Overview
Unspeak is language as a weapon. Every day, we are bombarded with those apparently simple words or phrases that actually conceal darker meanings. 'Climate change' is less threatening than 'global warming'; we say 'ethnic cleansing' when we mean mass murder. As we absorb and repeat Unspeak we are accepting the messages that politicians, businessmen and military agencies wish us to believe. Operation Iraqi Freedom did more than put a positive spin on the American war with Iraq; it gave the invasion such a likeable name that the American news networks quickly adopted it as their tagline for reporting on the war. By repackaging the language we use to describe international affairs or domestic politics, Unspeak tries to make controversial issues unspeakable and, therefore, unquestionable. In this thought-provoking and important book, Steven Poole traces the globalizing wave of modern Unspeak from culture wars to the culture of war and reveals how everyday words are changing the way we think.
Full Product Details
Author: Steven Poole
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Imprint: Abacus
Edition: New edition
Dimensions:
Width: 20.10cm
, Height: 2.00cm
, Length: 13.20cm
Weight: 0.208kg
ISBN: 9780349119243
ISBN 10: 0349119244
Pages: 304
Publication Date: 01 February 2007
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Manufactured on demand
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.
Reviews
"A study of [UNSPEAK] is not just ttimely and welcome but (you'll feel once you've read this book) urgent. ...we should all be grateful to Steven Poole for his public spiritedness in undertaking it. Will someone please give him a medal, or a government office, or a slot on the radio with daily updates? - Claire Harman, EVENING STANDARD Poole has a sharp eye for hidden meanings and sub-texts. His account of politician s' addiction to the word ""community"" is a tour de force. By emphasising that one should always ""look to the language"", and going about his task with such forensic brio, Po - Francis Wheen, THE LIBERAL Steven Poole is to rhetorial doublespeak what the small boy was to the naked emperor: a pin to prick the speech bubbles - SUNDAY HERALD Steven Poole is to rhetorical doublespeak what the small boy was to the naked emperor: a pin to prick the speech bubbles . . . UNSPEAK sets out the case against, and also offers forensic analysis of, some of the most notorious examples he has found... UNSP - SCOTSMAN"
** 'Steven Poole's admirable object is something like moral alertness, founded on close reading. Unspeak is in the best sense a stimulus and a provocation. Unmasking unspeak is addictive, and anyone can play' TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT ** 'Poole's archaeology of everyday terms is impressive and salutary' OBSERVER ** 'The book's central purpose is to remind us to unpack the terms in which public debate is framed' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY **'A study of [Unspeak] is not just ttimely and welcome but (you'll feel once you've read this book) urgent. ...we should all be grateful to Steven Poole for his public spiritedness in undertaking it. Will someone please give him a medal, or a governmen
Author Information
Author Website: www.stevenpoole.net
Steven Poole reviews and writes on literature and culture for the GUARDIAN. He is the author of TRIGGER HAPPY, a critically acclaimed study of the aesthetics and culture of videogames.
