特朗普语言学如何改变世界

There is great anger, Donald Trump said early in his campaign for the Republican nomination.

存在极大的愤怒——唐纳德.特朗普(Donald Trump)在竞选共和党总统候选人提名初期曾说过。

Believe me, there is great anger.

相信我，存在极大的愤怒。

And it is that anger that Mr Trump went on to surf into the White House.

特朗普正是借助这种愤怒问鼎白宫。

Anger played a large part in the other great political shake-up of the year, the EU referendum in the UK.

在今年另一场重大政治剧变——英国退欧公投中，愤怒也发挥了重要作用。

When it comes to rhetoric, 2016 has been a year in which the wind changed: away from optimism and towards aggression; away from argument and towards assertion.

在修辞方面，2016年是风向转变的一年：语气不再乐观、而转为攻击；不再说理、而是直接下结论。

What we have seen is a change not just in politics — away from an essentially technocratic and centrist establishment — but in the language of politics.

这些变化不只体现在政治上（政治重心离开本质上为技术官僚和中间派的建制派），还体现在政治语言上。

Mark Thompson, the former BBC director-general and now chief executive of the New York Times, quoted Mr Trump’s line on anger in Enough Said: What’s Gone Wrong With The Language of Politics?, which was published in the summer.

英国广播公司(BBC)前总裁、现担任《纽约时报》(New York Times)首席执行官的马克.汤普森(Mark Thompson)在其于今年夏天出版的《无须多言：政治语言出了什么问题？》(Enough Said: What’s Gone Wrong With The Language of Politics?)一书中，引用了特朗普关于愤怒的原话。

He argues that the prevailing currents of the day — fuelled and amplified by social media — are towards emotive, maximalist language, preaching to the converted, and the production of heat rather than light.

他认为，在社交媒体的推动和放大下，如今的主流方向是情绪化、极端化的语言，向皈依者布道，是为了煽动、而不是启迪。

He was right.

他说的没错。

Both Clinton partisans and UK Remainers struggled to find a slogan as emotive or as forceful as Take Back Control or Make America Great Again.

希拉里阵营和英国留欧派都难以找到像拿回控制权(Take Back Control)或让美国再次伟大起来(Make America Great Again)那样感召人心或强有力的口号——

Compare the flaccid, verbless Better Together and Stronger In.

对比一下这两个软绵绵的口号：在一起更好(Better Together)和留欧更强(Stronger In)。

Both winning slogans were imperative in mood: a call to action rather than floating expressions of a vague status quo.

两个获胜方的口号在情绪上都更有紧迫感：号召采取行动、而不是缥缈地表达一种模糊的现状。

The status quo was not where the action was this year.

今年，现状不是行动的目标。

Boris Johnson, speaking for the Leave campaign, identified the fatal weakness of the Remainers’ case in rhetorical terms: You know the most depressing thing about the campaign to ‘Bremain.’

退欧派的代表鲍里斯.约翰逊(Boris Johnson)指出了留欧派在措辞上的致命弱点：你知道‘留欧’(Bremain)运动最令人郁闷的一点是什么。

It is that there is not a shred of idealism . . . No one will say, you know what, I love the idea of a federal Europe.

就是没有一丝理想主义……你知道吗，没人会说，我很喜欢联邦欧洲这个想法。

Idealism: strong emotively loaded words, calls to action, calls for change, fine-sounding abstractions.

理想主义：承载着强烈情感的词语，对采取行动的呼吁，对改变的呼吁，听上去很美好的抽象概念。

These are what made the running in 2016.

这些是2016年的主流。

Detailed concrete arguments about economic forecasts, tariff barriers, immigration statistics or constitutional law were mounted but they made no discernible impact on any but the already-converted.

对于经济预测、关税壁垒、移民数据或者宪法的详细确凿论据摆了很多，但这些论据除了对本已相信的人，对其他任何人都没有产生丝毫影响。

We have seen a precipitous shift in the balance of Aristotle’s triad of persuasive appeals, ethos, pathos and logos.

我们看到，亚里士多德的修辞学三要素——人品诉求(ethos)、情感诉求(pathos)和理性诉求(logos)——之间的平衡已经出现急剧变化。

Logos — argument from evidence and settled or consistent premises — has been in a bear market.

理性诉求——依据证据和确定（或一贯）前提的论证——目前正处于熊市。

As Michael Gove said during the Brexit campaign that the people in this country have had enough of experts.

正如迈克尔.戈夫(Michael Gove)在退欧运动时所说，这个国家的人们已经受够了专家了。

To be fair to him, what he said was a little more subtle and specific — he recently told the BBC he was talking about a sub-class of economists and pollsters — but that sound bite is what is remembered because it caught a truth.

平心而论，他实际说的要稍微更委婉和具体一点——他最近向BBC称，他说的是经济学家和民调专家这个子集——但人们之所以记住了他被摘出来的这句话，是因为这句话说出了真相。

Instead we’ve had ethos appeals that depend on outsider authenticity and commonsense ideas of fairness or pride.

相反，我们看到的是对人品诉求这一要素的利用——依赖于局外人的可靠性和有关公平或骄傲的常识看法。

And we’ve seen the most effective oratory channelling pathos, or the feelings of the crowd — anger or frustration above all.

我们还看到了对情感诉求的最有效利用——诉诸受众的感受，尤其是他们的愤怒或沮丧。

That’s not unique to the winning sides, incidentally: the Bernie Sanders insurgency in the race for the Democratic nomination used exactly that emotive, impatient, outsiderish language.

意外的是，这并非胜利方所独有的技巧：伯尼.桑德斯(Bernie Sanders)在民主党总统提名角逐中异军突起，利用的正是那种感召人心、急切和局外人式的语言。

And — had Sanders not been what to many American voters looks a hair away from being a communist — it might have gone further.

若不是很多美国人认为桑德斯几乎就是个共产党人的话，这种语言方式可能会让他走得更远。

The Cameron and Obama years saw leaders seeking to position themselves as conciliators and centrists

在卡梅伦(Cameron)和奥巴马时代，领导人力图把自己定位成调解人和中间派。

Their basic audience-shaping strategies were, as in Barack Obama’s classic red-state-blue-state speech, to do with trying to forge a collective we.

正如巴拉克.奥巴马(Barack Obama)那场经典的红州/蓝州演讲那样，他们影响受众的基本策略是试图打造一个共同的我们。

Remember Red Tories and Green Tories; remember President Obama declaring that there’s not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America?

还记得红色保守党(Red Tories)和绿色保守党(Green Tories)，还有奥巴马总统说的没有一个自由的美国和一个保守的美国、只有美利坚合众国吗？

On both sides of the Atlantic this year we saw an aggressive repudiation of that.

今年，我们在大西洋两岸都看到了对这种定位的强烈否定。

The new audience-shaping is about defining an us and a them.

影响受众的新方法是界定我们和他们。

Us is the freeborn Brit or the forgotten men and women of America.

我们是生而自由的英国人或者美国被遗忘的人们。

Them is, according to circumstance, unelected European elites, out-of-touch liberals, Muslims, career politicians, Mexicans, Jews, corrupt bankers, pollsters, unelected members of the judiciary, beta cucks, Remoaners and libtards.

根据各自情况，他们则是未经选举产生的欧洲精英、高高在上的自由主义者、穆斯林、职业政客、墨西哥人、犹太人、腐败的银行家、民调专家、未经选举产生的司法部门成员、beta cuck（辱骂语，原意指伴侣有不忠行为的男人）、怨言多多的支持留欧者(Remoaner)和自由主义智障(libtard)。

As for the language, the pendulum has swung back towards the plain style.

至于语言本身，平实的风格再度流行。

Much has been made of Mr Trump’s word salad approach to the language: his anacoluthons (broken sentences), his malapropisms, his halting monosyllables and his empty intensifiers.

关于特朗普的词汇杂拌的语言风格，人们已经说了很多了：他的破格句（有语病的句子）、文字误用、支支吾吾的单音节词及空洞的强调词。

But it’s worth noticing: they didn’t hurt him at the ballot box.

但是值得注意的是：这些并未有损他的得票率。

Nor, in his day, did George W Bush’s apparent inarticulacy.

当年小布什(George W Bush)明显的口齿笨拙也没有影响他的选情。

The American public, you could say, are in the position of the Daily Mail’s proprietor in the 1960s, Esmond Harmsworth, who reflected that having tried a short, fat editor without much success he’d now try a tall, thin one.

你可以说，美国公众正处在上世纪60年代《每日邮报》(Daily Mail)的所有者埃斯蒙德.哈姆斯沃思(Esmond Harmsworth)的位置上：他曾说，试过了矮胖的主编、不大成功之后，他现在会试一个又高又瘦的主编。

Americans tried a leader who spoke well; now they’re having a bash with one who doesn’t.

美国人试过了能言会道的领导人；如今他们要试试笨嘴拙舌的了。

Mr Trump’s oratory may not have been sophisticated but it was effective.

特朗普的演讲术或许不复杂，但很有效。

He repeated emotive, simple words in an almost grammar-free structure.

他以几乎不含语法的结构，重复感情充沛的简单词汇。

That can work; symmetrically, after all, Mr Obama’s rhetorical ease didn’t do him much good once he was in office.

这可能奏效：毕竟，与之形成对比的是，在奥巴马上台后他流畅的措辞并没有多大帮助。

The rapier can be thrilling but the sledgehammer does a job too.

刺剑或许令人胆寒，但大锤也可以取人性命。

Listening to a Trump speech an audience would not follow much of an argument but they’d come away with words like great, tremendous, wonderful and winning ringing in their ears.

听特朗普的演讲，观众可能听不出多少逻辑性，但他们回家时耳边会萦绕着伟大的巨大的极好的和胜利之类的词语。

When Mr Trump spoke at a rally he used a pounding symploce (repetition both at the beginning and the end of his sentences, with a different, emotive abstract noun in the middle): We will make America strong again.

当特朗普在竞选集会上发言时，他利用具有冲击力的首尾词语反复（symploce，每句话都有相同的开头词和结尾词，中间有一个不同的感召性抽象名词）：我们将让美国再次强大起来。

We will make America proud again.

我们将让美国再次骄傲起来。

We will make America safe again.

我们将让美国再次安全起来。

And we will make America great again.

我们将让美国再次伟大起来。

Arguably, it was the sophistication of Mr Obama that paved the way for Mr Trump, whose oratorical clumsiness sounded to many like straight talking.

可以说，奥巴马的能言善辩为特朗普铺平了道路，后者的笨嘴拙舌在很多人听来更像是直言不讳。

As long as we’ve had oratory, we’ve had a mistrust of the smooth talker.

自从我们有了演讲术以来，我们一直不信任巧舌如簧者。

Rhetoric has always contained (and, ironically, co-opted) its shadow-self: the mistrust of rhetoric.

修辞学一直包含（并讽刺地吸纳了）它的阴暗面：对修辞的不信任。

And this year anti-rhetoric rhetoric took the lead.

今年，反修辞式措辞占据上风。

But as we watch him leave the stage, Mr Obama — in fact, both Obamas — deserves a tip of the hat.

但当我们目送他离场时，我们应该向奥巴马——事实上是奥巴马夫妇——致敬。

Where Hillary Clinton managed to summon plausible emotion only in defeat — This is painful, she said, voice cracking in her concession speech, and it will be for a long time —

希拉里.克林顿(Hillary Clinton)在败选时才成功唤起一些模糊的情绪：这很痛苦，她在败选演说中声音颤抖着说，这感觉还会持续很长时间。

the high points of the Democratic campaign, oratorically, came from the outgoing president and his wife.

在演说方面，民主党阵营的最佳表现来自即将离任的奥巴马及其妻子。

Look at his barnstorming reprisal of his Fired up — ready to go! story in New Hampshire shortly before the polls opened.

只需看看他在大选投票开始前不久在新罕布什尔的那场充满激情的演讲，他讲述了自己曾经的的竞选口号燃起来，准备出发！是怎么来的。

Or consider Michelle Obama’s emotive speech in response to the leak of Mr Trump’s boasting of his history of sexual assault:

或者想一想米歇尔.奥巴马(Michelle Obama)在回应特朗普吹嘘性骚扰史一事曝光后的动情演讲：

The shameful comments about our bodies.

对我们身体的可耻评论。

The disrespect of our ambitions and intellect.

对我们的抱负和才智的不尊重。

The belief that you can do anything you want to a woman.

认为你可以对女性为所欲为的态度。

It is cruel. It’s frightening.

这是残忍的，可怕的。

And the truth is, it hurts.

事实是，这很伤人。

It hurts.

真的很伤人。

Those expressions of pain and determination felt authentic.

这些关于痛苦和决心的表达让人感觉很真实。

But they were — in terms of connecting with a wider electorate — too little too late.

但就获取更广泛选民的共鸣而言，此类演说太少、也太迟。

As Mrs Obama and Mrs Clinton both said: When they go low, you go high.

正如奥巴马和希拉里都曾说过的那样：他们没有下限，我们不能没有节操(When they go low, you go high)。

That’s a noble principle: but rhetoric is an instrumental art.

这是一条高尚的原则，但是修辞是一门实用技术。

You do what works; and this year going high did not.

你要怎么有用怎么来；而高标准在今年没起到作用。