Language and Politics

Undergraduate / Graduate

Why did Hillary Clinton sound "southern" in her Alabama campaign stop? How did Barack Obama's codeswitching into African American Language affect his political image? How do the dogwhistles politicians circulate get their meanings? These are just a few examples of the kinds of questions we will discuss. In this course, we will analyze the speech of politicians as well as broader political discourses, according to sociolinguistic theory. We will explore concepts such as dogwhistles, framing theory, speech genres, audience design, and personae, while also considering the intersections of language and nationalism, and language and gender and race. Discussions will build on real-life content particularly from US and Eastern European politics, but also from other parts of the world, depending on your interests and backgrounds. Some of the texts we will read include Alim & Smitherman's Articulate While Black, and Macintosh & Mendoza-Denton's Language in the Trump Era.