Translating 'Political-Speak' Takes Practice

By Damon Circosta
Published: Jan. 3, 2012

RALEIGH - My New Year’s resolution is to learn a new language.

I am trying to narrow down which one will be most useful in the years to come. Changing demographics in our state suggest it might be wise to learn Spanish. Equally alluring is the thought of taking up Mandarin, as China becomes an increasingly important trading partner to our region.

But while both of these dialects have some utility, I think the best new language I can learn is whatever our political class has adopted in recent years. I like to call it “political-speak.”

Political-speak is practiced by TV media personalities, politicians, consultants, pundits and the like. While it may sound similar to English it really is nothing of the sort.

Most languages are an attempt to communicate ideas with as much clarity as possible. Not so with political-speak.

The idea behind political-speak is to convince people you have convictions on a particular issue without actually having to stake a position that might haunt you come the next election. The most accomplished practitioners are able to make what seem to be bold, declarative statements but really are opaque assertions that leave plenty of wiggle room in case the mood of their constituency changes.

To some degree political discussions have always suffered from this slippery form of communication. Even in the early days of the republic, officials were more inclined to make a flowery speech than to take bold action.

One of the reasons our forefathers were so intent on a robust independent media was to counter-balance the inclination of politicians to speak a lot without saying much. By guaranteeing a free press, the framers envisioned a “fourth estate” that would ask questions, pin elected officials down and otherwise attempt to get to the bottom of things.

But now, it seems that a lot of people in the media – especially those on cable news programs – have gone native. They have adopted the mannerisms of the people they once were supposed to report on. It’s telling that each major political party has a favored cable news outlet. If you can go to a venue where the reporter, the audience, the questions and the responses are all humming along to the exact same tune, it’s all the easier to use political-speak.

Wish as I may that our government officials spoke a language that was a bit more down to earth, they seem intent on perpetuating this new tongue. But there is hope. If enough of us learn their language they can’t use it to fool us.

Sadly, there isn’t a Rosetta-stone program or a course at the local college. The only way to learn the language is to immerse ourselves in the conversation. This means that even though we all have busy lives we are going to have to carve out a little more room to pay attention to civic affairs.

Sure, we are going to need to glance at the folks on cable news, but that is really just the beginning. After we hear a taste of political-speak we are going to have to check into the story a bit more. We’ll need to read about what is going on, preferably from a variety of sources.

It may not be as fun as learning French, Japanese or Spanish, but if we decipher what politicians are really saying, we won’t get lost in translation.