Analysis #2

ENGL488G
Feb. 21, 2017
Danielle Ohl

In California Shouldnt Secede from the United States, writer John Fund uses the

languages of policy-making and war to contrast the real-life complexities of seceding from a

nation with the simplicity with which he posits some Californians view the breakaway.

With the words, policy, progressive, priorities, poll, movement, and

Congress, Fund establishes a more formal, governmental register reminiscent of Congressional

reports or White House memos. This register permeates the first and second paragraphs, defining

Funds view of the Calexit movement. In the first sentence of the second paragraph, he inserts

the words zero chance, which feel more informal and out of place, effectively echoing the

amusement he feels toward the movement. The effect is an almost condescending tone.

Further into the excerpt, Fund shifts to the register of international conflict, using words

such as peacefully, civil war, ease tensions, and defuse. painting the conflict between

coastal elites and conservative farmers as a serious one, requiring careful consideration and

cautious negotiation rather than hopeful wishing. This part of the piece reads like a stern warning

to those so naive to think secession would be an easy answer.

Eventually, he shifts back into the policy register with ideology and policy

experimentation to re-establish an ethos and air of understanding.

The excerpt takes on an air of pedagogy and almost condescension, as Fund establishes

his authority over the subject through his chosen registers. He bolsters this effect by moving
through a level of generality between Calexit and secession. Though Calexit might be more

accurate or descriptive, he wont honor the term because the movement it represents it lacks

credence in his mind. By moving from a hyponym to a hypernym, he degrades meaning and

specificity, and conflates Calexit with the only other secessions America has known which

ended in conflict at best and war at worst.