1.1 The Political Economy of High-End Language Work

A good friend told me she once saw a talk given by John F. Kennedy’s speechwriter, Ted Sorensen. During the Q&A afterwards an audience member asked whether he had penned Kennedy’s famous line, “ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” Mr. Sorensen hesitated, and then responded, “Ask not.” (The audience, of course, erupted in laughter.) This anecdote nicely encapsulates the mystique surrounding speechwriting as a profession, as well as the code which these markedly high-end language workers must carefully follow – they are the authors but not the animators nor principals of their craft (Goffman Reference Goffman1981). At the same time, and as others have noted (e.g. Hanks Reference Hanks, Silverstein and Urban1996), the complexity of these roles should not be understated. Indeed, Mr. Sorensen’s response is all pretense, and serves as a coy admission of his authorship; speechwriters’ work may take place behind the scenes, but they still routinely claim ownership and expertise. And certainly, they are economically invested in the material success of their linguistic output: words are power, but words are also money. As Del Percio, Flubacher, and Duchêne (Reference Del Percio, Flubacher, Duchêne, García, Flores and Spotti2016) astutely observe, there often exists “a tension between the potential of language to enable access to symbolic and material capital and the complex logics, interests, and technologies regulating the convertibility of language into capital in specific markets” (69). Put another way, implicated in speechwriting are both the “symbolic power of language” (Kramsch Reference Kramsch2021) as well as the political economy of the linguistic market – two interconnected (but not necessarily equivalent) systems of value. As an additional case in point, in White House Ghosts political correspondent Robert Schlesinger (Reference Schlesinger2008) documents the very material ramifications of speechwriters “going rogue” – George W. Bush’s former staffer David Frum was supposedly fired for claiming he wrote the famed line “axis of evil,” and much later the administration was plagued by two other speechwriters’ public disagreements over the extent of their individual roles and impact. All of which is to say that the “production format” (see again Goffman Reference Goffman1981) of speechwriting offers a compelling case study of the real worth of words in popular culture, as well as the material value placed on the laborers who produce them (e.g. Thurlow Reference Thurlow and Thurlow2020b).

As such, and following those who have engaged with linguistic labor as a phenomenon of our contemporary, knowledge-based neoliberal economy (e.g. Duchêne and Heller Reference Duchêne and Heller2012), I am largely interested in how certain types of language workers are explicitly valued in the market (cf. Jakobs and Spinuzzi Reference Jakobs, Spinuzzi, Jakobs and Perrin2014). Thus, I follow Thurlow’s (Reference Thurlow and Thurlow2020b) recent thinking concerning high-end language workers; the community in which I am interested is not an example of those who are without sociopolitical or economic capital. Rather, speechwriters – whose livelihoods are based on the crafting and designing of words for powerful, public figureheads – are well remunerated and relatively prestigious. However, and as is the case for many wordsmiths, the product of speechwriters’ language work is almost always attributed to someone else. It is somewhat surprising, then, that language scholars have predominantly focused on political speeches/rhetoric without addressing the backstage laborers and actual producers of this discourse (see Wodak Reference Wodak2009 for an important exception). Additionally, while applied linguists have thoroughly documented the lower-end “precarious” working contexts of irregular employment (e.g. Park Reference Park and Chun2022) and online teaching (e.g. Curran and Jenks Reference Curran and Jenks2023), as well as the markedly invisibilized language work of professionals like medical doctors (e.g. Locher Reference Locher2017) and social workers (e.g. Lillis Reference Lillis2017), the linguistic labor of speechwriters has been entirely ignored. This is all to say that it is perhaps time for language scholars to approach contemporary language work with this kind of high-end wordsmithery in mind.

To this end, I systematically investigate the ways in which speechwriters talk about their professional practices, as well as the material procedures which guide the production of their deliverables. This metadiscursive, text trajectory approach enables me to comment in detail on the microlinguistic processes which characterize these wordsmiths’ work (cf. Macgilchrist and Van Hout Reference Macgilchrist and Van Hout2011). Indeed, this is not a tell-all narrative of political or professional secrets; it is a nuanced examination of the relationship between text and talk, and between the various stakeholders in public rhetoric. My data, in this regard, comprise a robust collection of secondary and primary sources including memoirs and training resources, a public talk by Jon Favreau (President Obama’s former speechwriter), recorded interviews with practicing speechwriters, fieldnotes from a professional speechwriting course, speech drafts and other texts, a video-recorded meeting with several speechwriters, and US Presidential archive materials. As such, my methodological approach follows ethnographic work which is focused on the interconnectedness between different genres of (textual) data (e.g. Woydack and Rampton Reference Woydack and Rampton2016; Lillis and Maybin Reference Lillis and Maybin2017); this sort of discourse-centered approach is simultaneously situated and reflexive, thus fostering a holistic micro-to-macro perspective. My analysis of these data demonstrates precisely how speechwriters come to discursively enact “the new worker-self” in late or advanced capitalist regimes, essentially articulating their personhood as a bundle of “commodifiable skills” (Urciuoli Reference Urciuoli2008: 211). This case study therefore contributes nicely to recent conversations in critical applied linguistics related to the market-driven understanding of contemporary working life (e.g. Catedral and Djuraeva Reference Catedral and Djuraeva2023).

In this vein, it is the political-economic ramifications of professional language work which is the primary motivation for this book. Speechwriters are bound by the expectation that they “make themselves profitable” (Martín Rojo and Del Percio Reference Martín Rojo, Del Percio, Martín Rojo and Percio2020: 11), and yet this depends on their being entirely invisibilized, relatively unknown, and completely erased from their material output – reflecting the contradictions of a market which both empowers and disempowers its workers (cf. Panaligan and Curran Reference Panaligan and Curran2022). And consequently, speechwriters’ ultimate “status anxiety” (see De Botton Reference De Botton2004) comes to the fore: their discourse portrays not only the complex “semiotic ideologies” (Keane Reference Keane2018) of contemporary language work but also a nuanced and simultaneous (dis)avowal of power and prestige. In this way, speechwriters – even as elite, highly skilled professionals – are workers who “have no choice but to sell their labour” (Holborow Reference Holborow2018: 59). Contrary to other sorts of language workers – Cameron’s (Reference Cameron2000) call center workers, for example – they are not oppressed nor necessarily exploited, but still, they are not immune to the precarities of a (linguistic) marketplace entrenched in ideological and socioeconomic struggle (cf. Park Reference Park and Chun2022).

Given the clear entanglement of language and capitalism in contemporary social life (see also Chun Reference Chun2022a), the purpose of this book is to tease apart the inner workings of these simultaneously discursive and material processes, using metadiscursive insights from professional speechwriters. As such, I aim to answer the following questions:

1. 1. What are the typical, daily professional practices of speechwriters, and how do they connect to the production format of their work?

2. 2. How does the work of speechwriters intersect with the wider political economies of professional life – both in terms of linguistic labor and the more general disciplines (e.g. politics, commerce) in which they practice?

3. 3. How do speechwriters understand the nature of language, its intersection with other semiotic modes, and its material consequences? And relatedly, to what extent do they recognize their work as both linguistically and ideologically consequential?

These questions are intended to produce empirically grounded conceptual insights for (critical) applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, discourse studies, and linguistic anthropology. Following Coupland’s (Reference Coupland and Coupland2016) call to more effectively document the real chains of metadiscursive activity which (re)produce the social world, this monograph is at once theoretically and methodologically germane. On the one hand, it contributes to cutting-edge debates related to the commodification of both language and labor, demonstrating the discursive negotiations that co-constitute socioeconomic inequality (see again Holborow Reference Holborow2018). On the other, this work pointedly decenters language scholars as the arbiters of linguistic skill and knowledge. By inviting metadiscursive commentary and self-reflection (of both researcher and research participants), I demonstrate what we as linguists can learn from other sorts of “elite” language workers (see Thurlow and Britain Reference Thurlow, Britain and Thurlow2020). In this sense, the book is intended to help critical scholars envision what Bucholtz’s (Reference Bucholtz2021) “community-centered collaboration” methods might look like in practice, and how this sort of approach allows for a deeper understanding of how status claims and competition circulate in professional contexts.

In what follows, I first engage with important scholarship related to language in institutional and professional contexts (Section 1.2.1); language work and wordsmiths (Section 1.2.2); metadiscourse (Section 1.2.3); and reflexivity and semiotic ideologies (Section 1.2.4). In establishing this comprehensive theoretical framework, I document not only the ways in which “talking work” (Iedema and Scheeres Reference Iedema and Scheeres2003) both establishes and contests particular communities of practice but also how larger issues related to metalinguistic awareness and political economy are implicated in these processes. Next, I briefly map the history of speechwriting as well as the scant scholarly engagement with practitioners, and then turn to the specifics of my project. I provide detailed overviews of my data collection before turning to an explanation of critical ethnographic discourse analysis (cf. Rampton et al. Reference Rampton, Tusting, Maybin, Barwell, Creese and Lytra2004) as my primary methodological approach. Here I also introduce the three primary rhetorical strategies which arise in speechwriters’ metadiscursive accounts of their work: invisibility, craft, and virtue. Lastly, I conclude with an overview of the remaining chapters, throughout which I argue that speechwriters are simultaneously elevated and erased – their authorship both avowed and disavowed. It is these complex discursive negotiations which ultimately reveal the status anxieties and relative precarity of their positions as wordsmiths, who are nevertheless beholden to the demands of the neoliberal, linguistic market.

1.2 Theoretical Framework

1.3 Speechwriting: History and Scholarly Engagement

While speechwriting has been neglected by applied linguists and discourse analysts, it is an ancient rhetorical practice and political strategy that has been documented throughout history from a variety of academic perspectives. As several others have observed, records of speeches ghostwritten for Greek philosophers and Roman emperors abound (e.g. Einhorn Reference Einhorn1982; Kjeldsen et al. Reference Kjeldsen, Kiewe, Lund and Barnholdt Hansen2019); Duffy and Winchell (Reference Duffy and Winchell1989) assert that the practice “emerged virtually at the same time that rhetoric became a study” (102). Likewise, speechwriting in the time of the ancients was considered a distinct art. Bruss (Reference Bruss2011) notes that a talented “logographer” such as the Athenian speechwriter Lysias, for example, was admired for “lifelike and believable portrayals” of his clients – his speeches were described as “more carefully composed than any work of art” (Lysias 8, as cited in Bruss Reference Bruss2011: 174). Notably, however, rhetorical skill does not equate with oratorial expertise, and as such even in ancient times speechwriters remained behind the scenes in order to preserve the authenticity of their speakers. And indeed, as Bruss also observes, their discursive accomplishment of invisibility (i.e. capturing the voice of the client) is what ultimately solidified their success as logographers.

Despite its prominent historicity, academic literature on speechwriters is markedly lacking, especially in terms of deep theoretical/analytical engagement. Kjeldsen, Kiewe, Lund, and Barnholdt Hanson’s (Reference Kjeldsen, Kiewe, Lund and Barnholdt Hansen2019) recent book Speechwriting in Theory and Practice is somewhat of an exception, and as the broadest and most thorough academic volume published on speechwriting to date it is worth reviewing here in some detail.

The authors, all scholars of rhetoric and communication, spend considerable time attending to “speech” as a genre. They define it as “a physical and situational event unfolding in a specific sphere of time and space” (10, my emphasis); it is therefore embodied performance, and importantly, dependent on a distinct hierarchy of participants (i.e. the speaker talks, and the audience listens). In establishing the complexity of a speech as a multimodal event, Kjeldsen and colleagues point out an important quality of speechwriting nowadays – in contrast to those of antiquity, today’s mediated/mediatized speeches travel to much wider audiences (I elaborate on this point further in Chapter 3). In this regard, much of their book seems to be dedicated to teaching practitioners how to write and work successfully under these contemporary conditions. They include chapters titled “Writing for the Eye: Pictures, Visions and PowerPoint,” as well as “The Functions of Speechwriting in Contemporary Society” and a largely instructional final chapter called “The General Steps in the Speechwriting Process.” Thus, although Kjeldsen and colleagues do engage with the history and various theoretical dimensions to speechwriting, the volume serves more as a how-to for “aspiring speechwriters” (their words, from the back cover blurb).

These things aside, one of the merits of Kjeldsen and colleagues’ approach is their research emphasis on speechwriting in non-US American political contexts (see also Harris Reference Harris1964; Schäfer and Keel Reference Schäfer and Keel2015). Indeed, academic literature is largely dominated by US perspectives, and almost entirely by Western ones (but see Acheoah’s Reference Acheoah2020 paper on speechwriting and oratory in Nigeria for a notable exception). In the authors’ chapter on genre they divide the practice into three broad categories: 1) American presidential politics; 2) European politics; and 3) business and organizational speeches. These subsections reflect the overall bent in scholarship towards speechwriting for the US presidency in particular, an area of scholarship which I will attend to in a moment. What surfaces across these genres, however, is that much of the same issues persist. Key concerns include speechwriters’ access to their “principals” (the professional term used to describe the elected official, e.g. Medhurst Reference Medhurst, Ritter and Medhurst2003); the various constraints in the speechwriting process (including collaboration input; e.g. de Jong and Andeweg Reference De Jong, Andeweg, van Haaften, Jansen, Jong and Koetsenruijter2011); speechwriters’ roles as wordsmiths and/or policy-makers (e.g. Neumann Reference Neumann2007); ethics (e.g. Bormann 1960); and lastly, authenticity and style (e.g. Bruss Reference Bruss2010).Footnote ¹

Although research on speechwriting in both Europe and the US has focused on rather predictable themes, Kjeldsen and colleagues determine that the actual production of speeches differs depending on country, administration, professional sphere, and so on. They compare various case studies of speechwriting processes in political contexts – one each from Germany and Denmark, along with a handful of examples from US presidents. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the mechanics of speech production are dependent on the preferences of each elected official or particular governmental organization. It is common, for example, for a speech to be written collaboratively by a team of writers for one prime minister (or president), but by a single staff member for another. Likewise, a writer might begin their assignment by working from a list of ideas prepared by the principal, from a technical brief, or simply from their individual knowledge of the upcoming occasion. Throughout the drafting process, speechwriters receive input from a variety of parties – some internal, some external – and work on merging wordsmithery (as well as speaker style) with these policy-orientated demands. As my analysis reveals later on, this is no easy task, and it is fraught by issues of institutional power; Kjeldsen and colleagues note that the speechwriter in their Danish ministry example is especially low on the hierarchical chain of command and begrudgingly makes revisions to a speech that are described as “not debatable” (107). To be sure, all speechwriters experience this sort of disappointment in their work, but it seems that some employers (government and otherwise) are more flexible than others. Ultimately, Kjeldsen and colleagues’ brief exploration of speech production practices reveals the necessity of qualitative, ethnographic methods in collecting and analyzing speechwriting data.

In this regard, interviewing has been the primary approach to studying speechwriters in academic literature. Scholars of speech and communication have published numerous conversations with prominent US American speechwriters (e.g. Benson Reference Benson1968; Smith Reference Smith1976; Einhorn Reference Einhorn1988; and Duffy and Winchell Reference Duffy and Winchell1989), but interestingly, rarely do they analyze these discursive accounts. To her credit, Einhorn (Reference Einhorn1988) summarizes the contrasting perspectives represented by her three informants, and Duffy and Winchell (Reference Duffy and Winchell1989) offer a rather eloquent introduction which serves to frame a subsequent transcribed conversation between various practitioners. But what is most evident is a distinct lack of theoretical and analytical engagement with the work that speechwriters accomplish day-to-day. Indeed, much of the early literature is markedly descriptive – researchers essentially allow informants to document what exactly they do, and how they themselves view this work, but little else. The more recent work of Kristine Bruss (Reference Bruss2010, Reference Bruss2011), however, departs from this trend. She interviews two very different speechwriters – one, Steve LeBeau, worked for the (in)famous professional wrestler-turned-Governor of Minnesota Jesse Ventura, and the other, Alan Perlman, holds a PhD in linguistics and wrote speeches for executives of General Motors and Kraft throughout the 1980s and 1990s. I will document insights from each of these practitioners in turn.

Bruss’s (Reference Bruss2010) case study highlights the uniqueness of Jesse Ventura as a principal, and the struggles LeBeau faced in writing for an elected official who (very) publicly disparaged political rhetoric; like Donald Trump’s claims during the 2016 election, Ventura was known for his spontaneous talk and lack of prepared speeches. Bruss’s focus on LeBeau as a practitioner is therefore an interesting example of a rather atypical speechwriting situation. Nevertheless, while LeBeau admits the difficulties in writing for a speaker who often strays from the script (what he calls “Jesse-talk”), in terms of general processes and professional practices his work is strikingly similar to that of other political speechwriters. Even his background in theater and entertainment is a common refrain; as Bruss observes, this sort of orientation to theatrical performance and showmanship allows speechwriters to fully develop ethopoeia, or the art of characterization. This ability to capture the essence of a speaker in order to produce an authentic “voice” is key for all successful speechwriters, but importantly, practitioners differ in terms of how systematic they are in achieving this goal.

While many speechwriters describe their process as intuitive (see Chapter 2), Bruss’s (Reference Bruss2011) interview with Alan Perlman outlines a very specific method for characterizing the speaker. His three-part system is organized according to verbal style, (the client’s “fundamental” manner of speaking, p. 168); rhetorical techniques (their “preferred ways of making a point,” p. 169); and intellectual character (the client’s knowledge of the outside world). This formulaic approach is effective because it produces what Bruss deems “faithfulness” to type, individual, and nature – the speechwriter is not just concerned with capturing a principal’s particular cadence, mannerisms and argument strategies but also with producing knowledge that the speaker could believably possess. Bruss (Reference Bruss2011) concludes that “The skillful ghost is a master of mimesis, attuned to character types, the distinctive characteristics of individual speakers, and conversational style. The result is the seemingly natural, artless expression of character, an aesthetic ideal valued by practitioners in ancient as well as contemporary times” (177). Thus, what Bruss’s research reveals is how two very different kinds of speechwriters, working for two very different kinds of speakers, orient to similar professional expectations and goals. The way they describe their work practices may differ slightly, but the end result is ultimately the same: a well-crafted speech and an invisible speechwriter.

This sense of invisible authorship has been a point of academic (and public) intrigue most often in the realm of presidential studies, a subdiscipline of history and political science. Importantly, the perspective here tends to be firmly president-centered. As Schlesinger (Reference Schlesinger2008) puts it, speechwriting “is a unique lens through which to view the [US] nation’s modern chief executives” (4). In other words, research in presidential studies does not aim to understand speechwriters, but rather, as the name suggests, to understand US presidents. That said, scholars in this area have documented valuable insights pertaining to 1) policy versus wordsmithery; 2) authorship versus ownership; and 3) access/relationship to the principal. I briefly elaborate on each of these in what follows.

In the introductory chapter to Ritter and Medhurst’s (Reference Ritter and Medhurst2003) edited volume on presidential speechwriting, Medhurst debunks “ten myths that plague modern scholarship” (3), most of which read as a defense of speechwriters and their practice. In particular, Medhurst emphasizes the historical lineage of speechwriting in the United States, pointing out that George Washington and many other famed presidents received assistance with written work, even if they were not known to employ speechwriters per se.Footnote ² His tack here is to push back against concerns about the ethics of speechwriting (cf. Seeger Reference Seeger1992) and to establish the practice as fundamental to the US American presidency. Indeed, Medhurst ultimately argues that speechwriting is not “mere wordsmithing,” but is rather a major part of policy-making (13) – elsewhere he describes this process as “evolutionary invention” (Medhurst Reference Medhurst1987: 247):

Thus it is in the revision process where Medhurst sees the bulk of policy-making by speechwriters. While their work appears to be simply language-centered, these microlinguistic practices can have large, material impacts. Furthermore, and as Schlesinger (Reference Schlesinger2008) also observes, putting policy into words helps raise new questions, expose potential weaknesses, and “set the terms of the international debate” (129). Speechwriters are therefore important members of staff who often determine not only the tone but also “the substance of a Presidential speech” (Smith Reference Smith, Ritter and Medhurst2003: 146). Thus, although I use the title “wordsmith” to convey speechwriters’ high-end status and skill, it seems that for them the term is not necessarily a compliment – it does not adequately capture the extent of their language work, nor their sense of ownership over the material they produce (see also Chapter 2).

The question of who the speech belongs to is one that has not only been addressed in academic literature but also infiltrated politics; President Nixon famously accused President Kennedy of being a “puppet who echoed his speechmaker” (Schlesinger Reference Schlesinger2008: 141), essentially claiming that it was Ted Sorensen who authored and owned JFK’s rhetoric.Footnote ³ As several presidential studies scholars have argued, this perspective – which was certainly a political ploy given Nixon’s own use of speechwriters – drastically oversimplifies the speechwriter-speaker relationship (e.g. Medhurst Reference Medhurst, Ritter and Medhurst2003). As Schlesinger eloquently puts it,

Here, Schlesinger highlights two important aspects to presidential speechwriting. First, he notes the speechwriter’s expertise in converting “the president’s philosophy and policies” into rhetoric; because this work goes beyond simple wordsmithery, the actual authorship of language becomes secondary (see also previous paragraph). Second, no matter whether the speechwriter produces certain words or phrases, it is the president who is held responsible, and who is therefore owner (I discuss this further in Chapter 2). Although this latter point is a widely-held public perspective, many presidential speechwriters take pains to explicitly mitigate their authorship – as part of the moral code of speechwriting (e.g. Benson Reference Benson1968), or out of respect for their particular principals (e.g. see Chapel Reference Chapel1978; Duffy and Winchell Reference Duffy and Winchell1989). There are instances in which the behind-the-scenes workings of this sort of text production have been exposed, but they are relatively controversial (see Schlesinger’s discussion of the George W. Bush writing team, especially). Ultimately, presidential speechwriters seem to tread carefully when it comes to talking/writing about their participation in speech making, and indeed, their reflections typically focus on their collaboration with their respective presidents. This brings me, lastly, to the speaker–speechwriter relationship.

Various scholars have observed that access to the principal is integral for speechwriters (e.g. Seeger Reference Seeger1992), and it is true that presidents who are respected for their oratory abilities are often known to work very closely with their speechwriters (President Obama and Jon Favreau, for example). In the afterword to Ritter and Medhurst’s (Reference Ritter and Medhurst2003) edited volume, Medhurst (Reference Medhurst, Ritter and Medhurst2003) writes

Medhurst’s position is based partly on his assessment of the relationship between John F. Kennedy and Ted Sorensen – the notoriously collaborative nature of their speech making process proved to be highly successful for the president’s rhetoric and overall reputation. Sorensen himself is quoted in Schlesinger’s (Reference Schlesinger2008) White House Ghosts as saying, “there’s a tremendous advantage for a speechwriter to know his boss’s mind as well as I did” (103). Arguably, the better you understand the inner workings of your principal, the more effectively you can write for them. A slightly different situation, however, can be seen in the case of Ronald Reagan’s writing team. Although the speechwriters (Peggy Noonan being the most famed of the group) were not known as having the same level of intimacy with their boss as the Sorensen–FK dyad (cf. Muir Reference Muir, Ritter and Medhurst2003), they seemed to be given access to President Reagan during Medhurst’s “crucial moments” and were especially involved during draft “vetting,” as he puts it. According to Muir (Reference Muir, Ritter and Medhurst2003), this is why Reagan’s speechwriting department saw themselves as “the soul of administration” – and also why the president’s “bully pulpit” was such a public success (203, 194). Thus, although speechwriting practices across presidential administrations vary, the literature reveals that close collaboration is key for the production of high-quality, “authentic” rhetoric (see Mapes Reference Mapes2021a). In this way, the goals and structure of presidential speechwriting practices seem to rather closely resemble those of professional speechwriting more generally.

In summary, this overview of academic literature on speechwriting reveals that although the profession/practice has been addressed by scholars of communication, rhetoric, and history, there exists a marked lack of deep theoretical and analytical engagement with speechwriters’ daily linguistic labor. It is certainly interesting to hear how they describe their craft in interviews, to compare their processes across different international/professional contexts, and of course, to examine their role in presidential politics – all of which speaks to the general intrigue of their behind-the-scenes work. But as real arbiters of wordsmithery, their linguistic expertise can be a resource for understanding not only the important ways language can be strategically produced, crafted, and stylized, but also how this kind of creative labor is explicitly valued and commodified in neoliberal markets. This is precisely the issue I address throughout the rest of this book. With this in mind, I turn now to my research specifically, and to the data that inform my analytical focus.

1.4 The Project

My research on professional speechwriters has been part of a larger research program called Elite Creativities, which investigated the high-end language work of various understudied professions (see Droz-dit-Busset Reference Droz-dit-Busset2022 on social media influencers as modern-day copywriters; Portmann Reference Portmann2022 on UX writers; and Thurlow and Britain Reference Thurlow, Britain and Thurlow2020 on dialect coaches). In addition to collecting secondary sources related to each profession (e.g. memoirs), as well as “language biography” interviews following Preston’s (Reference Preston1996) focus on folk linguistic accounts, we aimed to conduct a “production chain analysis” via extended, ethnographic fieldwork in the workplace, which would have allowed us to track wordsmiths’ actual production of deliverables (in my case, speeches). However, from the beginning of my data collection – which commenced in Autumn 2019 – I struggled to gain access to speechwriters (and to political speechwriters especially) and even found soliciting interviews to be a challenge. As a result, before Covid-19 emerged as a global crisis I had already begun reimagining my approach, envisioning it as a rather more eclectic but nonetheless holistic documentation of speechwriters (in general) and their work. Thus, my data collection and methodological procedures closely follow the principles of “linguistic ethnography” as defined by Rampton and colleagues (Reference Rampton, Tusting, Maybin, Barwell, Creese and Lytra2004). Before elaborating on the specifics of this approach, however, I will document the various genres of data I draw on for analysis in each substantive chapter.

1.4.1 Professional Speechwriting Course

At the beginning of my research I was interested in documenting the specific avenues through which speechwriters learn to do their jobs – as such, in September 2019 I paid to participate in a three-day Professional Speechwriting class that was offered by a university based in Washington, DC.Footnote ⁴ I emailed the instructor, Matt, beforehand, asking to enroll, and explained that I was a researcher interested in speechwriters and their work.Footnote ⁵ He welcomed me readily, and I traveled to Washington from Bern, Switzerland, two weeks later, several days in advance of the first day of class. However, and as Heller (Reference Heller, Wei and Moyer2009) notes, ethnography as a methodological approach is uniquely unpredictable: the evening before the course began I became terribly ill and was forced to stay home all of the next day. As such, I missed an entire day’s worth of lectures and workshopping. I feel compelled to note here how devastating this was, given the struggles I had experienced with data collection. Fortunately, however, all students were given access to the PowerPoint materials used across the entirety of the course, and I was also able to ask Matt specific questions about Day 1 content in our recorded interview. As such, I attended class on Days 2 and 3 as a full participant-observer. I took detailed field notes, occasionally responded to prompts or questions from the instructor, and interacted with the fourteen other students during breaks. I learned that most participants worked in communications for the US military – Matt informed me that this is the norm for these classes (which at the time were offered once a month). At the end of the class on Day 3 I asked whether any of the students were interested in being interviewed about their work, and one woman (Julie) approached me. Her interview, and my interview with Matt (which occurred after class on Day 3), are included in Table 1.1 (pp. 25–26). These speechwriting class data inform my analysis most prominently in Chapters 2 and 5.

Table 1.1List of speechwriter interviews.

Table 1.1Long description

The table consists of three columns: Name, Position at Time of Interview, and Date or Approximate Length of Interview. It reads as follows. Row 1: Anna, Speechwriter slash Comms for Political Committee, September 2021 slash 40 minutes. Row 2: Bill, Partner slash Chief Executive Officer in Communications Firm, September 2021 slash 30 minutes. Row 3: Cara, Freelance Corporate Speechwriter, October 2021 slash 45 minutes. Row 4: Charles, Freelance Political Speechwriter, September 2021 slash 30 minutes. Row 5: Chuck, Gubernatorial Speechwriter, April 2021 slash 30 minutes. Row 6: Don, Director of Speechwriter Organization, September 2021 slash 40 minutes superscript 7. Row 7: Dale, Speechwriter slash Comms for Government Organization, October 2019 slash 30 minutes. Row 8: Dani, Speechwriter for General in United States Military, September 2021 slash 45 minutes. Row 9: Dev, Speechwriter for Political Organization, September 2021 slash 45 minutes. Row 10: Evie, Speechwriter for Political Organization, September 2021 slash 35 minutes.

Table 1.1 (cont.)

Table 1.1 (cont.)Long description

The table consists of three columns: Name, Position at Time of Interview, and Date or Approximate Length of Interview. It reads as follows. Row 1: Hal, Speechwriter for Government Organization, September 2021 slash 60 minutes. Row 2: John, Founder slash Partner in Communications Firm, September 2021 slash 50 minutes. Row 3: Julie, Communications Specialist for Labor Union, September 2019 slash 30 minutes. Row 4: Kira, Senior Advisor in Communications Firm, October 2019 slash 35 minutes. Row 5: Lisa, Partner slash Chief Executive Officer in Communications Firm, October 2021 slash 30 minutes. Row 6: Mae, Communications for Consultancy Firm, November 2021 slash 30 minutes. Row 7: Matt, Freelance Speechwriter; Speechwriter Course Instructor, September 2019 slash 35 minutes. Row 8: Max, University President Speechwriter, September 2021 slash 40 minutes superscript 8. Row 9: Molly, Speechwriter for United States Ambassador, August 2021 slash 50 minutes. Row 10: Zora, Partner in Communications Firm, September 2019 slash 45 minutes.

1.5 Method: (Critical) Discourse Ethnography

I have already referred to Rampton and colleagues’ (Reference Rampton, Tusting, Maybin, Barwell, Creese and Lytra2004) “linguistic ethnography” as my primary methodological inspiration. I elaborate on this in a moment but first want to establish my conceptualization of discourse and why I necessarily approach it critically. Following Jones, Chik, and Hafner (Reference Jones, Chik, Hafner, Jones, Chik and Hafner2015), I see discourse as an active, dynamic process in which “people build and manage their social worlds” (3). Importantly, this entails much more than just linguistics. It incorporates systems of meaning which include all forms of semiosis: visual, spatial, aural, and embodied. That said, and given the nature of my data, in this book I focus very prominently on spoken and written language. However, I do at various moments consider the multimodal context of speech production, and I am continually mindful of how materiality and embodiment might factor into speechwriters’ work and into their reflexive commentary. In this vein, my goal is to identify the ways in which metadiscursive insights are explicitly tied to professional practice, and what these intertextual linkings might reveal about social distinction and hierarchies of power (see again Gordon Reference Gordon2023). As I mentioned earlier, it is the explicitly ideological dimension to (meta)language which is of primary interest; as Blommaert and colleagues (Reference Blommaert, Collins, Heller, Rampton, Slembrouck and Vershueren2003) note in their ethnographic consideration of power in late capitalism, “the importance of discourse and language in the articulation of both centrifugal and centripetal social processes make them very sensitive sites for an analysis of the dynamics in which hegemony takes shape and operates” (5). In other words, it is worthwhile to consider in detail the discursive mechanisms involved in (re)producing and reifying the dominant ideologies of neoliberal (working) life. And arguably, (critical) ethnographic discourse analysis is an apt tool for uncovering these processes.

While their discussion paper on linguistic ethnography is intended as a relatively informal mapping of the state of applied linguistics in the UK, Rampton and colleagues (Reference Rampton, Tusting, Maybin, Barwell, Creese and Lytra2004) offer a nice model for researchers interested in methodological nuance. The authors identify the core tenets of ethnography (as many others have done before, e.g. Duranti Reference Duranti1997), and rightly point out that it is, by definition, “in tension with linguistics” (3). First, the focus of ethnography is much more all-encompassing than language as it aims for a holistic documentation of the culture in general. Second, linguistic research very rarely places emphasis on the situated role of the researcher, and instead makes use of empirical procedures (e.g. surveys) which are relatively standardized. All of this contrasts with ethnographers’ participant-observation techniques (for some recent exceptions in critical sociocultural linguistics, however, see Thurlow Reference Thurlow2016 and Comer Reference Comer2022). Third, while linguists seek to generalize about “language structure and use,” ethnographers are more interested in “particularities”: “Ethnographies involve rhetorical forms, such as vignettes and narratives (Hymes Reference Hymes1996: 12–13), that are designed to provide the reader with some apprehension of the fullness and irreducibility of the ‘lived stuff’ from which the analyst has abstracted (cultural) structures” (4). Thus, ethnography is much more openly subjective in its documentation of data and, importantly, does not make any claims to the contrary. Indeed, Rampton and colleagues emphasize that ethnographers must acknowledge incompleteness in their work – there is no account which is truly comprehensive, and while this does not invalidate or minimize its importance, it does incentivize including discourse analysis in one’s methodological toolkit.

As such, the merits of a combined approach are what Rampton and colleagues describe as “tying ethnography down” and “opening linguistics up” (see also Macgilchrist and Van Hout Reference Macgilchrist and Van Hout2011). In this way, the researcher is simultaneously situated (i.e. focused on delimited microlinguistic detail) but reflexive (i.e. sensitive “to the processes involved in the production of linguistic claims,” Rampton et al. Reference Rampton, Tusting, Maybin, Barwell, Creese and Lytra2004: 4). Importantly, as a discourse scholar my understanding of language is perhaps a bit broader than what linguistic ethnography necessarily entails. Accordingly, and following Macgilchrist and Van Hout (Reference Macgilchrist and Van Hout2011), I henceforth use the phrase “ethnographic discourse analysis” to better capture the ways in which my approach attends to larger macro processes based on the micro details of discursive interaction (see also Swales Reference Swales1998 on “textography”). While I incorporate slight variations of this method in each of the substantive chapters (see Section 1.6), my overall approach is designed to holistically document the web of relationships between speechwriter interviews, memoirs, course materials, conversations, and deliverables – all using detailed discourse analysis. In this regard, my analytical process draws on a three-step approach in which I first conducted loose content analysis, before moving onto interpretive (qualitative) discourse analysis and finally critique (cf. Thurlow and Aiello Reference Thurlow and Aiello2007). Ultimately, my insights are based on several close readings of multiple genres of interconnected data, across which I detected three prominent rhetorical strategies which characterize speechwriter discourse and serve to broadly organize the book. These are invisibility (i.e. erasure), craft (i.e. skill/creative process), and virtue (i.e. moralization). Ultimately, by tracking these themes across the data I am able to comment not only on the minutiae of speechwriters’ high-end language work but also on the various ways they are beholden to the demands of enterprise culture and the linguistic market.

1.6 Overview of Book

While in general the book is organized according to the aforementioned rhetorical strategies, the primary goal of the first substantive chapter (Chapter 2) is to introduce readers to the research context of professional speechwriting. Turning first to the work of Erving Goffman (Reference Goffman1959, Reference Goffman1981), I examine three interconnected concepts which are key to speechwriters’ practices: 1) frontstage and backstage; 2) participation framework; and 3) production format. Next, I map the profession, using descriptive analysis to document the specifics of speechwriters’ education and career trajectories, production of deliverables, and day-to-day practices. This is followed by a second analytical section in which I outline the rhetorical strategies of invisibility, craft, and virtue. Using interview data I first unpack the specifics of invisibility as a point of professional pride and skill, demonstrating how speechwriters understand and even embrace the erasure of their authorship. Second, I document the constructions of expertise and skill which characterize speechwriters’ craft, and which allow them to claim status as “creatives.” Lastly, I demonstrate how virtue (i.e. behavior deemed especially ethical or moral in the context of speechwriting) features across the dataset. I argue that speechwriters’ “moral meaning-making” (Montiegel Reference Montiegel2021) strategies are necessarily tied to the cultural indexicalities associated with “impact,” routinely framing their work as socially beneficial. Ultimately, each of these analytical sections reveals how speechwriters necessarily engage in the status competition characteristic of contemporary capitalism, articulating their value in terms relevant to the commodification of knowledge and linguistic skill (e.g. Heller Reference Heller2003).

Having established the general themes which characterize speechwriter discourse, in Chapter 3 I focus specifically on the notion of invisibility by tracking the life of a political speech from assignment to delivery. My theoretical framework for this analysis comprises three interrelated concepts: language materiality (Shankar and Cavanaugh Reference Shankar and Cavanaugh2012), or the ways in which language and material objects are complicatedly entwined and consequently a matter of political economy; text trajectories (e.g. Lillis Reference Lillis2008), as in the processes that facilitate a text’s evolution; and entextualization (Bauman and Briggs Reference Bauman and Briggs1990), the de- and recontextualization of language. Following Macgilchrist and Van Hout’s (Reference Macgilchrist and Van Hout2011) ethnographic approach to documenting text trajectories, my analysis is divided into three case studies which together demonstrate speechwriters’ strategic and material erasure throughout the evolution of their deliverables. Ultimately, I conclude by arguing that this ethnographic text trajectory evidence is another indication of the ways in which language workers must discursively enact Urciuoli’s (Reference Urciuoli2008) “new worker-self” in order to claim status and success as wordsmiths.

Chapter 4 expands on the second primary theme, unpacking the complex ways in which claims to creativity and craft emerge in speechwriters’ metadiscursive accounts of their work. Importantly, implicit in my understanding of craft is that it is an overt admission of expertise and skill, and thus reveals speechwriters’ inherent positioning as especially “elite” language workers. As theoretical background I expand on my understanding of creativity in language use, considering the ways in which more ordinary instances of language play are necessarily distinct from the “exceptional” creativity which defines speechwriters’ work (see Swann and Deumert Reference Swann and Deumert2018). Relatedly, I turn to poetics (e.g. Jakobson Reference Jakobson and Sebeok1960), highlighting that while there has been a marked turn in the literature to everyday instances of poetic language use, speechwriters’ work represents what we might call “high” poetics (cf. Coupland Reference Coupland2007): spectacular, institutionalized expressions of the aesthetic or artistic dimensions of language. Then, in the subsequent analysis I draw primarily on speechwriter memoirs and interviews to investigate the microlinguistic choices which characterize speechwriters claims to artistry; their emphasis on persuasion as creative practice; and their proclivity for formulating themselves as distinctly neoliberal “bundles of skills” (e.g. Holborow Reference Holborow2018). I thereby demonstrate how the enterprise of poetics/creativity is a key status-making strategy by which speechwriters position themselves as craftspeople and, in turn, how they shore up their privilege vis-à-vis peers and other language workers in the gig economy.

While speechwriters’ construction of virtue is a thread which runs throughout the manuscript, in the final substantive chapter I more explicitly engage with this theme. I argue that practitioners demonstrate a markedly transgressive agency in their work – this, in turn, is a source for affective binding (see Comer Reference Comer2022) and status production, contributing to what I call the virtuous outlaw identity of the speechwriter community. The theoretical framework which undergirds my focus here is rooted in affect studies (e.g. Ahmed Reference Ahmed2004) and notions of emotional labor (e.g. Hochschild Reference Hochschild2012), as well as the rather prolific scholarship concerning professional/personal identity as it emerges in workplace discourse (e.g. Holmes Reference Holmes2007). What comes to the fore is the way in which emotion is complicatedly entangled with the “semiotic ideologies” of one’s professional life (see again Keane Reference Keane2018). Focusing on both Professional Speechwriting course materials as well as a video-recorded meeting between members of the Speechwriter Organization, I demonstrate how participants claim agency and control in their work – a positioning which helps to characterize their professional expertise as especially superior to that of (hypothetical) speakers. Indeed, in framing themselves as uniquely skilled and knowledgeable, speechwriters deem their transgressive professional practices as virtuous and admirable – not only is their work important and impactful but it also follows the laws of common morality because practitioners see themselves as selfless benefactors (see p. 151). It is this high-status, “virtuous outlaw” professional practice which allows them to lay further claim to status within the neoliberal linguistic market.

In the final chapter and conclusion of this work I ethnographically examine how the business of speechwriting is necessarily caught up in the commodity chains of the market, and the ways in which status competition permeates high-end language work – including academia. I begin by reviewing the primary rhetorical strategies which emerge in speechwriters’ metadiscursive accounts, determining that invisibility, craft, and virtue ultimately highlight the complex tensions existing between personhood and professionalism. Next, I return to theory, method, and practice as a means of identifying three overarching problems which my study illuminates for applied linguists. These pertain to 1) political economy, field, and the marketplace; 2) folk linguistics; and 3) community-centered collaboration and consultation. I argue that ultimately, these problems highlight the neoliberal dilemmas of alienation and lack of community for language workers. As a means of interrogating these specific issues in the context of speechwriting, I then turn to a brief analysis section of multimodal data (e.g. recorded comments, casual conversations, and material artifacts) from my participation in a two-day Speechwriter Organization conference. Focusing in particular on the ways practitioners both claim and contest their community membership, I identify moments of solidarity building, and moments of individual status production. Across these two sections I orient heavily to practitioners’ paradoxical struggle for legitimacy – they want their work to be acknowledged and valued, and yet it is only by operating and competing within the particular confines of their “field” (Bourdieu Reference Bourdieu2005 [2000]) that they can accumulate capital. Hence, in both avowing and disavowing ownership, power, and prestige, speechwriters demonstrate the real complexity of professionalized language work under neoliberal conditions.

Ultimately, this metadiscursive inquiry into speechwriting contributes to language scholars’ ongoing attempts to (re)appraise and (re)articulate the complicated contexts of personhood and professionalism in the new economy. As applied linguists we are tasked with interrogating the social life of language, and with providing solutions to real-life problems (cf. Kramsch Reference Kramsch2021). What this book offers, therefore, is a close examination of the role of wordsmiths in public discourse production, as well as a theoretical dismantling of the hierarchical structures which continue to normalize neoliberal inequality and status competition.