Constitution vs. Cooperation. The case of syntax and Oath of Office.

Interesting linguistic phenomenon during Barack Obama's swearing-in this morning. A few blunders (including one later in Obama's Inaugural Speech, where he states that 44 people have taken this oath previously – actually, only 43 have, since Grover Cleveland was president twice, in non-consecutive terms). This post is about the the interesting exchange between the two participants in this 43rd delivery of the Speech Act we call "Oath of Office."

The official 35-word oath is written in Article II, Section I of the U.S. Constitution as follows:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Here is a shallow transcription of the oath, as stated this morning (delivered by Chief Justice John Roberts to Barack Hussein Obama at 12:00 pm, January 20th, 2009):

1. Roberts: I, Barack Hussein Obama [do solemnly swear]
2. Obama: [I, Barack]
3. Obama: I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear.
4. Roberts: That I will..execute the office of President of to the United States faithfully.
5. Obama: That I will execute... (nods to Roberts)
6. Roberts: the off– faithfully the Pres– office of President [of the United States.]
7. Obama: [the office of President] of the United States faithfully.
8. Roberts: And will to the best of my ability.
9. Obama: I will to the best of my ability.
10. Roberts: Preserve, protect, and defend, the constitution of the United States.
11. Obama: Preserve, protect, and defend, the constitution of the United States.
12. Roberts: So help you God?
13. Obama: So help me God.
14. Roberts: Congratulations Mr. President.

*Brackets "[ ]" represent overlapping speech. Parenthesis represent paralinguistic cues. Periods "." represent pauses. Hyphens "–" represent truncated speech. Text in red represents a change made to the transcription (after the original post timestamp).*

The last 4 words "So help me God" are not part of the constitutional oath, and therefore optional. I find this interesting because this is also signaled with a change in deixis by Roberts. He asks Obama "So help you God," rather than "So help me God," a change in which Roberts is no longer requesting Obama to repeat his words, but rather asking him a direct question.

Also, more noticeable, is the syntactic fumbles by Roberts in delivering the words for Obama to repeat. The constitutional oath is worded as "faithfully execute the office..." (adverb+VP), not "execute the office of President of the United States faithfully" (VP + adverb). Both are understandable and grammatically allowable in English, but have slightly different connotations, especially when delivered in this social context. The former is expected; the latter is marked.

The delivery of the "unconstitutional" word ordering prompted Obama to momentarily pause immediately after repeating "That I will execute." He nods to Roberts, now providing him with both linguistic and paralinguistic cues to perform a repair. Roberts initially misinterprets these cues as a repair request from Obama to hear the next words as he (Roberts) initially delivered them. We see this in line #6, starting with "the off–." However, Roberts immediately realizes his (second) error, and now understands that "faithfully" was what was requested, not the remaining sentence as he had previously stated it in line #4. However, he errs again in his attempt to deliver the proper constitutional ordering. Instead of giving Obama the proper words to repeat, "faithfully execute the office of...," he misspeaks by saying, "faithfully the Pres–." He realizes this and stops himself. We're on error number three now, for those keeping track. His final repair attempt results in the end of line #6, where Roberts skips the troubling adverb+verb combo, and supplies the proper end of the sentence, sans "faithfully."

Roberts' efforts are not in vain however. Even though his repairs were further botched in the surface representations, the intent to repair was conveyed to Barack Obama.

It is not actually required by the Speech Act of oath-giving that the words are repeated verbatim, or the conversational exchange go smoothly, for the oath to be considered valid. This happens at weddings all the time, and the show does go on. The intent is understood, and the Speech Act is honored as accomplishing what it intended to accomplish.

It is important however that Obama say the oath, regardless if it was delivered to him correctly. Interestingly, he has a choice now in the manner in which to say it. He can go with the constitutional version (adverb + verb phrase), or with Roberts' version (verb phrase + adverb). The former is correct, the latter is most cooperative. He can't have both.

It is interesting to see that even at the most basic level of simple conversational exchange, we see three traits emerge in our new President: leadership, cooperation, and quick thinking under pressure. Obama understood Roberts' error and allowed him to gracefully correct himself. But when he heard Roberts' repeated failed attempts to provide the proper words, Obama took charge of the situation and spoke the necessary phrase to continue with the Speech Act. That the Speech Act go on could easily be considered the priority at this point. It is important to note that, for whatever reason, Obama carried on in a way that was the most cooperative, choosing the phrasing that would align himself with Roberts, rather than slighting him.

There are a few other interesting phenomenon going on in this simple dialogue, but I am ready to enjoy the day.

If you need more wholesome oathy goodness, here is the latest at the Inuagural Blog, from the office of our new President, Barack Obama. Also, change.gov is closing up shop and coming to the whitehouse. Dot gov.

(My sincere apologies for all the bad puns in the previous paragraph.)
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There is a lot to look at here and we welcome any and all comments on this post. Thanks!
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keywords not in post: critical discourse analysis, CDA, Austin, Searle, speech act theory, blunder, screwup, mistake, swear, swearing, politics, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, constatives, perlocutionary, pledge, promise, amendment, felicity conditions, conversational turn, syntax, adverbial, clause, inauguration.
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*Update: Jan. 21, 2009, 11:25 am. Upon listening to the audio again this morning, I realize that my initial transcription of the swearing-in ceremony contained an error. In line #4, Roberts actually says "to" instead of the proper word "of". I have corrected this in the transcription portion of this post, and noted the change in the reference key below it.