Use of Language and Political Work

Personal Capability to do Political Work

Becoming a political player involves making sense of complex social situations, and being able to talk about them so as to influence others. Doing the work refers to engaging in a «kind» of work and carrying a certain «level» of responsibility. The «kind» of work is defined by the 6 Instruments for exerting political pressure.

Political work is no different from any other work if we consider its fundamentals. All work depends on using language to recognize what has to be done, as well as to cooperate with &/or lead others to generate the desired result. The complexity of the reality to be worked on determines the approach to language use (PH'5) that is most appropriate. Not surprisingly, human capability to perform work is distributed unevenly among people, and this determines the sort of work that they choose.

People working in the political sphere have to create and deliver «social products»—as distinct from «intellectual products» developed by academics and the knowledge economy, or «tangible products» from conventional manufacturing and service industries. See more about work in different Arenas.

Work that engages all in society to meet their needs involves societal institutions (PH'5Q4). This demands speaking and thinking in a way that allows everyone to feel that they understand what is being said. This approach to the use of language (PH'5) is named «Universal». Political work also involves activating people and their beliefs, which calls for the «Gestalt» approach. Societal institutions will be examined in their own section in due course.

  • Advertising is virtually non-political but must take care of political sensitivities depending on the client and the product.
  • Film studios can make deliberately political, accidentally political, and wholly apolitical productions.
  • Television: news and current affairs programs are inherently political, but game shows, soap operas, and quiz shows are not.
  • Daily newspapers and weekly news magazines have both political and non-political sections.
  • Most magazines are non-political, but there are specialist political periodicals dealing with political personalities, political parties, public policy and foreign policy.

Use of Language in Politics.

Apart from work and work capability, it seems possible that each of the channels for political communication is associated with particular ways of using language. The terms in the table below refer to approaches to using language in the Principal Typology PH'5within Communication.

In this Table, which must be regarded as highly speculative, Universal-PH'5L4 is the most important, being required by four channels. Concrete-PH'5L1 and Conceptual-PH'5L3 and Gestalt-PH'5L5 are used in two, and the remaining four Types are used only once.

Group Channel of Communication Preferred Use
of Language
CG-21 Political Manoeuvring L'1-Concrete (for certainty)
L'2-Associational (amongst friends)
L'4-Universal (to persuade)
CG-22 Official Briefing L'3-Conceptual (for technical issues)
L'4-Universal (to persuade)
CG-23 In Camera Deliberations L'1-Concrete (for certainty)
L'3-Conceptual (for proposals)
CG-24 Public Advocacy L'4-Universal (to persuade)
L'5-Gestalt (to activate)
CG-25 Open debate L'4-Universal (to persuade)
CG-26 Moral Challenge L'5-Gestalt (to activate)
L'6-Formal (for clarity)
L'7-Mythic (to imprint)

Originally posted: August-2009; Last updated: 5-July-2014.