From the “vaffa” to the infamous, passing through “pederast” and “infosphere”. Words in public discourse are often thrown like stones, to the point of verging on verbal brawls on talk shows, without much regard for the role one plays, or perhaps precisely as a function of that, something unthinkable until some time ago.
If on the one hand the ruling class is reproached for a clarity that borders on brutality, on the other hand at times the involution seems to justify Flaiano’s arabesque. The widespread impression is that power is changing tune. And already with the wow no joke. The Council of Europe’s Ecri report reproached some prominent Italian majority politicians for, in words, setting fire to the dust of discrimination. Impressions or reality?
Michele Cortelazzo, professor emeritus of Italian linguistics at the University of Padua, Accademico della Crusca, who has always studied the words of power, has recently written books for Treccani The language of neopolitics. We asked him to help us analyze the forms and meanings of words that shake current events.
Professor, in a recent Clean Sweep report we hear the director of Rai Insights calling the journalist Formigli a slur. A word that has recently resurfaced also in a government “outline”, what reflection does it give you?
«If I remember correctly, the Prime Minister was the first to talk about “infamy”, albeit in an internal party chat. Here it is not so much about vulgarity, which is not new: in Grillo’s case the “fuck” was consistent with the audience he was aiming for and with the position that Grillo had: new opposition of a partly populist, partly indifferent type. Behind the use of the swear word, emblem of that moment, there was a strategy thought out, badly thought out if you want, but with a recognizable logic. But there is also a strategy in Giorgia Meloni’s choices. There are those who criticize Giorgia Meloni for never having taken an elocution course, but I believe that her display of Garbatella’s Roman accent is part of the image of closeness to the people that she wants to convey. I see a conscious choice there, perhaps criticizable like all political choices, but consistent with other less obvious ones in the same direction: for example calling oneself Giorgia, even getting voted as Giorgia, giving a friendly look to one of the more institutional steps. There is a drawing there.”
Isn’t “infamous” part of it?
«The transfer to the political field of the word “infamous” is surprising, used in the meaning in which the underworld uses it to accuse those who collaborate with the State of treason: it should be a word that a politician considers taboo, because it has recent historical evidence that they remain in the memory and refer to environments – the mafias, the red brigades – which in a democratic country should arouse unanimous rejection. It should be one of those terms that those who represent the institutions, whether in government or opposition, keep in their mouths, because it refers to sectors that are the reverse side of the institutions, of legality and of the State. It is not so much a question of harsh controversy, bordering on insult, which has always been present in political discourse and perhaps cannot be eliminated, but of the context of reference, incompatible with the role, because it leads to the enemies of the State”.
What is the prevailing register of current political communication?
«There are strong fluctuations from period to period: if this question had been asked three years ago, I would have answered without hesitation that the register of oversimplification prevailed. It’s still there: it’s that of slogan words, used as neon writing, immediately visible. I believe that this is still the prevailing trait of current political language: for some with the ability to find simple words that evoke a more complex thought, for others with excessive simplification and that’s it. But then there are also other, different elements. For example, Elly Schlein is perceived as a person who uses difficult words.”
Do you share this perception?
«In reality I believe that he expresses himself in relatively simple words, as the measurements of the readability of his texts tell us. But in fact, on the one hand she is more abstract than other politicians; on the other hand, having recent experience in Italian politics, it has not yet freed itself from some habits acquired elsewhere between Brussels and the United States”.
What about the infosphere of Minister Giuli’s inauguration speech?
«It is the drift to the opposite extreme compared to extreme simplification: the deliberately obscure language. What seems to be missing, between escapes towards the higher registers and collapses towards the lower ones, is a happy medium, adequate to the discourses of the institutions. Each exponent has its register, but almost none have a linear one. It is difficult in public discourse to find a middle path, not in the sense of compromise, but of a clear line, compatible with the institutional role, even if still capable of speaking to the electorate we are addressing. Yet, talking about complex things in a simple way, without oversimplifying the complexity, would be the task of those in high positions.”
We heard again, in an email within Fdl, the obsolete word “pederast” to attack homosexuality. How to interpret the exhumation, which the interested party justified with the “sentiment” of the political base?
«Maybe instinctively he had come up with some cruder solution in use away from the spotlight, but unpronounceable in public, and he thought of dredging up an obsolete alternative almost as if it were a euphemism. It is true that pederast was used in the past, as the maximum offensive level that could be said in public discourse, as long as the term homosexual was confined to the medical field, but even then it was not a neutral word, because it may contain an allusion to violence against minors . Among other things, I wonder how many of my students know the word “pederast”. Probably few. If he had used gay, he would have made himself understood better and without offense. As for “sentiment”, whose meaning is “moods”, but which in Italian many use instead of sentiment with the idea that it is more “cool”, it could have been said “common feeling”.
The Council of Europe criticizes our public and institutional debate for the increase in harsh, discriminatory language used with intent. Is it an impression?
«I don’t have data to say in statistical terms, but certainly the current majority party has set up a very precise linguistic strategy: “since for a long time they prevented us from saying certain words, in the name of “goodism”, of “good education” we have the courage to say them”. I’m not referring so much to racism which I haven’t studied in particular, but for example to words like homeland, nation, naval blockade. The same mechanism can lead to the clearing of racist and discriminatory words that previously even on the right did not dare to utter.”
On the one hand, political correctness as a manifesto, on the other, deliberate and speculative incorrectness in search of consensus: since when has language been a terrain of political conflict?
«From a certain point of view, always. I must also say that for some time the attention to the discriminatory nature of words, which began in the nineties, developed first in the United States and then imported to us, has reached paroxysmal levels: like all the right policies, when they push themselves to the point of parodying themselves, this too has become a boomerang.”
There is the risk of exaggerating on the other side too: is the debate on political correctness losing the measure of reality?
«In Italy not yet, in the United States yes, for some time, but this risk certainly cannot be counteracted by becoming boorish. Certain concepts can be named in a less bureaucratic way than the politically correct would like, without transcending into vulgarity: but there is something wrong if the nebulosities of the bureaucratic language that we have tried to fight for years come back to us proposed as a positive value ».
The. still exists latinorumthe language of power as abuse that aims to deceive, not making itself understood?
«Yes, but it’s the inglesorum. I have learned over the last decade of linguistic observation that, when a politician calls a measure by an English name, I have to ask myself where the deception lies. The Jobs Act could easily have been called labor reform.”
But then they would have gone to the streets, like in France…
«Exactly, this way of doing things has a double effect: the first is clouding, not making people understand well. The second is to give an attractive and modern feel to what the politician proposes. Coincidentally, in the official texts, these measures have more bureaucratic, but more understandable names.”
When does “neopolitics” begin?
«I would say that the turning point occurred in 2013, when the House and Senate, which were much renewed, for the first time had as presidents two figures who entered Parliament for the first time with that legislature. The Prime Minister wasn’t even a parliamentarian. The President of the Republic himself, with a long parliamentary experience but who had never before held the position of president of one of the branches of Parliament or of Prime Minister, inaugurated, since his inauguration speech at the Quirinale in 2015, a communication style characterized by clarity and short sentences. The need to adapt institutional communication to the speed and synthesis of social media has certainly played a role in all of this.”