Talking Right, subtitled How Conservatives Turned Liberalism into a Tax-Raising, Latte-Drinking, Sushi-Eating, Volvo-Driving, New York Times-Reading, Body-Piercing, Hollywood-Loving, Left-Wing Freak Show, is a 2006 book by linguist Geoffrey Nunberg

Geoffrey Nunberg

Geoffrey Nunberg is an American linguist and a professor at the UC Berkeley School of Information. Nunberg has taught at Stanford University and served as a principal scientist at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center from the mid-1980's to 2000...

, who uses his expertise to explain the United States Democratic Party

Democratic Party (United States)

The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

's failure to win elections.

Earlier commentators have attributed this failure to such matters as weak slogans. Nunberg argues that the problem runs much deeper, in that the entire political discourse in the U.S. today has been shaped heavily by conservatives. According to Nunberg, ordinary words like values, freedom, patriotism, and indeed liberal itself have acquired connotation

Connotation

A connotation is a commonly understood subjective cultural or emotional association that some word or phrase carries, in addition to the word's or phrase's explicit or literal meaning, which is its denotation....

s that conservatives favor and that even allegedly liberal newspapers like The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

and The Washington Post

The Washington Post

The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...

take for granted. Nunberg contends that conservatives have used these terms to paint a picture of elite liberals out of touch with the values of mainstream, middle-class Americans. This stereotype, which Nunberg considers inaccurate, is nonetheless so firmly entrenched in popular consciousness that Republican

Republican Party (United States)

The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

s need only mention a word like elite to conjure up the image of a stuffy, out-of-touch liberal.

Democratic politicians have tried to reclaim some of these terms, such as when presidential candidate John Kerry

John Kerry

John Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior U.S. Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to former President George W...

 styled his 2004 campaign "a celebration of American values." But such efforts are ineffective, Nunberg argues, because they do little to unhinge the powerful quasi-populist

Populism

Populism can be defined as an ideology, political philosophy, or type of discourse. Generally, a common theme compares "the people" against "the elite", and urges social and political system changes. It can also be defined as a rhetorical style employed by members of various political or social...

 narrative that conservatives have developed over several decades. Nunberg calls on Democrats to create an equally powerful (but, in their view, more truthful) narrative of their own through which they can weave together the many issues of advantage to them.

See also

• George Lakoff
  George Lakoff
  George P. Lakoff is an American cognitive linguist and professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught since 1972...
  
  , author of Don't Think of an Elephant! Know Your Values and Frame the Debate.
• framing (social sciences)
  Framing (social sciences)
  A frame in social theory consists of a schema of interpretation — that is, a collection of anecdotes and stereotypes—that individuals rely on to understand and respond to events. In simpler terms, people build a series of mental filters through biological and cultural influences. They use these...
  
  

External links

• 'Talking Right': Why the Left Is Losing, Linguistically. Fresh Air
  Fresh Air
  Fresh Air is an American radio talk show broadcast on National Public Radio stations across the United States. The show is produced by WHYY-FM in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Its longtime host is Terry Gross. , the show was syndicated to 450 stations and claimed 4.5 million listeners. The show...
  
   interview on NPR
  NPR
  NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
  
  . July 6, 2006.
• Linguists on George W. Bush, Michel Paradis. Oxonian Review of Books 2006 6.1.