratie démocratique dictature dictateur démocrate oligarchie oligarchique police politique politiser potentat législation législateur monarchie monarque royaume royauté tymocratie

4e éd. (1762)

253

5e éd. (1798)

6e éd. (1832-5)

8e éd. (193235)

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

Tableau 1. Les mots de la politique dans le Dictionnaire de l'Académie

L'intégration dans le Dictionnaire des termes forgés dans les siècles médiévaux se fait de manière progressive, et non sans quelques caprices. Ignorés par Estienne et ses successeurs, anarchie, aristocratie, oligarchie, monarque etc. seront enregistrés à partir de sa première édition. La définition d'oligarchie en explicite le sens, mais non pas la connotation négative du terme « Gouvernement politique, où l'authorité souveraine est entre les mains d'un petit nombre de personnes ». C'est dans les éditions successives que la connotation du terme se révèle dans les exemples dont l'article s'enrichit, qui ancrent progressivement la définition à la réalité française : en 1762 s'ajoutera « L'Aristocratie dégénère quelquefois

254

Les mots de la politique à travers les siècles

en Oligarchie », évoquant l'opposition sémantique aristotélicienne, et en 1832 « Dans ce pays, un petit nombre de familles riches constituent une forte oligarchie ». Anarchie, qui ne circulait que dans des domaines restreints, s'affirme désormais dans la langue politique. Dans la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle, d'anarchie dérivera anarchisme, pour prôner la suppression de l'Etat et la pleine indépendance de l'individu, et donc anarchiste. Le XXe siècle en obtiendra anarcho- à fonction préfixale, pour indiquer l'anarchosyndicalisme européen ou l'anarcho-capitalisme de matrice américaine. Démagogue réapparaît en français, enregistré dans le Dictionnaire de 1762, qui n'indique désormais que « Celui qui a la puissance souveraine dans un grand État ». Dans la même édition est introduit également potentat. En revanche, autarchie demeure encore absent en 1932, bien que le terme soit revenu à l'usage dans la langue politique et économique vers la fin du XIXe siècle, et qu'en 1898 Paul Emile-Marie Revelière ait intitulé son traité Tutelle et autarchie. Le Dictionnaire continue d'ignorer également tymocratie, désormais terme technique de la philosophe politique de l'Antiquité grecque. Les nouvelles acceptions de république (Siccardo 1974 ; Tournier 2010), qui s'ajoutent au sens plus ancien « chose publique », sont définies dans le Dictionnaire de 1694 par « Estat gouverné par pluseurs » et « Il se prend quelques fois pour toute sorte d'Estat, de Gouvernement ». L'opposition sémantique entre république et monarchie sera explicite en 1832, quand à la définition suivront « Il est opposé à Monarchie » aussi bien que les nouveaux syntagmes comme République démocratique, aristocratique, oligarchique, fédérative, et naturellement les locutions entraînées par le nouveau calendrier L'an V de la république française. Quant à monarchie, son évolution moderne, entraînée par la diffusion en Europe d'un modèle d'état où le pouvoir est partagé entre roi et chambres, se manifeste dans l'apparition, dès 1832, du syntagme monarchie constitutionnelle, défini « Celle où la balance et l'exercice des pouvoirs sont réglés par des lois fondamentales. Cette expression désigne en particulier une Forme de gouvernement dans laquelle le pouvoir est partagé entre le Souverain et deux chambres ». L'évolution sémantique d'aristocratie devient claire dans la cinquième édition : « Ce mot désigne, depuis la Révolution, la caste des ci-devant Nobles et Privilégiés, et en général, les ennemis du nouveau Gouvernement ». Les écrits révolutionnaires avaient diversifié les aristocraties en aristocratie des magistrats, municipale, militaire ou sacerdotale. Sur la scène politique s’était imposée une aristocratie des riches, qu'Antoine Barnave avait saluée comme « nouvelle aristocratie

Stefania Cerrito

255

bourgeoise et marchande » (Vovelle 2005 : 8-9). Signe du changement sémantique, mais surtout du changement de statut de la classe nobiliaire dans la société française, en 1932 aux deux syntagmes de nature politique, État aristocratique et Gouvernement aristocratique, s'ajoutera manières aristocratiques. La noblesse est désormais plutôt une façon d'être et de vivre qu'une élite au pouvoir. Aristocrate – mot nouveau qui, selon Féraud, a besoin du sceau de l'usage – et democrate apparaissent ensemble dans la 5e édition, l'un pour désigner le « partisan de l'Aristocratie », et l'autre le partisan de la Révolution, comme l'explique la définition : « On appelle ainsi aujourd'hui, par opposition à Aristocrate, celui qui s'est dévoué à la cause de la Révolution ». En 1932, l'article aristocrate à « partisan de l'aristocratie » ajoutera « ou Celui, celle qui en a adopté le genre de vie et les habitudes ». Les différentes éditions du Dictionnaire montrent bien, enfin, le parcours qui résout la concurrence entre police et politique. Acheminé vers l'usage moderne dès le début du XVIIe siècle, police se spécialise progressivement vers la désignation de l'ordre public, tandis que politique est désormais le mot pour désigner l'art de gouverner. Les multiples facettes de cet art difficile se manifestent dans les exemples dont les académiciens assortissent l'article, où la politique est qualifiée de bonne, meschante, fausse, fine, severe, dangeureuse ou chrétienne. L'édition de 1832 y ajoute encore profonde, tortueuse, sage et prévoyante, soupçonneuse et dissimulée, en montrant qu'avec la Révolution, non seulement la politique et la science politique se sont profondément transformées, mais aussi et surtout que le citoyen n'est plus un sujet, et qu'il a changé de statut dans la société moderne. Le dictionnaire suggère alors les mots pour dire le nouveau regard sur l'exercice du pouvoir qui caractérise l'état moderne.26

Références Arquillière, J.-X. (1934). L'augustinisme politique : essai sur la formation des théories politiques du Moyen Âge. Paris : Vrin. Bertrand, O. (2003). « Les néologismes politiques dans la première traduction française de La cité de Dieu de saint Augustin ». In The Theory and Practice of Translation in the Middle Ages. The Medieval Translator, 8, 39-48. 26 Sur le vocabulaire politique contemporain voir, entre autres, Denquin (1997) et Nay (2008).

256

Les mots de la politique à travers les siècles

—. (2011). « Histoire du lexique politique français. Emergence des corpus aristotélicien et augustinien à la fin du Moyen Âge ». In A. Gamberini, J.-P. Genet et A. Zorzi, The Languages of Political Society. Western Europe, 14th-17th Centuries. Roma : Viella, 167188. Bertrand, O. (éd.) (2013-2015). La Cité de Dieu de saint Augustin traduite par Raoul de Presles. Livres I à V (vol. 1, t.1-2). Paris : Champion. Brams, J. (2003). La riscoperta di Aristotele in Occidente. Milano : Jaca books. Brucker, Ch. (1969). « Les néologismes de Denis Foulechat, traducteur de Charles V, d'après les trois premiers livres du Policratique ». Revue de linguistique romane, 33, 317-324. Brucker, Ch. (éd.) (1994). Denis de Foulechat, Le Policratique de Jean de Salisbury (1372). Genève : Droz. Brucker, Ch. (2001). « Aspects du vocabulaire politique et social chez Oresme et Christine de Pizan. Vers une nouvelle conception de l’État et de la société ». CRMH, 8, 227-249. Brucker, Ch. - ATILF-CNRS & Nancy-Université. Lexique de Nicole Oresme. (En ligne : http://www.atilf.fr/dmf/Oresme) Chabaille, P. (éd.) (1863). Li livres dou tresor par Brunetto Latini. Paris : Imprimerie impériale, 575. Dal Corso, M. (1994). Le traduzioni del Principe di Machiavelli in Francia nel XVI secolo. Padoue : Cooperativa Alfasessanta. Denquin, J.-M. (1997). Vocabulaire politique. Paris : PUF. DMF – Dictionnaire du Moyen Français. (En ligne : http://www.atilf.fr/dmf) Duval, F. (2005). « Le glossaire de traduction, instrument privilégié de la transmission du savoir : les Decades de Tite-Live par Pierre Bersuire ». In P. Nobel (éd.), La transmission des savoirs au Moyen Âge et à la Renaissance. Besançon : Presses universitaires de Franche-Comté, 43-64. EM4 – Ernout, A. et A. Meillet (1959). Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue latine. Paris : Klincksieck. FEW – Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch de Walther von Wartburg. (En ligne : https://apps.atilf.fr/lecteurFEW/index.php?r=page/view) Finoli, A. M. (1996). « Les néologismes chez Nicole Oresme : remarques et réflexions ». Le moyen français, 39, 239-47. Fiocchi, C. (2007). « Problemi di traduzione della Politica di Aristotele ». Doctor virtualis, 7, 222-236.

Stefania Cerrito

257

Flutre, L.-F. et K. Sneyders de Vogel (éds.) (1935-1938). Li Fet des Romains. Paris : Droz (2t.). Forcellini, E. (1827-1831 rééd.), Totius Latinitatis lexicon. Padoue : typis Seminarii, 4 voll. Gallicus forensium verborum index cui ex adverso respondet Latina ex Gulielmi Budaei Forensibus collecta interpretatio. Lutetiae, Rob.Stephani typographi Regii, 1545. Gauvard, C., A. de Libera et M. Zink (éds.) (2004). Dictionnaire du Moyen Âge. Paris : PUF. Gdf – Godefroy, F. (1880-1895). Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IXe au XVe siècle. Paris : F. Vieweg et Em. Bouillon, 10 voll. GdfC – Godefroy, F. (1895-1902). Complément du dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IXe au XVe siècle, Frédéric Godefroy. Paris : F. Vieweg et Em. Bouillon. Gorris Camos, R. (2008). « Dans le labyrinthe de Gohory, lecteur et traducteur de Machiavel ». Laboratoire italien. (En ligne : http://laboratoireitalien.revues.org/80) Menut, A. D. (éd.) (1940). Maistre Nicole Oresme, Le livre de Ethiques de Aristote, published from the text of MS. 2902, Bibliothèque royale de Belgique. New York : G. E. Stechert. Menut, A. D. (éd.) (1970). Maistre Nicole Oresme, Le Livre de politiques d'Aristote. Philadelphia : American Philosophical Society. McFarlane, J. (1900). Antoine Vérard. Londres : Bibliographical Society. Ménissier, T. (2008). « Traduire Machiavel ». Traduire, 218, 29-42. Nay, O. (ed.) (2008). Lexique de science politique. Paris : Dalloz. Pruvost, J. (2003). « Les dictionnaires français : histoire et méthode ». In M. Yaguello (éd.), Le grand livre de la langue française. Paris : Seuil, 457-489. Quémada, B. (1967). Les dictionnaires du français moderne 1539-1863. Paris : Didier. RobHist – Rey, A. (éd.) (1994). Dictionnaire Historique de la langue française. Paris : Dictionnaires Le Robert. Schnerb-Lievre, M. (éd.) (1982). Le Songe du Vergier. Paris : CNRS. Siccardo, F. (1974). « République et républicain : contribution à l'histoire de deux mots ». Annali della Facoltà di Scienze Politiche dell'università degli Studi di Genova, 2, 569-617. Städtler, Th. (2007). « Le traducteur, créateur de néologismes : le cas de Nicole Oresme ». In O. Bertrand, H. Gerner et B. Stumpf (éds.), Lexiques scientifiques et techniques. Constitution et approches historiques. Palaiseau : École polytechnique, 47-61.

258

Les mots de la politique à travers les siècles

Stumpf, B. et S. Cerrito (2013). « Le lexique politique dans la traduction de la Cité de Dieu de saint Augustin par Raoul de Presles (13711375) ». In P. Ligas et P. Frassi (éds). Lexiques, Identités, Cultures, Verona : QuiEdit, 197-220. Susemihl, F. (éd.) (1872). Aristotelis Politicorum libri octo cum vetusta translatione. Lipsia : Teubner. Tesnière, M.-H (2000). « À propos de la traduction de Tite-Live par Pierre Bersuire. Le manuscrit Oxford, Bibliothèque Bodléienne, Rawlinson C 447 ». Romania, 118, 449-498. —. (2011). Tite-Live, Ab Urbe condita. In C. Galderisi, Translations médiévales. Cinq siècles de traductions en français au Moyen Âge (XIe-XVe siècles). Turnhout : Brepols publishers, vol. II, t.2, 250-252. TL – Tobler, A. et E. Lommatzsch (1925-2002). Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch. Berlin : Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, puis Stuttgard : F. Steiner Verlag, 11 vol. Tlfi – Trésor de la Langue Française informatisé. (En ligne : http://atilf.atilf.fr/) TLIO – Tesoro della lingua italiana delle origini. (En ligne : http://tlio.ovi.cnr.it/TLIO/) Tournier, M. (2010). Des noms et des gens en République. Paris : L'Harmattan, 59-71. Vovelle, M. (2005). Les mots de la Revolution. Toulouse : Presses Universitaires Toulouse-Mirail. Winn, M.B. (1997). Anthoine Verard. Genève : Droz. Wooldridge, R. (1989). « Les sources des dictionnaires français d'Estienne et de Nicot ». In P. Swiggers et W. Van Hoecke (éds.), La langue française au XVIe siècle : usage, enseignement et approches descriptives. Louvain-Paris : Peeters, 78-99. Wooldridge, R. Lexicologie du français de la Renaissance. (En ligne : http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~wulfric/cv/e-pub.htm#lexicoren)

CHAPTER ELEVEN LA FORMULE « ESPRIT EUROPÉEN » DANS LES ACTES DU COLLOQUE L’AVENIR DE L’ESPRIT EUROPÉEN ORGANISÉ PAR LA SOCIÉTÉ DES NATIONS EN 1933

PAOLA CATTANI UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI MILANO

Abstract This paper analyses the expression “esprit européen”, which circulated in the public debate between the two World Wars when several politicians and authors were engaged in designing a united Europe. This expression appears to be a “formule linguistique” (Krieg-Planque 2003) through which a number of representations of Europe took form, acquiring multiple and sometimes contradictory meanings. We will examine the corpus of speeches given by the politicians and writers who participated at the symposium organized by the League of Nations in Paris in 1933, and which was dedicated to the “Future of the European spirit”. Taking both a lexical and discourse analytical approaches, we will identify the meanings and variations of this expression, as well as the debate around it.

Résumé Cette contribution se propose d’analyser l’expression « esprit européen », qui s’affirme et circule dans le débat public de l’entre-deux-guerres, lorsque maints politiciens et hommes de lettres européens s’investissent dans la construction d’une Europe unie. Cette expression s’avère être une « formule linguistique » (Krieg-Planque 2003), à travers laquelle prennent

260

La formule « Esprit Européen »

forme de fait des représentations du monde européen, et qui acquiert des significations multiples et parfois opposées. Nous examinerons le corpus constitué par les interventions de politiciens et hommes de lettres à un colloque organisé par la Société des Nations à Paris en 1933 et consacré à l’« Avenir de l’esprit européen » ; nous essaierons ainsi de repérer, par une analyse à la fois lexicologique et d’analyse du discours, les sens, les emplois et les transformations de cette formule, ainsi que les problématiques qui lui sont liées.

1. Introduction Après le désastre de la Première Guerre mondiale, maints politiciens et hommes de lettres européens s’investissent dans la construction d’une Europe unie : ils jettent les bases de l’Europe institutionnelle actuelle et animent un débat qui demeure d’actualité sur les origines et les fondements de l’Europe. Ce vaste mouvement pro-européen non seulement prend forme au sein des cercles intellectuels et politiques, mais il reçoit aussi une impulsion cruciale grâce à l’initiative et aux efforts de la Société des Nations,1 organisation internationale qui voit le jour en 1919. Dans ce cadre, une notion en particulier s’affirme et circule dans le débat public : celle d’« esprit européen », à laquelle est spécifiquement consacré l’un des colloques organisés par la Société des Nations, « L’Avenir de l’esprit européen », qui se tient à Paris en 1933 sous la présidence de Paul Valéry, et qui constituera l’objet d’étude de cet article. Comment cette expression est-elle employée par les divers intervenants, quels sens et significations acquiert-elle ? Du point de vue de la méthodologie, notre approche essaiera d’entremêler la lexicologie et l’analyse du discours : les usages qui sont faits de cette expression dans le discours déterminent à chaque fois sa signification, qu’il s’agira d’établir. Notre travail recueillera ainsi les suggestions offertes par deux types de travaux qui ont essayé d’une façon à nos yeux très efficace d’entrecroiser la lexicologie et l’analyse du discours : d’un côté les travaux de Georges Vignaux (1976 ; 1988 ; 2005) qui proposent une approche « cognitive » de l’argumentation, en essayant d’explorer la relation entre argumentation et définition des notions ; d’un autre côté les travaux récents d’Alice Krieg-Planque (2003 ; 2009 ; 2012), dans lesquels est proposée la notion de « formule linguistique » pour définir et examiner un moment particulier de l'histoire d’un mot, une

1

Dorénavant SDN.

Paola Cattani

261

utilisation spécifique du mot qui accède dans le discours public au rang de « formule ».

2. Le corpus Aux côtés de ses efforts pour la coopération politique et institutionnelle entre les pays européens, la SDN essaie de favoriser aussi une coopération intellectuelle, en créant en 1922 la Commission internationale de coopération intellectuelle et en 1924 un Institut international de coopération intellectuelle. De ces organismes font partie des personnalités telles que Thomas Mann, Paul Valéry, Salvador de Madariaga, Marie Curie, et maints autres écrivains et savants français, italiens, anglais, allemands, mais aussi hongrois, roumains, portugais, scandinaves, etc. Ils débattent des questions liées à la création d’une « Europe de la connaissance » (le droit d’auteur, la circulation des textes, les traductions, l’organisation des musées), mais aussi des fondements et de l’avenir de l’Europe.2 La SDN organise notamment en ce sens de grands colloques internationaux qui, une fois par an et dans diverses capitales européennes, offrent aux hommes de lettres l’occasion de franchir des frontières nationales de plus en plus étanches et de discuter de l’avenir de leur continent et de la culture.3 Les débats contenus dans ces Entretiens – c’est 2

Parmi les initiatives de l’Institut international de coopération intellectuelle, la publication de l’échange de lettres entre Sigmund Freud et Albert Einstein sur la paix (Pourquoi la guerre ?, 1933), et du recueil Pour une société des esprits, avec lettres de Henri Focillon, Salvador de Madariaga, Gilbert Murray, Miguel Ozorio de Almeyda, Alfonso Reyes. 3 Ces débats ont été publiés par la SDN dans les volumes suivants : 1. Sur Goethe à l'occasion du centenaire de sa mort, Entretiens de Francfort-sur-le-Main, 12-14 mai 1932. Paris : Institut international de coopération intellectuelle, 1932 ; 2. L’Avenir de la culture, Entretiens de Madrid, 3-7 mai 1933. Paris : Institut international de coopération intellectuelle, 1933 ; 3. L'Avenir de l'esprit européen, Entretiens de Paris, 16-18 octobre 1933. Paris : Institut international de coopération intellectuelle, 1934 ; 4. L'Art et la réalité. L'art et l'État, Entretiens de Venise, 25-28 juillet 1934. Paris : Institut international de coopération intellectuelle, 1935 ; 5. La Formation de l'homme moderne, Entretiens de Nice, 1-3 avril 1935. Paris : Institut international de coopération intellectuelle, 1936 ; 6. Vers un nouvel humanisme, Entretiens de Budapest, 8-11 juin 1936. Paris : Institut international de coopération intellectuelle, 1937 ; 7. Europe - Amérique latine, Entretiens de Buenos Aires, 11-16 septembre 1936. Paris : Institut international de coopération intellectuelle, 1937 ; 8. Le Destin prochain des lettres, Entretiens de Paris, 20-24 juillet 1937. Paris : Institut international de coopération intellectuelle, 1938.

262

La formule « Esprit Européen »

ainsi que l’Institut de coopération intellectuelle appelle ces colloques – n’ont jamais été analysés du point de vue de la linguistique et des contenus, ayant jusqu’à présent attiré l’attention surtout des historiens qui s’occupent de l’histoire intellectuelle et politique.4 Dans ce qui suit, nous analyserons de près le débat du colloque d’octobre 1933 intitulé « L’Avenir de l’esprit européen », dont la SDN a publié en 1934 les actes et auquel participent entre autres le poète français Paul Valéry, le philosophe Julien Benda, le romancier allemand Thomas Mann, le philosophe Hermann von Keyserling, l’historien hollandais Johan Huizinga, le philologue danois Viggo Broendal, le journaliste genevois William Martin, l’Espagnol Salvador de Madariaga, etc.5 Après une première lecture, ce débat peut paraître caractérisé par un intellectualisme vide : tout le monde se prononce en faveur d’une Europe unie et tient à affirmer son propre européanisme, et nombre des définitions proposées de l’« esprit européen », comme on le verra, peuvent paraître vagues et génériques (tel est le cas, par exemple, de « une tendance et une manière intellectuelle d’être », « cette sorte de croyance infuse en nous », « unité spirituelle du monde européen », « unité morale de l’Europe », etc.). Le débat dans son intégralité pourrait ainsi être taxé de vacuité. En est-il véritablement ainsi ? Nous essaierons de le comprendre à partir de l’analyse des occurrences de l’expression « esprit européen », qui est employée par tous les intervenants au colloque sans exception (nous avons répertorié environ 200 occurrences). D’abord, nous examinerons cette expression comme étant une « formule linguistique », dont nous explorerons les mises en scène énonciatives et établirons les variantes possibles ; ensuite, nous analyserons les définitions successives qui sont proposées de cette formule, dans leur dynamique de constitution et dans leur dimension discursive.

3. « Esprit européen » : une formule linguistique. Alice Krieg-Planque définit une « formule linguistique » comme une « séquence verbale formellement repérable et relativement stable […] 4

Ces initiatives de coopération intellectuelle ont reçu en effet jusqu’à présent une attention critique surtout de la part de l’histoire sociale, visant à examiner la signification historique et politique de ces réunions, ainsi que le rôle des intellectuels et les réseaux de sociabilité intellectuelle qui se constituent ; voir, à ce sujet, Renoliet (1999) et Schirmann (2003). 5 L'Avenir de l'esprit européen, Entretiens de Paris, 16-18 octobre 1933. Paris : Institut international de coopération intellectuelle, 1934. À ce volume nous ferons référence dorénavant dans le texte.

Paola Cattani

263

[qui] se met à fonctionner dans les discours produits dans l'espace public comme une séquence conjointement partagée » (Krieg-Planque 2003 : 14). L’expression « esprit européen » constitue bien une « formule linguistique » dans la mesure où, tout en ayant toujours existé, elle acquiert dans le débat public de l’entre-deux-guerres une importance nouvelle et capitale : elle s’affirme comme étant une séquence linguistique largement employée, qui joue un rôle dans la diffusion du sentiment pro-européen au sein du vaste débat pacifiste et internationaliste qui essaie, après le premier conflit mondial, d’en conjurer un second. Mais aussi et surtout, la formule est telle dans la mesure où elle est perçue par ceux qui l’emploient comme étant un événement advenant dans l’univers discursif en même temps nouveau et problématique. La plupart de nos occurrences insistent en effet sur ce point : à peu près une occurrence sur quatre porte sur l’existence même de l’expression et sur le rôle qu’elle est en train d’acquérir dans le débat public. Ces occurrences consistent en de véritables « mises à distance » de la formule : presque tous les intervenants ne manquent dans leurs discours de prendre en compte le processus de constitution même de la formule et sa nature d’objet linguistique qui demande à être défini. Dans la plupart des cas on a recours aux syntagmes « ce qu’on appelle », « ce qu’on pourrait nommer », « ce que je considère être », et d’autres marqueurs de l’« autoreprésentation du dire en train de se faire » (Authier-Revuz 1995 : 18), qui mettent en évidence l’écart qui persiste entre une formule qui est arrêtée et une définition du contenu qui se détermine progressivement : (1)

« ce que nous appelons l'Esprit européen » (Valéry, p. 12) ;

(2)

« de se demander donc, si un esprit qu'on pourrait nommer “Européen” s’est manifesté pendant les siècles antérieurs » (Huizinga, p. 56) ;

(3)

« une analyse de ce que je considère être l'esprit européen » (Madariaga, p. 169) ;

(4)

« ce qu’on appelle esprit européen » (Broendal, p. 190).

Souvent on souligne la condition d’expression advenue récemment dans le discours public et désignant un contenu qu’autrefois pouvait passer sous d’autres formulations :

La formule « Esprit Européen »

264 (5)

« Depuis bien des siècles une tendance et une manière intellectuelle d’être (dont on a pris conscience sous des noms très divers) s’est manifestée, qui s'est appelée de nos jours “l’esprit européen”, après avoir reçu au cours des âges des noms extrêmement différents, comme celui de “chrétienté”, d’“humanisme”, etc. » (Valéry, p. 9).

Ensuite, les intervenants s’interrogent notamment sur l’adéquation ou inadéquation de la formule au monde contemporain, sur les transformations passées et à venir de sa signification : (6)

« Que pouvons-nous prévoir, que devons-nous penser de la variation prochaine, probable de l’esprit européen ? » (Valéry, p. 12) ;

(7)

« Justement le débat aujourd'hui porte sur la question de savoir si ces vieilles notions […], la notion de justice, la notion de vérité, la notion du respect du droit, de la tolérance, etc., si ces notions-là conservent la valeur que nous leur avions attribuée, si ces acquisitions de l’esprit européen ne sont pas des illusions dont on commence à se déprendre » (Parodi, p. 101).

En d’autres termes, les participants au colloque sont conscients de la mobilité et des oscillations du sens de la formule ; de plus, leur réflexion prend en compte directement les changements de la société et du monde qui s’opèrent sous leurs yeux, et qui mettent en cause des valeurs qui auparavant pouvaient être considérées comme des points de repère essentiels et inébranlables. Si Cantacuzène affirme d’une façon très optimiste que « cet esprit européen est une nécessité et que sa réalisation est possible » (p. 126), Duhamel est beaucoup plus sceptique : « nous considérons cette Europe que nous avons confessée, célébrée, et nous en venons à nous demander si ce n'était pas une pure construction de l'esprit » (p. 126) ; Huxley aussi s’interroge sur « l'état actuel de l'esprit européen » (p. 131), que Focillon définit comme étant, dans son temps, plus qu’une réalité « la grande urgence historique, c'est notre besoin profond » (p. 146). William Martin, face à ces questions sur « l'existence même de l'esprit européen », tient à en réaffirmer l’importance (il faut à son avis « le découvrir à nouveau dans le présent », pp. 248-249) ; et comme lui d’autres essaient de contrevenir au scepticisme qui parfois semble prendre le dessus dans la discussion, lorsqu’ils répètent qu’ils sentent « qu'il existe un esprit européen » (Teleki, p. 273), et qu’« il est certain que parmi tous ceux qui sont ici existe un esprit européen » (Borel, p. 299). La constitution de cette formule linguistique représente donc un événement discursif intimement lié à l’urgence historique qui fait que le thème de l’unité de l’Europe se pose comme actuel et fondamental ; aussi,

Paola Cattani

265

l’avènement de la formule constitue-t-il plus précisément une réponse linguistique à la conscience de la crise du monde européen et des transformations capitales qui l’intéressent. Les savants réunis par ce colloque cherchent à définir la signification de cette formule linguistique tout comme ils essaient de déchiffrer les changements incompréhensibles auxquels leur monde est en train de faire face dans l’entre-deux-guerres. Le caractère stable et figé de la formule n’exclut pas des transformations possibles, que l’on va appeler des « variantes », c’est-àdire des expressions employées « à la place de », comme étant équivalentes. À la différence des reformulations ou des définitions qui développent le contenu de la formule, ces expressions conservent son même degré de généricité et d’ambiguïté, et sont employées souvent pour éviter des répétitions dans le discours. Deux sont les typologies des variantes que l’on a pu repérer. Une première typologie ne concerne que l’aspect graphique de la formule : il y a tout d’abord « esprit européen » entre guillemets, avec une dizaine d’occurrences, et « esprit européen » en italique, avec deux occurrences. En isolant graphiquement cette expression de ce qui l’entoure, ceux qui l’emploient en soulignent de fait la nouveauté, ou bien ils mettent en évidence le caractère problématique d’une formulation dont le contenu n’est pas exactement fixé ; parfois, ils peuvent même vouloir se dissocier partiellement de la formule, en renvoyant par le biais des guillemets à l’usage qui en est fait par l’un des intervenants qui les ont précédés. Parmi les variantes graphiques, figure ensuite aussi celle de « Esprit Européen » avec les deux initiales en majuscules : c’est en particulier le philosophe Keyserling qui l’emploie, et l’on verra comment cette variante graphique s’accompagne en réalité d’une signification et d’une valeur spécifiques attribuées à la formule. Une seconde typologie de variantes intervient au contraire au niveau de la composition lexicale même de la formule. Les variantes les plus fréquentes sont « esprit de l’Europe », avec quatre occurrences, et « culture européenne », avec également quatre occurrences : dans le premier cas, il s’agit d’une simple transformation de l’adjectif « européen » dans le complément du nom correspondant (« de l’Europe ») ; dans le second cas, « culture » se substitue à « esprit », par un choix qui, tout en cernant partiellement la signification d’un mot polysémique tel que « esprit », garde néanmoins le caractère vague de la formule originale, en ne précisant pas en quoi exactement et concrètement consistent cet « esprit », cette « culture ». Il en est de même pour les variantes « la civilisation européenne », « l’âme européenne », « la tradition européenne », « la pensée européenne », « le monde européen », « le génie européen », « le

La formule « Esprit Européen »

266

centre de gravité de l’Europe », qui ne modifient que la façon dont la problématique liée à la formule « esprit européen » est évoquée, et n’introduisent aucune définition des contenus et des limites de cet « esprit ». Parfois les intervenants évoquent l’« esprit européen » en abrégeant la formule jusqu’à la réduire au seul « esprit », sans doute par souci de rapidité, puisque ce terme intervient généralement dans le discours pour rappeler simplement la formule lorsqu’elle vient d’être mentionnée ; il y a cependant des cas où cette réduction ne représente pas exactement une variante, mais joue également un rôle dans la définition du sens de la formule. Keyserling par exemple, en évoquant l’« esprit européen » qu’il veut défendre, attaque de la manière suivante : (8)

« nous autres, représentants de l’Esprit au sens traditionnel du terme » (p. 16).

L’« Esprit » qui est mentionné ici ne renvoie pas seulement à l’« Esprit Européen » que Keyserling vient de citer dans son discours (et qu’il écrit toujours avec des initiales en majuscules comme on l’a déjà signalé). La précision qui est ici introduite, « au sens traditionnel du terme », avance déjà une interprétation de la formule. Keyserling propose de fait une identification entre « l’Esprit Européen » et « l’Esprit au sens traditionnel » : non seulement la perspective européenne est absolutisée, mais l’identité profonde de l’Europe, son fondement ultime, sont assimilés à un idéal dont tout d’abord on souligne le lien avec la tradition, la valeur de continuité avec le passé, le caractère conservateur en un mot ; et dont on dévoile en même temps le présupposé élitiste, l’« Esprit » identifiant traditionnellement les élites intellectuelles auxquelles on attribue le rôle de guide de l’humanité. Cet exemple nous met sur les traces des implications subtiles que chaque évocation de la formule « esprit européen » au sein du discours peut entraîner ; un deuxième exemple nous confirme qu’entre variante et reformulation se creuse souvent une marge subtile, mais décisive, qu’il importe de savoir reconnaître pour repérer les lieux où la sémantisation de la formule se produit. Francesco Coppola, historien et représentant du gouvernement italien à ce colloque, en revenant sur une position qui avait déjà été exprimée au cours du débat, plaide dans son intervention en faveur d’un effort d’abord éducatif, qui contribue à répandre parmi les enfants l’idée d’Europe, et il précise : (9)

« tâchons, plutôt que de vouloir inculquer aux enfants l’esprit européen – chose trop difficile pour eux –, de leur présenter des idées essentielles élémentaires qui constituent la civilisation européenne » (p. 185).

Paola Cattani

267

Ici, la notion de « civilisation européenne », qui ailleurs dans le texte est employée en tant que simple variante de « esprit européen », assume une signification bien différente : elle s’oppose en effet, et non pas renvoie, à l’« esprit européen » mentionné dans la première partie de la proposition. La « civilisation européenne » à laquelle Coppola songe est un idéal presque alternatif, comme nous le verrons par la suite, à celui de l’« esprit européen » qui est défendu par ses interlocuteurs, et auquel, nonobstant les tons apparemment neutres de son discours, Coppola en réalité s’oppose. Cela signale qu’un lien étroit existe, et mérite d’être examiné de près, entre les usages qui sont faits de la formule linguistique dans le discours, et ses significations, ce que nous allons essayer d’analyser.

4. Significations de la formule Quel serait donc le sens de cette formule « esprit européen » ? De nombreuses définitions successives sont proposées au cours du débat : comment s’orienter dans cet ensemble complexe et hétérogène ? Les définitions proposées sont généralement des « définitions spontanées », c’est-à-dire qui sont produites par les locuteurs au cours de leur activité langagière, et qui ne partagent pas la supposée analyticité de la définition aristotélicienne, fondée sur le binôme « incluant + traits différentiels ». Ces définitions de la formule proposées par les intervenants sont en particulier des reformulations paraphrastiques que l’on peut décrire suivant Fuchs et son approche énonciative du problème paraphrastique (Fuchs 1982) :6 il s’agit non pas de relations statiques entre énoncés, mais de relations mises en place par des interlocuteurs au cours d’un procès dynamique, et pourvues d’une valeur métalinguistique. Prandi aussi met en évidence que la présence de stratégies de reformulation signale que les interlocuteurs ont conscience de l’existence d’un obstacle à la communication, et qu’ils essaient de le surmonter en vue d’une compréhension mutuelle (Prandi 2004) ; en ce sens, ces reformulations confirment le caractère problématique de notre formule. Ces reformulations ont par ailleurs aussi la caractéristique d’insister sur certains sèmes particulièrement significatifs : elles représentent ce que Anna Giaufret, dans son étude sur la définition dans les interviews politiques, appelle des « périphrases

6

Sur la reformulation, voir aussi Le Bot et al. (2008) et Norén (1999), qui souligne que la reformulation n’étant pas signalée de manière exclusive par des marqueurs, elle est essentiellement une question de relation sémantique entre énoncés, à examiner aussi à partir d’une approche d’analyse conversationnelle.

268

La formule « Esprit Européen »

reformulatives », des périphrases qui se distinguent « par l’originalité des traits sémantiques retenus » (Giaufret 2010). Du point de vue formel, une première typologie de ces reformulations est introduite par , : (10) « l’Esprit Européen moderne est essentiellement un esprit de compréhension » (Keyserling, p. 28) ; (11) « […] l’avenir de l’Europe en esprit. C’est la grande urgence historique, c’est notre besoin profond » (Focillon, p. 146). (12) « […] s’il existe un esprit européen, c’est-à-dire quelque chose de commun qui puisse former un lien sérieux entre les différentes nations qui composent l’Europe » (Cantacuzène, p. 118).

Comme le signale A. Rabatel, « c’est » est un marqueur existentiel multipolaire à la valeur particulièrement concrète, en relation avec l’ancrage déictique : le présentatif introduit un élément nouveau qui est présentifié, rendu concret, et il participe ainsi « de la construction des effets de réel concernant les objets, ce qu’on pourrait appeler une mimesis de l’objet » (Rabatel 2000 : 57). Non seulement il entraîne un effet de réel qui garantit la réalité du référent, mais avec l’existence et la présence de l’objet, il présuppose et pose aussi l’existence et la présence du sujet et de son point de vue (Rabatel 2000 : 65). Toutefois sur l’ensemble de nos 200 occurrences, seulement 5 sont de telles définitions introduites par des présentatifs. Si la plupart des intervenants n’ont pas recours à de telles définitions claires et univoques, c’est qu’ils préfèrent ne pas se risquer à réduire la signification vaste et ambiguë de la formule par des définitions précises et rigides. Les locuteurs se trouvent de fait souvent à détailler le contenu de la formule lorsqu’ils reviennent, dans leurs discours, sur elle après l’avoir mentionnée une première fois, et qu’ils l’évoquent à nouveau par le biais d’une formulation qui ne peut pas être reconduite à une simple variante (laquelle, comme on l’a vu, n’introduit pour sa part aucune sémantisation véritable). Plus fréquentes que les définitions selon la modalité , ces reformulations sont caractérisées par l’absence d’un rapport direct entre les contenus des expressions employées. Comme Prandi l’observe à propos de phrases telles que « Il est deux heures » et « Je dois prendre le train », le lien entre deux expressions ne procède parfois que de la situation communicative, de l’intention de celui qui parle (Prandi 2004 : 46). Paul Valéry lie par exemple l’esprit européen à d’expressions telles que « des valeurs définis, des résultats obtenus une fois pour toutes ; une

Paola Cattani

269

certaine manière de penser, une certaine liberté générale des idées, une certaine volonté de sincérité intellectuelle, de rigueur intellectuelle » (p. 10). Julio Dantas a également recours à plusieurs reformulations de ce type qui introduisent autant de définitions de l’« esprit européen » : « unité spirituelle du monde européen » (p. 40) ; « unité morale de l'Europe » (p. 41) ; « une réalité dont les Européens n’ont pas, pour l'instant, la notion exacte » (p. 42) ; « une idée qui n'a pas encore pris corps dans notre conscience collective » (p. 42). D’autres reformulent la notion dans les termes suivants : « tout sentiment, chaque idée qui a tendu à réunir les forces morales des peuples d'Occident dans une concorde réelle » (Huizinga, p. 56) ; « l'idée d'un devoir commun à l'Europe entière » (Parodi, p. 102). Afin d’essayer d’explorer ce que Marie-Anne Paveau appelle le « traitement cognitif » du « prédiscours », à savoir des « données antérieures à la mise en langage […] sur lesquelles s’appuient les mécanismes de production langagière » (Paveau 2006 : 14), nous avons réparti ces définitions en fonction du type de relation qui est mise en place entre la formule elle-même et d’autres notions, idées et concepts qui fournissent un contenu au contenant ambigu de la formule. Pour cela nous nous sommes appuyée notamment sur les travaux de Vignaux. Vignaux identifie quatre relations qui sont en mesure de mettre une expression en rapport à d’autres termes et notions (Vignaux 2005 : 103108), et qui résultent donc responsables en dernière analyse de nos reformulations diverses. Premièrement, la relation de composition (