Thursday, September 09, 2004

Framing the Convention

George Lakoff, one of my least favorite linguists (his work gives embodied cognition a bad name), but one of my favorite political commentators1, isn't a blogger. Thank God! For this reason, it's possible that his commentary on the Republican National Convention (this links to the first date; links to the other 3 are under his photograph) is worth reading. Naturally, his perspective is couched in terms of frames, so if you don't like the "framing" view of discourse, and political discourse in particular, you can probably skip Lakoff's commentary.

The framing during this convention, particularly by Miller and Cheney, was fascinating, at least for liberals. I hope everyone who's not acquainted with Lakoff's political writings checks them out. Avoid his linguistics at all cost, though.

1 At least he's not Chomsky, whose linguistics, while revolutionary 30 years ago, are now almost as annoying as his political writings (however insightful they may be). Lakoff has 1 out of 2.

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