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March 6, 2014鈥擸ou may not think that you spend your days steeped in political discourse. But visiting professor Ruth Wodak assures that it is everywhere鈥攆rom newspapers and advertisements to your House of Cards addiction.

Wodak is spending this semester at Georgetown as the 2014 Royden B. Davis, S.J., Chair in Interdisciplinary Studies. She is also a in the United Kingdom. She doesn鈥檛 simply study language. Instead, she describes it as 鈥渓anguage in context.鈥� She has studied hospitals, schools, and parliaments, analyzing the discourse and 鈥減ower relations between individuals,鈥� she explained.

According to Wodak, those power relations become particularly interesting in political spheres where the consequences of policy affect groups or minorities. 鈥淚 became very interested in forms of exclusion, discrimination, anti-Semitism, and xenophobia,鈥� Wodak said. In the past, she has studied parliamentary debates in six European countries to understand how the exclusion of minorities and discrimination were debated.

How we characterize others often comes in the form of a label. 鈥淸People] use a label to link [an individual] to characteristics that you believe they have,鈥� she explained. In recent years, 鈥渋llegals鈥� has become a widely used鈥攁nd often criticized鈥攍abel for migrants and aliens in the United States. The creation of these labels is not uncommon, Wodak says. The term 鈥渂ogus鈥� is used in a similar way in the United Kingdom.

鈥淏ogus has connotations of [being] illegal, unjustified, and illegitimate,鈥� she explained. After reviewing ten years of British newspapers, Wodak found that bogus was used to describe migrants, refugees, and political asylum seekers, but 鈥渂ogus was always used with others, never 鈥榯he real British.鈥欌�� The underlying sentiment of the term implied, 鈥測ou鈥檙e wrong or fake and you shouldn鈥檛 be here.鈥� Of course, Wodak says, there are British people who could be fake or have illegitimate claims, but instead, the term becomes a tool to separate 鈥渢he real British鈥� from 鈥渙thers.鈥�

The way we talk about 鈥渙thers鈥� and minorities crosses multiple forums from the media to the government, and back again. 鈥淎 label is disseminated and tickles up or trickles down,鈥� she explained. 鈥淚t鈥檚 decontextualized and recontextualized in a different way.鈥� It ends up like the children鈥檚 game of telephone, she says.

A few labels may not seem important, but language can provide valuable insight into individual perspectives on sociological and political issues. 鈥淓verything we say is full of values. Words are also always actions,鈥� she continued.

This semester Wodak is teaching Discourse, Politics, and Identity in the . Her students are finding that political speech is not confined to debates and stump speeches, but works its way into advertisements, newspapers, posters, and slogans. 鈥淸Not] all of us are aware of how these ads, even when they advertise products, are [advertising] politics of a certain kind,鈥� she explained.

Wodak was surprised when a Super Bowl ad provided the perfect example of political speech in unlikely places. 鈥淎ll of my students told me about it,鈥� she said. The ad featured the song 鈥淎merica the Beautiful鈥� sung in nine different languages, which prompted harsh criticism and fervent support. 鈥淚t shows you how something becomes politicized. Suddenly just having this ad in different languages becomes an issue,鈥� she said.

Exactly what is at issue, however, is not so clear. Wodak and her students use an interdisciplinary approach to untangle complex issues of cultural identity, nationalism, discrimination, and xenophobia.

Wodak hopes that people might start to recognize the array of sources that inform our understanding of politics鈥攆rom The West Wing and House of Cards to newspapers and advertisements鈥攁nd the impact those sources have on important policy decisions. 鈥淚t鈥檚 incredible how much politics is a part of our everyday life, and then people still say, 鈥業鈥檓 not interested in politics.鈥�

鈥淧eople don鈥檛 realize that all of this is part of politics.鈥�
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Related Information

• March 27, 2014, 4鈥�5:30 p.m.: Ruth Wodak will present the 2014 Davis Chair lecture, 鈥淔ortress Europe?鈥擴nity or Diversity: The Discursive Construction of 鈥楾he Stranger,鈥欌�� in Reiss 112. Wodak is currently researching the rhetoric of right-wing European political parties and the American Tea Party.