Craig Burton

Doc Searls introduced me to Lakoff. Great stuff. 

August 19, 2006, TD
Blog Interview with George Lakoff

George Lakoff is Professor of
Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, a senior fellow at the
progressive think-tank Rockridge
Institute, and is the author of “Whose
Freedom: The Battle Over America’s Most Important Idea” and a number of
other books including a multitude of articles in major scholarly journals and
edited volumes, as well as books such as Moral Politics: How Liberals and
Conservatives Think, and Don’t Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values, Frame the
Debate. Dr. Lakoff’s current work discusses the concept of “framing”, both deep
frames representing an underlying value structure; for conservatives, the deep
frames revolve around strict father morality, and for progressives, the deep
frames revolve around a nurturant family morality, and “surface frames”, which,
in Dr. Lakoff’s analysis, are the ideas associated with individual words and
expressions and which make political sense only given the deep frames. The
concept of freedom is one such case. On July 25, 2006, I had the privilege of
interviewing Dr. Lakoff by telephone. What follows are my interview notes, as
corrected where appropriate by Dr. Lakoff.
The Talking Dog: My
customary first question is “where were you on 9-11″? I ask that because I
happened to be at my then desk at my then job, across the street from the
WTC.
George Lakoff: I was at home. I woke up late that day.
Someone working in our garden called out “Turn on your t.v. the Towers are
down!” My wife and I watched the television; I said “Oh my God! ” and “What Bush
will do with this?” I could anticipate what was coming! My wife had the same
thought, that the Right would use this to gain overwhelming
power.

Source: the talking
dog: August 19, 2006, TD Blog Interview with George Lakoff

tags: linguistics, Lakoff, linguistics