1. Introduction

Formal discourse marks social communication of moment, including that which is explicitly future-oriented. (Fairclough, 2005, p8-9) Does informal, ‘ramshackle’ text convey as powerfully a view of a possible world? (McCarthy, Matthiessen & Slade, p57-59)
Norman Fairclough sees ‘discourses’ — ‘particular way(s) of representing particular aspects of social life’ — as formative of social change. (2005, p7-8) To Fairclough (who tries not to confuse the “map with the territory”, see Korzybski, 1931), the relationship between ‘social structures’ and concrete ‘social events’ is ‘mediated’ by ‘(S)ocial practices’ (in essence, institutions, organisations, fields). ‘There is a semiotic dimension at each of these levels.’ (2005, p3) These social events (‘texts’) are ‘articulations of diverse social elements, including semiosis.’ (2005, p7, 4)
How precisely such discourses cause or inspire social change is uncertain; ‘semiosis’ is always on “both sides of the equation”. Archimedes has a lever long enough but no place to put it.
Semiosis includes verbal ‘articulations’  during social activity, the review of past or ongoing actions, and the public ‘constitution of identities’ (or at least, the constitution of public identities). Fairclough’s version of ‘critical discourse analysis’ (CDA) subjects it to a kind of ‘detailed textual analysis’. (p11, 16)
Our words and deeds can be so analysed, preferably with literary sensibility (CDA speculates), but not our imaginations. These must be realised. Interestingly in this regard, a few key discourse types (‘genres’, p7) constitute ‘imaginaries’, strategic discussions of ‘how things might or could or should be’, evocative of  ‘ “possible worlds” ’. They include (battle) plans, manifestos, and scientific theories, which strive in some sense to renew — and critical pieces in which the “alternative future” is tacit or implied. Their effectiveness and predictability is moot (advocates and audiences struggle, with obstacles or each other), but they show how many seers wish the future to be. They do not invariably reflect the status quo, itself quicksilver.
They may be ‘realistic’ or ‘utopian’. Nevertheless, most aim to convince, and hence are intricately structured (even decalogic, or poetic) — a written text, or a ‘text’ planned through repetition like the songs of a griot. (Rowe & Levine, 2005, p193) That text aspires to the provenance and authenticity of a tradition, an ‘aura’ as Benjamin dubbed it. (1936, II, p3) It seeks ‘ideological effectiveness’. (Althusser, 1970; cf Purvis & Hunt, 1993) It is no casual exchange, but finds a position at the right of the informal-formal cline depicted in McCarthy, Matthiessen & Slade’s Fig. 4.1. (2002, p57)
Due to its ambitions (and necessity to any project), and the vagueness yet weight of its subject, it calls for an hermeneutical or interpretive evaluation.

One of the perennial ‘imaginaries’ is Empire, whether waxing or waning; it can be the right-wing equivalent of Revolution. We all want progress. Below, to try and answer my opening question, I will examine the ‘aura’ of two contrasting pieces. One is oral and unrehearsed in origin and one finely crafted; each was selected because it evokes the future-oriented mythos of a contemporary, now dimming ‘empire’.
There will be no space or even possibility, given the future’s fickleness, to gauge the practical influence of either on the real world.

2. Inspecting the Aura

I have chosen two ‘iconic’ texts. First, Emma Lazarus’s well-known poem ‘The New Colossus’; then Matthew Kennard’s interview of Noam Chomsky, called simply ‘American Empire’. One is apparently in favour of the nascent Empire, one against it in its senescence.
Lazarus’s short work is to me quite moving, though those less ‘romantic’ may find it overly sentimental. Chomsky’s interview sounds world-weary and not ‘listener-friendly’.

2.1 Emma Lazarus, ‘The New Colossus’ (1883)

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep[,] ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

At first glance, this seems a ‘good-bad’ sonnet (Orwell, 1945). It recalls Shelley’s ‘Ozymandias’; its subject, though not its speaking statue, Justice. But regarding empire, it looks forward. Despite ‘traveloguey’ blemishes, it is well-composed, mythologically resonant, and hardly ‘ramshackle’. Indeed, due to its belated adoption by the United States Government, it is almost ‘lapidary’. Its air (aura) of authority and pathos surpasses that of most interviews (the more so if recited).

Lazarus turns Liberty (the leader of the huddled masses’ Revolution, as in the 1830 painting by Delacroix) into an all-embracing ‘Mother of Exiles’, a Rachel figure welcoming the “poor and homeless” to a stolen, equally ‘ancient’ land where poverty in the midst of plenty has (since its conquest) been endemic. There is a distancing from the patriarchal tendency of johnny-come-lately liberal mythology, as well as a dreadful pun on the Jewish festival of Chanukah (sunset lamps etc), a festival commemorating the Maccabee revolt against Greek-Syrian ‘imperialism’. Liberty holds aloft the beacon of hope, the ‘light unto the nations’, US promising golden opportunity to THEM.
In today’s America, ‘imprisoned lightning’ is more likely to escape from a taser gun. But that is not Lazarus’s fault. And the poem is no advert for Yankee ‘freedom of enterprise’ in the promised land. The 18th century idea of ‘liberty’ through republicanism was by the 1880s under challenge by immigrants scrambling for wage-slavery, bringing ‘foreign’ socialism and anarchism, the former gaining her sympathy (Ruíz & DuBois, 2000, p525); her poignant ‘dedication’ can perhaps be seen as mild-eyed mockery of the official line. Did America ever really stand for such ‘world-wide welcome’ to the ‘wretched refuse’ of other nations? Was this wishful — or rather utopian — thinking? Yet Liberty’s call ‘“Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” the line everyone vaguely remembers, is a stroke of moral genius. It is more than a white lie to say that America’s bourgeois Revolution of 1776 promises them all an escape from servitude, but the ancient notion of enlightenment bringing liberation is not, and that is Emma Lazarus’s judgement.
(It would have been a very different poem if she had put ‘middle classes’.)

Arguably, ‘The New Colossus’ (or Babylon) — the U.S.A. itself — is really rather more like the old one than the ‘Statue of Liberty’ would suggest: very much the

… brazen giant …
With conquering limbs astride from land to land.

Quite a centipede, in fact. And happy, quite. But that world-domination had not really got going by the time of the poet’s untimely death in 1887. She can still feel that the immigrants are coming ‘tempest-tost’, rather like the Mayflower, to a safe harbour. Who can not feel sympathy for, indeed empathy with, ‘boat-people’, pursuing their ‘lost travellers dream under the hill’?
The ‘speaker’ (or ‘implied author’) in ‘The New Colossus’, though apparently an American (‘Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates …’) — sounds 125 years after it was written, more like a hapless exile. The exile not only of a member of the Jewish diaspora or of a woman in a man’s (literary) world, but of the imprisoned spirit of human liberty (Chanukah lights again) with ‘silent [or silenced] lips’, in all its real-world abandonment, at the ‘golden door’ — a homeless child might imagine it thus — of an aspiring and racist Empire.
Some might dismiss the poem as jingoistic propaganda; which despite Lazarus’s haute bourgeois upbringing I think would be unjust. Propagandistic intentions by official and now declining America in appropriating her poem for ‘Liberty Enlightening the World’ were not necessarily her own.
(I wonder what she would have made of the larger, but sword-wielding statue ‘The Motherland Calls!’ (Rodina Mat Zovyot!) on Mamayev Hill, near the former Stalingrad? It is much closer to Delacroix’s conception. But still, beneath the accumulated pigeon-droppings of empire, Justice.)
Impressive, powerful, though hardly posturing imperially like a rooster in the barnyard (unlike the Old Colossus) — or unrealistic, bathetic? Her poem evokes a myth far from ‘obvious’ in Althusser’s sense, leading one to feel at some primitive level that it ought — in the implied author’s terms — to be true. Or ought to be made true.
A formal and formidable task indeed.

2.1.2 Noam Chomsky, extract from the interview by Matthew Kennard, 2004, ‘American Empire’.

MK: The first question is the most basic I suppose. To what extent do you think an American Empire exists today?

NC: The term Empire is so vague and is used in so many different ways that I don’t think the question can be answered. There are various power systems in the world. There are obviously tremendous inequities of power. The US is far and away the most powerful component of the world system in terms of military force. In terms of economic force it’s basically one among three. That’s been true for a long time and is even more so today with North East Asia a very dynamic area, Europe roughly on a par with the US economically. North East Asia and Europe are increasing their ties. In fact, the EU and China became each others major trading partner this year 2004 and that’s continuing so there is a complicated system of world domination and the US is, in many ways, pre-eminent but primarily because of its military force and its huge internal economy and it uses the force of course to dominate and control. If you want to call it Empire okay if not okay word doesn’t mean much.

Essentially, the U.S. dominates militarily, is primus inter pares economically, and if that’s an empire, so be it; the word means too much to be specific. While his ‘text’ is neither lapidary nor emanates from imperial ‘Authority’ (it is more like a view from a Martian spacecraft), Chomsky’s response is informal but informed. It is not deathless prose (‘a very dynamic area’ is true but banal), let alone poetry (despite its gravid cadences), and could be more succinct (telling us twice that the U.S. is top dog militarily), but due to the speaker’s erudition it does marshall its terminology and ideas in a near-formal way.
With the caveat that the question may be unanswerable, he asserts that

There are various power systems in the world. There are obviously tremendous inequities of power. The US is far and away the most powerful component of the world system in terms of military force. In terms of economic force it’s basically one among three [N.E. Asia, especially China and Japan; Europe].

While using the concept ‘power’ three times, he does not define it (which does not add to the ‘power’ of his reply), except to say that the ‘world system’ is ‘obviously’ grossly unequal. He ignores (‘backgrounds’) the Arab World, Russia, much of Africa, the Latin American countries, etc, and refers to those paramount in the production of butter and not guns. (‘[E]conomic force’ — power? — trumps military, eventually?) Any other kind or source of power, such as the revolutionary, moral or economic potential of the international proletariat (including the American), is omitted too.
Also, this is a statement which he does not back up. It is too ‘obvious’,  if only in the case of the United States’ armed might — yet ‘Europe [is] roughly on a par with the US economically’. Maybe he expects that his words will be taken on face value because he has long established his position as a ‘counter-authoritative’ (anarchist) figure. He continues,

That’s been true for a long time and is even more so today with North East Asia a very dynamic area, Europe roughly on a par with the US economically. North East Asia and Europe are increasing their ties. In fact, the EU and China became each others [sic] major trading partner this year 2004 and that’s continuing so there is a complicated system of world domination …

The three supranational economic blocs are converging but headed for confrontation? But as he adds,

… the US is, in many ways, pre-eminent but primarily because of its military force and its huge internal economy and it uses the force of course to dominate and control.

The barely spoken presupposition is that ‘of course’ (military? economic?) force will be used to ‘dominate and control’ — that may well be correct (‘power tends to corrupt’) but it is not self-evident. But here, it may be needed, to prevent war. In a finely-tuned formal essay, he may have also stressed that instead of competing with its rivals in Eurasia, America has the potential and self-interest to benefit all (including itself) by co-operating with them. That is would be the obverse of Chomsky’s critical ‘negativity’.
The even more suppressed implication is that otherwise, the ‘allies’ of the old ‘free world’ may be headed toward a mutual conflagration: World War Three. He does not draw this out either. In writing, he could have forestalled his critics by alluding to other factors (say, in a footnote).

If you want to call it Empire okay if not okay word doesn’t mean much.

Here he is very laconic — or sardonic. The word might mean much indeed, like ‘famous’ and ‘last’. Alternatively, some may claim that a sustainable American democracy is merely wishing to establish international law and order (clearly preferable to interminable war and disorder). In that case, it is not really an empire at all. Having been alarmist, is Chomsky now being evasive? Or does he not wish to get bogged down over a definition of words which might interrupt his considerable flow of thought? Again, a written document or rehearsed speech, composition less trammeled by the demands of short-term memory,  would deal with this less ambiguously (polysemy is for poets), which might at least impress the chickens.

As a prominent ‘public intellectual’, he is consciously taking a ‘Sakharovian’ position to that of the United States ruling élite: but possibly ‘preaching to the converted’. Here is the history the average pleb or prole doesn’t generally hear about on t.v. or at school. His casual (yet learned) speech, like Lazarus’s poem, is an antidote to bureaucratic bravado. But that will not appeal to those yearning for the unfreedom of fine phrases.

Many ‘average’, ‘apolitical’, ‘uncritical’ people might find their eyes ‘glazing over’ as they read Chomsky’s trenchant but colloquial reply. It may be mystifying … or too ‘demystifying’. It needs to be wrought into rhetoric. That might heighten its potency as a ‘tacit imaginary’.

3. Comparison and Conclusion

So — does a ‘ramshackle’ informal text convey as powerfully a view of a ‘possible’ world?
Based on the above ‘inspection’, my answer is ‘no’.  I have examined a text composed with the pen and one as formal as a reply viva voce can be, and I think shown that even in such a case the ‘imaginary’ is more forceful when written down.
Of course, semiosis remains on “both sides of the equation”, but then the future can only ever be an object of speculation or of struggle. (And all action, all realised story, takes place in it.)
An imaginary, unlike ideology in Althusser’s sense, is never ‘obvious’ to the unconverted. Since it strives to renew (revive or innovate) it is always risky and contentious, and we must be persuaded. That is most energetically done in a planned and purposive manner — which is why it must be interpreted in the light of its telos, not merely picked at according to predigested criteria. It may be no more than a positive vision of social betterment (as seen by the framer), and only a proposal or forecast, no guarantor of justice or truth. But if it does not create the conditions for empathy it will fail. Only a premeditated text can do that.
‘The New Colossus’ is no apologia for the American state. The poem’s cry is clear and striking, polysemy and all. Lazarus provides a symbol of emancipation, albeit utopian and heartbreakingly ingenuous, but one which may outlast the statue.
Chomsky exposes the existing, subjugating order in the world, pointless if emancipation is not possible, but the listener / reader must work for it, and have a tolerance for political science. Sadly, the live interview might be avoided by them as something for ‘policy wonks’.
Yet each ‘imaginary’ discourse is a small window looking out of our quotidian existence. The ‘aura’ of Lazarus’s opus is brighter, but not only because it is embedded (‘ensconced?) in now guttering bourgeois ideology.
A meaning-oriented analysis of an (imagistic) imaginary is worthwhile only if it reveals glimpses of something transformative, and in this case I think it shows that these glowing fragments (of a greater oeuvre) may be rekindled. One text recreates the heart of an incipient Empire as sanctuary or hearth; the other, more recent, exposes its imperious brutality so we may refashion our planet. The barometer seems fair for both visions. The dramatic poem and the ‘ramshackle’ interview share a message: the ‘huddled masses’ of the earth may still hope — may even rise.

Bibliography

Chomsky, Noam. 2004/5. ‘American Empire’ Noam Chomsky interviewed by Matthew Kennard. Global Empire: Interviste su globalizzazione, dominio petrolifero, libertà, Roma: Datanews, 2005 [interview conducted on November 21, 2004]. At http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20041121.htm, accessed 30.9.2008. Noam Chomsky’s homepage: http://www.chomsky.info/ is referenced in Topic 7.
Lazarus, Emma. 1883/1903/n.d. Statue of Liberty National Monument. Emma Lazarus’ Famous Poem. ‘A poem by Emma Lazarus is graven on a tablet [sic] within the pedestal on which the statue stands.’ ‘The New Colossus.’ At http://www.libertystatepark.com/emma.htm, accessed 30.9.2008. There are many other references on the web.

Other texts consulted

Althusser, Louis. 1970. “Lenin and Philosophy” and Other Essays. Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes towards an Investigation). First published: in La Pensée, 1970; tr. from the French by Ben Brewster; Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, Monthly Review Press 1971; Transcribed: by Andy Blunden. At http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1970/ideology.htm (3.10.2008).
Benjamin, Walter. 1936. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television; Transcribed: by Andy Blunden 1998; proofed and corrected Feb. 2005. At http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm (5.10.2008).
Blommaert, Jan, Chris Bulcaen. 2000. Critical Discourse Analysis, Annu. Rev. Anthropol., 2000, 29:447-66. At http://www.jstor.org/stable/223428 (8.9.2008) .
Fairclough, Norman. 2005. Critical Discourse Analysis, Marges Linguistiques 9 2005, 76-94. At http://www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/profiles/263 (1.10.2008) [directly, http://www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/staff/norman/critdiscanalysis.doc].
McCarthy, Michael, Christian Matthiessen & Diana Slade. 2002. Discourse Analysis. In: An introduction to applied linguistics / edited by Norbert Schmitt. London: Arnold, 2002. Chapter 4, pp. 55-73.
Orwell, George. 1945. ‘Good Bad Books’, Tribune, 2nd November 1945. See http://www.netcharles.com/orwell/essays/goodbadbooks.htm (4.10.2008).
Paltridge, Brian. 2006. Critical Discourse Analysis. In: Discourse analysis : an introduction / Brian Paltridge. London ; New York : Continuum, c2006. Chapter 8, pp. 178-198  221-238.
Paltridge, Brian. 2000. Critical Discourse Analysis. In: Making sense of discourse analysis / Brian Paltridge; series editor, Jill Burton. Gold Coast, Qld. : Antipodean Educational Enterprises, 2000. Chapter 8, pp. 152-174.
Purvis, Trevor, and Alan Hunt. Discourse, Ideology, Discourse, Ideology, Discourse, Ideology… The British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 44, No. 3 (Sep., 1993), p473-499.
Rowe, Bruce M. & Diane P. Levine. 2005. Sociolinguistics and Linguistic Anthropology. In: A concise introduction to linguistics / Bruce M. Rowe, Diane P. Levine. Boston: Pearson/A and B, 2005. Chapter 7, pp. 182-220.
Ruíz, Vicki  L., Ellen Carol DuBois (eds). 2000. Unequal Sisters: A Multicultural Reader in U.S. Women’s History. New York & London: Routledge, 2000.

Appendix

McCarthy, Matthiessen, & Slade, 2002, Fig. 4.1, p57: