(From William Lutz, Life under the Chief Doublespeak Officer http://www.Dt.Org/html/ Doublespeak.Html)
4. Work with your partner, discuss the following questions, then share your ideas with the class.
What forms does doublespeak take?
What is the reason for using doublespeak in job titles? Give examples of some of these titles.
Comment on the following: Doublespeak can pay for the company, but usually not for the workers who lose their jobs. Do you agree with this statement? Why? Why not?
PROJECT: Designing a quiz
In this project you are going to design your own quiz on doublespeak and euphemistic words and expressions. You may use the quiz Euphemistically Speaking as an example.
First find a partner to work with on this project.
Consult any Political Dictionary and find more examples of doublespeak and political correctness.
Choose 10-15 words and expressions you would like to include in your quiz.
Discuss the questions for these words and multiple choice variants.
Design your own quiz.
Use your quiz to interview your groupmate.
Share the results with the class.
LISTENING 1. Political terms
1. Before you listen think of some political speech you know (e.G. M.L. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech) and try to answer the following questions.
Is there anything special about the way politicians use language?
What are the peculiarities of the language in the speeches of politicians?
Discuss with your partner and make a list of peculiarities. Compare it with those of your groupmates.
2. You are going to listen to an interview with William Safire, the New York Times language columnist, former White House speechwriter and editor of Safire’s Political Dictionary (first published in 1968) who is sharing his observations concerning political terms and political language.
Before listening look at some expressions below William Safire comments on. Do you know what they mean? Can you guess? Discuss with your partner and then share your ideas with the class.
defeatist
the nattering nabobs of negativism
red meat rhetoric
New Deal
New Covenant
superdelegate
party elders
party bosses
fire in the belly
to leave in a hail of dead cats
dead cat bounce
sucker rally
3. Now listen and check.
4. Answer the questions below.
Why do politicians have to use figures of speech? What are functions of a political speech?
What was a problem B.Obama had? What did he do to solve it?
In your opinion, does William Safire support the peculiar use of figures of speech by politicians? Why? Why not?
5. Fill in the gaps with words from Exercise 2. Some words are used more than once.
The present nominations process includes public officials. The Democrats formally integrated public officials when they created "_______" (ex-officio) positions.
JAMES WALKER: Is there something special that you look for in the youngsters you give scholarships to?
Mr. ROGER ALTMAN (Deputy Treasury Secretary): We look for things like _______, and a personal self-confidence in what a young person might be doing.
As the delegates filed out of the convention hall during the past few minutes, some of them are leaving even now, they still seemed genuinely high on the upbeat, sometimes _______ that was served to them here this evening.
… the vice president who referred to reporters as "_______" has withdrawn to the life of private citizen. But Republicans who share his views are attending the Republican National Convention.
Some of the best editorial cartoonists are angry young men who grew up and became angry old men. That kind of _________ is a professional advantage.
Now we probably will see the market go up next week, but on Wall Street, they often refer to that as a ________ .
If the theme was Clinton's favored "_________" updated from his 1992 campaign, the list of ingredients was almost endless, with everything from the Mexican peso to teenage pregnancy to arms control tossed in.
Bobby has the most important quality to be successful as a political candidate: He has that _________.
Democrats and aides to Mr. Kerry argue that they are not being _______, just pointing out problems in Iraq and asserting that Mr. Kerry will find a solution.
(From VOA Wordmaster http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/)