1887
Volume 47, Issue 2
  • ISSN 0378-4169
  • E-ISSN: 1569-9927

Abstract

Abstract

The imperative represents a prominent part of a video message sent to the armed assaulters on Capitol Hill by the then-President of the United States on 6 January 2021 via Twitter. The paper aims to investigate to what extent this expression can be read as an ambiguous dog-whistle, and how an additional interpretation beyond the conventional meaning ‘return to your private homes’ can be justified. It is precisely the hidden nature of the potential additional message that illustrates a general issue of ambiguity research and pragmatics, i.e., the question of how plausible utterance meanings can be identified. To approach these questions, the paper focuses on the general communicative setting, prior communication between Trump and his supporters, and on linguistic features of the message (personal reference and semantic frames). Different types of interpretative openness are discussed to refine the analyses, and a broad approach to ambiguity is adopted that includes interpretations that are not (yet) conventionalised. The final part of the paper argues that the simultaneous orientation to multiple addressee groups represents a key feature of Trump’s message, which is reflected by a coexistence of different speaker instances. Comparing the example to classical examples of dog whistles, it will be classified as an accomplice whistle. The case study highlights the importance of multiple addressing in media-based communication, and the potential of linking ambiguity research and multiple addressing, considering different addressee groups with potentially strongly diverging backgrounds, interests, and modalities of interpretation.

Available under the CC BY 4.0 license.
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/li.00116.win
2025-01-24
2025-02-15
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/li.00116.win.html?itemId=/content/journals/10.1075/li.00116.win&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

References

  1. Barrett-Fox, R.
    (2018) A King Cyrus President: How Donald Trump’s Presidency Reasserts Conservative Christians’ Right to Hegemony. Humanity & Society, 421, 502–522. 10.1177/0160597618802644
    https://doi.org/10.1177/0160597618802644 [Google Scholar]
  2. Bazzanella, C.
    (2011) Indeterminacy in dialogue. Language and Dialogue, 1(1), 21–43. 10.1075/ld.1.1.04baz
    https://doi.org/10.1075/ld.1.1.04baz [Google Scholar]
  3. Bell, A.
    (1984) Language Style as Audience Design. Language and Society, 13(2), 145–204. 10.1017/S004740450001037X
    https://doi.org/10.1017/S004740450001037X [Google Scholar]
  4. Bühler, K.
    (1934) Sprachtheorie: Die Darstellungsfunktion der Sprache. Jena: Gustav Fischer.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Charaudeau, P. & Maingueneau, D.
    (2002) Dictionnaire d’analyse du discours. Paris: Seuil.
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Croft, W. & Cruse, A. D.
    (2004) Cognitive Linguistics. Cambridge: CUP. 10.1017/CBO9780511803864
    https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511803864 [Google Scholar]
  7. Denison, D.
    (2017) Ambiguity and Vagueness in Historical Change. InM. Hundt, S. Mollin & S. E. Pfenninger (Eds.), The changing English language: Psycholinguistic perspectives, 292–318. Cambridge: CUP. 10.1017/9781316091746.013
    https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316091746.013 [Google Scholar]
  8. Detges, U.
    (2023) Does Reanalysis Need Ambiguity?InM. Bauer & A. Zirker (Eds.), Strategies of Ambiguity, 220–244. New York: Routledge. 10.4324/9781003298083‑12
    https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003298083-12 [Google Scholar]
  9. Ducrot, O.
    (1984) Le dire et le dit. Paris: Minuit.
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Dynel, M.
    (2010) Not hearing things — Hearer/listener categories in polylogues. mediAzioni, 91, mediazioni.sitlec.unibo.it.
    [Google Scholar]
  11. (2017) Participation as audience design. InC. R. Hoffmann & W. Bublitz (Eds.), Pragmatics of Social Media, 61–82. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 10.1515/9783110431070‑003
    https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110431070-003 [Google Scholar]
  12. Ehrich, V.
    (2023) Enduring Ambiguity. InM. Bauer & A. Zirker (Eds.), Strategies of Ambiguity, 15–34. New York: Routledge. 10.4324/9781003298083‑3
    https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003298083-3 [Google Scholar]
  13. Evans, N. & Wilkins, D.
    (2000) In the Mind’s Ear: Semantic Extensions of Perception Verbs in Australian Languages. Language, 761, 546–592. 10.2307/417135
    https://doi.org/10.2307/417135 [Google Scholar]
  14. Ferreira, F., Bailey, K. G. D. & Ferraro, V.
    (2002) Good-enough representations in language comprehension. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 111, 11–15. 10.1111/1467‑8721.00158
    https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8721.00158 [Google Scholar]
  15. Fuchs, C.
    (1996) Les ambiguïtés du français. Paris: Ophrys.
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Gardelle, L.
    (2010) Article défini, pronoms personnels de 3e personne et démonstratifs: approche comparée de l’accès à la référence. Anglophonia, 14(28), 33–47. 10.4000/anglophonia.615
    https://doi.org/10.4000/anglophonia.615 [Google Scholar]
  17. Gardelle, L. & Sorlin, S.
    (2015) Personal pronouns: An exposition. InL. Gardelle & S. Sorlin (Eds.), The Pragmatics of Personal Pronouns, 1–23. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 10.1075/slcs.171.01gar
    https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.171.01gar [Google Scholar]
  18. Gardelle, L., Vincent-Durroux, L. & Vinckel-Roisin, H.
    (2023) Speakers, addressees and the referential process. InL. Gardelle, L. Vincent-Durroux & H. Vinckel-Roisin (Eds.), Reference. From conventions to pragmatics, 1–24. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins. 10.1075/slcs.228.01gar
    https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.228.01gar [Google Scholar]
  19. Geeraerts, D.
    (1993) Vagueness’s puzzles, polysemy’s vagaries. Cognitive Linguistics, 4(3), 223–272. 10.1515/cogl.1993.4.3.223
    https://doi.org/10.1515/cogl.1993.4.3.223 [Google Scholar]
  20. (2021) Second-order empathy, pragmatic ambiguity, and irony. InA. Soares da Silva (Ed.), Figurative Language — Intersubjectivity and Usage, 19–40. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 10.1075/ftl.11.01gee
    https://doi.org/10.1075/ftl.11.01gee [Google Scholar]
  21. Goffman, E.
    (1967) Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behaviour. New York: Doubleday.
    [Google Scholar]
  22. (1977) Rahmen-Analyse: ein Versuch über die Organisation von Alltagserfahrungen. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp.
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Gundel, J. & Abbott, B.
    (2019) Introduction. InJ. Gundel & B. Abbott (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Reference (online edn., Oxford Academic, 14 Mar. 2019), accessed11 Nov. 2023. 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199687305.013.1
    https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199687305.013.1 [Google Scholar]
  24. Halliday, M. A. K. & Hasan, R.
    (1976) Cohesion in English. London: Longman.
    [Google Scholar]
  25. Haney López, I.
    (2014) Dog whistle politics: how coded racial appeals have reinvented racism and wrecked the middle class. Oxford: OUP.
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Haugh, M.
    (2013) Speaker meaning and accountability in interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 481, 41–56. 10.1016/j.pragma.2012.11.009
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2012.11.009 [Google Scholar]
  27. Henderson, R. & McCready, E.
    (2018) How Dogwhistles Work. InS. Arai (Eds.), New frontiers in artificial intelligence: JSAI-isAI Workshops, JURISIN, SKL, AI-Biz, LENLS, AAA, SCIDOCA, kNeXI, Tsukuba, Tokyo, November 13–15, 2017: revised selected papers, 231–240. Cham: Springer. 10.1007/978‑3‑319‑93794‑6_16
    https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93794-6_16 [Google Scholar]
  28. Íñigo-Mora, I.
    (2004) On the use of the personal pronoun we in communities. Journal of Language and Politics, 3(1), 27–52. 10.1075/jlp.3.1.05ini
    https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.3.1.05ini [Google Scholar]
  29. Johnsen, L. A.
    (2019) La sous-détermination référentielle et les désignateurs vagues en français contemporain. Bern: Peter Lang. 10.3726/b13008
    https://doi.org/10.3726/b13008 [Google Scholar]
  30. Kecskes, I. & Zhang, F.
    (2009) Activating, seeking, and creating common ground. A socio-cognitive approach. Pragmatics & Cognition, 17(2), 331–355. 10.1075/pc.17.2.06kec
    https://doi.org/10.1075/pc.17.2.06kec [Google Scholar]
  31. Kennedy, C.
    (2011) Ambiguity and vagueness: An overview. InC. Maienborn, K. von Heusinger, & P. Portner (Eds.), Semantics. An International Handbook of Natural Language Meaning, 507–535. Berlin/New York : De Gruyter. 10.1515/9783110226614.507
    https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110226614.507 [Google Scholar]
  32. Kerbrat-Orecchioni, C.
    (2001) L’ambiguïté en langue et en discours. InP. Bogaards, J. Rooryck & P. J. Smith (Eds.), Quitte ou double sens: Articles sur l’ambiguïté offerts à Ronald Landheer, 135–164. Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi. 10.1163/9789004485693_010
    https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004485693_010 [Google Scholar]
  33. (2005) L’ambiguïté: définition, typologie. InL. Basset & F. Biville (Eds.), Les jeux et les ruses de l’ambiguïté volontaire dans les textes grecs et latins. Actes de la Table Ronde organisée à la Faculté des Lettres de l’Université Lumière-Lyon 2 (23–24 novembre 2000), 13–36. Lyon: MOM Éditions.
    [Google Scholar]
  34. Keshet, E. & Schwarz, F.
    (2019) De Re/De Dicto. InJ. Gundel & B. Abbott (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Reference (online edn., Oxford Academic, 14 Mar. 2019), 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199687305.013.10accessed11 Nov. 2023.
    https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199687305.013.10 [Google Scholar]
  35. Kleiber, G.
    (1991) Paul est bronzé versus La peau de Paul est bronzée. InH. Stammerjohann (Ed.), Analyse et synthèse dans les langues romanes, 109–134. Tübingen: Narr.
    [Google Scholar]
  36. (2001) L’anaphore associative. Paris: PUF.
    [Google Scholar]
  37. Koch, P.
    (1997) Diskurstraditionen: zu ihrem sprachtheoretischen Status und ihrer Dynamik. InB. Frank, Th. Haye & D. Tophinke (Eds.), Gattungen mittelalterlicher Schriftlichkeit, 43–79. Tübingen: Narr. English translation (2023). Discourse traditions: on their status in language theory and on their dynamics. InE. Winter-Froemel & Á. Octavio de Toledo y Huerta (Eds.), Manual of Discourse Traditions in Romance, 783–820. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter. 10.1515/9783110668636‑040
    https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110668636-040 [Google Scholar]
  38. Koch, P. & Oesterreicher, W.
    (2011) Gesprochene Sprache in der Romania: Französisch — Italienisch — Spanisch (2nd edn.). Berlin/New York: De Gruyter. 10.1515/9783110252620
    https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110252620 [Google Scholar]
  39. (2012) Language of immediacy — language of distance. Orality and Literacy from the perspective of language theory and linguistic history. InC. Lange, B. Weber & G. Wolf (Eds.), Communicative Spaces. Variation, Contact, and Change. Papers in Honour of Ursula Schaefer, 441–473. Frankfurt a. M.: Lang.
    [Google Scholar]
  40. Kühn, P.
    (1995) Mehrfachadressierung. Untersuchungen zur adressatenspezifischen Polyvalenz sprachlichen Handelns. Tübingen: Niemeyer. 10.1515/9783110926835
    https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110926835 [Google Scholar]
  41. Lakoff, G.
    (1973) Hedges: A study in meaning criteria and the logic of fuzzy concepts. Journal of Philosophical Logic, 21, 458–508. 10.1007/BF00262952
    https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00262952 [Google Scholar]
  42. Langacker, R.
    (1993) Reference-Point Constructions. Cognitive Linguistics, 41, 1–38. 10.1515/cogl.1993.4.1.1
    https://doi.org/10.1515/cogl.1993.4.1.1 [Google Scholar]
  43. Lee, R. & Kosse, M.
    (2020) The Social Domain of Understanding: Ethnographically-Informed Frame Semantics of Dog Whistles. Paper presented atHDLS 14, November 2020. 10.17605/OSF.IO/CNZQE / https://osf.io/dsgxb (last accessed19.05.2024).
    https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/CNZQE [Google Scholar]
  44. Nølke, H.
    (2008) La polyphonie linguistique avec un regard sur l’approche scandinave. InJ. Durand, B. Habert & B. Laks (Eds.), Congrès Mondial de Linguistique Française — CMLF’08. 10.1051/cmlf08343
    https://doi.org/10.1051/cmlf08343 [Google Scholar]
  45. Pinkal, M.
    (1991) Vagheit und Ambiguität. InA. von Stechow & D. Wunderlich (Eds.), Semantik/Semantics: Ein internationales Handbuch zeitgenössischer Forschung, 250–269. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter Mouton. 10.1515/9783110126969.4.250
    https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110126969.4.250 [Google Scholar]
  46. Porzel, R. & Gurevych, I.
    (2002) Towards context-adaptive utterance interpretation. Proceedings of the Third SIGdial Workshop on Discourse and Dialogue, 154–161. 10.3115/1118121.1118141
    https://doi.org/10.3115/1118121.1118141 [Google Scholar]
  47. Posth, C. & Winter-Froemel, E.
    (2023) Interdiscursivity in French theatre: crossing linguistic and literary perspectives. InE. Winter-Froemel & Á. Octavio de Toledo y Huerta (Eds.), Manual of Discourse Traditions in Romance, 751–766. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter. 10.1515/9783110668636‑038
    https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110668636-038 [Google Scholar]
  48. Rabatel, A.
    (2008) Homo narrans. Pour une analyse énonciative et interactionnelle du récit. Vol.11: Les points de vue et la logique de la narration. Vol.21: Dialogisme et polyphonie dans le récit. Limoges: Lambert-Lucas.
    [Google Scholar]
  49. Schole, G.
    (2021) Actualized Ambiguity at the Semantics / Pragmatics Interface. A Comparative Analysis of Spatial Reference in Spanish and German Dialogues. Tübingen: Stauffenburg.
    [Google Scholar]
  50. Searle, J.
    (1969) Speech acts: an essay in the philosophy of language. Cambridge: CUP. 10.1017/CBO9781139173438
    https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139173438 [Google Scholar]
  51. Sennet, A.
    (2023) Ambiguity. InE. N. Zalta, & U. Nodelman (Eds.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2023/entries/ambiguity/ (last accessed16.11.2023).
    [Google Scholar]
  52. Sorlin, S.
    (2021) I will never concede: Donald Trump’s discourse of denial on Twitter (Nov. 4th 2020 — Jan. 8th 2021). Anglophonia. French Journal of English Linguistics, 311, 1–17. 10/gpjsc8
    https://doi.org/10/gpjsc8 [Google Scholar]
  53. Trangerud, H. A.
    (2021) The American Cyrus: How an Ancient King Became a Political Tool for Voter Mobilization. Religions, 12(5). 10.3390/rel12050354
    https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12050354 [Google Scholar]
  54. Traugott, E. C.
    (2012) On the persistence of ambiguous linguistic contexts over time: Implications for corpus research on micro-changes. InJ. Mukherjee & M. Huber (Eds.), Corpus Linguistics and Variation in English. Theory and Description, 231–246. Amsterdam: Rodopi. 10.1163/9789401207713_019
    https://doi.org/10.1163/9789401207713_019 [Google Scholar]
  55. Truan, N.
    (2021) The Politics of Person Reference. Third-person forms in English, German, and French. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 10.1075/pbns.320
    https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.320 [Google Scholar]
  56. Tuggy, D.
    (1993) Ambiguity, polysemy, and vagueness. Cognitive Linguistics, 4(3), 273–290. 10.1515/cogl.1993.4.3.273
    https://doi.org/10.1515/cogl.1993.4.3.273 [Google Scholar]
  57. von Heusinger, K.
    (2019) Indefiniteness and Specificity. InJ. Gundel & B. Abbott (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Reference (online edn., Oxford Academic, 14 Mar. 2019), 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199687305.013.9accessed11 Nov. 2023.
    https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199687305.013.9 [Google Scholar]
  58. Wieczorek, A. E.
    (2013) Clusivity. A New Approach to Association and Dissociation in Political Discourse. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
    [Google Scholar]
  59. Winter-Froemel, E.
    (2013) Ambiguität im Sprachgebrauch und im Sprachwandel: Parameter der Analyse diskurs- und systembezogener Fakten. Zeitschrift für französische Sprache und Literatur, 123(2), 130–170. 10.25162/zfsl‑2013‑0005
    https://doi.org/10.25162/zfsl-2013-0005 [Google Scholar]
  60. (2019a) Ambigüité et marges de l’interprétation en synchronie et en diachronie lexicales: entre innovation et mésinterprétation. InG. Achard-Bayle, M. Krylyschin, G. Kleiber & M. Guérin (Eds.), Les sciences du langage et la question de l’interprétation (aujourd’hui). Actes du colloque 2017 de l’Association des Sciences du Langage, 197–232. Limoges: Lambert-Lucas.
    [Google Scholar]
  61. (2019b) Introducing pragmatic ambiguity. On the diversity and ambivalence of ambiguity in discourse. InM. Bauer, F. Berndt & S. Meixner (Eds.), Ambivalenz in Sprache, Literatur und Kunst, 65–89. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann.
    [Google Scholar]
  62. (2021) Reinvestigating ambiguity and frequency in reanalysis: A two-step methodology for corpus-linguistic analyses based on bridging use exposure. Journal of Historical Syntax, 51. 10.18148/hs/2021.v5i32‑39.143
    https://doi.org/10.18148/hs/2021.v5i32-39.143 [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1075/li.00116.win
Loading
/content/journals/10.1075/li.00116.win
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): accomplice whistle; ambiguity; dog whistle; language use; multiple addressing
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error