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Bush
and Blair Unplugged
In July 2006
a microphone left on during a G8 summit meeting recorded the following
conversation between the Prime Minister of the UK and the President of
the United States.
The conversation
made the headlines, first as an unusual chance to witness the natural
speech of two men whose words are usually uttered formally and scripted
to avoid spontaneity, and secondly as a revealing insight into the relationship
between the two men. Mr Blair's offer to visit the area was widely seen
as showing a desire to show himself on the world stage but having a lack
of confidence in achieving any change in the Middle East confagration.
We can treat
this as a spontaneous personal conversation as it was neither planned
nor intended for any audience apart from the two speakers themselves.
It is clearly informal in tone, reflected in the grammar (a great deal
of syntactic incompletenesss and ambiguity) and vocabulary (see notes
below)
Give a linguistic
analysis of this transcript. Refer to informality features, discourse
features and turn taking.
Bush Yo, Blair. How are you doin’?
Blair I’m just . . .
Bush
You’re leaving?
Blair No, no, no, not yet. On this trade thingy .
. .(inaudible)
Bush Yeah, I told that to the man. Thanks for (inaudible)
it’s awfully thoughtful of you.
Blair It’s a pleasure.
Bush I know you picked it out yourself.
Blair Absolutely (inaudible).
Bush What about Kofi? (inaudible) His attitude
to ceasefire and everything else . . . happens.
Blair Yeah, no I think the (inaudible) is
really difficult. We can’t stop this unless you get this international
business agreed.
Bush Yeah.
Blair I don’t know what you guys have talked
about, but as I say I am perfectly happy to try and see what the lie
of the land is, but you need that done quickly because otherwise it
will spiral.
Bush I think Condi is going to go pretty soon.
Blair But that’s, that’s, that’s
all that matters. But if you . . . you see it will take some time
to get that together.
Bush Yeah, yeah.
Blair But at least it gives people . . .
Bush It’s a process, I agree. I told her your
offer to . . .
Blair Well, it’s only if, I mean, you know.
If she’s got a, or if she needs the ground prepared, as it were.
Because obviously if she goes out, she’s got to succeed, if
it were, whereas I can go out and just talk.
Bush You see, the thing is, what they need to do
is to get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it’s
over. (inaudible)
Blair Syria.
Bush Why?
Blair Because I think this is all part of the same
thing.
Bush Yeah.
Blair What does he think? He thinks if Lebanon turns
out fine, if we get a solution in Israel and Palestine, Iraq goes
in the right way . . .
Bush Yeah, yeah, he is sweet.
Blair He is honey. And that’s what the whole
thing is about. It’s the same with Iraq.
Bush I felt like telling Kofi to call, to get on
the phone to Assad and make something happen.
Blair Yeah.
Bush We are not blaming the Lebanese Government.
Blair Is this . . .? (he taps the microphone
in front of him and the sound is cut.) |
Note
"sweet" and "honey" is President
Assad of Syria, widely regarded as the biggest obstacle to the spread
of democracy in the Middle East.
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