Why words alone do not convey all the meaning in Trump's phone call with Zelensky.
We’ve been through this routine many times before: Trump says something egregious. Critics cry foul. Trump and his supporters respond by invoking plausible deniability. They project the president’s own fault onto his opponents and reframe the conversation in a way that sows enough doubt and distrust across a divided electorate to avoid being held accountable.
This time could be different—if congressional Democrats follow Speaker Pelosi’s lead and effectively counter Trump’s disingenuous language games. But doing so will require understanding some key ideas from sociocultural linguistics on the way meaning unfolds through language use. Holding Trump accountable for his most recent impeachable offense requires communicating to the public why the memo of his call with President Zelensky of Ukraine is so damning. And it has less to do with what he reportedly said—or didn’t say—in so many words (a quid pro quo of US military aid for dirt on a political opponent) than what he did communicate within the context of the call and US foreign relations.
Politicians frequently play the plausible deniability language game by exploiting the gap between semantic and pragmatic meaning. In that other infamous memo of the Trump presidency—the one in which then-FBI director James Comey documented what he took to be the president’s attempt to obstruct justice in the investigation of Michael Flynn—Trump’s defense hinged on the semantics of the word hope (“I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go”).
When Comey testified before the senate, Senator James Risch insisted on the president’s behalf: “He said, ‘I hope.’ … Do you know of any case where a person has been charged for obstruction of justice or, for that matter, any other criminal offense, where they said, or thought, they hoped for an outcome?” Risch went on to conclude, “You may have taken it as a direction, but that’s not what he said.”
The problem with Risch’s analysis is that it ignored the rich layers of contextual meaning that contributed to the message, including the power dynamics between the president and a subordinate government official. Our everyday discourse is filled with what philosopher H.P. Grice called “conversational implicatures”; what we (pragmatically) communicate often goes beyond what we (literally) say. If I say it’s cold in here and you’re sitting near the window, you would likely take my words as a directive to shut the window even though that’s not what I literally said. Language users have little trouble working out the meaning of such inexplicit statements.
The veneer of plausible deniability relies on a feigned ignorance of communicative norms. It is helped along by a common—but incomplete—belief about language, which argues that meaning simply resides in words. According to this belief, one need only look to (or “open”) words (as “containers” of meaning) to understand what is said in a conversation. But communication always takes place in a specific interactional setting. That setting involves discussants in socially recognized positions imbued with varying degrees of power. The interaction unfolds against an historical backdrop that may involve prior interactions or relevant events that shape the current situation. These and other contextual factors contribute to the exchange of meaning that takes place.
Mafia dons are particularly adept at the wink wink, nod nod nuances of communicating coercive messages. They rely upon a native speaker’s communicative competence to express a quid pro quo, but then hide behind claims of plausible deniability when called out because they never stated the obvious in so many words. But words alone do not hold all the meaning in any given act of communication.
The president’s confidence in his ability to play this game successfully has been bolstered by three years of unaccountability. That may partially explain his lack of concern over releasing the memo of his call with Zelensky. He simply reframes culpability as requiring an explicit quid pro quo message contained in the memo. Trump then points to the words on the page as exculpatory evidence while ignoring the actual message conveyed. Like the sleight of hand of a conman, the evidence seemingly disappears while remaining in plain sight.
The veneer of plausible deniability relies on a feigned ignorance of communicative norms. It is helped along by a common—but incomplete—belief about language, which argues that meaning simply resides in words.
Pelosi didn’t fall for it. She was smart to initiate the formal impeachment inquiry without waiting for the White House to release the memo. As she said in her statement, Trump “has admitted to asking the president of Ukraine to take actions which would benefit him politically.” While speaking at the Atlantic Festival, Pelosi further emphasized, “There is no requirement that there be a ‘quid pro quo’ in the conversation.” The fact is that a sitting president asked a foreign leader to start an investigation on his political rival. That much is clear for all to see.
From here, congressional Democrats must follow Pelosi’s lead and not let Trump claim plausible deniability by shifting the focus to words he didn’t say as if the ones he did speak somehow represented a “perfect call” free of impeachable behavior. Representatives need to call out team Trump on their feigned ignorance of basic communicative norms and explain to the American public the pragmatic reasons why those claims are so undeniably implausible.
Start reading When Words Trump Politics »
Comments