This book is about moral talk in contemporary British political discourse, drawing on speeches, debates and radio phone-ins. Using a critical sociolinguistic approach, Spencer-Bennett explores the language people use to communicate moral judgement and highlights the relations between the things that people say, the contexts in which they are said and the circulating ideologies about meaning and morality. This is key reading for students and scholars studying language, politics and critical discourse analysis, within linguistics and anthropology.
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Moral talk: forms, functions and value
Emotivism
Moral philosophy and moral talk
Post-crisis Britain, the moral economy and moral panic
Outline of the book
The social, ethical and political lives of language
Introduction
Social life of language
Michael Meachers speech
Ethical life of language
Political life of language
Conclusion
Form: what counts as moral talk?
Introduction
Stance, evaluation and moral talk
Quotability
Specificity
Determinacy
Checklist
Conclusion
Function: what does moral talk do?
Introduction
Evaluative language, stance, fact and value
Hobart and the multifunctionality of moral talk
Cotext
Situations and ideologies
Camerons speech
Erics call
Conclusion
Moral systems and ethical life
Introduction
Moral systems and ethical life
The linguistic distinction
Moral systems, ethical life and radio phone-ins
Modest moralising
Conclusion
Critiquing moral talk
Introduction
What is critique?
Bias
Power
Illegitimate power
Immanent critique
Moral realism
Veracity
Explanatory critique
Lay normativity
Conclusion
7.? Critiquing interpretation
Introduction
Interpretative agency
Language ideologies
Hymes ethical sociolinguistics
Emotivism as a corporate technology
Emotivism in political communications
Linguistic expertise and arguments for emotivism
Conclusion
8. Conclusion
Introduction
What is moral talk?
What does moral talk do?
What is moral talk good for?
Methodology: the field, the meta-field, and the armchair
Theory: linguistic interpretivism and moral realism
References
Index
Joe Spencer-Bennett is Lecturer in Applied Linguistics at the University of Birmingham. He has published articles in the journals Discourse & Society, Journal of Sociolinguistics, Language & Communication and Social Semiotics. His research concerns the ethical and political life of communication.
