transcript

Language log

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MARK LIEBERMAN: After listening to the speech, my first impression is that it was very much the speech of someone who was once a community organizer.

LISA MULLINS: Mark Lieberman is a Professor of Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania and one of the creators of the website “Language Log.”

LIEBERMAN: We have phrases like “Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.” From the point of view of connections to foreign policy and the rest of the world, one of the most interesting paragraphs from a linguistic point of view was the one that began, “To the Muslim World, we seek a new way forward based on mutual interest and mutual respect.”

MULLINS: In fact, let's hear from Barack Obama now.

BARACK OBAMA: To the Muslim World, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sew conflict or blame their society's ills on the West, know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those – to those who cling to power through corruption and deceit, and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

MULLINS: A powerful sentiment there, seemingly directed not only at the Muslim world but also possibly at the previous George W. Bush administration. What did you hear in that?

LIEBERMAN: What I thought was linguistically most interesting was the question of which leaders and which peoples are being addressed in those three sentences of that paragraph? The first is very plain. It's the Muslim World and he seeks a new way forward based on mutual interests and respect. Then there are two more sentences. “Leaders around the globe who seek to sew conflict or blame their society's ills on the West.” That could be Chavez in Venezuela, it could be the leadership in North Korea, but I think most Americans will take it as a continuation of the preceding sentence as referring to Islamist anti-Americanism whether from governmental leaders or other popular leaders. And then the third sentence, similarly, “those who cling to power through corruption, deceit, and the silencing of dissent, know that you're on the wrong side of history”. Again, this could apply to regimes all around the world that don't permit freedom of expression or that foster corruption, but I think that most Americans will probably relate that to the Muslim World.

MULLINS: I want to find out your impression of another sentiment from President Obama today, from his speech. Let's hear this now.

OBAMA: As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our founding fathers – our founding fathers, faced with perils that we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man. A charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedients sake.

MULLINS: “We will not give them up for expedients sake.” And also the use of the term “generations”, which he used many, many times during this speech. The two together – how do you read that?

LIEBERMAN: That segment of the speech is as clear and unambiguous a repudiation of policies of torture and extraordinary rendition as practiced by the previous administration as would have been possible consistent with the politeness of discourse required in a speech of that kind. As for the appeal to generations past, throughout the speech the theme is absolutely of a return to past values and looking forward to the future.

MULLINS: Do you hear any particular wording that you think will kind of live through the ages and become emblematic of Barack Obama?

LIEBERMAN: I think it's awfully soon to try to judge. There are, here and there in the speech, some phrases that might wind up chiseled into marble someday depending on what happens in the world in consequence. If, for example, his appeal to us to “pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America” really turns into a transformative change, then those will be words, I think, that people will remember for a long time. If that's not what happens, then I think they may not be remembered other than ironically.

MULLINS: All right. Mark Lieberman, Professor of Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania. He's also one of the co-founders of Language Log, and we will make a link on our website, theworld.org. Thank you, Professor.

LIEBERMAN: Thank you very much.

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