Linguistic Theory and Election '08 (part I)

Elaborated Code and Condensed Code in Campaign Rhetoric

Part I - Condensed Code and the Polar Classes

In an article titled "The History of Habit" , Robert Bellah (1), a social theorist who, I think, still works at UC Berkeley, describes two methods of linguistic indoctrination, or, perhaps a more nicer way of saying it, acculturation.  

A word about this post before we dive in.  For the purposes of my argument, I want to ask my reader to suspend his or her value judgements.  This is not an argument about which code is better, more moral, etc.  This is not about whether one connivingly plays to a certain audience or not.  That is for you to decide and it is up for you to draw your own conclusions from this post.  I'm wielding this post as a kind of garden hoe.  I want to cull back some of the ideas we have had about this campaign's rhetoric and dig fruitful tracks for further discussions. What you decide to plant is up to you.         

The two models Bellah uses are in this post's subtitle: elaborated code and condensed code. Now, as he points out, these two codes are hardly mutually exclusive, but the prevalence of one in a single discourse says a lot about the speaker and the speaker's idea of an audience. 

He suggests that condensed speech code is one that originates from the positionality of members in a family.  For example, if you remember when your mother told you to do something because "she said so," she was employing condensed code, specifically in a hierarchical way.  Other examples are: "Because you're a boy," "Because you're a child," etc.  

In his description of the elaborated code, Bellah states that reasons are given, like "daddy will be pleased if you do that" or "you will get hurt if you do that" etc.  The reasons though are not positional reasons like the condensed code, they are reasons that rely on the existence of "abstract principles" and "systems of feeling."  

Both the elaborated code and the condensed code are more than fundamental forms of rhetoric.  They are the assumptions on which rhetoric is founded upon.  If I argue, for example, that I am the best possible choice for president of the United States because  "I pledge to you that if [I] am elected, you will have a friend and advocate in the White House." The sort of argument is predicated on the condensed code.  My position as your friend qualifies me 

for service in the White House.   

Bellah seems to find the condensed code used more often among two different groups of people: those with fewer words in their vocabulary (the less educated), and those who value positionality (the aristocratic) - the polar classes.  

It is essential to realize that the elaborated code is a product of the division of labour. The more highly differentiated the social system, the more specialized the decision-making roles - then the more pressure for explicit channels of communication concerning a wide range of policies and their consequences.  The demands of the industrial system are pressing hard now upon education to produce more and more verbally articulate people who will be promoted to entrepreneurial roles.  By inference the condensed code will be found where these pressures are weakest [that is to say, among people whose jobs are both routine and require little verbal facility].

So, any rhetorical appeal to those audiences should exhibit some form of condensed code.  

When AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka gave his impassioned speech in support of Barack Obama at the USW (steelworkers) convention in Nevada in July, he invoked many arguments in support of Obama while operating in condensed rhetoric. 

But, at the end of the day, what people are going to need to hear is that when it comes to protecting jobs,

when it comes to protecting pensions,

when it comes to health care, child care, pay equity for women, Social Security, Medicare, seeing to it that people can afford to go to college and buy a home -- and restoring the right to collective bargaining -- Barack Obama has always, always been on our side.

This is one of a few examples in that speech.  The fact that Obama's is with us, he positions himself with us, qualifies him for service in the White House.  

Next Post:

Part II - Elaborated Code and the Middle Class

1 Thank you to my girlfriend's mother, Dr. Ellen LeVee, for pointing me in the direction of this essay.