The vapidity of the "dog-whistle" charge

Nationally-recognized linguist and political commentator Dr. Alan Perlman daylights the intellectual emptiness of local lefty's claims that their opponents' language has hidden meanings—which, of course, only they can understand.

In practice, the phrase "dog whistle" has a number of related meanings, but they all capture the metaphor of something that means something other than what it says, to a particular group, present or not, whose members get that meaning.

As is so often the case in language, the words people use tell a lot about them. Let’s go over the outrageously improbable assumptions that underlie “dog whistle”:

(1) The words someone said or wrote do not mean what they appear to mean. It’s hard enough to define “mean” and “appear to mean.” Presuming (1) is a huge stretch.

(2) The definitions and examples refer to “coded messages” but there’s never any glossary that would tell us what the codes are and how they are to be interpreted. That’s because “coded” is a throwaway judgment on the part of the speaker, who has already identified the dog whistle.

(3) The user of the term has already identified the audience who hears the dog whistle. Another stretch.

(4) The user of the term can read the minds of the people who hear the dog whistle. Thus he/she knows how those people will understand the words.

Linguistic intention and perception take place in the brain and are therefore difficult if not impossible to determine with certainty. We have nothing overt to work with except the stream of speech sounds and the accompanying gestures. So it takes equal measures of arrogance and ignorance to assume (1)-(4).

So: “Dog whistle” is a derogatory term for language that doesn’t mean what it appears to mean but has some other (‘racist’ is a favorite choice) meaning to other (un)identified people, via a mysterious “coding” process.

No wonder it’s such a useful rhetorical tool. But you have to question the ethics of people who use it.  Either that, or be impressed that they’ve pulled off a triple mindreading act.

Read the whole thing here.

Dr. Alan Perlman is a PhD and forensic linguist based in NH. Read more of his work here.

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