Barrie Davis with Copilot: Using the Milton Model

In “Breaking the Spell of Political Frames” (here) I showed how to get a linguistic analysis of media politics by Copilot using the open sesame spell breaker of “Milton Model” language patterns. It also names a list of 27 such patterns so that you have the language necessary to converse with Copilot. Here I will explore an example to further illustrate how you can use them and also pass on a message from Copilot.

Barrie Davis: Copilot - Breaking the Spell of Political Frames

A practical guide to spotting distortions, tricks, and linguistic sleights of hand in New Zealand politics and media that is simple, easy and quick.

 Do you ever have the sense that a piece of text just isn’t right? Much of what passes for “news” is actually advocacy wrapped in journalistic packaging. We sense the spin, we feel the manipulation, but we often lack the language to say what’s happening.

John Middleton: Waking a sleeping language

Our plan to revive the speaking of ta rē Moriori

When is a language extinct and when is it merely dormant? There are certainly languages that have passed over that line, and many remain threatened today. But what of those in the twilight zone – can we revive them, and what would that look like?

Languages that no longer have native speakers – that is, no one who learned it as a child – are often considered “dead”. And yet it’s not quite as clear cut as that.

Karl du Fresne: Let me be very clear about this

There’s one immutable rule in politics: never trust a politician who prefaces a statement with the word “frankly”.

Actually, make that two rules. You should also never trust a politician who says, “Let me be very clear”.

Anyone who begins a statement with the word “frankly” is signalling that whatever he or she is about to say (it’s usually a he) is fearless or radical.

Bruce Moon: Some Tips about Te Reo

“Words, words, words” - Shakespeare, “Hamlet”, Act 2, Scene 2          

             

While the meaningful glance certainly has its place, for the much greater part of our communication, we use words, spoken and, until modern times much less often, written – in a word: “language”.

A communicating group from a tribe to an empire will develop a language understood by all, which will change slowly over the years as the needs for expression and habits of speech change within the group.  As one group becomes dominant over others, so will its language.

Karl du Fresne: How identity politics has changed language

What a minefield language has become since it got mixed up with identity politics.

In her acceptance speech at the Emmy Awards last year, Viola Davis – named outstanding lead actress in a TV drama series for her performance in How to Get Away with Murder – talked of herself as a "woman of colour".

I wish we could make up our minds once and for all.

Bruce Moon:The Power of Language

April this year (2016) will mark the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare.  Just five years earlier, the King James Bible was published in England.  Millions of people around the world today continue to enjoy the works of Shakespeare and take comfort and advice from that Bible's words.  They can do this because those works were written in English 400 years ago and understood today.

Less than half that time in the past, Royal Navy Captain William Hobson was charged to obtain cession of New Zealand to the British Queen, given the "free intelligent consent of the natives, expressed according to their established usages" to whom he was to "frankly and unreservedly explain ... the reasons which should urge them to acquiesce."[1]  Those words are clear to us today.  As an experienced naval officer, Hobson was accustomed to giving orders to men of little education – often lives depended on it.   He will therefore have understood exactly how he was to proceed.