Pixelated Semantics

A schizotypical inventory

Conversationalising hooray words for dog-whistle politics

There's growing recognition of the influence of military vocabulary in political life, with one story from the ABC quoting a researcher that it has "proved quite useful" in the current UK election campaign. The story is quite a valuable offering in several directions, for instance it also highlights and perhaps defines the nature of "hooray words" as "positive, uplifting term[s] deployed in such vague ways that no one could possibly disagree with [them]." Terms reflecting electoral strategies, such as "dog whistle" policies, "back-door victory", and "playing dead", also define a range of political features very recogniseable from recent conservative campaigning in Australia.

Which is no surprise, as the UK Conservative Party has employed Australian strategist Lynton Crosby, who reportedly has "imported techniques honed in his former role advising Prime Minister John Howard". "Dog-whistle politics", for instance, are defined as:

"hardline proposals designed to catch the attention of staunch party supporters while attracting little notice of other voters, much like a high-pitched dog whistle cannot be heard by humans".

Definitely a common feature of Australian campaigns (such as, inter alia, the plethora of legislation headed for the Senate in July that Howard and others claim a "mandate" for, which in reality by-passed most Australians during the campaign.) Military jargon observed in action includes "decapitation", "tax bombshells", and "ground war tactics". An academic describes as "linguistic innovation" this "adaptation of language in innovative ways to create new terms". This is an unusually informative read for a news item these days, even from the ABC.

Item posted by AutoEditor at 2:10 pm ::