Introduction
Verbal language is a very important factor of our daily lives. It is by far the most used means of communication between people. It is used to transmit direct and indirect messages form one source to, at least, one recipient. This essay focuses on why the metaphor is used in political language and how is it used. Is this something that is related to the very nature of language so politicians cannot avoid it? I will provide some examples of metaphoric use of language in politics and the consequences of this form of language in politics.
The nature of language: descriptive and imaginative
“Of all forms of culture, it seems that language is that one which develops its fundamental patterns with relatively the most complete detachment from other types of cultural patterning.” (Sapir, 1929:211).
Of what nature are the meanings of the language messages that are transmitted every day of our lives? The focus will be especially on the “hidden” meaning of the message. Hidden meaning that make possible for one word, or phrase, to have different meanings and uses. That is the projection of our inner personal world to the outside social world. As Marcel Danesi says, “we come to understand the world through our imaginative use of language, especially as it manifests itself in the use of metaphor.” (2008:14). The various contexts of the language use can be political, religious, cultural, economic, social, etc. but first, let start by answering the first question: what is language itself? Language itself is that set of symbolic expressions known only to the homo sapiens. Most authors believe that culture is the most important factor that makes humans what they are and distinguishes them from the animal world. And inside culture, language, some pretend, is the most important factor influencing men’s life (Sapir, 1949:3). It is it that was the written usage of language that set the civilization to evolve at its heights. But a very impressive and arguably one of the most important features of language is its multi-meanings that one word, even phrase, can have according to the circumstances somebody use it. Its interpretation, also, is related to the situation this word, or phrase, is used.
The nature of language can be approached by different perspectives and motivated by different worries. Many modern and post-modern authors (like Ferdinand de Sossyr, Michael Fauchault, Noam Chomsky, etc.) do believe that language is the basis for the construction of power relations in our society. Chomsky argues that there are determinate semantic relations and analytic sentences if one thinks about certain sentences that have a relational structure and involve intentional and power-building activities. As an example we take the sentence: If John persuaded Bill to go to college, then Bill went to college (1988:4). The persuasive usage of language is based on the imaginative use of language. Noam Chomsky goes further in calling this form of language not imaginative but a “manipulative” usage of language (1988:5).
Franz Boas, an American anthropologist, points out the unconscious character of linguistic phenomena and its relation to the more conscious real, ethnological phenomena (1940:67).
From the above statement we can understand that Boas believed that language is related to the unconscious part of human beings. Being so, language can help us understand better the world we live in. But it can also affect the ethnological phenomena surrounding us. This “ethnological phenomena” are the social and material phenomena that happen in the world. The question everybody would ask here is how does language affect the world surrounding us?
This relationship is expressed beautifully through the notion of the metaphor. This is the classic example of what happens when language is used to express something that has no direct connection with the outside reality of the world but makes an impact on the social reality of that world. In the case of direct relationship of the user of language with the outside reality we would have a description of that reality. So the next question to ask is what is a metaphor? As J. R. Searle puts it, the metaphor is a pervasive feature of language. We use metaphor to talk about the world in both familiar and innovative ways, and in contexts ranging from everyday conversation to literature and scientific theorizing (1979:6). In speaking metaphorically we exploit the conventional meaning of the words uttered in order to undertake a speech act with a distinct propositional content. Whether an utterance is metaphorical at all, and if so, what its metaphorical content is, depend more on the speaker’s intentions than on the conventional meaning of the words uttered. An account of metaphor must therefore uncover the psychological principles on which metaphor operates: what patterns of thought enable hearers to recover the speaker’s intended content? It is the means by which speakers intend that their hearers recover their metaphorical, propositional content. It sounds like a game and in fact, it is much like playing a game, the game of our social life. It is what is used by every one of us in our daily lives. It is the mode by which we try to “impose” our system of beliefs, values, and norms, to the others. Of course, they try to do the same with us too. And in this the metaphor is the “weapon” that we use. Since ancient times it has been used to persuade people about system of ideas. Ancient philosophers understood the power of language and tried to use it in their benefit. As Plato states in his book Phaedo: “I decided to take refuge in language, and study the truth of things by means of it” (www.classics.mit.edu).
We take as an example the sentence: The sky is blue, or: This is a cat. In this case language is used to describe what we perceive from the outside reality. We see a cat, we describe it using words. That is the descriptive usage of the language. But the imaginative (metaphorical) use of language is of more interest for us. In this case, we do not have a description of what we perceive from the outside, but we use the words to prescribe and express our inside. Our thoughts, beliefs, values, intentions are all part of the cognitive and non-cognitive processes of our mind. Thus, the example we said before can be transformed: I am feeling blue, or: It is raining cats and dogs. The words blue and cat are used the same as the first example, but their meaning has drastically changed. Logically there is no rational connection between the outside physical meaning of the words used and the meaning of the message that we want to communicate. In this case, the language is used as an expression of our inside imaginative world. You do not see cats and dogs falling from the sky, but you express your feelings about a certain situation. This message that we transmit affects the world surrounding us because it sends a message to the other of our inner feelings. The sentence: I am feeling blue, it’s a classic example of the message transmitted to the other of your inner feelings.
Metaphoric use of language in politics
After talking about the nature of language let us see how the metaphor is used in political language. Many words can be used metaphorically depending on the situation they are used but politics is an arena where this happens quite often. In particular, political rhetoric is full of metaphoric use of language. Let me take some examples. I will start with a very famous word used during this decade: war. This word has very different metaphoric uses even within the political language. The Economist (2003: p.47), in an article states that president Bush “personally took the decision to kick-start the war…”. In the same article it speaks about a “countdown to war” just like it was a football game. Here we have war used as e vehicle. Another article of the same magazine (2003: p.67) states that “the no-war scenario is not necessarily the best for the economy”. This is the “war as a film” language. Yet another metaphorical use is that of the article (same magazine) published in 2003. In this article we find that “their findings could unleash a war” (p.39). This type of language is that of the war as unleashing a wild animal. These examples show how the same word can be used in different metaphorical meanings in political, but not only, language. This is how the word war was used in political analysis before the start of the war in Iraq (which per se is another example of how the word war can be used).
Let us take another example of political metaphor. Many have heard of the comments made from the present president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, through the media regarding the State of Israel. Literally he spoke of “wiping off the state of Israel from the map of the world” (www.ahmadinejad.ir). The first way one can understand this comment is that Mr. Ahmadinejad will take a physical map of the world and will try to delete the lines that show the state of Israel in that map. I do not think that anybody thought that this was the case when he said those words. Instead they were interpreted as he is willing to make war with Israel. They were interpreted as the Iranian head of state was issuing a “declaration of war” to another sovereign state. But this doesn’t result from the first meaning of the words used. This results from the metaphorical meaning of those words. He used those words metaphorically to express an opinion and some personal belief of what should be done. What is more important is that the imaginative use of the words employed scattered a series of events in the real political and social world. Tensions were created between countries and large groups of people were affected by these words. But how can a group of people, a community, understand the metaphor used in another language the same way the native group does? People try to interpret the metaphors according their cultural and traditional background. They try to find common backgrounds with other people so they can understand better the meaning. Anyway, the very notion of difference does not allow us to think that everyone understands everything the same way and manner. Not because some people are pro wars or they do not like other groups of people, but because they translate the meaning of the metaphor in a different way, according to their culture, a system of beliefs, values and norms. It is our inner world that determines how we understand the language used metaphorically by others. Even if the metaphor used by the Iranian head of state is not “violent” according to Persian language and background but in Western based background and language its meaning is that of verbal violence. Professor Chomsky has elaborated further in detail this idea in his previous mentioned work.
The other example I want to mention is the “crusade on terror” metaphor expressed by President George W. Bush. This metaphor was used during President Bush speech before the Congress in his State of the Union address to the nation (www.whitehouse.gov). The interpretation of this speech is, more or less, like the previous made by the Iranian President. The word “crusade” is understood radically differently from different communities around the globe. In Western based societies it has a positive meaning. It shows that somebody is willing to work hard in resolving, or even fighting, some bad thing. You can “crusade against cancer or Aids”, for example. But in Arab-Islamic based societies it has a completely different meaning. For them this word represents aggression and injustice. And this is due to the historical tradition that the word has in these societies. It is related to the crusader aggression of the 10-11 centuries. This is why the metaphor used by President Bush was understood in two very different ways in the West and in the Islamic world, even though the word that was used is the same. This is another example of the power of language and especially of its imaginative use. Imaginative use that can shape the form of relationship we build with others. Here I am talking specifically of “others” that do not share our cultural, normative, and traditional background. Thus we should take into account the background of others before we use certain political language. Let us not forget that politicians represent an entire nation and speak on behalf of that nation.
Conclusions
The anthropology and ethnology scholars that I have cited in the introductory part of this essay pretend that language is a culture pattern that is present in every human society that lives on the planet. Boas has dedicated part of the book, from which the citation is taken, to this idea. Language is what humanity uses mostly to communicate with each other. Language is one of the key factors of human understanding or misunderstanding. But is the imaginative use of language what we, humans, use to express our inner feelings, beliefs and thoughts. It is this imaginative use of language that has a tremendous impact on the way we conduct our daily relations with other human beings. Persuasion is something based entirely on this kind of usage of language. We try to influence other by using word that we interpret according to our inner processes. Politics would not be possible if we wouldn’t have this type of language. The metaphor is what gives beauty to a poetry but is also what makes one express what he or she is feeling. The same metaphor can express ones political and social viewpoint of the world. The same word can be interpreted differently by different people from one language to another or even inside the same language. This way it can provoke different reactions to it, from total agreement to violent disagreement. I have provided a couple of examples on how the same metaphor can be understood in radical different ways. The cases of the metaphoric language used by President Bush and Iranian head of state are good examples of this. The imaginative use of language is an integral part of the relationship between me and the other. The consequences of the imaginative use of language can affect more than one person. Finally, I hope that this short essay has contributed modestly to the exploration of this issue.
Bibliography
Academic sources: Boas, Franz. 1940. Race, Language and Culture. New York: MacMillan Co.
Danesi, Marcel. 2008. Language, Society, and Culture: Introducing Anthropological Linguistics. Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press.
Sapir, Edward 1949. Culture, Language and Personality. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Chomsky, Noam. 1988. Language and the problem of knowledge. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Searle, J. R. 1979. Metaphor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Phaedo by Plato. Electronic document: 2008. Web.
Non-academic sources: President Delivers State of the Union Address. Electronic document: 2008. Web.
Some notes. Electronic document: 2008. Web.
The Economist. Publication. 2003.