Discourse Analysis

Sitting for a taped interview with Steve Murphy, the anchor for CTV Halifax, Mr. Dion had been asked: "If you were prime minister now, what would you have done about the economy and this crisis that Mr. Harper hasn't done?"

"If I had been prime minister 2½ years ago?" Mr. Dion replied.

"If you were the prime minister right now," Mr. Murphy explained.

Mr. Dion started talking about his 30-day action plan to tackle the crisis but had trouble enunciating and asked to start again. "I've been slow listening to your question."

Mr. Murphy repeated the question. Mr. Dion asked: "If I was prime minister starting when? Today?"

At one point a Liberal aide came in to explain the question.

There were language and communication problems here, but it was bi-directional. Let's walk through.

First, the interviewer asks:

"If you were prime minister now, what would you have done about the economy and this crisis that Mr. Harper hasn't done?"

This is not phrased optimally because the wording of the first clause it not carefully chosen. As Anglophones, we can see what he's getting at, but it is never stated explicitly. The entire point that was misunderstood is contained in the words "would have done," which show that the interviewer meant what would Mr. Dion have done in the past and up to now during his mandate. However, French would not put meaning here and the Francophone brain therefore would not have thought to seek meaning here. French tends to use the conditional willy-nilly, when they're trying to be polite or trying to imply "allegedly" or to add more syllables to make it sound better, so the mere presence of the conditional is not necessarily meaningful. The Francophone brain would therefore look for temporal cues elsewhere in the sentence. And there is in fact a temporal cue elsewhere in the sentence in the word "now", but it is misleading. The interviewer doesn't actually mean "right this minute, on October 9, 2008." He means "in the run-up to and during the current economic crisis."

A better wording would have been to clearly state "If you had been Prime Minister since 2006, what would you have done..." or even to remove the red herring and emphasize that the meaning is in the conditional with "As Prime Minister, what would you have done..."

To properly interpret this sentence, Mr. Dion would have to a) recognize that the key meaning is in the would have done, which is not a place a Francophone brain would normally look for this meaning, b) know to reject the only explicit temporal cue in the sentence, c) recognize where the wording was and was not carefully chosen, and d) correctly infer the intended meaning.

So Mr. Dion asks for clarification by stating his interpretation as a yes/no question:

"If I had been prime minister 2½ years ago?"

As you can see, Mr. Dion did interpret the initial question correctly. However, this statement of his interpretation is not worded optimally for an Anglophone brain. The meaning is in the "2.5 years ago", which is the essential piece of information that (to the Francophone brain) was missing from the initial question - depuis 2.5 ans. However, the Anglophone brain is looking for meaning in the verbs because English likes to carry meaning in its verbs

A better wording would have been to put more meaning in the verb, such as "If I had been elected PM 2.5 years ago?"

To properly interpret this sentence, the interviewer would need to avoid inferring primary meaning from the pluperfect of the verb "to be" and instead recognize that the important point is "2.5 years ago"

So the interviewer attempts to clarify:

"If you were the prime minister right now"

This is the biggest communication breakdown in the whole conversation. The interviewer was confirming Mr. Dion's interpretation, but he did not use any affirmatives or repeat any of Mr. Dion's key words. In the absence of affirmatives or repetition of key words, I think the vast majority of people would not interpret a statement as confirmation, regardless of the actual content of the statement. (Example: I'm giving you directions. You ask me "Is it the green building?" I reply "It's #731." When you're at the right corner looking for #731, you're not even going to glance at the street number of the green building, are you?)

A better wording would be "Yes, if you had been elected PM 2.5 years ago" or "If you were elected PM in the last election" or "If you were PM during this economic crisis that started last week" or any other response containing a range of time and/or an affirmative.

To properly interpret this sentence, Mr. Dion would have had to ignore his every instinct (in any language) about how people usually go about confirming other people's statements, and infer the time range that has not yet been spoken out loud.

So Mr. Dion took this to mean that he's PM starting now and started outlining the plan in his platform. Then (apparently in response to the interviewer's reaction to his response), he asked to start over, again asking for the same clarification but this time more clearly:

"If I was prime minister starting when? Today?"

That "starting when" is the key point, the depuis that was missing from the initial question.

I'll bet you anything when the staffer came over to clarify, their clarification included the word (or if they were speaking English the concept of) depuis.