In recent decades, political debates have often come down to struggles for control of the language: leftist agenda and right-wing conspiracy, fair and balanced and media bias, choice and life, diversity and preferences, class warfare and corporate welfare, support the troops and quagmire. How does language shape and reinforce our political perceptions? Are linguistic divisions more marked in American political life than they used to be? Does one side have a dominant linguistic position? Two linguists well known for their writing about the language of public life assess the state of political language and ask where it is headed.

DEBORAH TANNEN
Deborah Tannen teaches linguistics at Georgetown University, where she holds the rank of University Professor. She has published nineteen books including You Just Don’t Understand, I Only Say This Because I Love You, and The Argument Culture, winner of the Common Ground award. Her articles about language have appeared in The New York Times, the Washington Post, and Newsweek, among other publications, and she is a frequent guest on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, 20/20, CBS News, and other broadcasts.

GEOFFREY NUNBERG
Geoffrey Nunberg is a senior researcher at the Center for the Study of Language and Information and a Consulting Full Professor of Linguistics at Stanford. He is usage editor and chair of the usage panel of the American Heritage Dictionary and does a regular language feature on the NPR program Fresh Air, for which he was awarded the Linguistic Society of America’s Language and the Public Interest Award in 2001. He is the author of The Way We Talk Now and a new book, Going Nucular: Reflections on Language, Culture, and Politics.

ALAN ACOSTA (moderator) is Associate Vice President and Director of University Communications at Stanford.