THE BUNDESBANK AND THE MAKING OF AN ECONOMIC PRESS
STORY
clac 4/2000
Michael White
Universidad Complutense de Madrid
1.
INTRODUCTION
1.1
Contextual events
In September 1992, the European
Monetary System (EMU) suffered the most serious crisis of its history. For our
purposes, a telegraphic outline[1]
of the main components of the crisis will suffice to provide the contextual
framework within which we can see how the press handles such an issue and this
could take the following shape:
· Over
the summer of 1992 and particularly as September arrived the trading situation
on the foreign exchange markets was such that the status quo of currency
parities within the Exchange-rate Mechanism (ERM) was felt to be unsustainable.
· At
this stage, currencies tended to be grouped together as strong, with, the
D-Mark as hallmark, or weak, particularly the Lira and Sterling followed by the
Peseta, Escudo and Punt and to a certain extent the Franc.
· The
authorities of weaker currency countries desperately sought to ward off the
threat of realignment.
· At
this juncture the key to a satisfactory outcome was clearly seen to lay with
the Bundesbank. However, sharply
conflicting interests were involved here:
1) On the one hand, the Bundesbank has
a statutory obligation to protect the
value of the German currency and at this time the central bank authorities,
wrestling with the Herculean problems deriving from German re-unification and
monetary union, were forced to run high interest rates to counteract inflation.
2) On the other hand, Britain in
particular, more closely in step with the US economic cycle, finding itself in
the depth of recession urgently needed to reduce interest rates but could not
do so without jeopardising its ERM parity unless a corresponding cut was made
in German rates. Many other European
countries found themselves in a similar
dénouement.
· At
a vital meeting of the Finance ministers of the EU held at Bath, U.K., a
concerted effort on the part of the remaining members of the EU, set about
persuading the German authorities to reduce interest rates and thereby aid
recession hit countries and defuse the tension mounting on the markets.
· This
demand put the Bundesbank President in a very awkward position:
1)
On the one hand he and the bank he represented were being called upon to act as
a de facto European Central Bank and take steps demanded by the EU as a
whole.
2)
On the other hand, those steps ran counter to what he and the Bundesbank
council deemed German monetary performance demanded. Moreover, the Bundesbank
President is the president of a democratic Council made up of (at that time) 18
members[2]
with different loyalties and where the President’s vote counts as that of any
other member.
· The
Bath meeting ended with an agreement that the Bundesbank would reduce interest
rates and that Italy would devalue the Lira.
· On
the following Monday when the Bundesbank Council convened, they decided on an
interest rate cut of a mere ¼%. This was so slight as to threaten to produce
an altogether contrary to desired effect on the market and next day when an
interview by Mr Schlesinger gave the impression further devaluations, especially
in the case of Sterling, were needed, a full scale crisis broke leading to the
exit from the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) and drastic loss in exchange value
of the Lira and Sterling, followed by successive realignments of other
currencies within the EMS.
· In
the wake of this dénouement, British authorities and, to some extent, press
laid the blame on and bitterly
criticised Germany and the Bundesbank as primarily responsible for the crisis. The Bundesbank authorities flatly denied
this extreme and while they were considered the outright victors of the crisis,
they had also to contend with internal criticism for having failed to carry out
their statutory mandate.
1.2 The handling of events by the press
Now, I have just narrated the events
which made up the currency crisis in the most “congruent” (Halliday 1985:321 )
style possible[3]. Basically, this is the case because typical
actors - the Bundesbank president, the British, German or European financial
authorities - are the agents of typical processes - holding meetings,
negotiating with and persuading counterparts to take certain measures, in short
the doing of diverse things.
Furthermore, this is in line with the claim that economics is the result
of decisions taken by rational agents (see Henderson 1982:149 and Gerard
1993:61). However, if I turn to the
press coverage of the crisis, this is precisely the kind of discourse that is
rarely forthcoming. In fact my very
narration itself is a result of a conscious effort to raise rational actors who
in the press coverage of the issue are embedded, disguised or entailed in a
morass of metonymy and metaphor. How
this comes about and its effect on the discourse produced will now be the
object of study.
One of the essential tenets of
cognitive linguistics (which is the theoretic framework informing my analysis)
is that thought is metaphoric and that consequently our conceptualisation makes
natural and constant recourse to metonymy and metaphor in its processes. Two immediate consequences immediately
follow: firstly, the fact that the use
of metaphor and metonymy is to a very large degree highly conventional and
secondly that it is so conventional as to go unnoticed in ordinary use or
naturally occurring discourse (Gibbs 1993:22)
Lakoff & Johnson 1980; Lakoff & Turner 1989). For instance if we came across a press
heading such as the following:
· Parent
warns child on traffic dangers -
the
sentence would be found to meet all semantic criteria for good
construction. The predicate “warn” will
imply +human agent and recipient, here provided by “parent” and “child”
respectively. If, however, the heading
we come across reads as follows -
1)
Bundesbank warns Bonn on federal debt (FT1:1-H)[4] -
it
is quite obvious that different linguistic processes are operating. The agent in this case is an institution -
the BUNDESBANK -, the recipient, a city - Bonn. Yet the sentence is not only meaningful but is as automatically
understood to be so as the former one.
This is possible because of the conventionalised processes at work: the
metonymic processes whereby a location may stand for an institution seated at
that location and an institution may stand for the people who run that
institution. The first effect here is a
referential one producing a great economy of wording: I don’t have to spell out
something to the effect of “The German Executive Authorities” or “The current
political party governing Germany” (see Boers 1994:684-5). But further metaphorical processes are at
work: the institution, the Bundesbank, and the German Executive Power or
Government are being personified and this personification is not just in any
sense of a person but rather is highly directional; very significant
personality traits emerge through the predicate or accompanying co-text. The Bundesbank, for instance, is not just
“informing” Bonn or “asking” Bonn a question but “warning” Bonn. To grasp the full implications involved
here, let us recall our “cognate” example:
· Parent
warns child on traffic dangers
This
sentence is not only satisfying semantically, it also conforms highly with
expectations. If, however, I introduce
the following switch:
· Child
warns parent on traffic dangers
expectations,
certainly prototypical expectations, are tampered with since the warning agent
somehow or other is expected to wield some form of ascendancy over the
warned. Thus
1)
Bundesbank warns Bonn on federal debt (FT1:1-H) -
very
decidedly carries certain implications and not others. In fact, it carries a wealth of these, for
example:
-
the Bundesbank is in a position which commands a certain authority: it can
warn.
-
if the Bundesbank warns, it probably has a stricter outlook on and a sharper
awareness of the potential danger of the question at issue than the recipient of its warning.
-
Bonn has a certain degree of responsibility for the existence of federal debt.
-
Bonn is either unaware, or at least less aware than the Bundesbank of the
potential danger of this debt.
-
there is a certain degree of independence between the two institutions.
This initial example puts us on the
track of how journalists cope with such issues as the activity taking place
within an institution. The most
conventional of devices such as elementary forms of metonymy can, by means of
their accompanying predicates or cotext, convey highly sophisticated meanings
simply and effectively. This is very
evident in the case of the overriding device of personifying the Bundesbank
which on the macro level provides a framework enabling them to construct
discourse concerning the Bundesbank and on the micro level it provides a vast
supply of choices from which the concrete attributes are mustered and it is
these which give the specific interpretational direction journalists wish to
bring to bear in their explanation of the nature of the Bundesbank and of its
activities. Let us now see how this
claim is borne out empirically, striving at each moment to see their use in
connection with an as fair as possible interpretation of the meaning of the
events and processes unfolding.
Chronologically, our period falls
into a clear before and after divide.
While the same rhetorical devices operate in both periods, differences
of perception, expectations and attitude clearly justify this division and
enable us to relate more effectively the use of these devices to the conveyance
of meaning.
2 PRIOR TO THE CRISIS
During the lead up to the crisis,
the sheer difficulty being encountered to get the Bundesbank authorities to
accede to an interest rate cut forces press discussion of the whole issue of
the crisis to come to terms with and explain the nature of this institution.
This task is by no means as simple as it might appear. We shall now analyse the way the press
handles it under four headings:
i)
the make-up of the Bundesbank
ii)
the Bundesbank as guardian of German currency values
iii)
the Bundesbank wielding power
iv)
the Bundesbank and other institutional authorities
2.1 The make up of the Bundesbank
In
connection with example 1) above, we have already seen the conventional
metonymy of an institution representing the people who run that
institution. But a major issue[5]
lies embedded in the whole process: are those individual who run an institution
referentially co-terminous with that institution or are we to distinguish
individuals – no matter how high-ranking – from the institution itself and
hence also distinguish between individual and institutional acts and
pronouncements. Looking at the actual case at hand the mainstream journalistic
way of dealing with the Bundesbank is through personification, but when we
pursue the referential range of that personification we find extreme
flexibility. In effect, “the Bundesbank” for journalists refers indifferently
to at least the following three cases:
i) The agent of the formal decisions taken by
the collective council
ii) The president and individual council members
in their diverse pronouncements
iii) The agent of a conception of the macro-economic
scenario deemed by journalistic analysis to constitute Bundesbank policy and
which in turn is likely to entail significant market repercussions (e.g.: ”The
Bundesbank thinks/objected to/is sceptical of…” etc).
Thus
when we look at the make-up of the Bundesbank, as appearing in the press, case
I) presents no problems. Case ii) deserves considerable attention and what is
highlighted is that the considerable differences between council members can
give rise to widely diverging opinions. Again, personification of the
institution is the vehicle by which such meanings are put across:
2)
Many voices go into a Bundesbank utterance. (FT 11:3-H)[6]
3)
... the Bank makes its views known to
the outside world in a bewildering multiplicity of ways. This is primarily because of its pluralistic way of making decisions. (FT11:3-L)
4)
When in recent weeks, a variety of
Bundesbank’s views ricochet onto the foreign exchange markets from several
different angles, the Central bank can stand
accused of inconsistency. (FT11:3).
These
examples clearly highlight the pluralistic composition of the Bundesbank
council and certain consequences ensuing from this fact. Secondly, however, at the very outset of our
discussion, we can see that, even here, where our concern is to come to grips
with the make-up of the Bank, the very language used underlines the power of
the Bundesbank since the entailments of the expression “a variety of
Bundesbank’s views ricochet onto the foreign exchange markets from
several different angles” shows the potentially devastating effects which
the mere views or opinions of the bank or rather its council members might
have.[7]
Case iii), on the other hand, means
journalists are pushing the referential range of “the Bundesbank” to a
flexibility bordering on looseness, which can give rise to considerable
controversy with Bundesbank officials being forced on stage to deny
journalistic inferences attributing to the Bank ideas, conceptions or potential
steps which the Bank is adamant to disown. In this respect, journalists could
well stand accused of shortcomings in rigour and of appropriation of a role
which is not theirs but, nevertheless, this aspect of journalistic procedure is
essential in endowing journalists that leeway which makes for penetrating
analysis and insight, and this certainly is something demanded of the
profession. In this sense, the practice seems justified and it is likewise
mainstream for journalism to discover, detect or deduce institutional policy or
thinking which the institution in question strives hard to conceal and indeed
deny.
2.2 The Bundesbank as guardian of German
currency value
While the Bundesbank’s statutory
mandate to defend the value of German currency may just be a statement of fact,
the personality attributes which are raised by the press when dealing with the
issue - sheer determination, tenacity, and resolution to withstand contrary
tendencies - highlight an aspect of the Bundesbank which shows that it is
carrying out its mandate it is behaving in a way that is both characteristic of
a certain personality and at the same time conferring that personality on the
institution. As a result, the idea that the Bundesbank is the kind of person
that acts with a singleness of purpose which makes it inexpugnable comes across.
5)
Reimut Jochimsem, a council member, said ... the Bundesbank had to pursue tight monetary policies because of strong growth in
money supply. (FT3:15)
6)
The Bundesbank’s do-or-die war on German inflation is continuing to
dominate management of the
European exchange-rate mechanism. (T5:13-E-L)
7)
The Bundesbank would be watching closely
the further development of the economy. (FT7:2)
8)
The Bundesbank will not be deflected from
its policy of pursuing firm monetary targets by outside criticism or
failure to meet these in the short term, Mr. Issing, a director of the German
Central Bank, said yesterday. (FT11:3)
9)
The Bundesbank objected to profligate
spending by the governments, to above-inflation wage rises and, most
recently, to interest rate subsidies for eastern Germany... (T11:21)
2.3 The power wielding nature of the Bundesbank
The foregoing characteristics set
the scene for a logical corollary of this conception of the Bundesbank, namely,
that it is the agent of authority and wields power. We have already analysed the implications of “warn”; to this are
added predicates consonant with that analysis such as other countries being at
the mercy of the Bundesbank, or this institution in the domineering role where
it can be seen as sceptical of others or of conducting and leading processes.
5)
Bundesbank warns Bonn on federal
debt. (FT1:1-H)
10)
If the French vote in favour of the Maastricht treaty, the EC’s leaders may not
summon up the courage to examine their respective currency values with a view
to realignment. They would thus abandon
all hope of using exchange-rate adjustment as a tool of revival and leave their
economic and political fates at the mercy
of the Bundesbank. (T5:13-E)
11)
The Bundesbank has always been sceptical
about whether Britain would accept the anti-inflationary discipline inherent in
the system (i.e. EMS). (FT11:3)
12)
The Bundesbank finds itself in the
unenviable position of having to
conduct an independent monetary policy against the background of an economic
policy that it despises and which it tried hard but unsuccessfully to prevent.
(T11:21)
13)
The Bundesbank leads the system, it leads the intervention ... (T11:21)
All these characteristics are
setting up a scenario whereby the economic institution, the Bundesbank is being
endowed with very clearly defined personality traits and it is important to
point out that these are not co-terminus with the real personality traits of
the Bundesbank executive council. Rather,
these traits are supplying the vehicle by which journalists are conveying their
abstraction of the fundamental philosophy underlying the policy and proven
practice of the Bundesbank institution over the years. Thus, at this stage in time dominated by the
threat of an impending currency crisis, the picture of the nature of the
Bundesbank comes across in the press as highly coherent discourse because the
type of interaction it is seen to engage in is highly consonant with the type
of personality with which it is endowed.
Let us now go on to see empirical evidence of this interaction in the
development of the negotiations under relevant headings.
2.4
Interaction between the Bundesbank and other institutional authorities
Having
established that the Bundesbank comes across in the press as occupying a
towering economic position, it is not surprising then to find that the entities
or people interacting with it are presented in such dependent roles as those of
supplicant or of having to combine forces to try to influence Bundesbank
decisions. Secondly, having also
presented the Bundesbank as by nature a stolid upholder of its principles,
neither is it surprising to find the other parties attempts being described in
terms of such dynamically intense verbs as ‘urge’ or ‘force’ and all these factors
are clear instances of making ‘sense of phenomenon in the world in human terms’
(Lakoff and Johnson 1980:34) and of providing ‘structure for understanding’
(Lakoff and Turner 1989:53). Witness
the empirical evidence for this claim in the following sections.
2.4.1 Bundesbank as object of pleas
14) Mr. Gordon Brown ... called on the UK to urge the Bundesbank to signal an
interest rate cut when it met on Thursday. (FT 1:1)
15)
Gordon Brown ... urged Mr. Lamont ... to
press the German Bundesbank to signal its readiness for a cut in interest
rates. (T1:14)
16)
Speaking on Saturday after nine hours of hard bargaining, including concerted pressure on Germany to cut
interest rates, Mr. Lamont said he hoped that the Bundesbank’s promise would
contribute to stability on exchange markets.(FT7:1)
2.4.2 The Bundesbank as capable of ignoring external requests or pressure
17)
Although the Bundesbank is notoriously
impervious to political pressure even from the German government, the
shadow Chancellor believes that pressures for an interest rate cut are
increasing. (T 1:14)
18)
He (Mr. Issing) denied the Bundesbank
was operating too rigid a policy
based on “sticking blindly” to
monetary targets. (FT11:3)
19)
The Bundesbank will not be deflected from
its policy of pursuing firm monetary targets by outside criticism or failure to meet these in the short term,
Mr. Issing, a director of the German Central Bank, said yesterday. (FT11:3)
20)
The Bundesbank is equally opposed,
however, to creating the impression that it is allowing pressure from foreign
finance ministers to dictate its anti-inflationary monetary policies. (FT11:3)
2.4.3
Reactions towards impasse
The intensity of the interaction
implied by the opposition of ‘urge’ ‘press’ and the use of ‘concerted pressure’
on the one hand and ‘notoriously impervious’, ‘will not be deflected’, on the
other, once more underlines the conflict dimension and creates a situation of
impasse and conflict. The supposed lack
of cooperation on the part of the Bundesbank is interpreted by the British
Press as opposition to the European Monetary System as a whole and, as easily
happens in impasse scenarios where negotiation and argumentation cannot move
forward, recourse is often made by one side or the other to more highly charged
attitudinal attacks on, or criticism of, their counterparts. Hence, the British
endeavour to lay responsibility on Germany for the situation is linguistically
aided and abetted by the very powerful negative charge associated with a crime schema:
21)
But if the EMS does suffer a breakdown in the next few weeks, the Bundesbank can hardly claim to have been nowhere near
the scene. (FT11:3)
The
manner in which the Bundesbank is anticipated as probably rejecting such
allegations likewise rests not on abstract argumentation but on the
communicative strength of a metaphor. This is brought about by a similar
personification of the EMS and the use of the very conventional metonymy for
subjection - being brought to one’s knees. At the same time there is an
effective attempt to counteract the negative attitudinal import of the
accusations and to clear the personified Bundesbank’s name of any sinister
conniving – “not hatching a conspiracy”:
22)
The Central bank is not hatching a
conspiracy to bring the EMS to its
knees. (FT11:3)
Finally,
the ultimate in configuring the Bundesbank’s supposed imperviousness is the
metaphorical association of policy and action with the sheer inanimateness of the
actual Bundesbank building. In other words, the personification dimension of
the Bundesbank, so powerful in the whole issue in the press, is here eliminated
and what is censurable is precisely that lack of personal attributes.
23)
The Bundesbank slab-like headquarters on the outskirts of Frankfurt gives the
German central bank the look of a monolith. (FT11:3)
2.4.5
Interest rate cut as a Bundesbank concession
Given the picture of the Bundesbank
we have been outlining above, it is not surprising that when the interest rate
cut comes, it is presented as a concession by a powerful agent. Again personification is at the root of the
getting across of meaning from the use of possessives to giving the Bundesbank
a mind and heart together with their metonymical qualities:
28)
Bundesbank allows flicker of hope
(FT7:2-H)
30)
The Bundesbank’s pledge does not
exclude the possibility of other nations having to raise interest rates in the
event of external shocks... (FT7:2)
36)
It was “the first time the Bundesbank had
committed itself openly and publicly not to raise rates”. (FT7:2)
27)
The Bundesbank is no longer in a frame
of mind to
raise rates. (FT7:2-Q)
28)
His (i.e. that of Mr. Schlesinger) willingness to agree to the “no increase”
statement marked something of a change of
heart at the top of the Bundesbank. (FT7:2)
3 AFTERMATH OF THE CRICIS
3.1 Causal inquiry
The cataclysmic collapse of sterling
on Wednesday 16th September 1992 - Black Wednesday - despite massive Bank of
England intervention and unprecedented interest rate rises[8]
also ushered in a complete change of perspective. The previous atmosphere of negotiation and, albeit not bereft of
tension, mutual cooperation disappear and the attempt to come to terms with the
aetiology of events now gives rise to overt conflict as the British authorities
openly blame their German counterparts for the dénouement. The resulting scenario is analogous to that
described by Shapiro, van den Broek and
Fletcher (1995) with respect to the role of motivational factors in causal
assignation in another great financial crisis, Black Monday[9]. These
authors claim:
...
causal attributions are also known to be highly selective and directionally
biased, especially when people attempt to justify their beliefs or try to
persuade others to reach a particular conclusion. ... An explanation is selective if it reports only some of an events
relevant antecedent conditions, and it is biased if an alternative explanation
may also be supported by the available evidence. (Shapiro, van den Broek and
Fletcher 1995:59)
In
fact selectivity and bias is perhaps inherent to conflict situations. Secondly,
in such a situation, conflicting parties are forced to pull out all the stops
in their effort to convince and to outdo contrary arguments. My interest here
will be to show how, in this extreme situation, the different parties and, to a
certain extent, the press recurred to metaphor to support their side of
argument. The quest for causal factors
leads the press and British Financial authorities to a reappraisal of the
events preceding ‘Black Wednesday’, that is, the events dealt with above in
section 2. I shall deal with this reappraisal under different headings as
follows:
3.2 The
Bath Meeting of Financial authorities as an anti-climax
We saw in section 2 how this meeting
was hailed as a historic development in European cooperation with the
Bundesbank acting in the wider interests of the whole Union. Such claims or expectations were, however,
shattered by the events of Black Wednesday.
Now in retrospect, the idea that is singled out is that the remaining
European authorities carried their pressure on the German authorities too far
and this idea comes across through the forceful use of the conflict metaphor:
29)
He (i.e. Mr. Lamont) had secured from the
mighty Bundesbank a promise not
to raise interest rates. (FT19/20:2)
30)
Perhaps the turning point came earlier this month during the informal meeting
of finance ministers in Bath when Mr. Helmut Schlesinger, Bundesbank president,
and Mr. Theo Waigel, Germany’s finance minister, were ambushed by their 11 counterparts and urged to lower interest
rates to help a general European economic recovery. (FT18:8)
31)
“It was a bloodbath”, says one
participant. (FT18:8)
32)
This private arm-twisting may
explain, first the Bundesbank’s grudging cut of a ¼
percentage point in the Lombard rate... (FT18:8)
Clearly,
here the communicative force derives from the conventional metaphors ARGUMENT
IS WAR and PSYCHOLOGICAL FORCE IS PHYSICAL
FORCE. Secondly, this is a abetted by
the reiterative personification of the Bundesbank which is not only the agent
of the action of cutting interest rates but also the bearer of such specific
human attributes as acting in a grudging manner. The independence of the Bundesbank is underlined by the same
device of personification and where so conventional a term as “bow”
nevertheless laden with semantic and semiotic import, puts forward that notion
of independence in such an uncompromising way.
33)
The Bundesbank bowed to no man, least
of all a politician. (FT19/20:2
34)
But characteristically, the Bundesbank’s
reply was that it cut interest rates
to please itself, and promptly trimmed a measly quarter of a percent off
the Lombard rate. (T19:21)
At
the level of events, the press shows a certain comprehension for the Bundesbank
position. Nevertheless, the inadequacy of that minimum interest rate cut
acceded to by the central bank to produce the desired effect on the market
forum was held to be one of the essential factors triggering the dramatic
events of September 16th and the selective attribution of causes in
this respect easily leads British representatives to blame the German
authorities.
3.2 British Blame on the Bundesbank
In the first place there is the
realization that while the dominating influence of Germany conditions the
policies of other countries, the primary concern of the Bundesbank is with
those policies warranted within Germany and exclusively due to internal German
variables and which, at this juncture, happen to have very detrimental effects in the rest of Europe. Once more the personification of the
Bundesbank is poignant in getting these points across – particularly graphic is
the presentation of the Bundesbank as a person holding 99% of the votes. Other
personal behaviour attributes show the Bundesbank as wanting “the best of both
worlds” and as taking decisions which automatically affect other countries to
the latter’s disadvantage. In the context, these attributes are easily read as
connoting an abuse of power on the part of the Bundesbank.
35)
“At the present time I see no benefit in going back into the EMS - one man has 99 per cent of the votes and
that man resides in Germany” (David Rough, group director of investments,
Legal & General). (FT18:4)
36)
The Bundesbank wants to have the best of
both worlds - it wants the system to be flexible enough to allow it to run its own monetary policy,
but not so flexible as to lead to competitive devaluations which would be
harmful for German exporters. (FT18:3)
37)
Through its stern efforts to bring down German inflation during the past two
years the Bundesbank has effectively
exported deflation to other ERM members.
(FT18:3)
38)
As a result of the financial pressures in Germany caused by German unification,
members of the ERM will continue to pay a
price for the privilege of allowing the Bundesbank to decide their monetary policies. (FT18:3)
While other countries may not like
those policies, they must nevertheless concede, albeit grudgingly at times,
that such questions are strictly a matter of German sovereignty. What the British authorities cannot accept,
however, are the declarations of Bundesbank officials and leakages of
information which they considered to have been devastating on an unstable
market and thus playing a crucial role in the collapse of sterling. If “critics
follow a scent like hounds”[10],
journalists do so all the more. Thus it is ironic that in such a complex and
technical issue as currency exchange values one of the most singly crucial
causal events in triggering the 1992 currency crisis was deemed to be the mere
implications of certain words pronounced by Mr. Schlesinger in a press
interview. As British journalists home in on this factor as a causal element,
metaphor is once more to the forefront carrying censure via such attitudinal
terms as “loose talk”, “whispering campaigns” ‘collapse’ or ‘undermine’ and
highlighting the dramatic effects in ‘blood-letting’.
39)
A thunderous silence was the reaction
of the Bundesbank itself, an ironic answer to the charge from Downing street
that top German officials had precipitated the currency collapse with their loose
talk.(FT18:2)
40)
... British officials, who had spelt out a series of occasions on which the
Bundesbank’s alleged “whispering campaign”
had undermined the pound ... (FT18:2)
41)
Twice in a matter of days, the mighty
central bank has been forced to issue agonised denials of statements
attributed to it, on each occasion too late
to prevent a blood-letting on the currency markets. (FT17:19)
More
subtle and much more dramatic censure is carried via the war metaphor:
42)
... within the space of just over a week, the Bundesbank has helped orchestrate
two important coups. (FT18:3)
43)...
the charges in London of Bundesbank
sabotage forcing the devaluation of sterling. (FT18:18)
44) Britain cannot blame the Bundesbank for its
economic problems. But under the rules
of the European Monetary System, it is entitled to assistance, rather than to sniping. (FT17:18-E)
45)
Treasury officials claim the Bundesbank plotted
to force sterling to devalue so it would not have to bail Britain out.
(S17:2)
‘Coups’,
‘sabotage’ or ‘sniping’ and “plotting” are not just any or another aspect of
war, rather, they are perhaps standardly associated with the most disreputable
manner of carrying out warfare and obviously this aspect of reprobation towards
German behaviour is forcefully carried over. Once again, this seems to be
bearing out the point made above, where in conflict situations the drive
towards forceful argumentation (that is, argumentation which not only carries a
point but also impedes or pre-empts counter-arguments) draws heavily on
metaphor for its purposes. It is in this context too that the associative or
connotative dimension of language is exploited to the full as in the case of
the censurable type of warfare (see examples 42-45 above).
3.3 Conflict in Anglo-German relations
The immediate conflict with the
Bundesbank obviously spilled over into Anglo-German relations in general and
once more the conventional metaphors for anger and conflict deriving from the
domains of heat and war provide a basic conceptual framework for the relevant
meanings, with ‘basic level terms’ (see Lakoff 1987:31-40 and Ungerer &
Schmid 1996:66-78) from the war schema proliferating: “guns”, “target”, “fire”,
“attack”:
46)
British guns target Germany
(FT17:2-H)
47)
Major turns his fire on Bonn for ERM
chaos (FT19/20:1-H)
48)
Mr. Koll ... responded with a furious
attack on Mr. Lamont. (FT19/20:1)
As
well as the war schema, The Sun takes
advantage of the homophonous similarity of the German chancellor’s surname with
that of coal to raise the prototypical metaphor for conveying anger, namely
heat (See Kovecses 1986, Lakoff 1987:380-415), and this metaphor is then
followed up in the ensuing lead.
49)
Major heaps Kohls of fire (S19:2-H)[11]
50)
Britain’s war of words with Germany hotted up last night as premier, John
Major publicly blamed the Bundesbank for Britain’s monetary crisis. (S19:2)
The effect of such confrontation
takes its toll on the relations between both countries and the resultant
situation of animosity is put forward through the prototypical way of
metaphorically capturing differences and disappointments in interpersonal
relations, namely bitterness, here predicated of Britain.
51)
Britain’s bitterness over Germans
mount. (ST20:1-H)
40)
... the bitterness of British
officials who had spelt out a series of occasions on which the Bundesbank’s
alleged ‘whispering campaign’ had undermined the pound ... (FT18:2)
The interesting question from our
vantage point will be to see how Germany rejects such allegations and, in
keeping with the evidence hitherto presented, once again, here we find the use
of metaphor to be sustained. For instance, recalling Shapiro, Van den Broek and
Fletcher’s point (quoted above in section 3.1) regarding selectivity and
directional bias in causal attribution, it is obvious that in German circles
British claims will be found wanting on precisely those premises of selectivity
and directional bias, and hence German representation of events sets out to
expose this failing. The point is that they manage to achieve this not by any
abstract argument or by adducing financial figures but by the conventional
metaphor of “scapegoat” and ‘whipping boy’, both of which are lexicalised in
German as well as in English.[12]. Moreover, the moral involved here is further
spelled out through the use of the idiom of ‘putting one’s own house in order’
prior to placing blame elsewhere.
52)
Indeed the instant reaction to the bitterness of British officials ... was to
talk of “the very natural desire of the British government to find a scapegoat.”(FT18:20)
53)
One bank official said anonymously later, however: “The hunt for a scapegoat is in fact something which
always happens in times of crisis, although everyone would do better to put
their own house in order first.” (T18:4-Q)
54)
“...of course we understand that one needs a
whipping boy at such a moment, and it is easy to look abroad to find one”.
(T.Waigel, German Finance Minister) (FT18:2-Q)
The Times,
which had been highly critical of Britain’s handling of the crisis harbours a
similar opinion and gets it forcefully across by the use of another biblical metaphor,
namely the ‘figleaves’ which Adam an Eve “sewed together” to cover their
nakedness, newly discovered after the eating of the apple (Gen. 3.7). Thus,
showering blame on Germany is a decoy or cover up for embarrassing
responsibility within the government.
55)
There were strong suggestions yesterday that the latest position was no more
than a figleaf to cover the
government’s embarrassment at having to abandon the central plank of its
economic policy.(T18:2)
3.4 Re-appraisal of the Bundesbank in the wake
of the crisis
The Bundesbank is considered the
outright victor of the crisis and this fact triggers off the enquiry as to how
this bank can be capable of such feats.
Again here, at every stage, metaphor plays a crucial role which we may
single out under the following headings.
3.4.1 Bundesbank’s achievement in the field of
monetary stability
Metaphors from the domains of
sports, marriage and war are tapped in highlighting the formidable success of
Bundesbank policy in promoting and safeguarding monetary stability (in this
respect see Marsh, 1992):
56)
To complain of “fault lines” in the ERM as if nobody had ever noticed that the
Bundesbank is the pivotal central
bank and Germany the main player is
peculiar. (FT22:18-E)
57) Wedded to price stability, it has
always kept money tight, when this objective has been threatened. (FT23:2)
58)
The Bundesbank’s anti-inflation track
record makes it a model for many nations.
(FT23:16)
59)
... the Bundesbank is not about to
abandon its targets lightly. (FT23:2)
3.4.2 The Stature of the Bundesbank
The domain of sport and the pillars
of the traditional state, namely military and ecclesiastical hierarchy
highlight the extraordinary power of the Bundesbank
60
=56) To complain of “fault lines” in the ERM as if nobody had ever noticed that
the Bundesbank is the pivotal central
bank and Germany the main player is
peculiar. (FT22:18-E)
61)
When he speaks, a German central banker combines the moral authority of a high-priest with the fire-power of a general.
(FT23:16)
3.4.3 Dependence of other countries on the
Bundesbank
All the foregoing features configure
a scenario where the Bundesbank is seen as a strong, powerful and dominating
entity and where this power and dominion derives from strict orthodox financial
policies which have been doggedly maintained despite their demanding costs. As
opposed to this the other European countries are weaker because their policies,
over time, are not comparable with those of the Bundesbank. As a result their attempt to benefit from
the Bundesbank-like stability without the sustained effort warranted by such a
policy is shown up as a chimera. These
ideas are masterfully captured by the metonymic expression for dependence -“in
the hands of”- by the journey metaphor -“hitch a ride ... on the coat tails” as
if the power of the Bundesbank were quasi magical- and by the stereotype (a
news value in itself, see Bell 1991:157) of the proverbial strictness of the
German governess.
62)
In the leaner and tougher ERM, the
members most likely to keep their places are those which, virtually without
condition, place control over their monetary affairs in the Bundesbank’s hands.
(FT18:3)
63)
Countries ... which hoped to hitch a ride
to price stability on the Bundesbank’s
coat tails have suffered a bumpier
journey than they imagined. (FT17:18-E).
64) John Major thinks the ERM is a model of
deflationary virtue. Hiring a strict German governess has cured the
continentals of wicked devaluation habits and will do the same for Britain.
4 CONCLUSION
We have seen in this study mechanisms by which an economic issue
is turned into a press story. The first
remarkable conclusion is that, curiously plain statements of detailed economic
facts are quite sparse indeed. A question
raised by colleagues at Debrecen is the following: could all this array of
metaphors have been done without? The short answer is “It wasn’t and it isn’t”[13]. But of course the question deserves more
than a facetious reply; in point of fact it is the most crucial of questions.
In section 1.1 above, I set out to summarise the contextual events being dealt
with by the press but, in conscious contrast to that media, my objective was to
do so prescinding with metaphor as far as possible. Nevertheless, as pointed
out to me at the Debrecen conference by Geert Jacobs, my account was still
quite indebted to metaphor and value stances in my text were by no means
absent. This of itself is indicative of
how difficult it would be to do without metaphor – what we would in all
probability achieve would be either a difference of degree in metaphor use or a
substitution of one metaphor or set of metaphorical expressions for others.
Secondly, what are we to say of the
actual metaphors used by the press and set out above? My claim is that on a basis of the evidence adduced, it can be
maintained that these processes are both structural and communicative devices –
not that there is a clear boundary between both, as a matter of fact they
clearly overlap and interrelate. By structural, I mean that they provide a
framework by which the currency crisis is conceptualised and within which
discourse is constructed. By
communicative, I mean the greater or lesser felicity of the individual choices
in so far as communicative force within the general structural framework. The competitive nature of journalism as well
as it being a mass media ensure that communicativeness is a primary
target. As the use of rhetorical
devices are basically geared towards communicative ends ((see van Dijk (1988)
& de Beaugrande (1991)), we must conclude that the very proliferation of
metaphor as we have seen in this analysis is in itself proof of the
communicative potential of this device.
Thirdly,
the metaphoric framework by which meaning was got across clearly plays a role
in the overall configuration of the resulting discourse. The network of lexical
and semantic interrelatedness set up by the reiteration of metaphoric
expressions cannot but contribute to the cohesion and cohesiveness of the text
as a whole, a point I have dealt with elsewhere (White 1997).
Fourthly,
my questioner at Debrecen, Torben Vestergaard, raised the issue as to the
innocence or otherwise of the metaphors appearing in my analysis. If all
discourse can carry and indeed conceal ideological positionings[14],
metaphor, which typically highlights one/some aspects of phenomena and
downplays or altogether hides others, could potentially provide a very powerful
weapon for ideological manipulation. In light of metaphor’s rootedness in
conventional reasoning, this view has much to comment it: metaphor seems
“naturally convincing” and is extremely difficult to argue against (see Lakoff
1992, Lakoff and Turner 1989). Thus, it is not surprising to find a
proliferation of metaphor use in contexts where persuasion is at a premium –
political partisan discourse, for instance or publicity (see Forceville 1995)
In the array of metaphoric expressions presented in this article, there is
little doubt, but there are cases where their force alone is particularly
persuasive and it would be extremely difficult to counteract the message
entailed. For instance, if the currency crisis is conceptualised as war and in
that war the Bundesbank is held up to be orchestrating coups or practising
plotting, sniping and sabotage, the position of the bank is certainly
infinitely less defensible than it would be if it were referred to as being
caught up in self-defence which would be considered highly legitimate. I have
already mentioned that stereotype (which we have seen tapped for metaphorical
purposes) is considered by Bell (1994:157) to be in itself a news value – that
is, the closer a news item conforms to stereotype, the higher its chances are
of getting into print. While stereotype is not to be written off completely as
a valid component in argumentation (see Lee et al., 1995), nevertheless it
should demand a critical perspective on the part of informed participants.[15]
In short, then, with respect to this question as to the innocence or otherwise
of metaphor, it would seem that the critical approach warranted by all
discourse could be called upon to incorporate an extra effort in the presence
of metaphor use.
Finally,
by mode of post script, I would like to make the following comment. It is not
uncommon to come across the idea that institutions are impersonal entities,
impervious to and indeed crushing the individual. The fact is, as we have seen
above in the case of the Bundesbank, that our mode par excellance of
deciphering the activity carried on by that institution is through
personification and this could be a manner of putting the person back into the
institution and a reminder that the activity carried on within such entities is
the result of choices and decisions by rational agents who are ultimately responsible
and to be held responsible for all acts.
Acknowledgements
I
am grateful for the very helpful comments of the organisers and colleagues of
the panel at ESSE 4, Debrecen, at which an earlier version of this article was
presented. Credit is give to individual contributors on specific points, but I
would also like to extend my gratitude to all who, within and outside sessions,
offered me their comments which have been to great avail for me. Needless to
say, final responsibility rests with myself.
I
am also grateful to my Institution, Escuela Universitaria de Estudios
Empresariales, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, for funding my presence at
Debrecen.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
SOURCES
The Financial Times,
September 1992
The Times,
(The Sunday Times), September 1992
The Sun,
September 1992
Citations follow the following code: FT =
Financial Times, T = Times (ST= Sunday Times), S = Sun. The following
figure refers to the date issue for the
month of September 1992 and this in turn is followed by a semi colon plus
another figure which is the corresponding page references. Where examples are actual headings, this is
indicated by -H following the page entry.
For example: FT9:1-H = This is a reference to page one of the Financial Times for the 9th September
1992 and the quotation is a heading or
S25:2 will mean a quotation from page 2 of the Sun for September
the 25th 1992
Abreviations:
BB = Bundesbank
EMU = European Monetary Union
EMS =
European Monetary System
ERM =
Exchange-rate Mechanism
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© Michael White Circle of Linguistics Applied to Communication
- Círculo de Lingüística Aplicada a la Comunicación 4, November 2000. ISSN
1576-4737.
Reprinted with permission from English
Via Various Media, Anglistik & Englischunterricht, Volume 62,
pp. 107-128,Universitätsverlag C. Winter, Heidelberg, 1999
http://www.ucm.es/info/circulo/no4/white.htm
[1] Obviously a fuller account would demand greater qualification of
the ensuing statements, some of which may even be questionable, but they do, I
feel provide a suitable starting point for the present analysis.
[2]In 1992 the Bundesbank Council
consisted of 11 Landeszentralbanker representatives, each representing one of
the Federal States of the former West Germany, plus 7 central council members.
[3] Halliday’s congruent is
roughly equivalent to “literal”. The
perspective however, is reversed. When we talk about the “literal” meaning of an
expression, our point of departure is the expression, our “point of arrival”
the meaning. But in situations like the one discussed here, we start with a
“meaning” (an extra-linguistic state of affairs) and arrive at a way of putting
it into words (an “expression”) which, in Halliday’s terminology, can be either
“congruent” or “metaphorical”.
[4] See explanation for quote
references of examples in the Bibliography section.
[5] I wish to acknowledge my
indebtedness to H-J. Diller for having raised this point and for his lengthy
and stimulating correspondence on the issue.
Nevertheless, all limitations in my final appraisal are my own
responsibility.
[6] The part of examples
considered to be operating metaphorically or more exactly the metaphorical
expressions I wish to draw attention to in the different examples given are
emphasised by the use of italics and in all cases indicate my own emphasis.
[7] I’m grateful to my questioner
at Debrecen, Torben Vestergaard, for amongst other things, spelling out the
implications of this example.
[8]To grasp the full import of
this rise, let us recall that interest rate increase patterns very typically
are ¼
or ½
percentage point. At mid morning the
British Authorities brought in a full 2% increase and as this was not effective
introduced a further increase of 3%. As
interest rates had been at 10% a rise of 5% meant a staggering overall hike of
50% in a matter of hours.
[9] Monday, 19th
October 1987 when stock markets, especially Wall street, fell dramatically.
[10] This phrase, quoted in
Villacañas (1994:188) comes from the work of George Moore early in the century.
[11] The origin of the phrase is,
of course biblical: Proverbs 25.22.
[12] “Scapegoat” is derived from
the Bible (Lev. xvi): “that one of two goats that was chose by lot to be sent
alive into the wilderness, the sins of the people having been symbolically laid
upon it…”. A whipping-boy is a “boy educated together with a young prince or
royal personage, and flogged in his stead when he committed a fault that was considered
to deserve flogging”. The Shorter Oxford Dictionary on Historical
Principles (1933/1973).
[13] By this I mean that the
standard journalistic practice is to take advantage of such metaphor use.
[14] In this respect, although I
wouldn’t subscribe to all their tenets. Critical Linguistics has a great deal
to tell us (see fowler et al. 1979, fowler 1991, Kress & Trew 1979, Hall et
al. 1980, Fairclough 1995).
[15] For instance, even from the
evidence put forward above, there seems to be a stereotype building up by which
the Bundesbank is characterised as being utterly inflexible, impervious to
other considerations and taking decisions merely according to its own interests
and regardless of the costs to all other parties. Now while we are not to
disdain the information implied by this stereotype, it, nevertheless, calls for
considerable critical nuances for as Marsh (1992:168-193) has pointed out, the
Bundesbank in actual fact is a master at managing to reconcile its own position
with the diverse variables of economic reality and the positions of the
different authorities involved in economic policy and decisions.