Spring Break
Audience learns about linguistics' effect on political minds
Ryan Fernandez
Issue date: 11/2/09 Section: News
For students wondering what goes on in the minds of politicians, a UC Berkeley linguistics professor may have an answer.
George Lakoff gave a lecture Thursday titled "The Brain's Language and its Politics" to an audience of about 80 people in the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library, followed by a question-and-answer session and a book signing.
In his presentation, Lakoff presented an overview of the science of neurolinguistics and how it could be used to understand the thought processes of politicians across the political spectrum.
"We are not logic machines," he said. "People don't think with logic. They think with frames."
Lakoff said "frames" were bodies of knowledge associated with particular words or concepts that were used to define and understand those words or concepts.
"Specific words can trigger frames, which trigger other frames and so on, triggering a reaction," he said. "When that neural circuitry activates over and over, it strengthens that frame."
Lakoff said that understanding frames was necessary to understand how people, especially politicians, perceived and acted on ideas.
"To change public opinion is to change their brains, because every thought is physical," he said. "You have to know how neural systems work to understand how politics work."
Lakoff said progressive politicians could learn from their conservative counterparts in being able to effectively utilize mass communications to spread their ideas to the American public.
"When you have a lot of people saying the same words, evoking the same ideas, those ideas get stronger," he said.
Eric Acedo, a sophomore environmental studies major, said he thought Lakoff's ideas were unique.
"It was a very eye-opening experience," he said. "I heard a lot of ideas I never thought about."
Lakoff said he acknowledged the difficulty of fully explaining the relationship between politics and neurolinguistics to people not already versed in some form of neurological or linguistic science.
George Lakoff gave a lecture Thursday titled "The Brain's Language and its Politics" to an audience of about 80 people in the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library, followed by a question-and-answer session and a book signing.
In his presentation, Lakoff presented an overview of the science of neurolinguistics and how it could be used to understand the thought processes of politicians across the political spectrum.
"We are not logic machines," he said. "People don't think with logic. They think with frames."
Lakoff said "frames" were bodies of knowledge associated with particular words or concepts that were used to define and understand those words or concepts.
"Specific words can trigger frames, which trigger other frames and so on, triggering a reaction," he said. "When that neural circuitry activates over and over, it strengthens that frame."
Lakoff said that understanding frames was necessary to understand how people, especially politicians, perceived and acted on ideas.
"To change public opinion is to change their brains, because every thought is physical," he said. "You have to know how neural systems work to understand how politics work."
Lakoff said progressive politicians could learn from their conservative counterparts in being able to effectively utilize mass communications to spread their ideas to the American public.
"When you have a lot of people saying the same words, evoking the same ideas, those ideas get stronger," he said.
Eric Acedo, a sophomore environmental studies major, said he thought Lakoff's ideas were unique.
"It was a very eye-opening experience," he said. "I heard a lot of ideas I never thought about."
Lakoff said he acknowledged the difficulty of fully explaining the relationship between politics and neurolinguistics to people not already versed in some form of neurological or linguistic science.
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