MASARYK UNIVERSITY OF BRNO FACULTY OF EDUCATION Bachelor thesis Brno 2010 Klára Hrozínková Masaryk University Faculty of Education Department of English Language and Literature Bushisms: a linguistic analysis of G. W. Bush's slip-ups Bachelor Thesis Brno 2010 Supervisor: Written by: Mgr. Martin Adam, Ph.D. Klára Hrozínková 2 Bibliography HROZÍNKOVÁ, Klára. Bushisms: a linguistic analysis of G. W. Bush’s slip-ups. Brno: Masaryk University, Faculty of Education, Department of English Language and Literature, 2010. 49 pages, 8 pages of attachments. The supervisor of Bachelor thesis is Mgr. Martin Adam, Ph.D. Anotace Tato bakalářská práce se zabývá nedostatky v mluveném projevu G. W. Bushe, které byly shromážděny z různých zdrojů. Cílem práce je pokusit se o zařazení Bushových projevů do jazykových skupin a o jejich další analýzu. Práce je rozdělena na dvě části. Teoretická část zkoumá přístup starověku k veřejnému projevu, představuje významné osobnosti spojené s jazykovými chybami a zaměřuje se na pět typů chyb. V praktické části jsou sesbírány výroky G. W. Bushe a jejich zkoumání. Annotation The Bachelor thesis deals with speech errors of G. W. Bush‘s statements gathered from various sources. The attempt will be made on their classification into linguistic units and further analysis. The paper is divided into two parts. The theoretical part explores the Ancient approaches to public speaking, introduces significant personalities related to speech errors and focuses on five types of errors. In practical part, different speech errors of G. W. Bush will be collected and examined. Klíčová slova Chyby v mluveném projevu, Bushismus, Výroky George W. Bushe, Zařazení a analýza Bushismů Key words Speech Errors, Bushisms, Uterrances of George W. Bush, Classification and Analysis of Bushisms 3 Declaration I hereby declare that I worked on my bachelor thesis independently and that I used only the sources listed in the works cited section. ............................................... Brno, April 2010 Klára Hrozínková 4 Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisor Mgr. Martin Adam, Ph.D. for his valuable comments, guidance and positive attitude. 5 Table of contents 1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 8 I THEORETICAL PART ............................................................................................... 9 2 Brief History of Public Speaking .................................................................................... 9 2.1. Ancient Greece ..................................................................................................... 9 2.2. Ancient Rome ..................................................................................................... 10 3 Slips researchers ........................................................................................................... 12 3.1. William Archibald Spooner ................................................................................ 12 3.2. Sigmund Freud .................................................................................................... 12 3.3. Kermit Schafer .................................................................................................... 13 3.4. Victoria A. Fromkin ............................................................................................ 14 3.5. Arnold Zwicky .................................................................................................... 16 4 Types of Speech Errors ................................................................................................. 17 4.1. Blends ................................................................................................................. 17 4.2. Malapropisms ...................................................................................................... 18 4.3. ―Does Know Better‖ Errors and ―Doesn‘t Know Better‖ Errors ........................ 20 4.4. Tip-of-the-Tongue .............................................................................................. 21 4.5. Spoonerisms ........................................................................................................ 22 II PRACTICAL PART .................................................................................................. 24 5 Bushisms: Analysis of Bush‘s Statements .................................................................... 24 5.1. Morphology ........................................................................................................ 25 5.1.1. Bush‘s Words Resulting into Malapropism ............................................... 25 5.1.2. ―Doesn‘t Know Better‖ Errors in Bush‘s Utterances ................................ 27 5.1.3. George Bush‘s Spoonerisms ..................................................................... 28 5.1.4. Word Substitution and Omission ............................................................... 29 5.1.5. Inappropriate Forms ................................................................................... 30 5.2. Syntax ................................................................................................................. 32 5.2.1. Subject – Verb disagreement ..................................................................... 32 5.2.2. Unclassified Errors .................................................................................... 34 5.2.3. Inappropriate Verb Forms .......................................................................... 35 5.2.4. Inappropriate Forms of Comparatives and Superlatives ............................ 36 5.3. Semantics ............................................................................................................ 37 6 5.3.1. Tautology ................................................................................................... 37 5.3.2. Repetition ................................................................................................... 39 5.3.3. Antonym Substitution ................................................................................ 41 5.3.4. Wrong and Out-of-Context Utterances ...................................................... 42 6 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 46 7 Resumé .......................................................................................................................... 47 8 Works Cited .................................................................................................................. 48 9 Appendix ....................................................................................................................... 50 7 1 Introduction I decided to choose Bushisms as a topic for my thesis. My interest in this topic aroused naturally during the end of Bush‘s presidency. At that time I started noticing his specific speech full of mistakes and imperfections colloquially known as Bushisms, which enjoyed lots of media attention. There were written many books dealing with this term, however, mostly as collections without any further analysis. The goal of my thesis is to investigate different methods and theories of verbal blunders and categorize Bush‘s slips according to the types of speech errors. The thesis is divided into two parts – the theoretical and the practical one. Firstly, the thesis introduces the famous ancient rhetors and their goals of rhetoric performance. The next chapter is devoted to the slips researchers; it describes their different points of view on making mistakes and what explanatory value they can have. The last chapter introduces different types of speech errors and when they most likely occur. The practical part is focused on the presidential speech and public performance of George W. Bush and the linguistic classification and analysis of his errors. The material I used for the thesis consists of books about slips in speech in general, (e.g. books by Victoria Fromkin, Michael Errard and Arnold Zwicky) and books dealing purely with Bushisms and presidential rhetoric. The online sources were used for data completion as well. 8 I THEORETICAL PART 2 Brief History of Public Speaking ―There was a time when attention to language was so great that entire societies recognized rhetoric as the most important subject a person could master‖ (Williams 9). ―Classical rhetoric was a politically and ethically established style of teaching effective public speaking‖ (―Rhetoric‖). 2.1. Ancient Greece ―Yet as far as we can tell, it was the ancient Greeks who were the first to engage in the systematic study and teaching of rhetoric and oratory‖ (Williams 9-10). Erard states that ―Athenians developed a tradition of using persuasive language, or rhetoric, to shape the course of events, to claim power, and to mete out justice and shame‖ (148). Corax and Tisias and the First Handbooks for Public Speaking ―Tradition holds that the formal study of rhetoric began around 467 BC in the Greek city of Syracuse on the island of Sicily. In Book 3 of The Art of Rhetoric, Aristotle identified Corax and Tisias, two Sicilians, as the first teachers of rhetoric‖ (Williams 10). Corax, after observing several trials, used his observations to develop a ―system‖ of rhetorical study and began teaching classes on how to win in court (Williams 10). Corax took on a student named Tisias, and together they supposedly went on to produce handbooks on public speaking that were