Language Log

Contrast vs. emphasis in Kyoto

There's a clip from the 11/16/2005 Bush/Koizumi press conference, widely quoted in the media -- at least I heard it on an NPR broadcast, and found the recording online in a VOA radio piece -- which some listeners are likely to hear in a way that President Bush certainly did not intend.

... the Senate did ask that we report
on progress being made in Iraq, which we're more than willing to do. That's-
that's to be expected. That's what the
Congress expects. They expect us to keep them abreast
of *A* PLAN
that is going to WORK.
(audio clip)

I've used capital letters and bold-face type and asterisks to mark what I initially heard as a pair of contrastive accents, used to indicate that one alternative is being selected from among a contextually salient set. And along with the pitch accents on "plan" and "work", the president uses a lengthened and unreduced form of the indefinite article "a". Construed this way, the apparently constrastive "*A* PLAN" invokes alternatives like "NO PLAN" or "a SERIES of PLANS", while the phrase "that is going to WORK" invokes an alternative like "that has turned out to FAIL".

Hearing the quoted phrase with the president's prosody, I immediately heard the voice of Jon Stewart from The Daily Show in my mind's ear:

George W. Bush:	They expect us to keep them abreast of *A* PLAN that is going to WORK
Jon Stewart: (imaginary)	-- and as soon as we can think of one, we will.

But of course this continuation makes no sense as part of the president's message -- his pitch accents and his fluently unreduced "a" indicated emphasis, not contrast. His next two sentences, left out of the radio quotes that I heard, were:

It's a plan that we have made very clear to the Senate and the House, and that is the plan that we will train Iraqis, Iraqi troops to be able to take the fight to the enemy. And as I have consistently said, as the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down. [from the transcript at whitehouse.gov]

And in fact, what Jon Stewart chose to do with the Iraq reference in Bush's Kyoto news conference (video clip available as "Moments of Zen" on the Comedy Central web site) was to scan one of these later clauses as a haiku:

Jon Stewart:	Bush also spoke about Iraq. Now here's how good Bush has gotten with the Iraq talking points. He's in Japan, talking about the war. Listen to what he said:
George W. Bush:	I've consistently said, as the- um as the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.
Jon Stewart:	Did you catch that? That was seventeen syllables. That's a mother****ing haiku!

In order to make the sentence scan, Stewart removes the um and the repetition, and arranges the phrasing like this:

(5) I've consistently
(7) said as the Iraqis stand
(5) up we will stand down

And they say a degree in Comparative Literature has no real-world applications!

Let me observe in passing that I take Jon Stewart's voice in my mind's ear as a subconsious echo of a broader shift in public opinion. For what it's worth, my own opinion on these issues is about half way between those of Christopher Hitchens and Brendan O'Leary. And I'm not a person who normally talks back to news broadcasts, whether in my own voice or someone else's.

For those interested in the phonetics of contrast and emphasis, here's a display of Bush's crucial phrase, with an audio waveform, a spectrogram and a pitch track:

Here are several earlier Language Log posts that discuss the tendency of President Bush (and plenty of other people) to use unreduced "a" to mark emphasis on the following word or phrase:

"Emphatic unreduction again" (8/3/2005)
"The phonetic poetics of 'a'" (7/25/2005)
"Could there possibly be a less enticing premise for a blog entry?" (7/25/2005)
"Of thee (and ay) I sing" (7/20/2005)

And for completeness, here the whole Q & A from the Kyoto press conference, in the transcription offered on the White House web site:

Q Thank you, sir. Sir, as you probably know, the Senate rejected earlier today measures that would have required a timetable for withdrawal in Iraq, but a Republican resolution was overwhelmingly passed that called for more information from your information to clarify and recommend changes to U.S. policy in Iraq. So is that evidence that your party is increasingly splitting with you, sir, on Iraq? And is it an open challenge to you -- is that open challenge to you embarrassing while you're traveling abroad?\

PRESIDENT BUSH: I, first of all, appreciated the fact that the Senate, in a bipartisan fashion, rejected an amendment that would have taken our troops out of Iraq before the mission was complete. To me that was a positive step by the United States Senate.

Secondly, the Senate did ask that we report on progress being made in Iraq, which we're more than willing to do. That's to be expected. That's what the Congress expects. They expect us to keep them abreast of a plan that is going to work. It's a plan that we have made very clear to the Senate and the House, and that is the plan that we will train Iraqis, Iraqi troops to be able to take the fight to the enemy. And as I have consistently said, as the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.

I view this as a -- as an amendment consistent with our strategy, and look forward to continue to work with the Congress. It is important that we succeed in Iraq. A democracy in Iraq will bring peace for generations to come. And we're going to. The Iraqi people want us to succeed. The only reason we won't succeed is if we lose our nerve, and the terrorists are able to drive us out of Iraq by killing innocent lives. But I view this as positive developments on the Hill.

Posted by Mark Liberman at November 18, 2005 08:39 AM