Tugging at Your Heartstrings: How Emotional Rhetoric Shapes Legislation

In the era of “fake news” and “alternative facts,” the focus on language in politics is high. What a bill is or campaign is called can be just as important as the actual contents. With the recent string of “heartbeat” and related bills in several states, we took a look at the role language plays into how we debate issues in public. Dr Fern Johnson , professor emerita in English at Clark University , joined us to talk about the power of connotation and the tools legislators use. Her research centers on the discourse surrounding ethnicity, race and gender.