The Speaker's Involvement in Political Discourse
Transcript of The Speaker's Involvement in Political Discourse
MASARYKOVA UNIVERZITA
Filozofická fakulta
Katedra anglistiky a amerikanistiky
SPEAKER’S INVOLVEMENT
IN POLITICAL INTERVIEWS
Školitelka: PhDr. Naděžda Kudrnáčová, CSc.
Brno 2010 Mgr. Jana Kozubíková Šandová
I hereby declare that I worked on
this thesis independently using only the
sources listed in references.
...........................................................
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I owe my deep and sincere gratitude to my supervisor,
PhDr. Naděţda Kudrnáčová, CSc. I appreciate her constant encouragement,
invaluable advice, generous supervision and support. Without her help, personal
example and faith in the quality of this work, this dissertation could never have been
completed. I would also like to thank her for patient guidance throughout the course
of my study.
I am also very grateful to doc. PhDr. Ludmila Urbanová, CSc., without
whose motivation, help and kind support I would never have started my Ph.D.
studies. Her extensive knowledge and experience have been of great value to me.
My special thanks belong to PhDr. Vladislav Smolka, Ph.D. for his
comments and recommendations.
Finally, I would like to express my special thanks to my parents, who have
always encouraged me and believed in me, and to my husband Lumír, whose
patience and support I appreciated especially during the final stages of this thesis.
Last but not least, I want to thank my husband for his help with technical issues and
graphical layout.
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Contents
1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................... 1
2 THE DELIMITATION OF INVOLVEMENT AS A LINGUISTIC CATEGORY ........................... 4
2.1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................ 4
2.2 INVOLVEMENT IN INTERACTIONAL SOCIOLINGUISTICS ............................................................................ 4
2.3 INVOLVEMENT IN DISCOURSE ANALYSIS ..................................................................................................... 7
2.3.1 Basic Hypotheses of Discourse Analysis ................................................................................... 10
2.4 TANNEN’S “RELATIVE FOCUS ON INVOLVEMENT” .................................................................................. 11
2.4.1 Contextualization Hypothesis ...................................................................................................... 12
2.4.2 Cohesion Hypothesis ......................................................................................................................... 14
2.5 HIGH INVOLVEMENT VS. LOW INVOLVEMENT .......................................................................................... 16
2.6 RELATIONSHIPS AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SPOKEN AND WRITTEN DISCOURSE ........................ 18
2.7 CHAFE’S APPROACH TO THE NOTION OF INVOLVEMENT ....................................................................... 23
2.8 INVOLVEMENT IN THE PRAGUE SCHOOL ................................................................................................... 26
2.9 LINGUISTIC STRATEGIES OF INVOLVEMENT ............................................................................................. 28
2.10 CONCEPTUAL PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED WITH INVOLVEMENT ................................................................ 32
2.11 SPEAKER'S INVOLVEMENT IN THIS THESIS ............................................................................................... 35
3 POLITICAL INTERVIEW AS A DISCOURSE GENRE ............................................................... 37
3.1 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................................. 37
3.2 PRAGMATIC APPROACH TO THE LANGUAGE OF POLITICS ...................................................................... 37
3.3 DEFINING “GENRE” AND “POLITICAL DISCOURSE” ................................................................................. 39
3.4 POLITICAL INTERVIEW AND ITS FEATURES .............................................................................................. 40
3.5 CONVERSATIONALIZATION OF MEDIA DISCOURSE .................................................................................. 42
3.6 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................................................. 44
4 ILLOCUTIONARY FORCE AND SPEECH ACT THEORY ........................................................ 45
4.1 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................................. 45
4.2 ILLOCUTIONARY FORCE ................................................................................................................................ 45
4.3 SPEECH ACT THEORY ................................................................................................................................... 50
4.4 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................................................. 53
5 CORPUS DESCRIPTION ................................................................................................................ 55
5.1 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................................. 55
5.2 EXTENT OF THE CORPUS .............................................................................................................................. 55
5.3 SOURCES OF THE DATA FOR THE ANALYSIS .............................................................................................. 55
5.4 POLITICIANS APPEARING IN THE CORPUS AND THEIR POSITIONS ........................................................ 56
5.5 TOPICS DISCUSSED, SETTING AND FUNCTION OF THE INTERVIEWS ..................................................... 57
5.6 SUBJECT OF THE ANALYSIS .......................................................................................................................... 58
5.7 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................................................. 63
6 BOOSTING AND HEDGING .......................................................................................................... 64
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6.1 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................................. 64
6.2 BOOSTING ....................................................................................................................................................... 64
6.3 HEDGING ......................................................................................................................................................... 68
6.4 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................................................. 74
7 INTENSIFICATION OF THE ILLOCUTIONARY FORCE ......................................................... 75
7.1 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................................. 75
7.2 CLASSIFICATIONS OF BOOSTERS ................................................................................................................. 75
7.2.1 Quirk et al.’s Classification of Boosters .................................................................................... 75
7.2.2 Classification of Boosters by their Relationship to Discourse Meaning .................... 77
7.2.2.1 Hearer-oriented Boosters ............................................................................................................. 79 7.2.2.2 Speaker-oriented Boosters .......................................................................................................... 82 7.2.2.3 Discourse-organizing Boosters .................................................................................................. 91
7.3 FREQUENCY OF BOOSTERS IN THE CORPUS OF POLITICAL INTERVIEWS ............................................. 94
7.3.1 Frequency of Boosters Classified by their Contribution to Discourse Meaning ..... 95
7.3.2 Occurrence of the Most Frequent Boosters ............................................................................ 96
7.3.2.1 Approaches to “Discourse Markers” ........................................................................................ 98 7.4 PRAGMATIC FUNCTIONS OF BOOSTERS .................................................................................................. 101
7.4.1 Content-oriented Emphasis ........................................................................................................ 103
7.4.2 Subjectivity ........................................................................................................................................ 106
7.4.3 The Degree of a Certain Quality ............................................................................................... 109
7.4.4 Assurance ........................................................................................................................................... 111
7.4.5 Intensification by Repetition ..................................................................................................... 113
7.4.6 Hearer-oriented Emphasis ......................................................................................................... 116
7.4.7 Agreement .......................................................................................................................................... 118
7.5 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................................... 120
8 ATTENUATION OF THE ILLOCUTIONARY FORCE ............................................................. 122
8.1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................... 122
8.2 CLASSIFICATIONS OF HEDGES .................................................................................................................. 122
8.2.1 Quirk et al.’s Classification of Hedges .................................................................................... 122
8.2.2 Brown and Levinson’s Classification of Hedges ................................................................ 123
8.2.3 Classification of Hedges by their Relationship to Discourse Meaning .................... 126
8.2.3.1 Speaker-oriented Hedges........................................................................................................... 127 8.2.3.2 Hearer-oriented Hedges ............................................................................................................. 128 8.2.3.3 Content-oriented Hedges ........................................................................................................... 130
8.3 FREQUENCY OF HEDGES IN THE CORPUS ............................................................................................... 133
8.3.1 Frequency of Hedges Classified by their Contribution to Discourse Meaning ..... 133
8.3.2 Occurrence of the Most Frequent Hedges ............................................................................ 135
8.4 PRAGMATIC FUNCTIONS OF HEDGES ...................................................................................................... 136
8.4.1 Attenuation of the Forthcoming Message ........................................................................... 138
8.4.2 Assumption ........................................................................................................................................ 140
8.4.3 Hearer-oriented Uncertainty ..................................................................................................... 142
8.4.4 Unspecified Reference ................................................................................................................... 145
8.4.5 Hesitation ........................................................................................................................................... 147
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8.4.6 Content-oriented Uncertainty ................................................................................................... 149
8.4.7 Negative Politeness ........................................................................................................................ 152
8.4.8 Detachment ....................................................................................................................................... 154
8.4.9 Evasiveness ........................................................................................................................................ 156
8.5 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................................... 158
9 MODALITY .................................................................................................................................... 161
9.1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................... 161
9.2 MOOD AND MODALITY .............................................................................................................................. 161
9.3 EVIDENTIALITY ........................................................................................................................................... 163
9.4 SUBJECTIVITY VS. OBJECTIVITY ................................................................................................................ 165
9.5 TYPES OF MODALITY ................................................................................................................................. 166
9.5.1 Epistemic Modality ......................................................................................................................... 167
9.5.2 Deontic Modality ............................................................................................................................. 169
9.5.3 Dynamic Modality .......................................................................................................................... 170
9.6 OTHER CLASSIFICATIONS OF MODALITY ................................................................................................ 171
9.7 CLASSIFICATION OF MODALITY IN THIS STUDY .................................................................................... 174
9.8 EXPRESSIONS OF MODALITY .................................................................................................................... 177
9.9 FREQUENCY OF OCCURRENCE OF MODAL EXPRESSIONS AND TYPES OF MODALITY ...................... 178
9.9.1 Epistemic Possibility ...................................................................................................................... 180
9.9.2 Deontic Necessity ............................................................................................................................ 185
9.9.3 Epistemic Attitudinal Modality ................................................................................................ 190
9.9.4 Circumstantial Possibility ........................................................................................................... 193
9.9.5 Epistemic Necessity ........................................................................................................................ 195
9.9.6 Deontic Possibility .......................................................................................................................... 199
9.10 GENDER-SPECIFICITY AND MODALITY ................................................................................................... 202
9.11 MODAL COMBINATIONS ............................................................................................................................ 205
9.11.1 Modally Harmonic and Modally Non-harmonic Combinations ........................... 205
9.11.2 Modal Combinations in the Corpus ................................................................................... 208
9.12 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................................... 215
10 CONCLUSIONS .............................................................................................................................. 218
LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................................................. 230
LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................................ 232
ČESKÉ RESUMÉ ................................................................................................................................... 233
REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................................ 235
MATERIAL ANALYSED ...................................................................................................................... 241
Introduction
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1 Introduction
This study presents a pragma-semantic analysis of linguistic means expressing
the speaker‘s involvement in the genre of political interviews. It is often claimed that
formal interaction represents a low-involved style, while informal conversation
typically displays a higher degree of involvement (cf. Tannen 1985; Chafe 1982, 1984;
Elias 1987; Besnier 1994; Katriel and Dascal 1989, Gumperz 1992, among others).
Political interview belongs to a genre of public discourse which should be
characterised by a low degree of involvement. Additionally, it is generally thought
that the language of female speakers is more indeterminate and vague, that females
speak more than male speakers and do not speak to the point. And, by contrast, it is
usually maintained that males express themselves more directly and matter-of-factly.
Based on the literature dealing with involvement (Tannen 1984, 1985; Chafe
1982, 1984; Gumperz 1992) and with language and gender (Holmes 1995; Coates
1993; Lakoff 2003), the following hypotheses can be formulated:
hypothesis I
The genre of political interview is detached and impersonal and it shows
features of a low-involved style as is typical of any other type of formal
interaction.
hypothesis II
Female politicians are more indeterminate and vague in their expression and
they do not speak to the point. The expression of male politicians is matter-
of-fact and they express themselves more precisely than female politicians.
The aim of the present thesis is to confirm or reject these hypotheses.
The research is based on an analysis of a corpus of 40 interviews with British
and American politicians. The illocutionary force of utterances in the genre of
political interview is modified by linguistic means expressing involvement. Means
that accentuate this force are commonly called boosting devices, and linguistic
means of attenuation of illocutionary force are commonly called hedging devices.
Apart from boosters and hedges, modal expressions may also modify the
illocutionary force of speech acts. All these means are quantitatively and qualitatively
Introduction
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analysed in this thesis. Since the majority of linguistic means of speaker‘s
involvement are context-sensitive, the methods of analysis of these means are
pragmatic and semantic.
The thesis consists of ten chapters. After the introduction, Chapter 2: The
Delimitation of Involvement as a Linguistic Category provides the theoretical
background for the investigation of speaker‘s involvement in political interviews. It
describes the approach to involvement within the framework of interactional
sociolinguistics and discourse analysis. Involvement has also been studied by scholars
of the Prague School, which is also included in this chapter.
Chapter 3: Political Interview as a Discourse Genre explains why this
thesis understands political interview as a genre and gives its basic characteristics.
The research of authentic data has shown that there is a growing tendency towards
conversationalization of political interview, which is also dealt with in this chapter.
Chapter 4: Illocutionary Force and Speech Act Theory offers a brief
introduction to the concept of illocutionary force and its components and an
explanation of the speech act theory, which was proposed by Austin (1962) and
further developed by Searle (1969). Since this thesis focuses on the modification of
the illocutionary force of speech acts, the explication of these concepts is
appropriate.
Chapter 5: Corpus Description provides details about the extent of the
corpus, the subject of the analysis, sources of the data for the analysis, as well as
information about the speakers and topics discussed.
Chapter 6: Boosting and Hedging may be regarded as an introduction to
the research presented in this thesis. It acquaints the reader with the basic distinction
between boosting and hedging and explains why it is important to take into account
the context in which the given utterance occurred.
Chapter 7: Intensification of the Illocutionary Force provides
classifications of boosters, quantitative and qualitative analyses of boosting devices. It
also identifies pragmatic functions of boosters that appear in the corpus.
Chapter 8: Attenuation of the Illocutionary Force is very similar in
structure to Chapter 7. It introduces several classifications of hedges, namely Quirk‘s
Introduction
3
classification, Brown and Levinson‘s classification, and also classification of hedges
by their relationship to discourse meaning. It looks into the frequency of occurrence
of hedges in the corpus and, as with boosters in Chapter 7, pragmatic functions of
hedges are discussed.
Chapter 9: Modality discusses another means of modification of the
illocutionary force of speech acts in the corpus that also shows the speaker‘s
involvement. This study offers a wider insight into the concept of speaker‘s
involvement. Therefore, it also analyses modal means that contribute to a higher
degree of involvement. It will be shown that pragmatic functions of boosting and
hedging devices are interrelated with modal expressions very closely. In the
introductory sections of Chapter 9, the difference between mood and modality, and
between evidentiality and modality is explained. Further, particular types of modality
are described. This chapter also comprises quantitative and qualitative analyses are
not missing even in this chapter. An interesting issue that is discussed in connection
with modality is gender-specificity. It is shown that an interpretation of quantitative
results should take into account not only the types of modality but also the separate
means that express particular types of modality. Concluding sections of this chapter
are devoted to modal combinations occurring in the corpus.
Finally, Chapter 10: Conclusions summarizes the outcomes of the research
present in this thesis into the means of expressing speaker‘s involvement in the
corpus of political interviews, and compares them with the proposed hypotheses.
The Delimitation of Involvement as a Linguistic Category
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2 The Delimitation of Involvement as a Linguistic Category
2.1 Introduction
This chapter provides the theoretical background for the present analysis of
involvement in political interviews. Involvement in two areas of linguistics, namely,
in interactional sociolinguistics and in discourse analysis, will be described in Sections
2.2 and 2.3. Influential studies of involvement have been presented by Tannen (1985)
and by Chafe (1982, 1984). These analyses are dealt with in greater detail in Sections
2.4 and 2.7. The concept of involvement has also been discussed in the Prague
School, which is referred to in Section 2.8. Linguistic strategies of involvement in
general and conceptual problems associated with this phenomenon are presented in
Subchapters 2.9 and 2.10.
The concept of involvement is very broad in scope and although it has been
described in the relevant literature, there have been few attempts to give its precise
definition and delimitation (cf. Tannen 1985; Besnier 1994; Chafe 1982). Besnier
(1994:279) points out that it was originally mentioned as a category in interactional
sociolinguistics and in discourse analysis. The following parts of the thesis will
explain the approach of these linguistic disciplines to this phenomenon.
2.2 Involvement in Interactional Sociolinguistics
Sociolinguistics is a branch of linguistics which studies all features of the
relationship between language and society. As Crystal points out, this term overlaps
to some extent with ethnolinguistics and anthropological linguistics because it covers
partly the interests of the disciplines such as sociology, ethnology and anthropology.
When the stress is laid on the language of face-to-face communication, ―the
approach is known as interactional sociolinguistics‖ (Crystal 2003a:422, my
emphasis). It studies the conventions and strategies of everyday interaction, and ―is
characterized by detailed transcriptions of taped interactions, with particular
reference to [...] prosody, facial expression, silence and rhythmical patterns of
behaviour between the participants‖ (2003a:238).
The Delimitation of Involvement as a Linguistic Category
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Involvement in interactional sociolinguistics focuses on ―conversationalists‘
willingness and ability to initiate and sustain verbal interaction. Involvement is seen
as a prerequisite to the success of any conversational encounter, and is rendered
possible by the presence of a shared body of linguistic and socio-cultural knowledge
among conversationalists‖ (Besnier 1994:279).
The main representative of interactional sociolinguistics is the linguistic
anthropologist John Gumperz (1982, 1992, 2001), who merged the findings of
linguistics, anthropology, pragmatics, and conversation analysis. He describes
interactional sociolinguistics as ―an approach to discourse that has its origin in the
search for replicable methods of qualitative analysis that account for our ability to
interpret what participants intend to convey in everyday communicative practice‖
(Gumperz 2001:215).
His work on discourse strategies claims that ―once involved in a
conversation, both speaker and hearer must actively respond to what transpires by
signalling involvement, either directly through words or indirectly through gestures
or similar nonverbal signals. The response, moreover, should relate to what we think
the speaker intends, rather than to the literal meanings of the words used.‖
(Gumperz 1982:1).
Furthermore, Gumperz states that ―understanding presupposes
conversational involvement‖ (1982:2). If conversational involvement is to be
preserved, linguistic and sociocultural knowledge among interlocutors must be
shared. This kind of knowledge is internal to interaction, it constitutes an integral
part of interaction itself. Additionally, Gumperz shows that involvement in a
conversational exchange is not only a matter of passive understanding. Participants in
a conversation should be able not only to decode the meaning of an utterance but
also to anticipate its development (1982:2-3). He also points out that ―almost all
conversational data derive from verbal interaction in socially and linguistically
homogenous groups. There is a tendency to take for granted that conversational
involvement exists, that interlocutors are cooperating, and that interpretive
conventions are shared‖ (1982:4). However, Gumperz emphasizes the importance of
employing cross-cultural communication as the basis of research into interactional
practices because it tends to be neglected although it may reveal surprising facts.
The Delimitation of Involvement as a Linguistic Category
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When communicating, interlocutors accompany their utterances by verbal
and non-verbal signals to connect what is said with ―knowledge acquired through
past experience, in order to retrieve the presuppositions they must rely on to
maintain conversational involvement and assess what is intended‖ (Gumperz
1992:230). Gumperz labels this as ―contextualization‖. Contextualization relies on
―contextualization cues‖ that include prosody, paralinguistic signs, choice of lexical
forms, and code choice.
Contextualization cues are employed and perceived by speakers habitually
and automatically rather than consciously and serve to foreground certain lexical
forms or phonological strings. They are not talked about directly, and for that reason
they must be examined in context rather than on a theoretical level (Gumperz
1982:131).
In this connection, Tannen (1984:xvi) states that whereas speakers aim at
conveying the meaning and attaining their interactional goals during a conversational
exchange, they are judged by their conversational partners on the basis of the use of
contextualization cues. ―When expectations regarding the use of contextualization
cues are relatively similar, utterances are likely to be interpreted more or less as
intended. But when such expectations are relatively different, speakers‘ intentions
and abilities are likely to be misevaluated‖ (Tannen 1984:xvi-xvii).
Interactional sociolinguistics deals not only with the way how meaning is
conveyed and negotiated, and with methods of achieving interactional goals in
communication. It also focuses on ―the inherent linguistic and cultural diversity of
today‘s communicative environments‖ (Gumperz 2001:218).
Additionally, Gumperz claims that interactional sociolinguistics attempts to
find the way how to link two differing theoretical approaches: one sees the nature of
diversity in the ―macrosocietal conditions, political and economic forces, and
relationships of power in which they were acquired‖ (Gumperz 2001:218), the other
is a constructivist approach asserting that since our social worlds are formed in
interaction, first of all it is necessary to inquire into the way how interactive processes
work, and then we can deal with diversity. Owing to the fact that these two
approaches differ in what to consider as relevant data and in the methods of analysis,
the results of their research are incomparable. Thus, interactional sociolinguistics
The Delimitation of Involvement as a Linguistic Category
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tries to join these approaches by concentrating on ―communicative practice as the
everyday-world site where societal and interactive forces merge‖ (Gumperz
2001:218).
Goffman was another researcher who made a contribution to the
development of involvement within the framework of interactional sociolinguistics.
Since he is a sociolinguist, his primary attention is devoted to social interaction and
interactive processes rather than to language as such. His concept of involvement is,
therefore, based on the social organization of this phenomenon. As he puts it: ―To
be engaged in an occasioned activity means to sustain some kind of cognitive and
affective engrossment in it, some mobilization of one‘s psychological resources, in
short, it means to be involved in it‖ (1963:36).
In his study devoted to the description and analysis of behaviour in public
places (1963), Goffman examines various social events and their effect on creating
and displaying involvement. He points out that when analyzing ―situational
properties‖ it is essential to examine ―the social regulations that determine the
individual‘s conceptions and allocations of involvement‖ (1963:36). Goffman
understands involvement as ―the capacity of an individual to give, or withhold from
giving, his concerted attention to some activity at hand - a solitary task, a
conversation, a collaborative work effort. It implies a certain admitted closeness
between the individual and the object of involvement, a certain overt engrossment
on the part of the one who is involved‖ (1963:43).
This section describes involvement as it has been viewed by interactional
sociolinguistics. The following section will deal with the concept of involvement as
described and understood within the framework of discourse analysis.
2.3 Involvement in Discourse Analysis
The term "discourse analysis" has been employed to describe a variety of
meanings and to outline discoveries of linguistic disciplines such as sociolinguistics,
psycholinguistics, philosophical linguistics, and computational linguistics. Scientists
who undertake in-depth research in these disciplines have a tendency to focus on
different aspects of discourse, as Brown and Yule (1983:viii) point out. Sociolinguists
are concerned with the structure of social interaction reflected in conversation,
The Delimitation of Involvement as a Linguistic Category
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emphasising features of social context. Psycholinguists examine issues related to
language comprehension. Philosophical linguists investigate ―semantic relationships
between constructed pairs of sentences and with their syntactic realisations‖ (Brown
and Yule 1983: viii). Finally, computational linguists are interested in ―producing
models of discourse processing and are constrained [...] to working with short texts
constructed in highly limited contexts‖ (1983: viii).
The claim that discourse analysis is acknowledged as one of the most
extensive areas in linguistics has been confirmed by Schiffrin (1994). One of the
reasons for this is, as Schiffrin claims (1994:5), that contemporary comprehension of
discourse is based on the knowledge and findings of a variety of disciplines which
may differ from one another to a great extent. The disciplines that are included in
this broad field of linguistic study are not only those ―in which models for
understanding, and methods for analyzing discourse first developed‖, such as
linguistics, anthropology, sociology, and philosophy, but also disciplines ―that have
applied (and thus often extended) such models and methods to problems within their
own particular academic domains‖, i.e. communication, social psychology, and
artificial intelligence (Schiffrin 1994:5).
Brown and Yule (1983) define discourse analysis as ―the analysis of language
in use. As such, it cannot be restricted to the description of linguistic forms
independent of the purposes or functions which those forms are designed to serve in
human affairs‖ (1983:1). In addition, they claim that some linguists focus on the
investigation of formal properties of a language, i.e. formalist approach, while
discourse analysts focus on the study of language in use, i.e. their approach can be
referred to as functional.
Stubbs (1983) uses the term discourse analysis to ―refer mainly to the
linguistic analysis of naturally occurring connected spoken or written discourse. [...] It
refers to attempts to study the organization of language above the sentence or above
the clause, and therefore to study larger linguistic units, such as conversational
exchanges or written texts‖ (1983:1). From that it follows that ―discourse analysis is
also concerned with language in use in social contexts, and in particular with
interaction or dialogue between speakers‖ (1983:1).
The Delimitation of Involvement as a Linguistic Category
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In discourse analysis, involvement refers to ―linguistic variation across
spoken and written modes of communication‖ (Besnier 1994:279-280). Spoken
language differs from written language not only structurally and stylistically but also
with regard to involvement, as Besnier (1994:280) correctly points out. The structure
of spoken language indicates considerable attention that participants pay to the act of
communication itself and to the conversational partners and their needs, whereas in
written discourse authors concentrate on ―producing something that will be
consistent and defensible when read by different people at different times in
different places‖ (Chafe 1982:45), and thus they are not much concerned with the
interactional aspects of communication (Besnier 1994:280). Chafe‘s finding has been
confirmed by Tannen (1985:131) as well, see Section 2.4.
With reference to this, Chafe states that writing is ―a lonely activity‖ in
contrast to speaking, which takes place in ―an environment of social interaction‖.
This results in the written language having ―a detached quality‖ whereas involvement
of the speaker is typical of spoken language (Chafe 1985:105). Chafe‘s approach to
the notion of involvement will be discussed in Chapter 2.7 in a more detailed way.
If one realizes that discourse analysis has its origins not only in linguistics but
also in social sciences and philosophy, it will not be so surprising that it is such a vast
field of study (Schiffrin 1987:2). Early efforts at discourse analysis may be seen in the
work of Harris (1951, 1952), who is known for his work on structural linguistics.
He attempts to introduce a method based on the premise that it is not necessary to
know the particular meaning or function of a morpheme to be able to discover and
analyze the structure in writing or connected speech (1951:25). On the basis of his
research, Harris points out that if distributional methods of analysis are adopted to a
whole text, ―structural features which extend over longer stretches of each connected
piece of writing or talking‖ may be discovered (1951:6). Harris‘s work suggests a
tendency to an analysis of structures that go beyond the boundaries of a sentence.
In the area of social sciences, anthropology has inquired into naturally
occurring discourse as a ―culturally relative realization of ways of acting and being‖
(Schiffrin 1987:2). In addition, it was the anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski who
introduced the term ―phatic communion‖. It is ―a type of speech in which ties of
union are created by a mere exchange of words‖ (2006 [1926]:297). The main aim of
The Delimitation of Involvement as a Linguistic Category
10
words in phatic communion is to fulfil a social function, ―language does not function
here as a means of transmission of thought‖ (2006 [1926]:297).
At the beginning of the 1970‘s there appeared a movement within American
sociology which also contributed to the development of discourse analysis. This
approach is known as ethnomethodology and it aimed at replacing deductive and
quantitative methods used in sociological research by the study of the methods
which people employ when engaged in social interaction (Crystal 2003a:167). What is
also important is the attention to the experience of individuals, i.e. how they
understand and report their interactions.
As regards the origins of discourse analysis in philosophy, Austin‘s (1962)
and Searle‘s (1969) work on the theory of speech acts and Grice‘s conversational
maxims defined within the framework of the Cooperative Principle (1989) must be
mentioned, since they focused attention to discourse and language use.
2.3.1 Basic Hypotheses of Discourse Analysis
In her work on discourse markers, Schiffrin (1987:3-6) mentions the principal
suppositions about language that she finds essential in contemporary research of
discourse analysts:
1. Language always occurs in a context.
2. Language is context sensitive.
3. Language is always communicative.
4. Language is designed for communication. (Schiffrin 1987:3)
The first assumption (―language always occurs in a context‖) has been
confirmed by disciplines such as sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics which is
carried out in specific contexts. These contexts include cultural contexts of shared
world views, social contexts which shape the image of self, and cognitive contexts of
―past experience and knowledge. Understanding how language is used and how it is
structured depends on consideration of how it is embedded in all of these contexts‖
(Schiffrin 1987:3).
The importance of analyzing the context in which language is produced has
been emphasized not only in discourse analysis but also in pragmatics. Mey (2001:39)
defines the notion of context as a ―dynamic, not a static concept: it is to be
The Delimitation of Involvement as a Linguistic Category
11
understood as the continually changing surroundings [...] that enable the participants
in the communication process to interact, and in which the linguistic expressions of
their interaction become intelligible.‖ Further, Mey adds that context specifies the
meaning of our utterances and gives them ―their true pragmatic meaning‖ (2001:41).
The second assumption which stresses the context sensitivity of language
relates to the first claim (―language always occurs in a context‖) because it is not only
the language itself that occurs in a context but it is also true about all its levels. What
is more, Schiffrin points out that language reflects all contexts in which it occurs
because ―it helps to constitute them‖ (1987:5).
The two remaining suppositions about language concern communication.
Schiffrin states that language is always communicative because in any case it is
directed at an addressee, be it an actual or intended recipient (1987:5). In this
connection, Lyons (1977:638) claims that many features which are connected with
the structure of languages ―can only be explained on the assumption that they have
developed for communication in face-to-face interaction‖, which conforms to
Schiffrin‘s assupmtion that ―language is designed for communication‖ (1987:6).
I find all these assumptions valid and logical. They are based on the nature of
language as such and are intrinsically related to the pragmatic aspects of involvement.
Face-to-face conversation, be it formal or informal, is very interactional in its nature
and thus it shows a high degree of involvement. This research of linguistic means
expressing involvement in political interviews confirms that context plays a crucial
role when defining functions of these linguistic means, as the analysis presented in
this thesis will show.
2.4 Tannen’s “Relative Focus on Involvement”
In her discussions concerning spoken and written discourse, Tannen
(1985:127) identifies the significance of ―relative focus on interpersonal
involvement―. Within this concept, she introduces two hypotheses that explain
differences between spoken and written discourse, referred to as the
―contextualization hypothesis‖ and the ―cohesion hypothesis‖, respectively.
The Delimitation of Involvement as a Linguistic Category
12
2.4.1 Contextualization Hypothesis
According to the contextualization hypothesis, spoken discourse is context-
bound, whereas written discourse seems to be less so. One of the features of
context-boundness is that while communicating, the speaker can refer to the context
of immediate situation which is known to both speaker and hearer who are
―copresent in time and place‖ (Tannen 1985:128). Another feature is connected with
the fact that there is no need to be maximally explicit on the part of the speaker. If
the hearer is confused, s/he asks for explanation immediately during the interaction.
Finally, speakers share common social background in most cases, which makes their
mutual conversational exchange easier (Tannen 1985:128).
Tannen continues with explaining her contextualization hypothesis by
focusing on written discourse. Contrary to spoken discourse, writers and readers are
separated in time and place, thus the common context of immediate situation is
missing. Consequently, requesting the explanation in case of the reader‘s confusion is
impossible, and that is why the writer should predict potential confusion of the
readers and provide them with the background information needed. As for the
common social background, the writer and the reader will probably not share it to
the same extent as the speaker and the hearer. Tannen suggests that the writer can
―make fewer assumptions about shared attitudes and beliefs‖ (1985:128).
Tannen also discusses the claim of some scholars that written discourse is
―decontextualized‖. She contradicts this assumption by stating that ―no piece of
discourse can be understood without prior knowledge of many kinds of contexts‖
(1985:128). As already briefly mentioned in Section 2.3.1, this study of involvement
in political interviews proves that any analysis is insufficient without taking into
account the context since particular linguistic means may have different functions in
different contexts. Studies that do not pay sufficient attention to the context are
rather superficial and partial, and may produce misleading interpretation of the
results. Some scholars (cf. Cameron et al. 1988; Crosby and Nyquist 1977) take over
Lakoff‘s findings about hedges (Lakoff 1972) uncritically, without noticing that, for
instance, I think may function as a booster in some contexts as well. This analysis
distinguishes the different pragmatic functions of I think and reveals that its use as a
The Delimitation of Involvement as a Linguistic Category
13
booster prevails over the pragmatic function of a hedge in the corpus of political
interviews (see Chapter 7.3.2).
When explaining her contextualization hypothesis and comparing spoken and
written discourse, Tannen asserts that in the genre of face-to-face conversation the
act of speaking itself is more important than the message conveyed. However, this
claim is not new. As already mentioned above (see Chapter 2.3), Malinowski (2006
[1926]) defined the term ―phatic communion‖, which does not have the function of
communicating ideas but, rather, it ―serves to establish bonds of personal union
between people brought together by the mere need of companionship‖ (2006
[1926]:298). It should be pointed out here that maintaining social contact belongs to
typical aspects of interactional involvement. This thesis will show that political
discourse is a high-involved discourse since politicians concentrate not only on
passing on information but also on establishing contact with their audience. Their
language also contains features of informal language since they want to use a
language similar to that used by their audience and thus to create the impression of
being closer to them. If politicians were detached and reserved in their attitude to
their listeners, they would not be trusted by them and could not persuade anyone
about their trustworthiness.
Tannen emphasizes that it would be false to think that the utterances in
informal face-to-face conversation are not important. By contrast, they convey
―metamessages‖, which are ―statements about the relationship between interactants‖
that are an important base of any interaction (Tannen 1985:128); among the typical
examples of metamessages are utterances such as ―I am [or am not] well disposed
toward you‖, ―I‘m teasing you‖, etc. (1985:128). Additionally, Tannen adds that if we
have a close and personal relationship with our conversational partner, it is difficult
to concentrate solely on conveying information because the conversationalists
cannot ignore the significance of their relationship (1985:129). The present analysis
shows that this importance of expressing mutuality rather than matter-of-factness is
not typical of the genre of political interview, owing to the very nature of this genre.
It is a formal interaction where the distribution of roles is asymmetrical and the
relationship between participants is not personal. Moreover, the purpose of a
political interview differs significantly from that of an informal conversation.
Primarily, it should convey information about various current affairs to the public. A
The Delimitation of Involvement as a Linguistic Category
14
more detailed description of the genre of political interview will be offered be found
in Chapter 3.
In the genre of face-to-face conversation there is another interesting
phenomenon which Tannen refers to (1985:129). It is connected with the
technological advancement of the present-day society. A technologically advanced
society is in the constant need of communication that should be quick and efficient.
Any degree of interpersonal involvement would slow down the communicative act,
and that is why it is conventionally ignored, typically among strangers. For this
reason, this type of involvement cannot be found in political discourse. Politicians
show a different type of involvement which is connected with the expression of their
attitude to the proposition, and in this way they want to influence the opinion of
their potential voters. As Tannen puts it, such conventional ignoring of interpersonal
involvement may, however, be perceived as distinctively Western. Then it can be the
cause of misunderstandings and confusion when American businessmen get right
down to business without establishing personal relationships with their, for instance,
Japanese or Arab counterparts.
It cannot be explicitly said that written discourse is focused exclusively on
conveying information and spoken discourse concentrates on conveying attitudes
and feelings, and thus spoken discourse shows a high degree of involvement and
written discourse the contrary. As Tannen emphasizes ―it is common to have written
communication in which it hardly matters what the content is; the fact of
communication is paramount - for example, in some personal letters‖ (1985:129).
Correspondingly, it is possible to have ―communication that is message-focused in
an oral mode, as in lectures and radio or television broadcasts‖ (1985:129-130).
Tannen concludes her observations on the contextualization hypothesis by
stating that an essential aspect distinguishing discourse types is ―whether it is one-
way or two-way communication‖ (1985:130) and this aspect is connected with
relative focus on involvement and with relative focus on information.
2.4.2 Cohesion Hypothesis
The other hypothesis that Tannen introduces when explaining differences
between spoken and written discourse is called the ―cohesion hypothesis‖. It is
The Delimitation of Involvement as a Linguistic Category
15
connected with the fact that everything that is uttered is expressed in some way. The
speaker‘s degree of involvement in an interaction is indicated by a variety of verbal
means such as the choice of lexical items and syntactic structures, paralinguistic
features such as the tone of voice, speed, pitch, intonation and volume, and by
nonverbal means like facial expressions, gestures, bodily posture, eye contact etc.
―All these nonverbal and paralinguistic features reveal the speaker‘s attitude toward
the message [...] and establish cohesion, that is, show relationships among ideas,
highlight relative importance, foreground or background certain information, and so
on. [...] one cannot speak without showing one‘s attitude toward the message and the
speech activity‖ (Tannen 1985:130-131). Verbal means of speaker‘s involvement in
political interviews will be analysed in Chapters 7, 8 and 9 in greater detail.
Paralinguistic and nonverbal means will not be investigated since they are beyond the
scope of this study.
In contrast to speaking, in written discourse the authors cannot rely on
nonverbal and paralinguistic cues. Instead, they make use of devices such as italics,
underlining, the use of bold and capital letters, Tannen (1985:131) claims.
Consequently, the writer‘s attitude towards ideas expressed and relationships
between them must be ―lexicalized‖. This is usually achieved in a variety of ways: by
using explicit statement, such as in a humorous way... or I don’t mean this literally
(1985:131), by careful selection of words with the right connotations, or by using
―complex syntactic constructions and transitional phrases‖ (1985:131).
Tannen summarizes her findings by stating that the type of discourse where
―meaning and attitudes are expressed paralinguistically, nonverbally, or indirectly‖
(1985:131), i.e. one characteristically using strategies of face-to-face conversation
which build on interpersonal involvement, is spoken discourse. In turn, ―discourse
that relies on lexicalization of meaning and relationships between propositions either
is written or uses strategies that are frequently found in written discourse‖ (Tannen
1985:131). It is possible, however, that the writer may aim at creating the effect of
face-to-face interaction, thus, he incorporates such comments as ―She said with a
wink‖ (Tannen 1985:131).
The Delimitation of Involvement as a Linguistic Category
16
2.5 High Involvement vs. Low Involvement
The concept of speaker‘s involvement is crucial to the understanding of the
speaker‘s contribution to interaction. Katriel and Dascal define involvement by
stating that it ―relates to the speaker‘s mode of participation in the exchange. This
can range from very casual to very intense engagement, either in the topic of the
exchange or in the relationship between the participants in it‖ (Katriel and Dascal
1989:276). The speaker‘s mode of participation in the genre of political interview
depends on the role which the particular interactant has.
The analysis presented in this thesis reveals that interviewers show a
significantly lower degree of involvement than politicians. Their questions are pre-
prepared and even if they have to react to politicians‘ answers immediately, they are
less involved. This fact relates to their role in political interviews, which is to lead an
interview with politicians and to find out information concerning current affairs,
opinions and attitudes of politicians that are interesting for listeners. Politicians, on
the contrary, aim at asserting themselves in front of their audience and at influencing
their potential voters. In this connection, Tannen (1984) distinguishes a style of
―high involvement‖ and a style of ―low involvement‖. Thus, it may be stated that
the style of politicians is high-involved and that of interviewers is low-involved.
Means of the high-involved style of politicians, which are analysed in this thesis, are
connected with the modification of the illocutionary force of speech acts (see
Chapter 4). The illocutionary force is modified by the use of boosting and hedging
devices (see Chapters 6, 7 and 8), and also by the use of modal expressions (modal
verbs, modal adjectives, modal adverbs, and pragmatic particles). The concept of
modality is discussed in greater detail in Chapter 9.
The features of high involvement style that Tannen defines and further
explores in the genre of face-to-face conversation are: topic, pacing, narrative
strategies, and expressive paralinguistics; and within this framework she identifies a
group of specific involvement aspects (Tannen 1984:40-41).
As regards the topic, the conversationalists in a casual face-to-face
conversation prefer debating personal topics. Besides, they tend to alter topics of talk
abruptly (Tannen 1984:40). This is a typical feature of the genre of informal
conversation. The speakers are more spontaneous and relaxed during their talk and
The Delimitation of Involvement as a Linguistic Category
17
there are no strict rules which they have to follow. The topics discussed develop
according to the interest of those involved in the conversation, according to the
relationship between conversational partners and what they have in common.
As the present analysis shows, the genre of political interview, in contrast
with the informal face-to-face conversation, is not characterised by similar abrupt
and frequent change of topic. This is caused by the fact that there is an interviewer
who leads the debate of the participants in political discussion, and also by the fact
that the topics to be discussed are to a great extent settled in advance. If a politician
diverts from the topic, the role of the interviewer is to interfere and force him to
speak to the point.
Another aspect of interactional involvement classified by Tannen is the
introduction of topics without hesitation, which is, as the present analysis shows,
connected with the spontaneity and relaxed atmosphere of informal conversation.
The speakers are free from tension and strain, they do not hesitate to introduce a
new topic. If necessary, the topic is reintroduced repeatedly (1984:40).
With respect to pacing, Tannen has found that it is predominantly related to
faster rate of speech and turn taking. As for turn taking in the genre of political
interview, my research has shown that it is regular but not so fast as in informal
settings. This results from the nature of this kind of discourse. The contributions of
the interviewer are shorter than those of the interviewee, who is a dominant speaker
and explains the things in a detailed way.
Tannen‘s research into informal conversation has shown that the speakers
avoid interturn pauses because silence may show ―lack of rapport‖ (1984:40), which
means that the speaker is not involved enough and that he lacks mutual
understanding. Additionally, it has revealed frequent overlap of speakers and
―participatory listenership‖ (1984:41), which is the sign of cooperation between
speakers, and thus involvement. Overlap between speakers in political interviews is
not the sign of involvement, as I see it, but rather the attempt to grab the floor, or
the right to speak.
Another feature of interactional involvement, which Tannen mentions in
connection with her research, is the use of narrative strategies. It means that the
speakers tell more stories during the conversation, tell stories in rounds, and ―prefer
The Delimitation of Involvement as a Linguistic Category
18
internal evaluation‖, which means that ―the point of a story is dramatized rather than
lexicalized‖ (1984:41). Again, the genre of political interview is different in character
from that of informal conversation and thus it does not allow to use this kind of
narrative strategies too frequently. There is only one interview in the whole corpus in
which a narrative strategy is used, namely, an interview with Condoleezza Rice (App.,
p. 251, Condoleezza Rice, 2008-03-27, ll. 713-728). In the very final part of this
interview, she tells a short story about her grandfather and the problems he had
receiving college education.
The last aspect of involvement indicated by Tannen is the use of expressive
paralinguistics. ―Expressive phonology, marked pitch and amplitude shifts, marked
voice quality, and strategic within-turn pauses‖ (1984:41) appear in the corpus of
informal conversation. I suggest that these attributes belong to the strategies of
creating involvement in political discourse as well. However, the thesis will not take
them into consideration. When analysing the corpus of political interviews, I worked
only with their transcripts and did not have their audio versions at my disposal. An
analysis of paralinguistic means is beyond the scope of the present thesis since it is a
very broad topic and it would have to be the subject matter of a different study.
To sum up, I agree with Tannen‘s claim that ―though no two speakers use all
the same devices in the same way, there are patterns by which these devices co-occur
in the speech of certain participants. The combination of particular devices makes up
the style of each speaker‖ (1984:41). All the above-described aspects express
involvement. Thus, Tannen describes the style of the speakers who employ them as
―high-involvement style‖ and the style of those who showed the need not to impose
as ―high-considerateness style‖ (1984:41-42).
2.6 Relationships and Differences between Spoken and Written Discourse
Differences between spoken and written discourse from the point of view
of contextualization and cohesion hypotheses were described in Chapter 2.4.
Tannen, who introduced these two hypotheses, explains that spoken discourse
depends on the context of immediate situation more than written discourse and for
that reason, it is more context-bound. Spoken discourse also relies on paralinguistic
The Delimitation of Involvement as a Linguistic Category
19
cues, which is, of course, not possible in written discourse. Therefore, writers have to
select the words and syntactic structures carefully. They may also use italics, bold
letters or underlining to emphasize important parts of the text.
Since many authors have devoted attention to the notion of involvement in
connection with spoken and written language, at this point, it is appropriate to
summarize the basic relationships and differences between these two types of
discourse. As we have seen in previous chapters, most of them concentrate on the
interactive nature of spoken language where involvement has striking pragmatic
implications. However, involvement in written discourse should not be undervalued
either. The subject of this thesis is an analysis of political interviews, i.e. of spoken
language. Its distinctive features may be shown more clearly when contrasted with
written language. Many studies have dealt with relationships and differences between
these two types of discourse (cf. Vachek 1976; Urbanová 2003; Brown and Yule
1983; Chafe 1985; Crystal 2003b, among others). The following part will look at
them in detail.
The main differences between spoken and written discourse relate to
language use, as Crystal confirms: ―These differences are chiefly to do with language
use, arising out of the fact that speakers and writers are operating in fundamentally
different communicative situations. But there are also several differences in language
structure: the grammar and vocabulary of speech is by no means the same as that of
writing [...]‖ (Crystal 2003b:291).
Sometimes it is thought that writing is only ―speech written down‖ but these
two genres, though historically related, function as independent methods of
communication (Crystal 2003b:291). In accordance with Crystal, Urbanová, drawing
on Vachek (1976), claims that ―spoken language and written language constitute two
different norms, which are not interchangeable‖ (Urbanová 2003:13). She continues
that ―spoken utterances are primarily characterized by contracted forms, ellipsis,
constant repetitions and restructuring, indistinct text boundaries, frequent pragmatic
markers etc. Written language utilizes a set of devices such as text division, explicit
cohesion, a higher level of sophistication represented by more elaborate grammatical
structures, abstract vocabulary etc.‖ (2003:13).
The Delimitation of Involvement as a Linguistic Category
20
Vachek (1976) describes written language as a ―system of signs which can be
manifested graphically and whose function is to respond to a given stimulus [...] in a
static way [...]. Spoken language is a system of signs that can be manifested
acoustically and whose function is to respond to a given stimulus [...] in a dynamic
way [...]‖ (Vachek 1976:121). Another feature which Vachek mentions in connection
with the description of written language is its ―preservability‖ and ―surveyability‖,
as opposed to ―readiness‖ and ―immediateness‖ of spoken language (1976:412-
413).
Brown and Yule (1983:4) explain that spoken and written language impose
different requirements on language-producers. These are connected with the fact
that speakers may employ various ―voice quality effects‖ and other paralinguistic
cues such as facial expressions, gestures, and bodily postures. These features may
refine the meaning of the words uttered. Needless to say, writers cannot rely on
paralinguistic features. They employ different means such as structuring,
punctuation, further comments etc. for emphasis or mitigation of the effect of the
words.
In this connection, Chafe (1985:105) states that writing is a ―slow, deliberate,
editable process‖ as opposed to speaking which is done ―on the fly‖. This factor has
resulted in Chafe‘s distinction that he called ―the integrated quality of written
language‖ in contrast with ―the fragmented quality of spoken [language].‖ In
addition, he claims that speaking takes place in a setting typical of social interaction
and thus it is characterised by a certain degree of involvement, whereas writing is a
lonely activity and displays a detached quality (1985:105).
Brown and Yule (1983:4-5) also emphasise that speakers, in comparison with
writers, have a more difficult position as far as the monitoring of ―the production of
communicative systems‖ is concerned. What is more, the speaker is processing that
production under significantly more difficult conditions than the writer. As Brown
and Yule put it: ―The speaker must monitor what it is that he has just said, and
determine whether it matches his intentions, [...]‖ (1983:4-5). At the same time he
must formulate his upcoming utterances and place them into the general pattern of
what he intends to convey. Besides, he must observe ―not only his own performance
but its reception by his hearer‖ (1983:5). In this respect, the writer is not under
The Delimitation of Involvement as a Linguistic Category
21
constant pressure to keep the talk going as the speaker. The writer may check his
writing over, reword it if necessary, look up the precise expression he needs in a
dictionary, and even ―change his mind about what he wants to say‖ (1983:5).
A similar observation has been made by Chafe (1985:106-107), who claims
that writing is a much slower process than speaking because we have a lot of time to
think about how to formulate our ideas into appropriate wording of our sentences.
―Writing is in fact free of the constraints imposed by the limited temporal and
informational capacity of focal consciousness; we have time to let our attention roam
over a large amount of information and devote itself to a more deliberate
organization of linguistic resources‖ (1985:107).
There are, as might be expected, certain assets for the speaker as well. Since
he is in immediate contact with his interlocutor, he may observe him and if it is
requisite, he can adapt his utterances in order to be more approachable and
comprehensible to his conversational partner. The writer has no such advantage of
immediate feedback. (Brown and Yule1983:5).
As regards further relationships between speech and writing, Brown and Yule
(1983) claim that ―whereas in daily life in a literate culture, we use speech largely for
the establishment and maintenance of human relationships (primarily interactional
use), we use written language largely for the working out of and transference of
information (primarily transactional use)‖ (Brown and Yule 1983:13). On the other
hand, they are well conscious of the fact that there are situations in which speech is
employed to convey factual pieces of information rather than maintaining personal
relationships. These situations comprise, for example, writing down a lecture,
telephone numbers and addresses, or occasions when a doctor writes down the
patient‘s symptoms, a businessman writes down the requirements of his clients etc.
Brown and Yule (1983:14-19) summarise differences in form between spoken
and written language in several points which are based on the descriptive work of
other scholars. The features that are counted as being characteristic of spoken
language are:
much less structured syntax than that of written language - frequent use of
incomplete sentences, little subordination, the usage of active declarative forms
the speaker is less explicit than the writer
The Delimitation of Involvement as a Linguistic Category
22
in spoken language the paratactically organised segments are related by and, but,
then, and occasionally by if
In written language, contrariwise, a broad set of metalingual indicators can be
found to mark relationships between clauses, e.g. when, while, besides, moreover, in spite of,
etc.
They also mention that ―heavily premodified noun phrases‖ are frequent in
written language whereas it is scarce to find more than two premodifying adjectives
in spoken language and ―there is a strong tendency to structure the short chunks of
speech so that only one predicate is attached to a given referent at a time‖ (Brown
and Yule 1983:16). In addition, what is typical of speech is rare usage of the passive
voice, which commonly occurs in writing, enabling non-attribution of agency. In
respect to vocabulary, a rather generalised type of lexis prevails, for example thing,
stuff, things like that, nice, do, get, etc. Fillers such as well, you know, I think, if you see what I
mean, etc. are employed (1983:17).
As regards the language of political interviews, it displays features of spoken
language described by the above-mentioned scholars. The language of politicians is
characterised by frequent use of repetitions, pragmatic markers and incomplete
sentences. The syntax of sentences is not structured very much and it is less complex
than that of writing. Vague expressions such as and stuff like that, something like that, or
so, do you know what I mean are used. The use of informal lexis is a sign of the tendency
of political language to conversationalization of this type of discourse. This issue will
be discussed more thoroughly in Chapter 3.5.
As already mentioned, spoken and written language interrelate. For instance,
there can be a written discourse that is intended for speaking such as prepared
speeches or television and radio newsreading. Conversely, there is a form of ―written
dialogue‖, such as questionnaires and registration forms that are dialogic in form.
They represent a rather unusual kind of dialogue because there is only one
participant who asks all the questions (Crystal 2003b:294).
To conclude, both types of communication have their advantages and one
cannot say that writing is more important or more perfect than speaking. Urbanová
(2002:12) mentions that nowadays there are so-called hybrid forms of
communication which contain a symbiosis of spoken and written discourse. They
The Delimitation of Involvement as a Linguistic Category
23
are frequent because of the great influence of media language, such as the language
of newspapers, the language of broadcast media, and the language of advertising.
Hybrid forms of communication can also be regarded as a consequence of new
forms of communication, such as the Internet and mobile phone.
The following subsection will return to the concept of involvement and
examine another approach to this notion as it was described by Chafe.
2.7 Chafe’s Approach to the Notion of Involvement
The notion of involvement is significant in the research of Chafe (cf. Chafe
1982, 1984, 1985) as well. By examining and comparing spoken and written discourse
he observes that ―the slowness, editability and permanence‖ are significant for
writing, in contrast with ―the speed and evanescence‖ of spoken interaction (Chafe
1985:116). In addition, he states that what is different between these two discourse
genres is the fact that speakers usually interact face-to-face with their conversational
partners, while writers are isolated both spatially and temporally from their listeners.
That is why Chafe states that involvement is a typical characteristic of spoken
language, whereas detachment dominates written language (1985:116). He defines
three types of involvement in conversation:
involvement of the speaker with himself (ego involvement)
involvement of the speaker with the hearer (or interpersonal involvement;
concern for the dynamics of interaction with another person)
involvement of the speaker with the subject matter (an ongoing personal
commitment to what is being talked about) (Chafe 1985:116).
Ego involvement of the speaker is evident in the use of verbal phrases with
the first-person pronouns such as I mean, I suppose, I think, I don’t think, and as I say.
This type of involvement is typical of the genre of political interview as well. Apart
from linguistic means mentioned above, my corpus contains verbal phrases I know, I
believe, I guess, I gather, and I agree. When using these forms, politicians express
subjectivity and try to sound persuasive in front of their audience. They also want to
promote truthfulness of their message and sound confident. Verbal forms of ego
involvement in the corpus outnumber the other two types of involvement defined by
The Delimitation of Involvement as a Linguistic Category
24
Chafe. A detailed description of these means and their occurrence in the corpus can
be found in Chapters 7 and 8.
Interpersonal involvement is apparent in the use of second-person
pronouns, addressing the hearer by name, asking the hearer a question, replying to a
hearer‘s question, or using hearer-oriented phrases and expression like you know or you
see. Political interview is governed by certain rules, so it is different from informal
conversation in some respects. There is an interviewer who asks the questions and
leads the discussion, and there is a politician who answers them. In informal
conversation, there are no such rules, the participants ask and answer questions quite
freely without any restrictions. As for hearer-oriented expressions, they occur to a
lesser extent than the means of ego involvement in the corpus. This means that
politicians concentrate more on themselves and on strengthening their position,
rather than on their listeners. Hearer-oriented phrases that appear in the corpus are
you know and you see. Chapters 7 and 8 provide detailed information about these
expressions and their occurrence.
Involvement of the speaker with the subject matter is shown by
exaggerating, vagueness, hedging, fuzziness, using expressive vocabulary, using
historical present, and using emphatic particles like just and really (Chafe 1985:117).
This type of involvement is predominantly shown by the use of hedging and
boosting devices in the corpus. The group of expressions with this function is called
―content-oriented‖ in the case of hedging devices (see Section 8.2.3.3) and
―discourse-organizing‖ in the case of boosting devices (see Section 7.2.2.3), and their
main function is to attenuate or accentuate the message that politicians want to
convey to their listeners. Vague and fuzzy expressions can also be found in the
corpus but their analysis is beyond the scope of this thesis. Expressive vocabulary
and historical present are not used in the genre of political interviews. Rather, they
are found in a spontaneous face-to-face conversation because they are connected
with using narrative strategies. These strategies, as already mentioned above (see
Chapter 2.9), relate to telling stories, which is not typical of the genre of political
interview.
As regards written discourse, it is correspondingly more detached than
spoken discourse. ―A writer is typically less concerned with ego expression, less
The Delimitation of Involvement as a Linguistic Category
25
concerned with any direct interaction with the audience, and less immediately
involved with the subject matter‖ (Chafe 1985:117). Means of detachment employed
in written language are the passive voice and the use of abstract subjects. With
reference to this, Besnier points out that ―the detached quality of writing is reflected
in the fact that relatively few involvement strategies are used in writing, and in the
preponderance in written texts of certain linguistic features which give it a detached
quality: passive constructions, indirect quotes, impersonal expressions, etc.‖ (Besnier
1994:283).
As Daneš (1994) notes, Chafe‘s theory is ―evidently narrow and one-sided‖
because the characteristic features he proposes are ―more or less incidental and
heterogeneous (due to his rather limited material basis)‖ (Daneš 1994:255).
Furthermore, he suggests that detachment features as described by Chafe may be
treated as devices of a condensed style.
To summarize, Chafe‘s account of involvement seems to be closer to that of
Tannen‘s rather than to Gumperz‘s because it designates a psychological, internal
state which manifests itself in linguistic phenomena (Tannen 2007:27). Further, she
states that her conception of involvement emphasizes that it is ―an internal, even
emotional connection individuals feel which binds them to other people as well as to
places, things, activities, ideas, memories, and words‖ (2007:27). Tannen‘s concept
also points out ―the interactive nature of conversational interaction‖ (2007:27), which
also encompasses Gumprez‘s view because he understands involvement
predominantly as an active engagement in conversation. ―In Gumperz‘s framework
conversational involvement is achieved in intracultural communication but
compromised in cross-cultural communication (Tannen 2007:26). Tannen does not
agree with Gumperz‘s notion of ―cultural homogeneity‖ because she perceives it as
an ―idealization that is never completely realized‖ (2007:26). As she points out,
individuals who are brought up in the ―same culture‖ are different as for their
gender, class, age, ethnic origin, etc. In this connection she mentions her own
investigation (Tannen 1984) into conversation of five Americans that proves the
existence of differences in their conversational styles and also misunderstandings that
result from these differences.
The Delimitation of Involvement as a Linguistic Category
26
2.8 Involvement in the Prague School
The concept of involvement was also examined by the scholars of the Prague
School (cf. Mathesius 1971; Trnka 1966 [1948]; Daneš 1994). The term ―language
experience‖ (actual living through language) (Trnka 1966) was their equivalent to
―involvement with language‖ (Daneš 1994). As Daneš (1994) states, language
constitutes ―an integral part of our private and social life. We are ‗immersed‘ in it; it
represents the environment and space in which we live and move; it belongs, so to
speak, to our very being. Language is not alien or indifferent for us, but we are
attached to it, though in a different way from our attachment to most things external
to our beings‖ (Daneš 1994:251, my emphasis).
The same approach to language is apparent in the work of the founder of the
Prague Linguistic Circle Vilém Mathesius (1971, 1975, 1982). Mathesius states that
the functionalist approach in linguistics regards language as something living, as
something behind which the speaker or writer can be clearly recognized.
Additionally, this new functionalist approach takes into consideration the fact that
these words are directed at a hearer or reader (1982:30).
Bohumil Trnka (1966 [1948]), another member of the Prague School,
advanced the concept of ―language experience‖ (1966 [1948]:162). The factor of
language experience must be viewed as a mutually related counterpart to the system
of language since ―language lacking experience would be no more than an
unchanging system of relations with no possibilities of development‖ (1966
[1948]:163-164). In this connection, Trnka refers to the work of C. Bally, who also
examined affective aspects of language. However, Trnka‘s concept of language
experience has a wider meaning because ―it includes the experiencing not only of
affective but also of intellectual elements of language‖ (1966 [1948]:163). Moreover,
Trnka mentions that some scholars pay attention only to the system of language and
―lay particular stress on the postulate of absolute regularity of language phenomena‖,
whereas others (Bally, Mathesius) ―prefer to observe language of experience and
speak only of trends and tendencies‖ (1966 [1948]:164).
Language experience is significant for the explanation of particular linguistic
phenomena. As Trnka points out: ―differences in experiencing language are
responsible, for instance, for the different developments of the dialect and standard
The Delimitation of Involvement as a Linguistic Category
27
language [...]. Without considering language experience, one could not imagine how a
certain language system could, to different degrees, influence other systems, or why
that system could not only take over some items of some other language [...]‖ (Trnka
1966 [1948]:163).
Daneš (1994) regards ―language experience‖ as ―involvement with
language‖. According to him, involvement is an ―absolutely fundamental aspect of
our linguistic awareness and conduct‖ (1994:253), which has three aspects:
1. knowledge of the language system and of communicative abilities
2. the actual use of this knowledge in the communicative processes of text
production and text reception
3. the whole range of our mental faculties and processes. (Daneš 1994:253)
All these aspects of involvement are relevant, yet the most important for the
present analysis is the second one. It concentrates on the actual use of concrete
linguistic devices connected with involvement and on the perception of these devices
by language users in concrete situations. These devices modify the illocutionary force
of particular speech acts and in this way they accentuate or attenuate the meaning of
utterances, depending on the meaning of these devices and on the context of
situation. Classifications and pragmatic functions of boosters in political interviews
will be analysed in Chapter 7. Classifications and pragmatic functions of hedging
devices will be examined in Chapter 8. There is another concept, namely modality,
whose means also contribute to modification of the meaning of speech acts. This
concept will be dealt with in greater detail in Chapter 9.
Daneš also speaks about the different ―attitudes‖ speakers have towards the
language. By ―attitude‖ he understands ―the system of mental biases and dispositions
of a person [...] to feel, think, and behave in a certain manner, which programs their
responses to certain kinds of objects or types of situations‖ (1994:253). He
distinguishes two opposite types of attitudes, that of indifference and that of
concern. It may be claimed that only the attitude of concern relates to the concept of
involvement. However, Daneš explains that these two types of attitudes ―may be
viewed as constituting a simple system of opposition‖ and for that reason,
indifference ―or (detachment) as an extreme pole of concern (i.e., a lack of it) may be
treated as a kind of involvement as well‖ (1994:253). If these two types of attitudes
The Delimitation of Involvement as a Linguistic Category
28
are understood as opposites within one system, then detachment may be regarded as
its direct antipode and thus a kind of involvement.
2.9 Linguistic Strategies of Involvement
Tannen (2007:25) asserts that there are linguistic and non-linguistic strategies
that establish and preserve involvement. Linguistic strategies such as repetition of
words and phrases, dialogue, and the usage of imagery that are developed in literary
discourse are ―spontaneous and pervasive in conversation because they reflect and
create interpersonal involvement‖ (Tannen 2007:25).
The strategies that are based on sound comprise:
rhythm
patterns based on repetition and variation of phonemes, morphemes, words,
collocations of words, and longer sequences of discourse; and,
style figures of speech
The strategies that work primarily on meaning include:
indirectness
ellipsis
tropes
dialogue
imagery and detail; and,
narrative
(Tannen 2007:32)
Tannen claims that repetition of particular linguistic units makes the
discourse more rhythmical, which causes the participants in the interaction to pay
more attention to the subject matter of the discourse. This assertion confirms the
finding of Harvey Sacks (1971), who pointed out systematicity of the use of
repetition of sounds and words in spontaneous conversation. Longer discourse
sequences have been the area of interest of the ethnomethodological branch of
conversation analysis. The research into cross-cultural discourse has proven the
occurrence of repetition of discourse sequences across time. Repetition as a means of
creating interpersonal involvement, as Tannen (2007:61) explains, ―accomplishes a
The Delimitation of Involvement as a Linguistic Category
29
conversation, shows one‘s response to another‘s utterance, shows acceptance of
others‘ utterances, their participation, and them, and gives evidence of one‘s own
participation. It provides a resource to keep talk going, where talk itself is a show of
involvement, of willingness to interact, to serve positive face.‖
Interlocutors frequently report in their conversational exchanges the
statements of others as dialogue (―direct speech‖) rather than third-person report
(―indirect speech‖) as Tannen (2007:39) claims. She believes that dialogue is ―more
vivid‖ and what is more, conveying ideas through quoting the speech of others is a
significant means of expressing emotions in discourse (2007:39). As regards my
corpus of political interviews, means of expressing emotions may be found in this
type of discourse as well. A common way of showing emotionality is the use of
hedging or boosting devices in a quick succession. A systematic analysis of
emotionality Is not the subject matter of this study but it seems that emotionality in
political interviews is either an attempt by politicians to show power and justify their
arguments in front of their audience or it may be a sign of uncertainty and hesitation
of the speaker.
Constructed dialogue (or reported speech) requires active participation of all
conversationalists in the process of creating linguistic and interactional meaning and
this active contribution to the inferring of meaning creates involvement. Every
dialogue is unique and this uniqueness allows the listeners to form their own
understanding on the basis of their knowledge and experience (Tannen 2007:132).
Another sensemaking strategy that is important in the process of creating
involvement in discourse is the use of details and images. Tannen (2007:134)
emphasizes that it is a mutual participation both on the part of the speaker and the
hearer because it is the speaker who describes an image in words, and the hearer who
creates an image derived from this description. The use of imagery and detail in
everyday language arouses emotional response and affection on the part of the
hearer. ―Images, like dialogue, evoke scenes, and understanding is derived from
scenes because they are composed of people in relation to each other, doing things
that are culturally and personally recognizable and meaningful‖ (2007:134).
Involvement strategies are important not because they add something to the
conversational exchange, but more precisely, they constitute communication through
The Delimitation of Involvement as a Linguistic Category
30
the construction of a shared world of images (2007:134). The strategy of the use of
images is typical of informal conversation rather than of a formal type of discourse
because it requires a mutual participation of the speakers on the personal level. In
case politicians are emotional, it is not a feature of mutuality but rather a
manifestation of either power or uncertainty, as mentioned above.
Another linguistic strategy important in creating involvement is indirectness
(or conveying unstated meaning, as Tannen puts it (2007:37). It happens very
frequently in interaction that conversational partners do not explicitly say what they
mean. In general, indirectness is employed for two main reasons: ―to save face if a
conversational contribution is not well received, and to achieve the sense of rapport
that comes from being understood without saying what one means‖ (2007:37).
Further, appropriate interpreting of unstated meaning imposes certain requirements
on the listener, which in turn contributes to mutual participation in creating
involvement.
The corpus shows that indirectness also occurs in political discourse. It can
be regarded as a face-saving strategy and, as Tannen states, it is also connected with
creating involvement. Several types of modality, namely, epistemic possibility,
deontic necessity, epistemic attitudinal modality, circumstantial possibility, and
epistemic necessity, are frequent means of expressing indirectness as a face-saving
strategy in the corpus. Modality and its types are analysed in detail in Chapter 9.
Politicians frequently say much less than they actually mean and in this way they are
indirect. This phenomenon is connected with non-observance of the maxims of the
Cooperative Principle defined by Grice (1989). Non-observance of conversational
maxims was the subject of a different study (Kozubíková Šandová 2010).
Chafe (1982) has also listed several involvement strategies. Apart from sound
repetitions, repetitions of words and phrases, rhythm of conversation, he has
mentioned these strategies:
concreteness and imageability (use of details)
personal quality (use of first and second person pronouns)
importance of people and their relationships
emphasis on actions and agents rather than on states and objects
reference to feelings and thoughts
The Delimitation of Involvement as a Linguistic Category
31
use of hedged and aggravated signals
use of feedback signals
In relation to linguistic strategies of involvement, Besnier (1994) adds:
emphasizers and hedges
(for a more detailed analysis of these devices see Chapters 7 and 8)
ideophones
Ideophones are ―a verbalized imitation of extralinguistic events or situations‖
(Kilian-Hatz 2001:155). They are words typical of spoken and informal speech.
Words like boing, miau and ding-dong belong to this kind of expressions
(2001:155). Since they are restricted to colloquial speech, ideophones do not
occur in political interviews.
code-switching
Speakers may switch code within a domain in certain situations. A person may
switch to a different language ―as a signal of group membership and shared
ethnicity with an addressee. Even speakers who are not very proficient in a
second language may use brief phrases and words for this purpose‖ (Holmes
1992:41). This phenomenon is not present in the corpus, although it may appear
in formal contexts as well. Wardhaugh (2010) states that ―certain social
situations may require that one code be used rather than another, even though
that second code is known to all participants but the first only to some‖
(2010:106). He points out that in some situations, a head of state must use the
official language of that state when speaking to another head of state. He gives
an interesting example that ―on many public occasions in Canada it is obligatory
for officials to say a few words in the official language that they are not using‖
(2010:106).
back-channelling
Back-channel cues are verbal (vocalized sounds mhm, short phrases Really? Wow!)
or non-verbal (e.g. nodding) responses of the listener to the speaker
(Wardhaugh 2010:321). They appear both in informal and in formal language
and their main function is to give feedback to the speaker that the listener pays
attention to his words. Back-channelling signals appear also in political
interviews. Verbal back-channels are used by politicians when the interviewer
asks them a longer question or explains something to them and politicians
confirm that they are listening carefully or that they are signalling agreement.
Non-verbal back-channelling cues must have been employed in the interviews as
well but I worked only with the transcripts in which non-verbal back-
The Delimitation of Involvement as a Linguistic Category
32
channelling cues are not signed, and, as stated above, paralinguistic features are
not the subject of this study.
overlapping
Overlapped speech occurs also very frequently both in informal conversation
and IN political interviews. It means that the interactants speak one over
another. When politicians butt in the interviewer‘s part, it may be a sign of
emotiveness, impatience or an attempt to assert themselves in communication.
These linguistic strategies ―when used with systematic frequency in
interaction, contribute to the heightening of interpersonal involvement‖ (Besnier
1994:280-281).
As already mentioned above, involvement in conversation is also associated
with non-linguistic means. From this it follows that not only the form of discourse
but also the interplay of linguistic and non-linguistic means is central to creating
involvement.
2.10 Conceptual Problems Associated with Involvement
In the previous section, the focus was on the description and explanation of
linguistic strategies defined by Tannen (2007), Chafe (1982), and Besnier (1994).
Nevertheless, when investigating involvement, scholars have encountered various
difficulties. They are connected with the fact that it is not easy to define this concept
and to explain what the opposite of involvement is. In what follows, several
problems related to the notion of involvement will be addressed.
Besnier (1994:282) raises the question of what involvement should be
contrasted with. To put it another way, if a part of discourse contains a high amount
of involvement, how can one characterize a part of discourse where there are no or
very few such phenomena?
Involvement can be contrasted with ―detachment‖ which is a term that
Chafe (1982) introduces when comparing spoken and written discourse. As has been
mentioned above, he claims that involvement is typical of spoken discourse, whereas
detachment is a characteristic feature of written discourse. Involvement strategies
defined by Chafe (1982) have been mentioned above (see Chapter 2.9).
The Delimitation of Involvement as a Linguistic Category
33
As for the features of detachment, Chafe (1982) points out that complex
syntactic structures may be found in texts which do not focus on interaction. He
speaks about these types of complex structures: relative clauses, complement clauses,
sequences of prepositional clauses, and nominalizations; in addition, he includes
attributtive adjectives, passive voice, subordinate conjunctions, and finally, complex
morphosyntax into this category.
The same terms, involvement and detachment, have been used by Urbanová
(2003) who states that ―the distinction on which involvement vs. detachment operate
is the dichotomy foreground versus background information. In cases of
involvement, the interactional process comes to the fore, whereas via detachment it
is substantially subdued‖ (Urbanová 2003:50).
Within the context of spoken and written discourse, she emphasizes that
―detachment, reservation, and depersonalization are elements which appear also in
face-to-face conversation‖ (2003:50), in spite of the fact that these features are more
characteristic of written discourse. Urbanová explains her findings ―by the need for
mitigation when the speaker does not want to make ―outright assertions‖ and show
his/her commitment in public‖ (2003:50). This opinion is in agreement with that of
Chafe who claims that ―there are other styles of speaking which are more in the
direction of writing, and other styles of writing which are more like speech‖ (Chafe
1982:48), which has been discussed above (see Section 2.7).
From the relevant literature on involvement and detachment (cf. Tannen
1985; Chafe 1984; Urbanová 2003) it follows that in regard to these notions in
various conversational genres, particular types are high-involved, such as
spontaneous face-to-face conversation, whose typical feature is sharing personal
attitudes and feelings. However, another type of spoken discourse, an interview, is
more detached than a face-to-face conversation because the interlocutors
concentrate predominantly on gaining facts rather than on personal views and
feelings. This is determined by the fact that the roles of the speakers are
asymmetrical, i.e. there is an interviewer and an interviewee, and the typical scheme is
question-answer. Thus, one can characterize an interview as information-seeking. But
again, as with face-to-face conversation where reservation, depersonalization and
other features of detachment can be found, emotionality and involvement can be
The Delimitation of Involvement as a Linguistic Category
34
found in interviews as well. Their occurrence usually depends on the topic of the
particular interview. The present analysis shows that many features of involvement
may be found in this genre. Politicians use hedging and boosting devices and modal
expressions to modify the illocutionary force of their utterances, and in this way, they
show subjectivity, assurance, agreement, and emotiveness, which contribute to a
high-involved style of politicians.
Lakoff (1990) compares involvement with ―considerateness‖, stating that it
―uses the opposite strategy‖ from involvement such as ―long waits before taking a
turn; relatively steady and unremarkable articulation, conventional expression; no
touching or addressing by name; few back channels, little overlap or interruption‖
(Lakoff 1990:50).
However, Besnier (1994) correctly argues that it is not certain if the proposed
term ―considerateness‖ can be considered an improvement over the term
―detachment‖ because ―involved styles can easily be placed in contexts where they
will be perceived as considerate, if one interprets the meaning of ―considerateness‖
in its everyday sense of paying attention to the feelings and needs of co-
conversationalists‖ (Besnier 1994:283).
Tannen (1985) prefers the designation ―focus on content‖ to ―detachment‖
and gives a concise explanation of her preference: if a discourse participant is not
directly involved in the interactional context, then one‘s attention is directed to the
content of the interaction. Moreover, Tannen has examined that ―some written
genres - for example, literary prose - combined features of spoken with features of
written discourse‖ (Tannen 1985:127) so, for example, lack of involvement is not
significant to many genres of written discourse. Tannen describes such texts as
―mixed genres‖ because they combine the conversational involvement with the
conventions of writing.
Additionally, what is important to consider is the fact that many written
genres require certain degree of detachment and the involvement strategies are not
appropriate there. These are, for instance, scientific texts which are detached,
impersonal and emotionally neutral. From that it follows that it is important to make
a distinction between involvement and detachment understood as two general
principles which are established as conventional in a particular scientific tradition,
The Delimitation of Involvement as a Linguistic Category
35
and, from a different point of view, involvement and detachment as analytic
conceptions in the description and understanding of a particular linguistic behaviour
(Besnier 1994:284).
Katriel and Dascal (1989) propose to distinguish between two types of
involvement that both relate to the speaker‘s attentional orientation. The first type is
called ―topical involvement‖ and the second type ―interactional involvement‖.
Topical involvement relates to ―the speaker‘s cognitive orientation to a shared
discourse topic‖ (Katriel and Dascal 1989:285). Interactional involvement refers to
―the speaker‘s orientation to the speech situation and the participants in it‖
(1989:285). Both these types of involvement are relevant to the present analysis of
political interviews. When it comes to the topic of the Iraq War, politicians who
discuss this issue (Blair, Bush and Rice) are more hesitant, uncertain and indirect. As
for interactional involvement, politicians use content-oriented boosters to emphasise
the content, or hearer-oriented boosters to show that they take into account their
listeners. Katriel and Dascal emphasize that conversations are ―social, not only
cognitive events‖ and so they entail that the speaker adjusts both to the interactional
partners and to the topic of the conversation in such a way that s/he shows a certain
degree of involvement.
To sum up, what is evident is a difference in the degree of involvement
between spoken and written discourse and, in addition, differences across certain
genres within these domains. Thus, the language of news broadcasting on the radio
or TV is characterized by a detached, ―low-involvement‖ style, whereas a personal
letter, though representing a variety of written language that is typically detached, is
usually high-involved and emotional (Tannen 1985:130). Similarly, with a change to a
higher degree of interpersonal involvement, speakers may decide not to use titles. As
Tannen (1984), Silverstein (1979), and Kochman (1981) suggest, the degree of
speaker‘s involvement in interaction is culturally constrained and a particular level of
involvement or detachment may vary depending on the situation.
2.11 Speaker's Involvement in this Thesis
As Chapter 2 shows, approaches to the concept of involvement are very
diverse and are researched from various points of view. Involvement has been
The Delimitation of Involvement as a Linguistic Category
36
examined in interactional sociolinguistics and discourse analysis. Interactional
sociolinguistics focuses more on the social organization of involvement
(predominantly in the work of Goffman 1963) than on language use. Discourse
analysis concentrates on linguistic differences between spoken and written discourse
when referring to involvement (cf. Chafe 1982). In this connection, Tannen proposes
contextualization and cohesion hypotheses as they may explain the variations
between spoken and written communication (Section 2.4). She goes further to define
the concepts of high and low involvement. Informal conversation is often regarded
as a high-involved style but the present analysis shows that the genre of political
interview also has features of high involvement as will be shown later.
The following chapters of this thesis will concentrate on various
manifestations of speaker‘s involvement in political interviews. Modifying the
illocutionary force by boosting and hedging devices will be analysed (for
intensification of the illocutionary force see Chapter 7, for attenuation of the
illocutionary force see Chapter 8). Speaker‘s involvement in political interviews is
also expressed by modal means. Modality, as another means of showing speaker‘s
involvement, is described in Chapter 9. First, political interview will be examined as a
discourse genre along with its characteristic features.
Political Interview as a Discourse Genre
37
3 Political Interview as a Discourse Genre
3.1 Introduction
Since this thesis focuses on an analysis of political interviews from the point
of view of speaker‘s involvement, a general description of the genre of political
interview and the language of politics is appropriate. Section 3.2 will explain why it is
necessary to employ a pragmatic approach to analyze the functions of particular
linguistic means used in political interviews. This thesis regards political interview as
a specific genre, which will be dealt with in Section 3.3. The typical features relating
to this genre will be discussed in Section 3.4. Recent research into media discourse
emphasizes its tendency to conversationalization, which means that what should
essentially be formal discourse contains elements of informal language. This subject
will be treated in the last subchapter.
3.2 Pragmatic Approach to the Language of Politics
Present-day research of political discourse stresses a pragmatic approach
when analysing the language of politics (cf. Chilton and Schäffner 2002; Fetzer and
Weizman 2006; Wilson 1990). I adopt this approach in this thesis since my claim is
that it is necessary to study meaning in context. Without an examination of particular
linguistic means in context, it is not possible to understand their functions in political
language properly.
Chilton and Schäffner (2002) have proposed to study political discourse from
the ―text-and-talk perspective‖. This perspective is ―a pragmatic approach par
excellence‖ which stems from the hypothesis that ―political activity does not exist
without the use of language. It is true that other behaviours are involved: for
instance, physical coercion. But the doing of politics is predominantly constituted in
language‖ (Chilton and Schäffner, 2002:3). This claim is in agreement with Wilson‘s
assertion: ―Since it is quite obvious that political language is designed to achieve
specific political goals, to make people believe in certain things, it is a prime example
of what we will call ‗pragmatic behaviour‘‖ (1990:19).
Political Interview as a Discourse Genre
38
Fetzer and Weizman confirm these hypotheses and point out that political
discourse ―requires an investigation of language use in context and thus the
acommodation of pragmatic principles [...]‖ (2006:148). Participants in a
conversation frequently say less than they actually mean, which is, of course, true in
case of politicians and their language. This distinction between literal and implied
meaning is the basis of the Cooperative Principle (CP), which was defined by H.P.
Grice (1989). Within the framework of the CP, Grice suggested four maxims that
―should ensure that the right amount of information is supplied in a conversational
exchange. At the same time, H. P. Grice was conscious of the fact that discourse
participants do not always fully cooperate in the flow of interaction and fail to
observe the maxims‖ (Kozubíková Šandová 2010:89). As has been proven in several
studies (e.g. Fetzer and Weizman 2006; Kozubíková Šandová 2010), politicians
frequently flout the maxims, especially those of quality and quantity, which results in
a conversational implicature, and thus ―entails the search for an indirect meaning‖
(Fetzer and Weizman 2006:148). This claim has also been confirmed by Wilson
(1990), who states that ―much political language depends on implications rather
than factual claims. Since implications may be cancelled, it becomes difficult to
prove, beyond doubt, that any meaning which may be interpreted beyond what is
said was intentionally projected‖ (1990:7, emphasis added). In addition, he points out
that the language of politicians, apart from conveying the message, forms a
―controlled cognitive environment from which any interpretation is manipulated‖
(Wilson 1990:11).
Another principle that is typical of the language of politics is the ―face-
keeping principle‖ (Renkema 2004:255). It operates at the level of informal
discourse but it is also typical of political discourse. ―Especially in discussions to
reach agreement about discrepancies which at first and even second sight are
irreconcilable - the essence of political discourse - it is important to make subtle
distinctions and modifications in options defended at an earlier stage in the public
debate, without losing face.‖ (Renkema 2004:255). The corpus of political interviews
reveals that the strategy of politicians to avoid situations which could threaten their
face in front of the audience is also apparent. They often employ hedging or
boosting devices or modal expressions to modify the illocutionary force of their
utterances with the intention to save their face. For a detailed analysis of pragmatic
Political Interview as a Discourse Genre
39
functions of boosting devices in the corpus see Section 7.4, pragmatic functions of
hedging devices are discussed in Chapter 8.4, and modality may be found in Chapter
9.
This ―need for modification‖, as Renkema calls it, is related to the use of
hedging devices which frequently express uncertainty and hesitation of the speaker.
Modification is also connected with the use of euphemisms and ambiguity. ―In
applying mild or vague words for offensive or unpleasant things politicians try to
‗soften‘ the content‖ (2004:256). As regards ambiguity, again, the context is decisive
for disambiguation of a given utterance. However, Renkema correctly emphasizes
that ―ambiguity can also be used deliberately, especially in discourse situations where
it is important that different parties can interpret one formulation differently
according to their own values. This is called strategic ambiguity‖ (Renkema
2004:256). Another means of modification, which appears in the corpus but which is
not mentioned by Renkema, is the use of boosting devices and modal expressions.
All these devices and their functions are analysed thoroughly in Chapters 7 and 9.
From the above-mentioned assertions it follows that political language should
be examined from the pragmatic point of view because of its context-dependence
and employment of pragmatic principles. However, there are different issues to
discuss: Can political discourse be defined as a ―genre‖? And what is a genre actually?
These questions will be answered in the next section.
3.3 Defining “Genre” and “Political Discourse”
Fairclough explains the term ―genre‖ as a ―socially ratified way of using
language in connection with a particular type of social activity (e.g. interview,
narrative, exposition)‖ (1995:14). Crystal states that depending on the type of genre
there are several impositions on language use in relation to ―subject-matter, purpose,
[...], textual structure, form of argumentation and level of formality‖ (2003a:201).
Bhatia points out that ―each genre is an instance of a successful achievement
of a specific communication purpose using conventionalised knowledge of linguistic
and discourse resources. Since each genre, in certain important respects, structures
the narrow world of experience or reality in a particular way, the implication is that
the same experience or reality will require a different way of structuring, if one were
Political Interview as a Discourse Genre
40
to operate in a different genre‖ (1993:16). Since political interview has specific
communication goals, which are, first and foremost, to persuade and influence the
audience, and it uses conventionalised ways of achieving them, this thesis
understands political interview as a genre of political discourse. A similar view is
taken by Johansson, who states: ―The political interview is a genre in which the
construction of meaning occurs at the intersection of two institutional discourses,
both of which are culturally produced: the discourse of the media and that of
politics‖ (2007:141).
Van Dijk (2001) draws attention to the fact that political discourse is
sometimes incorrectly regarded as a genre, however, ―it is not a genre, but a class of
genres defined by a social domain, namely that of politics. [...] Thus, government
deliberations, parliamentary debates, party programs, and speeches by politicians, are
among the many genres that belong to the domain of politics‖ (2001:5).
When delimiting political discourse, it is important to stress that it takes the
form of ―institutional discourse‖ (Van Dijk 2001:6). This means that ―only those
discourses of politicians are considered that are produced in institutional settings,
such as governments, parliaments or political parties. [...] The discourse must be
produced by the speaker in her professional role of a politician and in an institutional
setting‖ (2001:6). In addition, ―discourse is political when it accomplishes a political
act in a political institution, such as governing, legislation, electoral campaigning, and
so on‖ (2001:6).
3.4 Political Interview and Its Features
Corner states that ―interview is one of the most widely used and extensively
developed formats for public communication in the world‖ (1999:37, emphasis
added). There are various types of interviews, such as political news interview or
survey research interviews, whose main function is to gain information, and celebrity
talk show interviews, which focus on entertaining the audience apart from gaining
information (Schiffrin 1994; Lauerbach 2007). Regardless of the differences, all types
of interviews share common features. ―Firstly, all incorporate the discourse practice
of questioning and answering which, on a structural level, yields question-answer
sequences, with or without expansions. Secondly, all are characterised by the same
Political Interview as a Discourse Genre
41
role distribution, all having an interviewer as a representative of a media organization
and an interviewee‖ (Lauerbach 2007:1393).
Political interviews take place in institutional settings, i.e. a TV or radio
station. The interviewer is a professional journalist, the interviewee is a politician
who represents his/her party. The role of interviewer is to control the dialogue, ask
questions that are challenging and try to reveal negative details of political affairs. In
addition, they ―strive to deliver an up-to-date and interesting perspective on events
and on their main protagonists‖ (Lauerbach 2007:1393). The interviewer should also
focus on questions which the audience would like to be answered. ―The result is a
more or less adversarial interview which in one-on-one interviews is characterized by
an argumentative structure where politicians defend their standpoints against the
interviewers who take the perspective of a critical audience‖ (Lauerbach 2007:1394).
Politicians express their opinions and standpoints and present their
arguments in order to influence and convince potential voters. They try to sound
persuasive and look positive in front of their audience. As Wilson points out,
―politicians use words and sentences in an emotive manner; it is part of their aim to
create a feeling of solidarity, to arouse emotions such as fear, hate or joy‖ (1990:18-
19). They use various linguistic means to modify the illocutionary force of their
utterances so that they show involvement with their statements or detachment from
them. In my corpus, linguistic means showing involvement of the speaker prevail
over those of detachment, which will be shown in detail in the following sections of
this thesis.
The skill of good argumentation is also important in political discourse.
Argumentation is considered ―as an interactionally organized activity and as social
practice [...] Argumentation is both the process and product of an exchange of
opposing positions by opposing co-participants whose goal is to find out whether
arguments are acceptable, appropriate, true and sincere and to convince the other(s)
of the validity of their argument‖ (Fetzer 2007:1345). Additionally, Fetzer states that
in the genre of political interview ―argumentation is neither employed primarily as a
source of gaining knowledge, nor as a means of finding or proving the validity of an
argument, but rather as a means of persuading a potential electorate represented by
Political Interview as a Discourse Genre
42
the second-frame audience to support a political position or to cast their votes for a
political party‖ (2007:1350).
Lauerbach (2007) regards argumentation as an ―essentially dialogic discourse
practice‖ since ―claim and challenge, claim and counterclaim are prototypically
realised in dialogic form. In addition, challenges are prototypically realised as
questions that expect satisfaction of the challenge in the answer‖ (2007:1390).
The relationship between the interviewer and the interviewee is
asymmetrical as ―the institutional power to organize the talk is held by the
interviewer [...]. While the starting-point is based on questions, and the interviewee
(IE) has a genre-specific constraint to answer them, s/he may have a certain freedom
in answering and developing the topic - or s/he may seize it‖ (Johansson 2007:140).
The topics discussed in political interviews are associated with current news events.
As regards the audience, it may or may not be present in the studio. It depends on
the kind of interview if the viewers are allowed to participate or not.
3.5 Conversationalization of Media Discourse
When describing political discourse, it should be focused on its strong
inclination to generic hybridity. It may be observed in my corpus that politicians
tend to use informal, conversational language in an effort to be closer to their
listeners and to be able to influence them more easily. Politicians pretend to belong
among ―ordinary people‖. This is connected with a change in political discourse
which has been noticed by several researchers (Fetzer and Weizman 2006; Fairclough
1998; Clayman and Heritage 2002; among others).
Fetzer and Weizman (2006) claim that ―politics has undergone dramatic
changes and has become a media endeavor. [...] The primarily monologue-oriented
mode of discourse, which prevailed in the fifties, sixties, seventies and eighties, is no
longer considered to be appropriate in the western and Anglo-American contexts‖
(Fetzer and Weizman 2006:146).
This aspect has been confirmed by Fairclough, who states that ―the genres of
broadcasting often have a complex hybrid or heterogeneous character‖ (Fairclough
1998:150). He also points out that ―political interviews typically mix their genres and
Political Interview as a Discourse Genre
43
their discourses. In complex ways, politicians characteristically shift into
conversational genre, and draw upon lifeworld discourses, in finding ways to address
mass audiences who are listening or watching in mainly domestic environments‖
(Fairclough 1998:151). This generic hybridity results in ―conversationalization‖
(Clayman and Heritage 2002:339) of political discourse, or of the mass media in
general.
The term ―conversationalization‖ suggests that lexical means which occur
typically in informal discourse penetrate into institutional discourse and influence it.
As a result, this institutional discourse becomes more informal. ―The interaction no
longer takes place between roles or statuses [...] but because of sharply divided
conversation control and the reduction of asymmetries, it becomes more informal
and democratic. According to Fairclough, ‗conversationalization‘ is the discursive
component of social and cultural change‖ (Titscher et al. 2000:154).
However, when describing these new tendencies in the development of
institutional discourse, Fairclough sounds rather critical. He sees
conversationalization as an ―apparent democratisation of discourse which
involves the reduction of overt markers of power asymmetry between people of
unequal institutional power‖ (1995:79, my emphasis). Democratisation of discourse
is connected with ―synthetic personalisation‖, which Fairclough describes as the
―simulation of private, face-to-face, person-to-person discourse in public mass-
audience discourse - print, radio, television‖ (1995:80).
By contrast, Scannell considers changes related to broadcasting as something
positive and inevitable, which goes hand in hand with the development of
broadcasting itself and which contributes positively to its communicative character.
―The liveness of radio and television indicates in all its ways the phenomenal now of
being in the world. It is this that shows in all its practices. Through its being-there
(its da-sein), broadcasting creates new ways of being in the world – of being in two
places at once, two times at once‖ (1998:264).
Conversationalization relates to the fact that media discourse and the manner
of broadcasting have gradually conformed to the norms of ordinary, informal
conversation because the voices of radio and television are heard in the context of
Political Interview as a Discourse Genre
44
household activities, where the communicative style of interaction between people
prevails (Scannel 1991).
3.6 Conclusion
To conclude, political discourse consists of many genres, one of them being
political interview. Political interview may be regarded as a specific genre because it
structures reality in a specific way, i.e. it takes place in an institutional setting, there is
an interviewer, who directs the interview and asks the questions, and an interviewee,
who is a politician and answers the questions of the interviewer. Since the politician
is aware of his/her responsibility and status, his answers are sometimes evasive and
vague. The reason for this is that s/he does not want to be accused of lying. The role
of the interviewer is very important at this point because a good journalist should
insist on the politician answering the questions and s/he should know how to force
the politician to do so. At this moment, it is also more interesting for the viewers.
When analysing political interviews, it is important to apply pragmatic
approach, which is also adopted in this thesis. Linguistic means employed by
politicians have various pragmatic functions. These functions may be interpreted
properly only when the context in which the utterances were expressed is taken into
account.
After defining the genre of political interview and characterising its typical
features, we can now proceed to the explanation of the concept of illocutionary force
and its components, and the speech act theory.
Illocutionary Force and Speech Act Theory
45
4 Illocutionary Force and Speech Act Theory
4.1 Introduction
As already anticipated above, there are certain linguistic devices that may
accentuate or attenuate the illocutionary force of the particular speech acts. This
accentuation (or boosting) and attenuation (or hedging) are designated as
―modification― of the illocutionary force. This modification contributes to a higher
degree of the speaker‘s involvement in interaction. First, a brief introduction to the
concept of illocutionary force and its components (Section 4.2) and the theory of
speech acts (Section 4.3) will be given. Then, various means of accentuation and
attenuation of the illocutionary force will be described.
4.2 Illocutionary Force
Illocutionary force and its modification has been described in various
studies, some of which have also been focused on the theory of speech acts (cf.
Vanderveken 1985; Searle and Vanderveken 1985; Huddleston and Pullum 2002;
Holmes 1984; Levinson 1983; Mey 2001; Urbanová 2003).
Vanderveken states that ―in uttering sentences within a conversation or
dialogue, speakers perform speech acts of a type called illocutionary acts‖ (1985:181).
In Searle‘s and Vanderveken‘s recent accounts of speech act theory, illocutionary
acts have been defined as ―minimal units of human communication. Some examples
of these are statements, questions, commands, promises, and apologies. Whenever a
speaker utters a sentence in an appropriate context with certain intentions, he
performs one or more illocutionary acts.‖ (1985:1). An illocutionary act can be
analyzed in terms of its illocutionary force and its propositional content. As
Levinson states (1983:245), ―the illocutionary force and the propositional content of
utterances are detachable elements of meaning. Thus the following sentences, when
uttered felicitously, would all share the same propositional content, namely, the
proposition that the addressee will go home:
a. I predict that you will go home.
b. Go home!
Illocutionary Force and Speech Act Theory
46
c. Are you going to go home?
d. I advise you to go home.
But they would normally be used with different illocutionary forces, i.e. perform
different speech acts‖ (Levinson 1983:245).
Before explaining the term ―propositional content‖, Cruse (2004) makes a
difference between the ―truth value‖ and ―truth conditions‖ of a sentence. If a
sentence has a truth value, it can be assessed as true or false. In case it does not have
a truth value, it ―cannot be evaluated as true or false‖ (2004:20). Truth conditions of
a sentence are conditions under which a sentence is true. Thus, Cruse explains the
propositional content as follows: ―Those aspects of the meaning of a sentence which
determine its truth conditions are collectively known as the propositional content of
the sentence‖ (2004:21). Two sentences with the same propositional content ―will
yield statements with the same truth values on all occasions of use‖ (2004:21). This
has been confirmed by Lyons who states that if (and only if) the sentences have ―the
same truth-conditions, we will say that they have the same propositional content‖
(1995:147). Nevertheless, Lyons tries to prove that the situation is not always so
clear-cut. He considers these examples:
a. John Smith is unmarried.
b. John Smith is not married.
c. John Smith is a bachelor.
It may seem that the truth-conditions of all these statements are identical but
statement c differs. C is problematic because, according to Lyons, ―not every
unmarried individual is a bachelor‖ (1995:147). He points out that it is usually
thought that ―John Smith‖ is a man but it may also be a women, a child, a yacht, ―or
indeed any entity whatsoever that is not only not married, but also not marriageable,
and can be appropriately referred to with the name ‗John Smith‘‖ (1995:147), and for
that reason, this entity will fulfil the truth-conditions of statement b but not of c.
Turning back to the illocutionary force, Huddleston and Pullum (2002)
observe that ―statement, directive, and question are very general categories of
illocutionary force, but there are in addition innumerable more specific illocutionary
categories. Some of these can be regarded as simply special cases of the more general
categories‖ (2002:858). They illustrate this with the sentence Bring the water to the boil,
Illocutionary Force and Speech Act Theory
47
which may be uttered as a command, a request, advice or an instruction. However,
all of these categories can be included in the category of directive, ―for they all count
as attempts to get you to do something‖ (2002:859).
As Searle and Vanderveken state, the realization of illocutionary forces in the
syntax of natural languages is very diverse, for example mood, punctuation, word
order, intonation, and stress. They term any linguistic component that indicates or
determines the illocutionary force an ―illocutionary force indicating device‖.
Word order and mood may be regarded as examples of this device (1985:2).
The illocutionary force has been defined in terms of seven interrelated
components in the illocutionary logic, the logical theory of illocutionary acts, whose
aim is to ―formalize the logical properties of illocutionary forces‖ (Searle and
Vanderveken 1985:1) (cf. Searle and Vanderveken 1985; Vanderveken 1985). These
components, as Searle and Vanderveken state, are sufficient to delimit the set of all
potential illocutionary forces and clarify the determination of conditions that are
necessary for successful performance of illocutionary acts.
The seven constituents that define the illocutionary force are the following:
a) illocutionary point
b) degree of strength of the illocutionary point
c) mode of achievement
d) propositional content conditions
e) preparatory conditions
f) sincerity conditions
g) degree of strength of the sincerity conditions
(Searle and Vanderveken 1985:12-20)
Ad a) illocutionary point
The illocutionary point is the point or purpose internal to each type of
illocutionary act. This means that the point of a statement is to convey the
speaker‘s belief about the truth of a proposition, or, the point of a promise is to
commit the speaker by a promise to do something, Searle and Vanderveken point
out. For a performance of a particular act to be successful, it must achieve its
Illocutionary Force and Speech Act Theory
48
purpose. In other words, in making a command, the speaker attempts to get the
other person to do something. In case this person fulfils the order, the performance
of this act was successful. However, Searle and Vanderveken state that ―in real life a
person may have all sorts of other purposes and aims; e.g. in making a promise, he
may want to reassure his hearer, keep the conversation going, or try to appear to be
clever, and none of these is part of the essence of promising. But when he makes a
promise he necessarily commits himself to doing something. Other aims are up to
him [...]‖ (1985:14). The illocutionary force has more elements, not only the
illocutionary point. It has ―further specifications and modifications of the
illocutionary point, but the basic component of illocutionary force is illocutionary
point‖ (1985:14).
Ad b) degree of strength of the illocutionary point
Searle and Vanderveken explain that although different illocutions may reach
the same illocutionary point, they may differ in their strength. For instance, if the
speaker requests somebody to do something, it has the same illocutionary point as
insisting that somebody do it, but with a different degree of strength - the first is
less strong than the latter (Searle and Vanderveken 1985:15).
Ad c) mode of achievement
There are some illocutionary acts that demand special conditions ―under
which their illocutionary point has to be achieved in the performance of the speech
act‖ (Searle and Vanderveken 1985:15). A speaker who is in a position of authority
and issues a command does more than a person who makes a request. The
illocutionary point of both utterances is the same but the command reaches the point
by using the authority of the speaker (Searle and Vanderveken 1985:15).
Ad d) propositional content conditions
Most illocutions ―impose certain conditions on what can be in the
propositional content‖ (1985:16). For instance, the speaker can only promise
something that is possible to accomplish and set in the future. S/he cannot make
promises to have achieved something in the past (Searle and Vanderveken 1985:16).
Illocutionary Force and Speech Act Theory
49
Ad e) preparatory conditions
These conditions are ―necessary for the successful and nondefective
performance of an illocutionary act [...]. In the performance of a speech act the
speaker presupposes the satisfaction of all the preparatory conditions‖ (Searle and
Vanderveken 1985:17, italics in original). For example, if a promise is successfully
made and thus its illocutionary point is achieved, it may be still defective because
what the speaker promised was not in the interest of the hearer. In other words, ―in
making a promise the speaker presupposes that he can do the promised act and that
it is in the hearer‘s interest to do it‖ (1985:17).
Ad f) sincerity conditions
Searle and Vanderveken state that many illocutionary acts with a
propositional content include the expression of a psychological state. For example,
when making a statement one expresses a belief, when issuing a command one
expresses a desire. When the propositional content of an illocution is the same as
that of the expressed psychological state, one can say that the speech act is sincere
(1985:18). Searle and Vanderveken explain that there are also insincere speech acts
―in which the speaker performs a speech act and thereby expresses a psychological
state even though he does not have that state‖ (1985:18).
Ad g) degree of strength of the sincerity conditions
As may be seen above, the same illocutionary point can have different
degrees of strength. The same psychological state can also be achieved with
different dimensions of strength. ―The speaker who makes a request expresses the
desire that the hearer do the act requested; but if he begs, beseeches, or implores, he
expresses a stronger desire than if he merely requests‖ (Searle and Vanderveken
1985:18, italics in original).
Before the actual description of the ways of modification of the illocutionary
force in political interviews, the theory of speech acts and its development will be
described in a more detailed way. It is significant since the speech act theory has
relevance to discourse analysis, as confirmed by Schiffrin (1994:49).
As regards the relationship between the illocutionary force and speech acts,
Thomas (1995) explains that initially, Austin used the term ―speech act‖ ―to refer to
Illocutionary Force and Speech Act Theory
50
an utterance and the total situation in which the utterance is issued‖ (Austin
1962:52). Today the term ―speech act‖ is used to mean the same as ―illocutionary
act‖ (Thomas 1995:51). The following subchapter will focus on the speech act theory
proposed by Austin and its further development by Searle.
4.3 Speech Act Theory
The term ―speech acts‖ is related to the theory which was originally
proposed by J. L. Austin within the framework of ordinary language philosophy.
Austin‘s course of lectures How to Do Things with Words (1962), which is ―widely
acknowledged as the first presentation of what has come to be called speech act
theory‖ (Schiffrin 1994:50), attacks the opinion that the key function of sentences is
to state facts. On the contrary, he claims that sentences such as: "I bet you six pence it
will rain tomorrow, I apologize, and I give my word are not used just to say things, i.e.
describe states of affairs, but rather actively to do things‖ (Levinson 1983:228,
emphasis added). That is why Austin called these utterances ―performatives‖: ―the
name [...] indicates that the issuing of the utterance is the performing of an action - it
is not normally thought of as just saying something‖ (Austin 1962:6-7). He also
contrasted performatives to ―statements, assertions and utterances like them, which
he called constatives‖ (Levinson 1983:229). As Levinson explains, Austin defined a
set of conditions which ―performatives must meet if they are to succeed‖ (1983:229).
They are called ―felicity conditions‖ (Austin 1962:14-15). If these conditions are
not met, which can happen under certain circumstances, performatives are
―infelicitous‖, or ―unhappy‖ then. Constatives, on the other hand, are ―declarative
statements whose truth or falsity can be judged‖ (Schiffrin 1994:50).
Searle and Vanderveken (1985) go further and distinguish these three
possibilities of successful or unsuccessful performance of speech acts: ―a speech act
may be unsuccessful, it may be successful but defective, and it may be successful and
nondefective‖ (1985:12). If a speech act is successful but defective, it means that a
speaker has made a statement but he has insufficient amount of evidence for it.
Despite the fact that there is lack of evidence, the speaker may succeed in making a
statement, nevertheless, it would be defective by reason of this deficient amount of
evidence. As Searle and Vanderveken observe, ideally, a speech act is both successful
Illocutionary Force and Speech Act Theory
51
and nondefective. Austin's differentiation between "felicitous" and "infelicitous"
speech acts does not reflect the ―successful but defective‖ distinction.
Levinson stresses, quite correctly, the unsystematic nature of Austin‘s work
(1983:231). Moreover, there are two important modifications during the course of
the book. At first, Austin takes the view that performatives are ―a special class of
sentences with peculiar syntactic and pragmatic properties‖ (1983:231), later, he
defines a general category of performative utterances involving ―explicit‖ and
―implicit‖ performatives (Austin 1962:67ff). Further, instead of using the dichotomy
performative/constative, Austin proposes ―a general theory of illocutionary acts of
which the various performatives and constatives are just special sub-class‖
(1983:231).
Thus, Austin defines three kinds of acts in which ―saying something is doing
something‖ (Levinson 1983:236): locutionary act, illocutionary act, and,
perlocutionary act. It is the second category, the illocutionary act, which is the most
important in Austin‘s investigation. It has later been termed the ―speech act‖ and
used in linguistics to ―refer to a theory which analyses the role of utterances in
relation to the behaviour of speaker and hearer in interpersonal communication‖
(Crystal 2003a:427).
Austin defined a locutionary act as ―uttering a certain sentence with a
certain sense and reference‖ (1962:109). Illocutionary acts are utterances with a
―certain (conventional) force‖, e.g. informing, ordering, warning, etc. And finally,
perlocutionary acts are performed: ―what we bring about or achieve by saying
something, such as convincing, persuading, deterring, [...]‖ (1962:109, emphasis
added).
Austin‘s work was systematized and further developed by J. R. Searle (1969),
an American philosopher, who, in relation to speech acts, claims that ―all linguistic
communication involves linguistic acts. The unit of linguistic communication is not,
as has generally been supposed, the symbol, word or sentence, [...] but rather the
production of the symbol or word or sentence in the performance of the speech
acts‖ (Searle 1969:16). Additionally, as Mey puts it, speech acts are produced in
―actual situations of language use, by people having something ‗in mind‘‖ and not in
the constructed examples of grammarians and philosophers (Mey 2001:93-94).
Illocutionary Force and Speech Act Theory
52
Further, what belongs among the typical features of speech acts is their intentionality
(Searle 1969:16).
Searle finds Austin‘s classification of speech acts inconsistent and incomplete,
and that is why he identifies (cf. Searle 1969, 1976) five basic categories of speech
acts:
representatives, which commit the speaker to the truth of the expressed
proposition (e.g. asserting, concluding)
directives, which are attempts by the speaker to get the addressee to do
something (e.g. requesting, questioning)
commissives, which commit the speaker to some future action (e.g. promising,
offering)
expressives, which express a psychological state (e.g. thanking, welcoming)
declarations, which effect immediate changes in the institutional state of affairs
and which tend to rely on elaborate extra-linguistic institutions (e.g.
excommunicating, firing from work)
(Levinson 1983:240)
Levinson observes that this classification is somewhat problematic because it
is not built ―in any systematic way on felicity conditions‖ and it cannot be taken as
―definitive or exhaustive‖ (1983:240).
Mey compares Austin‘s and Searle‘s theories of speech acts and states that
Searle‘s criticism of Austin is legitimate owing to the insufficiency of his classification
and the incompleteness of his theory. ―The categories that Austin establishes are not
mutually exclusive, as their criteria often overlap‖ (Mey 2001:124). He also mentions
a terminological confusion and insufficient distinction between the terms ―speech
act‖ and ―speech act verb‖. Last but not least, Austin‘s definitions of speech acts are
too broad. (2001:124). In spite of these problems, Austin‘s important discovery that
―language is an instrument of action, not just speaking, has not diminished in time‖
(Mey 2001:124).
As regards Searle‘s classification, Mey correctly points out that it resembles
Austin‘s typology. Like Austin, Searle distinguishes five categories of speech acts,
however, the reason why his classification is assessed higher is its orientation toward
the real world. ―Since all acts of speaking perform something in the world, they have
Illocutionary Force and Speech Act Theory
53
an illocutionary character; therefore, the interest of linguists and philosophers should
center on those illocutionary aspects of language use, rather than on the somewhat
dubious distinction between locutionary and illocutionary acts‖ (Mey 2001:125).
When comparing and indicating insufficiencies in Austin‘s and Searle‘s work, one
should not overlook the fact that both of them were philosophers and so certain
intentions in their language description may not always seem relevant for linguistic
purposes, as Mey rightly emphasises (2001:125).
An important topic which is further discussed by Searle is the multiple
functions of an utterance. He states that speakers usually express more functions
than only one in the same utterance (1976:23-24). ―We tell people how the things are,
we try to get them to do things, we commit ourselves to doing things, we express our
feelings and attitudes and we bring about changes through our utterances‖ (1976:23).
4.4 Conclusion
Chapter 4 gave an outline of the concept of the illocutionary force and its
components defined by Vanderveken and Searle (1985) and the speech act theory as
it was proposed by Austin (1962) and further developed by Searle (1969, 1976).
Mey‘s useful comparison (2001) of these two theories is made at the end of this
section. As already anticipated, the illocutionary force of particular speech acts may
be modified by various means. This modification of the illocutionary force is closely
connected with the degree of speaker‘s involvement in interaction, which is why a
substantial part of this thesis is devoted to the concept of involvement and its
expression in the genre of political interview. As already mentioned, the focus of the
present analysis is on the following means of modification of the illocutionary force:
boosting devices
hedging devices
lexical means of expressing modality
An explication of what ―boosting‖ and ―hedging‖ actually are will be offered
in Chapter 6. This description is accompanied by authentic examples from the
corpus. Before this theoretical explication, the corpus of political interviews will be
described in greater detail in Chapter 5. Further, Chapter 7 deals with a quantitative
and qualitative analysis of lexical devices that boost the illocutionary force in political
Illocutionary Force and Speech Act Theory
54
interviews. A similar type of analysis can be found in Chapter 8, where hedging
devices will be examined. Modality as a further means of modifying the illocutionary
force will be analyzed in Chapter 9.
As already mentioned, Chapter 5 will deal with the description of the material
under analysis since it is important for the discussion of practical research, which will
follow afterwards.
Corpus Description
55
5 Corpus Description
5.1 Introduction
As already mentioned, this thesis focuses on a pragma-semantic analysis of
linguistic means of speaker‘s involvement in a corpus of political interviews. In this
chapter, the material under investigation will be described in a more detailed way.
The subsections will focus on the extent of the corpus (5.2), sources of the analysed
material (5.3), politicians and their positions (5.4), topics discussed (5.5), and the
subject of the analysis (5.6).
5.2 Extent of the Corpus
The corpus consists of 40 political interviews with British and American
politicians, which were released between 2003 and 2008. 20 interviews were carried
out with male politicians, 20 interviews with female politicians. The extent of male
and female interviews is identical. To better illustrate the extent of the whole corpus,
all words and characters were counted. Their numbers are summarized in Table 1
below:
interviews 40
words 114,532
characters 644,006
Table 1: The Extent of the Corpus
5.3 Sources of the Data for the Analysis
The interviews were downloaded from the webpages of various American
and British TV and radio stations. As already stated, I worked only with the
transcripts of these interviews. Prosodic means and paralinguistic features are not the
subject of this research because it is a very wide topic, which could be investigated in
a different study. All transcripts were used as they were found on the Internet. For
this reason they may contain grammatical mistakes. It is difficult to say whether these
mistakes were made by editing the transcripts or whether they were made by the
speakers and the editor did not correct them.
Corpus Description
56
What follows is the list of all sources of the material under investigation:
CBS News (an American TV network)
PBS (an American TV network)
NPR (an American radio network)
BBC News (a British TV news channel)
CNN (an American TV network)
NBC (an American TV network)
ABC News (an American TV network)
Al Jazeera English (English version of the Arabic network)
MSNBC (an American cable news channel)
FOX News (an American news channel)
5.4 Politicians Appearing in the Corpus and their Positions
A total of 19 politicians were chosen for this analysis, 13 politicians are
British, six politicians are American. Since the subject of this research was not the
examination of differences between British and American politicians, the difference
in number of politicians does not play a significant role in this study. All names of
politicians including their functions they held when the interviews were carried out
are listed in the table below:
Name Political position
Tony Blair Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Hazel Blears Chair of the Labour Party, UK
George W. Bush President of the United States
David Cameron Leader of the Conservative Party, UK
Hillary Clinton US Senator for New York
Yvette Cooper Minister of State for Housing and Planning, UK
Alan Duncan Member of Parliament, Conservative Party politician, UK
Michael Gove Member of Parliament, Conservative Party politician, UK
Corpus Description
57
William Hague Member of Parliament, Shadow Foreign Secretary, UK
Harriet Harman Minister for Women and Equality, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, UK
Alan Johnson Secretary of State for Health, UK
Ruth Kelly Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, UK
Theresa May Shadow Leader of the House of Commons, UK
John McCain US Senator for Arizona
David Miliband Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, UK
Janet Napolitano Governor of Arizona
Sarah Palin Governor of Alaska
Condoleezza Rice US Secretary of State
Jacqui Smith Minister of State for Schools, UK
Table 2: Politicians and their Positions
5.5 Topics Discussed, Setting and Function of the Interviews
The format of each interview is the same, there are two participants: an
interviewer, who is a professional journalist, and an interviewee, who is a British or
an American politician, the audience may or may not be present. There is one
interview in the corpus in which the viewers are allowed to participate (App., pp. 3-
19, Tony Blair, 2003-02-06). As stated above, political interviews take place in
institutional settings, which means that all these interviews were conducted in a
TV or radio studio. The topics discussed largely depend on the political function of
the particular politician. They can be divided into these main areas:
current affairs and internal issues in the UK - elections (Cameron, Blair,
Harman, May, Blears), education (Smith, Gove), healthcare (Johnson), energy
industry (Duncan), economic issues, taxes (Cameron, Harman), housing
problems (Cooper), communities in the UK and integration problems (Kelly)
international politics – the Iraq War (Blair, Bush, Clinton, Rice, Miliband), the
Middle East (Blair, Bush, Clinton, Rice, Miliband, Hague), Saddam Hussein‘s
execution (Bush, Rice, Blair)
Corpus Description
58
presidential campaign and elections in the USA (Clinton, McCain, Palin,
Napolitano)
The topics discussed are also connected with the international position of
both countries, especially the role of the USA. Both countries are actively engaged in
the Middle East conflicts and in the Iraq War, which raises many problems, fears,
and uncertainty, and that is why these issues are debated so frequently.
From that it follows that the main function of these interviews is to
inform the public about the issues in question - about internal problems of the
country, the political situation before elections, about the attitude of the country to
international politics. The politicians present their arguments and apart from
informing the audience, they also attempt to gain more voters for their parties. This
aim to persuade and obtain voters is achieved by the use of various linguistic means
which show a high degree of speaker‘s involvement. These means are analysed in the
present thesis.
5.6 Subject of the Analysis
It should be emphasized that the subject of this analysis is only the
language of politicians, not that of interviewers. The reason for the decision to
investigate only the answers of politicians is that the utterances of interviewers show
a very low degree of involvement. One reason is that their questions are pre-
prepared and even though they have to react to the answers of the politicians
spontaneously, they use only a limited number of means showing involvement.
Another explanation is that their primary role is to lead the discussion and ask
challenging and tough questions which the audience wants to be answered. They do
not aim at asserting themselves in front of the listeners, and, unlike the politicians,
they do not want to influence the audience. If one still wanted to do an analysis of
linguistic means expressing involvement used by interviewers, it should be taken into
account that the functions of these means differ from those of politicians. As already
mentioned above, the reason is that interviewers play a different role in this type of
interaction.
The following examples were taken from three interviews. For a better
orientation, the utterances of interviewers are in italics. Linguistic means of speaker‘s
Corpus Description
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involvement are highlighted both by interviewers and by politicians. As is apparent,
interviewers‘ parts show a very low degree of involvement:
Example 1
Frei: Your administration has given $15bn to treat Aids in Africa?
Mr Bush: Yeah.
Frei: Which is an unprecedented amount of money, and you want to double that amount yet again?
Mr Bush: Yeah.
Frei: This is a huge commitment. And, yet, the administration and you, personally, don't seem to be
getting a lot of credit for it.
Mr Bush: Yeah - you know, this is kind of tied to your first question about polls. Polls are
nothing more than just, like, a puff of air. What matters is results. And, ultimately, people
will be able to make, you know, an objective judgment of a president and his
administration and, in this case, a country's commitment. And so what I care really about
is the results of the programmes. I hope by now people have learned that I'm not one of
these guys that - really gives a darn about elite opinion. What I really care about is, are
we saving lives? And in this case, we are. As I mentioned in my speech that you kindly
listened to - when I first went to Sub-Saharan Africa, 50,000 were receiving antiretrovirals.
Today, 1.3 million. And that's a lot in a very quick period of time. But, there's so much
more suffering. And that's why I've called for a doubling of aid. The good news is, it's not
just America. As I mentioned in my speech, the G8 nations also are supporting this very
important initiative. And, you know, it's... like an effort of mercy.
Frei: But, it has made a huge difference, hasn't it? So...
Mr Bush: Yeah.
Frei: Why not take some credit for it?
Mr Bush: Because it's just not my nature, you know? You just gotta understand about me,
I'm more interested in seeing results and sharing the credit with the American people.
I mean, this is not a George Bush effort. I just happened to be the leader of a nation that's
willing to fund this kind of money. And so, I praised Congress in my speech. I praised
the American [people] in my speech. After all, they're the ones who funded the effort.
Frei: You were very tough in your speech about Darfur. And, yet again, you called what's happening
there genocide?
Mr Bush: Yeah.
Frei: Is enough being done by your administration to stop that?
Corpus Description
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Mr Bush: I think we are. You know, I had to make a seminal decision. And that is
whether or not I would commit US troops into Darfur. And I was pretty well backed off
of it by - you know, a lot of folks - here in America that care deeply about the issue. And
so, once you make that decision, then you have to rely upon an international organisation
like the United Nations to provide the oomph - necessary manpower... You know, I read -
did call it (SOUND GLITCH) genocide, and I think we're the only nation that has done
so. Secondly, I did remind people that we're sanctioning leaders. That we have targeted
[Sudanese] companies and individuals, including a rebel leader, who have yet to be
constructive in the peace process. We [are] beginning to get a sense of these things as
they're affecting behaviour. We're trying to ask others, by the way, to do the same thing.
Some of who are reluctant; some who aren't. And then, finally, I pledged that we'll help
move troops in. And yeah, and as I also said, you might remind your listeners, that I'm
frustrated by the pace.
Frei: I'll get on to that in a minute. But, I mean, genocide is just a loaded - it's such an
important word. And you have committed troops - American troops around the world in other cases
throughout... Afghanistan. Why not in this case?
Mr Bush: Well, that's a good question. I mean, we're committing equipment, you know?
Training, help, movement. I think a lot of the folks who are concerned about America into
another Muslim country. Some of the relief groups here just didn't think the strategy
would be as effective as it was. I mean, actually, believe it or not, listen to people's
opinions. And chose to make this decision. It's a decision that I'm now living with. And
it's a decision that requires us to continue to rally the conscience of the world and get
people to focus on the issue. You know, you're right. I mean, we sent marines into
Liberia, for example, to help stabilise the country there. And Liberia's on my itinerary
where I'll meet with the first woman, you know, elected president in Africa - history. And -
but, I just made the decision I made.
(App., pp. 111-112, George W. Bush, 2008-02-14, ll. 25-86)
Example 2
BLITZER: Let's get on to some other issues. The president says this week he will veto legislation passed
by the House and Senate that would issue some timelines for a U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq, pull
funding for the troops in Iraq. What happens after the president vetoes? Is there a compromise in the works
that the White House and the Democrats and some Republicans in Congress can finesse?
RICE: Well, clearly the president is going to veto this because he does not want to set
timelines and timetables for a withdrawal of our forces, which would send the wrong
Corpus Description
61
message to the Iraqis, the wrong message to the neighborhood and the wrong
message to Iraq's enemies.
But the president has said that after that veto, he plans to have people down to the White
House to find a way to move forward together. We do need to move forward together.
And the benchmarks that are anticipated here, of course, benchmarks that the Iraqis
themselves have adopted, they are benchmarks that they need to meet.
We are telling them all of the time that their national reconciliation is moving too slowly,
needs to move more quickly. But the problem is that we shouldn't tie our own hands,
shouldn't tie the hands of General Petraeus, tie the hands of Ambassador Crocker in how
we use the tools that we have to get the right result in Iraq.
And that's what benchmarks tied to withdrawal or benchmarks tied to withholding
economic assistance would do.
BLITZER: Because there's a lot of concern right now that the Iraqis themselves aren't taking all of these
benchmarks, all of these requirements that seriously. Supposedly, they're about to go on vacation, the
Iraqi parliament, for two months, July and August, in the midst of their failure so far to disarm, disband
the militias, deal with the oil resources, the revenue from that, deal with some other critical issues that you
want them to deal with.
RICE: Well, certainly they need to keep working. And we've made that very clear to them.
I think that they will make some progress on the oil law. They have made a lot of progress
on it. They need to close that and finish it. They need to get the provincial elections set up.
And we're continuing to tell them that our patience isn't limitless, but neither is the
patience of the Iraqi people limitless on this issue -- these reconciliation issues. But again, it
doesn't help us to help them if our hands are tied in the way that we can use our own tools
to try to bring about the right effects.
BLITZER: You're heading off to Sharm el-Sheikh for a conference, a regional conference to deal with Iraq
this week in the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. The Iranians today announced their foreign minister will be
there as well, together with other regional leaders. Will you meet with the Iranian foreign minister when you
are at Sharm el-Sheikh?
RICE: I don't rule out that we'll encounter each other. But this isn't a U.S.-Iranian issue.
This isn't an opportunity to talk about U.S.-Iran issues. This is really an opportunity for all
of Iraq's neighbors to talk about how to stabilize Iraq.
And I look forward to this because everyone has said that they believe a stable Iraq is in
their interests. Not everyone is acting as if a stable Iraq is in their interests, and I think we
Corpus Description
62
want to talk about how we can all take actions and Iraq's neighbors can take actions to help
the Iraqis secure themselves.
(App., pp. 212-213, Condoleezza Rice, 2007-04-29, ll. 201-244)
Example 3
QUESTION: President Bush, the White House has said the president's going to announce the strategy
sometime before Christmas. Are you convinced the proper pieces are in place?
BLAIR: I'm convinced the elements are there, yes. And what I'm also convinced of
is that the tough challenge is doing it, making it happen. Identifying what needs to happen
is -- I don't say it's easy, but I think it is relatively straightforward. Getting it done requires
immense focus and attention.
QUESTION: President Bush also said that history will judge the United States and aim it harshly if
these choices aren't made. When his new secretary of defense was asked just the other day if going to Iraq
was the right decision, he said, "Only time will tell." Are you still convinced that the history is going to bear
out that decision?
BLAIR: I do believe that, but, you know, I don't make the judgment of history. Other
people will make that.
But I think that if Saddam was still running around with his sons, I think you'd just have
a different range of…
QUESTION: But that wasn't the choice in March of 2003, was it? The inspectors were there. He was
contained. He was in a box. Your own former ambassador said that you personally didn't use enough
leverage with President Bush to make sure that the right plans were in place for the post-war and perhaps to
extend the timeline, put off the invasion while the inspectors were there.
BLAIR: You know, I think the inspectors could have stayed there a very long time and it
wouldn't have made the difference.
Saddam was not going to…
QUESTION: Wouldn't it be better than what we have right now?
BLAIR: Well, you see, you can ask why is it that we have the problem now and we have
the problem now because people are giving us this problem. People are deliberately
creating a situation of destabilization in Iraq.
And my point, as I said, with President Bush, is why should people in Iraq be given
a choice between a brutal secular dictator and a sectarian government that is also
dictatorial? Why should they be given that choice? Why can't they have the choice of
deciding who their government is and participating in free elections?
Corpus Description
63
QUESTION: But if he could have been isolated with the inspectors there, if he could have been
surrounded by 250,000 troops, the entire world, he wouldn't have been able to hold on forever.
BLAIR: Yes, but you couldn't have kept -- we can go over this again and again, but,
I mean, you couldn't actually, frankly, have kept quarter of a million troops down there.
It's very long.
At some point, you had to come to a situation where he had a chance of heart or there
was a change of regime, and I think what is interesting is that actually removing
Saddam took two or three months.
(App., pp. 34-35, Tony Blair, 2006-12-10, ll. 170-208)
As one can see, the interviewers‘ parts are much shorter and the means of
involvement are very scarce compared to the number of these means used by
politicians. I have found out that the total number of boosting and hedging devices is
5,043 and out of this number, only 274 expressions were uttered by the interviewers,
which is an insignificant number compared to the extent of the corpus. Because of
this fact and because of the reasons mentioned above, I decided not to include
interviewers in the analysis.
5.7 Conclusion
This chapter provided a description of the corpus of political interviews in
this thesis. Its extent makes it possible to draw general conclusions about the
concepts investigated. In case of modality, however, it was difficult since one has to
take into account not only particular types of modality when making generalizations
but also the actual linguistic means conveying these types of modality (this issue will
be described in greater detail in Chapter 9). As regards the interpretation of
pragmatic functions of boosting and hedging devices, it is important to focus on the
context in which the message is conveyed since the meaning of these devices may
differ in different contexts (see Chapter 6).
The next chapter may be regarded as a general introduction to intensification
and attenuation of the illocutionary force before a comprehensive practical analysis is
carried out in the subsequent sections.
Boosting and Hedging
64
6 Boosting and Hedging
6.1 Introduction
As indicated above, this chapter will explain the basic distinction between
boosting and hedging. It has already been mentioned that the degree of speaker‘s
involvement relates to modifying the illocutionary force of speech acts. In this
connection Urbanová (2003) states that ―the interpretative character of meaning
[…] is reflected in the modification of the illocutionary force […]. Meaning in
conversation is dynamic in the sense that new shades of meaning constantly come
into existence through contextual clues and speaker-hearer interaction,
simultaneously reflecting idiosyncrasies and predilections on the part of the
speaker‖ (2003:66, emphasis added). The illocutionary force of utterances is modified
due to the incidence of two ―counteracting, yet co-existing tendencies influencing the
relative weight of the message, namely attenuation and accentuation‖ (Urbanová
2003:66, my emphasis).
6.2 Boosting
In her article on modification of the illocutionary force, Holmes (1984)
describes two communicative strategies for modifying the strength of the speech
acts: attenuation (sometimes called ―hedging‖, ―mitigation‖ or ―weakening‖) and
boosting (―accentuation‖, ―strengthening‖ or ―intensification‖). These two concepts
have been dealt with in various studies, among others e.g. by Brown and Levinson
(1987), Lakoff (1972), Fraser (1980), Coates (1987), and Urbanová (2003).
Boosting and hedging are regarded as complementary, not contrasting,
notions which, in opposition to Vanderveken‘s concept (described in Chapter 4.2),
are external modifiers of illocutionary force and not its constituents. The
differentiation between attenuation and intensification should be understood as
―illocutionary force gradation‖ (Urbanová 2003:67), thus, she continues, slight
meaning distinctions may arise and reflect various degrees of the speaker's
involvement to the proposition (2003:67). Holmes suggests reasons why a speaker
may want to modify the force of a speech act: ―firstly, to convey modal meaning or
Boosting and Hedging
65
the speaker‘s attitude to the content of the proposition, and, secondly, to express
affective meaning or the speaker‘s attitude to the addressee in the context of
utterance‖ (Holmes 1984:348, my emphasis).
In the present analysis, the means of strengthening the illocutionary force will
be termed ―boosters‖, however, there appear many more designations for them with
identical or almost identical meaning in the relevant literature, namely, ―intensifiers‖
(Quirk et al. 1985), ―up-graders‖ (House and Kasper 1981) ―accentuation markers‖
(Urbanová 2003), and ―strengtheners‖ (Brown and Levinson 1987). If the speaker
wants to persuade the listener about the validity of the proposition expressed, s/he
makes use of means which ―boost the illocutionary force of the speech act asserting
the proposition, expressing great certainty or conviction concerning its validity‖
(Holmes 1984:348).
The expression of affective meaning, another reason for modifying the
illocutionary force mentioned by Holmes (1984), includes the speaker‘s attitude to
the recipient. ―Modifying the illocutionary force of a speech act may serve to express
a variety of attitudes to the hearer, ranging from very positive to very negative
attitudes‖ (Holmes 1984:349). In other words, both hedging and boosting can be
used to modify positively and negatively affective speech acts from any of the
categories defined by Searle (such as directives, declaratives, commisives, etc., see
Chapter 4.3). Moreover, Holmes states that one possibility of analysing the affective
meaning of attenuation and boosting is to ―examine the contribution of these
strategies to the speaker-hearer relationship‖ (Holmes 1984:349). In this connection,
Holmes (1984:346-347) gives several examples which demonstrate a variety of
linguistic devices used to attenuate or boost the illocutionary force of a speech act:
Really you are amazingly pretty. - boosting of a positively affective speech act
My god you are such a fool. - boosting of a negatively affective speech act
You are kind of pretty in a way. - attenuating of a positively affective speech act
You are a bit of a fool you know. - attenuating of a negatively affective speech act
From that it follows that boosting of a positively affective speech act can
increase solidarity and the feeling of friendliness between the speaker and the
hearer. On the contrary, boosting the force of a negatively affective speech act
may decrease friendliness and increase social distance between the speaker and
Boosting and Hedging
66
the hearer. Similarly, attenuation of a positively affective speech act may
increase social distance and reduce the effects of a positive speech act. Finally,
attenuation of a negatively affective speech act, for example mitigation, can
contribute to the maintenance of the speaker-hearer relationship (Holmes
1995:77). Since political discourse is predominantly oriented towards conveying facts
and information, it means that it has a ―referential‖ function rather than ―affective‖
function (Holmes 1995:3), which is used to ―convey feelings and reflect social
relationships‖ (Holmes 1995:3). Although matter-of-factness is typical of political
interviews, a certain amount of affectiveness may also be found in this genre. It
manifests itself in the use of linguistic means contributing to the modification of the
illocutionary force, thus showing involvement. Politicians must show a positive
relationship to their viewers and be frank and unreserved, otherwise they may have
difficulties with persuading their voters.
The corpus contains a large number of devices which accentuate the force of
the proposition. They range from one expression to a part of a sentence, as shown in
Example 4 and Example 5:
Example 4
JON SOPEL: But here you are, sitting with us and we're delighted to have you here on the
Politics Show, talking about your campaign for the Deputy Leadership at the same time as
you're the Labour Party Chair. Now, you're going to be doing both simultaneously aren't
you.
HAZEL BLEARS: No, I said very clearly yesterday that my focus for the next couple of
months will be on winning those elections for Labour. I want to see Labour
representatives, particularly in local councils and in Scotland and in Wales because as I
said to you before, if you're not in power and you don't have the ability to do the things
the public wants us to carrying on doing, and that is absolutely what I will be getting on
with in the next couple of months.
(App., p. 69, Hazel Blears, 2007-02-25, ll. 175-183)
Example 5
JON SOPEL: You keep using the word bad practice, but it would be permissible to have
selection by interview.
Boosting and Hedging
67
JACQUI SMITH: No, let's be clear, the admissions system is governed by a code of
practice that we introduced with recourse to a statutory adjudicator who can rule
admissions practices out of order, and frequently does.
That's the current basis that we introduced, that's the basis on which we'll be going forward
but what's more important and in fact actually this isn't about competition between
schools, this is about what we are passionate about in the Labour Party and that is how we
can make sure that every child in every school is making the sort of progress that we want
to see them making.
That's why at the heart of White Paper is how we personalise education, how we get
parents engaged, how we build on the successes in our schools (overlaps) ...
(App., p. 252, Jacqui Smith, 2005-11-27, ll. 28-39)
Several boosters may be combined in one utterance in a sequence, as can be
seen in the first highlighted utterance of Tony Blair in Example 6. These linguistic
means function as boosters also because when used at the beginning of an utterance,
they anticipate and stress the information that will follow. There are more boosting
devices in this extract which are not highlighted now since they will be commented
on later.
Example 6
JON SOPEL: But isn't part of that is that because there's a frustration that you never seem
to criticise President Bush, you know, that you get the Iraq Study Group Report coming
out, which says that there ought to be a sort of gradual withdrawal of troops and there
ought to be an engagement of Syria and Iran, George Bush goes in seemingly the opposite
direction with this surge of additional troops, and it seems that Britain stands right by that.
TONY BLAIR: Yeah. But I think that - I mean look, first of all, when people say we
never disagree with the administration, climate change is a disagreement. Of course we do.
But we're fighting as allies in Iraq and in Afghanistan. I happen to support what we're
doing there.
And in relation to the Baker Hamilton Study Group, actually, if you look at it, what it's
saying is you have to build up the, the Iraqi capability and whether you increase the
numbers or troops or not, is actually left as an open question.
Now I think for President Bush, cos the situation for example in Basra is completely
different from the situation in Baghdad. I think the issue is for them, how do they make
sure that when they erm revitalise the Baghdad security plan this time it works.
Boosting and Hedging
68
(App., pp. 47-48, Tony Blair, 2007-01-28, ll. 179-195)
Expressions sure and really written in bold in Example 7 below, function
pragmatically as boosting devices. This means, they are used to demonstrate the
degree of the speaker‘s commitment to the validity of a proposition. From the
semantic point of view, they are termed as devices expressing ―epistemic modality‖
(Lyons 1977:793). Modality as another characteristic feature signalling speaker's
involvement to the proposition will be discussed in Chapter 9.
Example 7
JON SOPEL: Made more difficult by all the people going in to the buy to let market in
Bristol. I mean one could even say the Prime Minister, buying flats in Bristol.
TONY BLAIR: I'm sure you can but in respect of those young couples, we need things
like shared equity schemes which we're introducing. We need to be releasing land quicker
for development but here's the other thing and this is the test for the future, we also need
I'm afraid, to build more houses in the south.
Now we say we have to do that, the Conservatives say they don't want any more built in
the south. In which case, her problems are going to get worse. But all I'm saying to you
really is this. When you come in 1997, you have certain groups of problems that you have
to deal with.
Ten years on, the problems have shifted, partly cos as a result of what's happened in the
ten years. So, for example, you know, if you go back and...
(App., p. 58, Tony Blair, 2007-04-15, ll. 281-292)
More examples of boosting devices together with the identification of their
pragmatic functions may be found in Chapter 7.
6.3 Hedging
As with boosting, hedging is another phenomenon frequently found in the
genre of political interview. It is also present in other discourse genres, which is why
it has attracted the attention of many scholars (Brown and Levinson 1987; Holmes
1984, 1990, 1995; Lakoff 1972; Quirk et al. 1985; Urbanová 2003). Linguistic items
which are used to weaken the strength of utterances are generally labelled ―hedges‖
(Holmes 1995; Brown and Levinson 1987; Lakoff 1972) and I will also use this
Boosting and Hedging
69
denotation in my work. Yet it is possible to find in literature other terms for these
devices, such as ―downtoners‖ (Quirk et al. 1985, Holmes 1984), ―softeners‖ (Crystal
and Davy 1975), ―weakeners‖ (Brown and Levinson 1987), ―attenuation markers‖
(Urbanová 2003), and ―down-graders‖ (House and Kasper 1981).
Hedging is a linguistic strategy employed by conversationalists to weaken
the illocutionary force of utterances, to reduce the intensity of utterances and also
their directness. It is utilized ―in situations which would otherwise lead to a loss of
face (either for the speaker or for the listener) and which would thus make
communication untenable mainly due to the infringing of the Politeness Principle‖
(Urbanová 2003:58).
Similar inferences are stated by Brown and Levinson who assert that
―ordinary communicative intentions are often potential threats to cooperative
interaction‖ (1987:145). Thus, if you ask someone to do something, you assume that
they are willing to do it, ―to promise to do something is to admit that one hasn‘t
already done it, to assume that the addressee wants it done and would prefer you to
do it - and so on [...]. Consequently, to hedge these assumptions [...] is a primary and
fundamental method of disarming routine interactional threats [...]. Conversational
principles are the source of strong background assumptions about cooperation,
informativeness, truthfulness, relevance, and clarity, which on many occasions need
to be softened for reasons of face‖ (Brown and Levinson 1987:146).
To weaken the force of their utterances, interlocutors make use of particular
linguistic means. As already mentioned, many of them are context-sensitive,
therefore the same linguistic item may be interpreted as a boosting device in one
context, whereas in another it hedges the illocutionary force of a speech act. Typical
examples of such device are phrases I think, I mean or you know, which require a
broader context in order to be determined as an intensifying or attenuating device.
Hedging devices function as softeners of the illocutionary force of utterances
and that is why they are associated with expressing negative politeness. ―Negative
politeness is redressive action addressed to the addressee‘s negative face: his want to
have his freedom of action unhindered and his attention unimpeded‖ (Brown and
Levinson 1987:129). Holmes (1995:11-14) states that negative politeness relates to
social distance and solidarity. Participants in a conversational exchange usually
Boosting and Hedging
70
express negative politeness to people who they want to keep at a distance, which
means that negative politeness stresses the social distance. By contrast, positive
politeness puts emphasis on what people share and so it diminishes the distance
between them. From this it follows that negative politeness strategies become
apparent in formal contexts, whereas positive politeness occurs in informal and
intimate situations (Holmes 1995:14).
It is widely accepted that politeness (either positive or negative) is a culture-
specific phenomenon (Brown and Levinson 1987; Holmes 1995; Urbanová 2003;
Leech 1983, etc.). In this connection, Urbanová (2003:60) mentions that there are
―negative politeness cultures‖ or ―standoffish cultures‖ which are ―reserved and
distant, an example of which is the British culture.‖
As Holmes (1984:348) explains, modal meaning of an utterance includes the
degree of certainty which the speaker expresses as to the validity of the proposition
of the utterance. The speaker may be hesitant about the validity of the information
included in the proposition. Thus, if s/he attenuates the force of this utterance, s/he
expresses uncertainty or irresponsibility for its validity. In Example 8, Duncan used
modal adverbs maybe and perhaps to show his uncertainty about the facts expressed
in his proposition, which means that, pragmatically, these linguistic means function
as hedges:
Example 8
JON SOPEL: Do you not think though, there were areas for concern and if so what are
they.
ALAN DUNCAN: I mean. It's early days - you know what we're trying to do is to broaden
the appeal of the, of the party, remove a lot of the negatives, try and appeal to people who
are women, younger and maybe up in the north and living in urban areas.
Now just taking Bromley, it wasn't perhaps the easiest and most fertile ground in which to
draw the best results from that kind of early strategic activity.
(App., p. 150, Alan Duncan, 2006-07-02, ll. 118-125)
Hedging devices are also used to show detachment from the proposition, as
may be seen in Example 9 below. Using the modal adverb probably, Bush expresses
his detachment because he does not want to be made responsible for his statement
about Hillary Clinton‘s assertion.
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71
Example 9
SCHIEFFER: Well, let me ask you: If they continue to insist that they're going to do it in
their country, Senator Clinton, for example, who seems closer to your policy on Iraq than
to some in her own party, is already saying sanctions now. Do you think sanctions would
work against Iran?
PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, first of all, we have already sanctioned Iran. The United States
Government has got sanctions in place on Iran. I think probably what she is referring to is
whether or not we should refer Iran to the United Nations Security Council. I have said
that is certainly a very--a real possibility, and that once we are in the Security Council, of
course, that's one of the options, but we are going to work with our friends and allies to
make sure that when we get in the Security Council, we will have an effective response.
(App., p. 71, George W. Bush, 2006-01-27, ll. 67-78)
In the following example, Bush uses the hedging phrase I’m not exactly sure. Its
function is to express content-oriented uncertainty:
Example 10
PELLEY: Your military officers say that Iranian agents today are killing American troops
on the ground in Iraq. Is that an act of war on the part of Iran against the United States?
BUSH: I think what they're saying is, is that the Iranians are providing equipment that is
killing Americans. Either way it's unacceptable. As I said in my speech the other night, we
will take measures to protect ourselves. We will interrupt supplies. We will find people that
if they are, in fact, in Iraq killing Americans, they'll be brought to justice.
PELLEY: Is that an act of war against the United States on the part of the Iranian
government?
BUSH: I'm not a lawyer. So act of war is kind of a ... I'm not exactly sure how you define
that. Let me just say it's unacceptable.
(App., p. 93, George W. Bush, 2007-01-14, ll. 261-270)
In this context, it is also possible to interpret the hedging phrase, used in
Example 10 above, the other way round. Bush actually says that he wants to be very
precise but he cannot because the interviewer does not give an exact definition of an
―act of war‖. Bush‘s reply reveals that the interviewer is uncertain and Bush wants to
show responsibility in this way. From this it follows that the context is crucial
when interpreting functions of particular utterances. This finding has been
Boosting and Hedging
72
stressed by the scholars of the Prague School. Mathesius states that every utterance
carries its own meaning in a particular context and reflects the attitude of the speaker
to reality. The meaning conveyed in an utterence is, in most cases, oriented to the
hearer (1982 [1942]:93).
Firbas (1992) considers the ―contextual factor‖ as the strongest of the three
factors of functional sentence perspective (the other two factors are the ―linear
modification factor‖ and the ―semantic factor‖). He introduces the ―immediately
relevant context‖, which is further divided into ―verbal‖ and ―situational‖. The
immediately relevant context is defined as a very narrow part of context that ―is
embedded in a sphere formed by the entire preceeding verbal context and the entire
situational and experiential context accompanying it. In its turn, this sphere is
embedded within a still larger one constituted by all the knowledge and experience
shared by the interlocutors, which then forms part of the general context of human
knowledge and experience‖ (Firbas 1992:22-23).
The above-mentioned utterance I’m not exactly sure may therefore be
interpreted in two ways: either as content-oriented uncertainty or as the speaker‘s
responsibility for the claim. For this reason, Holmes‘s observations may be more
specified by the following conclusion, which is drawn from my research: When
analysing pragmatic functions of various linguistic means, it is necessary to take into
account the context in which the utterance is pronounced. Linguistic devices which
seemingly serve as boosting devices may act as hedging devices in different contexts
and vice versa, and for that reason, their pragmatic function changes as well.
In Example 11 below, Tony Blair justifies sending British forces to Iraq and
Afghanistan. The interviewer asks about an accident, which is not further specified in
the interview, that happened in Iraq. The utterance in bold, in which hedging (almost)
and boosting (certainly) devices are combined, may be interpreted as content-oriented
uncertainty - he may not know if it was an accident or not. Or, it may be interpreted
as an assurance that it was an accident but Blair does not want to commit himself to
it.
Example 11
JON SOPEL: And just what can you tell us about this incident today?
TONY BLAIR: I mean I can tell you no more than has just been on the news really.
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JON SOPEL: But what do we know about what's happened?
TONY BLAIR: Well, we simply know, as the Ministry of Defence has said, that we believe
it's almost certainly an accident, that it happened north of Baghdad as has just been
described.
JON SOPEL: And what about what you're hearing from the Conservative leader, David
Cameron, that there ought to be a board of inquiry in to all the events sounding - the
taking of the sailors in Iran.
TONY BLAIR: Well there will be an inquiry, the Navy always do conduct an inquiry if
their people are taken captive in that way and I'm sure as the Navy has already said, that
they will look in to it very carefully, see what lessons can be learnt. Let's not forget the
essential thing, is that fifteen of our personnel were taken capture and they were returned
safe and unharmed and let me emphasise to you there was no deal made, there was no
trade, there was no offer from us.
(App., p. 59-60, Tony Blair, 2007-04-15, ll. 338-354)
The next example is similar. Condoleezza Rice speaks about problems in the
Balkans and about her hope of solving them. I certainly hope is an assurance to the
viewers that it will really be solved. It may also be interpreted as content-oriented
uncertainty since she is not sure about the chances of solving the problem but she
does not want to admit it. Another interpretation could be that Rice wants to show
responsibility and regard for the viewers - she does not want to distress them.
Example 12
QUESTION: This is perhaps a side issue, but from what I‘ve been reading, it could
threaten to be a very big issue: Macedonia and Greece.
SECRETARY RICE: Yes.
QUESTION: Yes.
SECRETARY RICE: We have a number of people working with Matt Nimetz to try to
solve this issue. I certainly hope it gets solved, because I think it would be a pity if
something that has to do with antiquity were to get in the way of what I think is a very
important step for Macedonia and important to NATO. I think that the entry of Albania
and Croatia and Macedonia into NATO would be a stabilizing factor in the Balkans at
a time that that is needed. I think that Macedonia and Albania and Croatia have proven
their worth in being associated with a number of important security initiatives. And
Boosting and Hedging
74
I would very much hate to see this get in the way, and so I‘m hoping that both sides will be
flexible and accept Ambassador Nimetz‘s proposal when he makes it.
(App., pp. 246, Condoleezza Rice, 2008-03-27, ll. 474-487)
More examples of hedges and their pragmatic functions may be found in
Chapter 8, which discusses attenuation of the illocutionary force in greater detail.
6.4 Conclusion
This chapter described the distinction between boosting and hedging devices
in general. Several examples of boosting and hedging devices were added to illustrate
the relevant categories. At this point of the discussion, an important conclusion can
be made: the present analysis shows very clearly that linguistic means cannot
be separated from the context in which they occur. Their pragmatic function
can be specified only with respect to the context, not in isolation. That is why
some linguistic devices may be treated as boosters in one context, and the
same means may function as hedges in another.
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75
7 Intensification of the Illocutionary Force
7.1 Introduction
Drawing on the introduction to differences between hedging and boosting
devices, this chapter explores the boosting devices in the corpus of political
interviews. It provides classifications of boosters (Section 7.2) followed by an
analysis of the frequency of their occurrence in the corpus (Section 7.3). Chapter 7.4
provides a description of pragmatic functions of boosters in the corpus. It also
examines the differences between male and female politicians in the use of boosters
and their functions.
As already stated above, there are particular linguistic devices that are
employed by speakers to intensify the illocutionary force of their utterances. ―The
meaning becomes reinforced, underlined, exaggerated, explicit‖ (Urbanová 2003:66).
7.2 Classifications of Boosters
In the following sections, two classifications of accentuation devices will be
described: First, Quirk et al.‘s classification of intensifying devices, and second, the
classification of boosters according to their relationship to discourse meaning.
7.2.1 Quirk et al.’s Classification of Boosters
Quirk et al. (1985) classify intensifiers into two subsets: ―amplifiers‖ and
―downtoners‖. Amplifiers are further divided into ―maximizers‖, ―which can
denote the upper extreme of the scale, and ―boosters‖, ―which denote a high degree,
a high point on the scale‖ (Quirk et al. 1985:590). They give these examples of
maximizers: absolutely, altogether, completely, entirely, extremely, fully, perfectly, quite, thoroughly,
totally, utterly, in all respect, and the intensifying use of most. For instance:
She entirely agrees with you.
They fully appreciate our problems.
I must absolutely refuse to listen to your grumbling.
I most appreciate your kindness.
(Quirk et al. 1985:590-591)
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In the group of boosters there are, according to Quirk et al.‘s classification,
these expressions: badly, bitterly, deeply, enormously, far, greatly, heartily, highly, intensely,
much, severely, so, strongly, terribly, violently, well, a great deal, a good deal, a lot, by far,
exclamatory how, and the intensifying use of more. They give these examples:
They greatly admire his music.
He must have bitterly regretted his mistake many times.
How they suffered! [‗How much they suffered!‘]
I used to concentrate on Brahms but now I more enjoy Beethoven.
(Quirk et al. 1985:591)
As Quirk et al. add, both maximizers and boosters form open classes, new
expressions can replace older ones, thus this list is not exhaustive. Concerning the
difference between maximizers and boosters, Quirk et al. claim that ―when
maximizers are in M [medial] position, they often express a very high degree, whereas
when they are in E [end] position they are more likely to convey their absolute
meaning of extreme degree‖ (Quirk et al. 1985:591). Nevertheless, the boundaries
between these two groups are often blurred.
All the above-mentioned means defined by Quirk et al. (1985) belong to a
specific category of adverbials called ―subjuncts‖ (besides ―adjuncts‖, ―disjuncts‖ and
―conjuncts‖). These categories are defined on the basis of their syntactic features.
Other classifications (cf. Huddleston and Pullum 2002) focus predominantly on
semantic features of adverbials.
Quirk et al.‘s classification is relevant but it does not take into account the
whole utterances or their parts which may also function as boosters. It does not
explain how these devices function in context, which, actually, may not be its main
purpose. As already mentioned, the context is very important when identifying the
functions of particular boosting devices, and that is why the other classification that
relates to discourse meaning is preferred and used in this thesis. This classification is
described in the next section.
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7.2.2 Classification of Boosters by their Relationship to Discourse Meaning
According to their relationship to discourse meaning, boosters can be
classified into three groups, as suggested by Urbanová (2003:68):
hearer-oriented
speaker-oriented
discourse-organizing
Holmes (1984) suggests a similar classification but in her grouping there are
―content-oriented‖ boosters instead of ―discourse-organizing‖ boosters. There is a
difference between these two categories: content-oriented boosters strengthen the
illocutionary force of utterances either by ―commenting impersonally on the validity
of the proposition asserted‖ or by ―boosting a focal element within the proposition‖
(Holmes 1984:354). The first subclass includes impersonal epistemic modal words or
phrases which express certainty, for instance certainly, it is certain, and without doubt. The
second subgroup involves intensifying adverbs that by boosting other sentence
elements such as verbs, adverbs or adjectives increase the force of the speech act as a
whole. Holmes includes expressions like absolutely, completely, just, quite, totally, and very
to this subclass of content-oriented boosters (Holmes 1984:354).
Discourse-organizing boosters fulfil the function of emphasizing parts of the
utterance and making these parts more prominent in the context of utterance
structure. ―In this respect their function is primarily textual and cohesive‖ (Urbanová
2003:70). The classification proposed by Urbanová is more logical because lexical
items very, completely, totally, right, absolutely, certainly, pretty, strongly, etc. express and stress
speaker‟s attitude to the proposition more than orientation to the content of the
message. For this reason, Urbanová‘s classification is preferred in this thesis and the
above-mentioned devices were included in the group of speaker-oriented boosters.
In Example 13 below, boosters strongly and truly have been used to emphasize
Bush‘s attitude to the problems connected with the Iraq War and terrorist attacks.
He expresses his personal view, consequently these boosters are considered as
speaker-oriented (BSO). On the contrary, booster in other words foregrounds the
content of the utterance in which it is used, so it is included in discourse-organizing
boosters (BDO):
Intensification of the Illocutionary Force
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Example 13
COURIC: You have said we can't cut and run on more than one occasion. We have to stay
until we win. Otherwise, we'll be fighting the terrorists here at home on our own streets. So
what do you mean exactly by that, Mr. President?
BUSH: Well, I mean that a defeat in Iraq will embolden the enemy and will provide the
enemy – more opportunity to train, plan, to attack us. That's what I mean. There – it's –
you know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror.
I believe it. As I told you, Osama bin Laden believes it. But the American people – have
gotta understand that a defeat in Iraq – in other words (BDO), if this government there
fails - the terrorists will be emboldened, the radicals will topple moderate governments.
I'm worried, Katie, strongly (BSO) worried about a world if we – if – if we lose, you
know, our confidence and don't help – defeat this ideology, I'm worried that 50 years from
now they'll look back and say, "How come – Bush and everybody else didn't see the fact
that these – this group of people would use oil to affect our economy?"
Or, "How come he didn't confront the Iranian threat and its nuclear ambitions?" Or, "Why
didn't you support the moderate governments there in the region?" And – I – I truly
(BSO) believe this is the ideological struggle of the 21st century. And the consequences for
not achieving success are – are dire.
(App., p. 83, George W. Bush, 2006-09-06, ll. 275-292)
In the next example, Hazel Blears defends the policies of her political party
and uses speaker-oriented boosters absolutely and pretty, which would belong rather to
content-oriented boosters according to Holmes. However, they are used to
accentuate her opinion and conviction and therefore, they are classified as speaker-
oriented boosters. Since boosters actually and simply are used to emphasize the
content of the part of the utterance, they belong to the group of discourse-organizing
boosters.
Example 14
JON SOPEL: So you could pull, you could pull that emergency cord and say 'stop Gordon,
you can't do this'.
HAZEL BLEARS: Well I don't think our government is in the business of, of being you
know, careering ahead without thinking about all the implications, without getting it
absolutely (BSO) right. You know we've got ten years experience here and this is a bit of
a contrast between us and the Tories. We've got an experienced, mature government, who
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have had to make some pretty (BSO) tough decisions, but actually (BDO) you look
round that Cabinet table and you have got a lot of skills. And I do think that this isn't
simply (BDO) again about individuals and personalities, it's about getting the policies
absolutely (BSO) right.
(App., p. 69, Hazel Blears, 2007-02-25, ll. 154-164)
7.2.2.1 Hearer-oriented Boosters
These boosters relate to the hearer, his experience and knowledge of the
world, or ―assumed shared background information‖ (Holmes 1984:353). They place
emphasis on the importance of the utterance for the hearer. In addition, they are
utilized when the speaker expresses doubts about the validity of a particular utterance
and asks for verification (Urbanová 2003:69). Typical examples of hearer-oriented
boosters occurring in the corpus are: you know, as you know, and you see. Here, it is not
possible to mention all hearer-oriented boosters appearing in the corpus since they
constitute a very large category. Their complete list may be found on pages VIII-IX.
Below, there are several examples along with comments.
In Example 15, Larry King and John McCain discuss the chances of Hillary
Clinton becoming US president and in this connection, King asks McCain about her
work as a senator. In his explanation, McCain uses the hearer-oriented booster as you
know, which means that he relies on the background knowledge of the audience:
Example 15
KING: So fatally flawed would not be your description?
MCCAIN: Oh, no. I think we should respect our opposition and err where we have
philosophical disagreements. Americans want us to portray our vision for the future.
They're very uneasy right now, as you know, about a lot of things. And 70 percent of
American people think the country is on the wrong track. They're going to want to know
what we're going to do for them.
KING: Do you think she'll be the nominee?
MCCAIN: I don't have that kind of expertise about Democratic Party politics. But I am --
all I'm aware of is her position, strong position in the polls, as everyone else is. But I have
no insight.
(App., p. 189, John McCain, 2006-03-26, ll. 152-161)
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In Example 16 below, when discussing social problems, here concretely
differences in life expectancy in various parts of the UK, Blair uses the hearer-
oriented booster you know. It is very common that boosters anticipate the following
utterance and in this way they help the listeners to get a better orientation in
politicians‘ answers.
Example 16
JON SOPEL: But the difference in life expectancy for example, between the poorest and
the richest is widening. You know... (interjection)... You know parts of Glasgow, your -
a life expectancy of fifty three years old, East Surrey or somewhere like that, East Dorset
I think it is, you're likely to live to eighty one.
TONY BLAIR: Yeah but hang on a minute. If you go to Glasgow, I mean the areas that
people are talking about there, yes, it's true, they're areas of very very high depravation,
where you've got, building up over a long period of time, a whole set of social problems.
They are being dealt with but they'll show up in life expectancy figures, rather further down
the line. But you know, if you end up looking at life expectancy overall in the
country, I think it's risen not fallen... that's not just because of the government but
I mean...
JON SOPEL: Sure...
TONY BLAIR:... that's happening round the world.
(App., pp. 57-58, Tony Blair, 2007-04-15, ll. 238-251)
In Example 17, Condoleezza Rice turns to the listeners and emphasises her
utterance by using hearer-oriented booster but I’ll tell you, which anticipates the
following utterance and conveys to the hearers that it is something important,
something they should pay attention to. The whole of the last sentence in this extract
may also be considered as hearer-oriented because its first part but the thing about being
Secretary of State is you, frankly emphasises the rest of it, which is, in addition, stressed
by the use of another hearer-oriented booster you know.
Example 17
[...]
But I'll tell you, when you sit with, as I did recently, the provincial council in Kirkuk and
you watch this hard-hewn Kurdish provincial chairman sitting next to his new deputy
chairman who's an Arab, and you realize that neither of them really likes the fact that they
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81
have to listen to different views, but they are doing it and they're trying to come to
a solution, you think this is the only way -- a democratic system is the only way that
complex environments, complex countries, overcome differences without violence and
repression. And so, doing everything that we can to lock in the gains in Iraq. In
Afghanistan, too, but also to -- it's one of the reasons the Bucharest summit is important --
to make sure that NATO is really properly structured for the mission it's taken on. I think
those are also two very high-priority items, from my point of view and from the President's
point of view. But the thing about being Secretary of State is you, frankly, can‟t have
just a few priorities because everything keeps coming at you, you know, and you
have to deal with those as well.
(App., p. 241, Condoleezza Rice, 2008-03-27, ll. 228-241)
Hearer-oriented boosting devices that politicians use to make one part of
their messages more prominent than the other are sometimes very explicit, as one
can see in the example below. David Miliband uses the phrase to your viewers, which is
a very explicit lexical means.
Example 18
JON SOPEL: I'm joined from his constituency by the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband.
Mr Miliband, thank you very much for being with us.
First of all, can you give us your assessment of the latest figures that you're getting on the
number of people who may have died, the number of people who need help.
DAVID MILIBAND: Well, good afternoon. The message that's come back from
Rangoon, from our Ambassador there, to Douglas Alexander and to the Development
Secretary and myself overnight, paints a very grim picture which is that I would be amazed
if there haven't been about a hundred thousand people who'd died already, although,
I don't think that that is a confirmed figure.
As I say, I'd be amazed if it doesn't reach that number. But what's more, hundreds of
thousands more are at risk and a natural disaster is turning in to a humanitarian catastrophe
of genuinely epic proportions, in significant part because of what I would describe as the
malign neglect of the regime.
Now there is, it's also important to report to your viewers, that there is one other aspect
of the report from the Ambassador overnight that's important, and you'll have seen that in
the clips of aid arriving at the airport today.
(App., p. 191, David Miliband, 2008-05-11, ll. 6-21)
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From these extracts it follows that when analysing boosters, or actually any
other lexical devices, it is essential to take into account the context of these
utterances. One can also see that boosters are not only individual words but very
often, they are whole sentences or their parts.
7.2.2.2 Speaker-oriented Boosters
This type of boosters includes items which emphasize the subjectivity of
the speaker and show his/her attitude to the proposition. The categories of speaker-
oriented boosters proposed by Urbanová (2003) are relevant and appropriate and,
consequently, they have been used for a further classification of these accentuation
expressions in this thesis:
a) assurances
b) agreement/understanding-showing boosters
c) attitudinal boosters
ci) attitudinal boosters expressing the degree of certain quality
cii) attitudinal boosters expressing beliefs
Ad a) assurances
These boosters express certainty and confidence of the speaker, their
function is to increase reliability and truthfulness of the utterance meaning
(Urbanová 2003:69). These assurances appear in the corpus most frequently: I know, I
believe, I can assure you, I’m sure, I’m certain, as I say, certainly, really, of course, obviously, surely,
definitely, absolutely, and clearly. As with hearer-oriented boosters, a complete list of this
type of boosters may be found on pages IX-XIII. Below there are several examples
from the corpus for illustration. All of them express certainty of the politician who,
by using this type of booster, wants to assure the audience about the truthfulness of
his/her message.
Example 19
QUESTION: He says he's pro-American. He said France will always be by the U.S.'s side
when it needs her. But in the same breath, he also warned Washington not to block the
fight against global warming. But he campaigned and he shared the idea that he was pro-
American, perhaps more than previous administrations.
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RICE: Well, I certainly know that he has great admiration for much about this country
and I look forward to working with him on that basis. But what we share with France is we
share values. We share a belief in freedom. We share a belief in democracy. And I think it'll
be a great opportunity to now with France continue to push that forward.
But we're going to always have our differences. France is a big, important country. We're
not always going to agree on everything. I'm sure we'll find our ways to disagree. But
I really look forward to it. He's going to be, I think, a very dynamic leader for France.
(App., p. 215, Condoleezza Rice, 2007-05-07, ll. 20-32)
Assurances may be combined in one utterance, as shown in Example 20. The
speaker wants to be even more emphatic and to show a higher degree of certainty,
which has a positive effect on the viewers.
Example 20
JON SOPEL: You say you've got to listen and reflect and what you've just said sounds to
me that you already know what the British people think, so there is no need for that.
HARRIET HARMAN: Well no, I said we didn't act quickly enough in relation to the 10p
and we've got to recognize why that happened and how that happened and make sure it
doesn't happen again in the future. But we've also got to reassure people that the economic
fundamentals are sound in what we know is the difficult economic circumstances
internationally.
JON SOPEL: Are people taxed too highly?
HARRIET HARMAN: I think at a time when people are feeling the pinch then that's why
the question of the 10p was a particular problem and we have to do as much as we can to
help people who are struggling, low income families - certainly, yes of course we do.
(App., pp. 169-170, Harriet Harman, 2008-04-29, ll. 39-50)
In the next excerpt, the speaker uses a boosting phrase with the function of
assurance. It is a very explicit phrase which should also increase the reliability of the
speaker:
Example 21
JEREMY PAXMAN: Well you said of those UN resolutions and the sanctions which
followed them in the year 2000, you said that they had contained him. What's happened
since?
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TONY BLAIR: I didn't actually, I said they'd been contained him up to a point and the
fact is -
JEREMY PAXMAN: I'm sorry Prime Minister - we believe that the sanctions regime has
effectively contained Saddam Hussein in the last ten years, you said that in November
2000.
TONY BLAIR: Well I can assure you I've said every time I'm asked about this, they have
contained him up to a point and the fact is the sanctions regime was beginning to crumble,
it's why it's subsequent in fact to that quote we had a whole series of negotiations about
tightening the sanctions regime but the truth is the inspectors were put out of Iraq so -
(App., p. 3, Tony Blair, 2003-02-06, ll. 32-42)
Ad b) agreement/understanding-showing boosters
This type of boosting devices express understanding and positive stance
to the message conveyed by the speaker. Expressions showing agreement and
understanding in the corpus are these: exactly, right, yes, yeah, absolutely, it’s true, that’s
true, I (totally) agree (with you), that’s right, and fine. For their use in context, consider the
examples from the corpus below.
In the next extract, Blair has to answer several questions from the audience.
Here, the Iraq War is discussed and a female expresses her disagreement about
British active participation in this conflict. Blair tries to explain his perspective of this
problem. He expresses agreement with her but the interviewer does not entirely
believe him and attempts to get a more truthful reply:
Example 22
FEMALE: Do you not agree that most of Britain don't want us to act alone without the
United Nations, and do you not agree that it's important to get France, Germany and
Russia on board with support to help us?
TONY BLAIR: Yes I do. I agree with that. That's what I'm trying to get. So -
JEREMY PAXMAN: Why not give an undertaking that you wouldn't go to war without
their agreement.
TONY BLAIR: Because supposing one of those countries - I'm not saying this will
happen, I don't believe it will incidentally. But supposing in circumstances where there
plainly was a breach of Resolution 1441 and everyone else wished to take action, one of
them put down a veto. In those circumstances it would be unreasonable.
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(App., p. 9, Tony Blair, 2003-02-06, ll. 308-317)
In Example 23, Michael Gove confirms the statement of the interviewer by
using the agreement-showing boosters yes, exactly. In another statement, he uses
absolutely to express the same point. As one can see, absolutely may be used to express
not only assurance, as shown in the preceding section, but also agreement and the
degree of certain quality, which will be shown in section c).
Example 23
JON SOPEL: This is coming in this October.
MICHAEL GOVE: Yes, exactly.
BOTH TOGETHER
MICHAEL GOVE: We're at the stage now where we can outline broad themes and we can
outline in particular areas how we'd like to reform things in education we have, in health we
have, in welfare we have, in prisons we have. You know that delicate questions of the
precise tax rate, tax and spending questions like that, have to wait until we've actually seen
the books that we inherit. We know for example ... (interjection)
JON SOPEL: ... last October that you were going to cut inheritance tax.
MICHAEL GOVE: Absolutely. There are two specific tax changes that George Osborne
has outlined and both of them given people I think a very fair indication of what are values
are. We believe for example, on inheritance tax that it's completely unfair that people who
aren't millionaires should be punished in that way. We also made a change by making it
clear that we would lift stamp duty on those people who want to own their own homes.
(interjection) ... work hard and aspirational - we'll support.
(App., p. 156, Michael Gove, 2008-04-29, ll. 115-131)
In the extract below, the interviewer asks Condoleezza Rice about a training
for people (such as governance people, police officers, city planners, etc.) who work
abroad in countries where there is a military conflict (Iraq, Afghanistan, Kabul, etc.)
in which the USA is involved. These people work for various organizations like the
United Nations, the Civilian Response Corps or the National Guard and must have a
special type of training for this work. In her answers, Rice agrees with the interviewer
but at the same time, she does not give concrete or exhaustive replies unless asked
more directly:
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Example 24
QUESTION: Madame Secretary --
QUESTION: (Inaudible) managed, these teams you‘re talking about with legal people from
here or different --
SECRETARY RICE: Right.
QUESTION: They‘re managed by Foreign Service officers, right?
SECRETARY RICE: Yes, that‟s right.
QUESTION: Now, the problem that they‘re having is -- and you mentioned it -- it‘s
training.
SECRETARY RICE: Yes.
QUESTION: Who do you get to train them when nobody else has ever done this before?
SECRETARY RICE: Yes. Well, we have to develop the skills. The Foreign Service
Institute and the National Defense University have developed a curriculum for PRTs. They
spend six weeks training together-- the military and civilian components training together.
We will write the equivalent of the counterinsurgency doctrine that the military has, for
civilians. And it‘s -- we‘ll just have to pass it on over time.
(App., p. 243, Condoleezza Rice, 2008-03-27, ll. 335-348)
Ad c) attitudinal boosters
Ad ci) attitudinal boosters expressing the degree of certain quality
They indicate the positive or negative quality and therefore reflect ―the
attitude of the speaker towards the message‖ (Urbanová 2003:69). Attitudinal
boosters expressing the degree of certain quality that occur in the corpus are these:
very, pretty, completely, absolutely, a lot, incredibly, totally, profoundly, fundamentally, extremely,
increasingly, fully, exactly, really, and perfectly. Since this group is very numerous, below
are only several examples to illustrate how they function in context.
In Example 25, Ruth Kelly speaks about integration problems in the UK. She
uses attitudinal booster very three times to emphasize the quality of the following
adjectives and an adverb:
Example 25
JON SOPEL: Well I'm joined now by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local
Government. Ruth Kelly, welcome to the Politics Show. We saw, at the end of that report
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there from Max Cotton, a youngster wearing at T-shirt saying 'Soldier of Allah'. Born and
bred in the UK, wearing that sort of T-shirt. It sort of underlines the scale of the task.
RUTH KELLY: Well I think that is a particularly worrying sign, but I don't think that
that's the only issue that we're dealing with in the Report from the Commission on
Integration and Cohesion. One of the things I understand that they do in their report is
analyse very clearly, that each community, each town, each city in the country, faces very
different challenges.
In some that may be, as in Halifax, that the issue might be about how Muslims integrate
with non-Muslims, in others, such as Boston in Lincolnshire, a small rural towns suddenly
facing really quite strong wave of migration from the A8 European countries, who've come
here maybe on a very short time basis to work, the challenge and the nature of the
challenge is altogether different.
(App., p. 177, Ruth Kelly, 2007-06-10, ll. 8-23)
When speaking about his family, George W. Bush stresses the positive
qualities of his wife by saying that he is ―incredibly proud of her‖. He also thinks
that other people who know him and his wife must say about him that he is ―pretty
smart‖ because of choosing Laura as his wife. These two intensifiers stress the
positive quality of the adjectives used:
Example 26
SCHIEFFER: What has been the impact on your family?
PRESIDENT BUSH: We are as close to them now as we have ever been. Laura and I have
got a great relationship. There is nothing like some outside pressure to bring you closer
together. Secondly, I'm incredibly proud of her. She's a partner in this job in many ways.
The First Lady has got a big responsibility in an administration. She could help define an
administration. People look at Laura, and they could learn something about me, and when
they look at her and learn something about me, they have to say, "He's a pretty smart old
guy to pick Laura as a wife." She is--I have got a 45-second commute home, so we spend
a lot of time with each other. And our girls I'm a little hesitant to talk about them because
they don't want me to bring them out in the public arena, but they're doing just great. So,
I would say this has been very a positive experience on our family.
(App., p. 77, George W. Bush, 2006-01-27, ll. 369-380)
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In Example 27, Hazel Blears wants to refute the interviewer‘s argument
categorically, that is why she uses two boosters to emphasize one negative adjective:
Example 27
JON SOPEL: Okay, all right, you talk about hospitals and closures and all the rest of it and
the need to reorganise. You were at a key meeting in July to decide which units should
close. You're the Party Chair - what were you doing there?
HAZEL BLEARS: Well let me first of all correct you. I wasn't at a meeting to decide
which units should close. I was at a meeting, one of a, a whole series of meetings that
I hold with my colleagues right across government to think about what are the political
implication of our policies.
Part of my job is to advise the Prime Minister on policies right across government er and
these meetings are as I say, a matter of routine. There was absolutely no question of me
taking part in decisions which will be made on clinical evidence, they'll be made after
extensive consultation. They'll be considered by the Overview and Scrutiny Committees of
Local Authorities and (overlaps)
JON SOPEL: But very briefly, do you
HAZEL BLEARS: and we also have in independent Review Panel. So I think that your
allegation is absolutely, fundamentally wrong.
(App., pp. 64-65, Hazel Blears, 2006-09-17, ll. 131-145)
Ad cii) attitudinal boosters expressing beliefs
This type of boosters focuses attention on the subjectivity of the speaker.
Urbanová correctly emphasizes that ―prosodically marked expressions‖ such as I
think, I mean, and personally make the utterance highly assertive and thus they show
involvement and persuasiveness. On the contrary, ―prosodically weak tentative and
vague remarks‖, in spite of being lexically the same or similar, function as
―downtoners‖ (2003:70). Phrases such as I think and I mean may therefore increase or
decrease the force of the utterance they modify, depending on the context,
intonation pattern, and the status of the speaker in the context of utterance. As
already stated above (see Chapter 6), it is always important to consider the particular
context when determining the pragmatic function of these devices. Apart from I
think and I mean, the following phrases appear in the corpus, expressing subjectivity
of the speaker, and therefore they were included in this category: I believe, I know, my
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point is, my attitude is, in my judgement, I hope, my own view is, I guess, in my view, in my opinion,
and my belief was. Below there are several examples from the corpus that can be
judged as attitudinal boosters expressing beliefs.
Hillary Clinton wants to show her involvement by using the phrases I think
and my principal objective is which emphasize her subjective attitude to the propositions
expressed, as shown in Example 28. These phrases, which appear in the initial
position in the given utterances, also serve as emphasizers of the following messages.
Example 28
Harwood: Don‘t you owe it, as someone with a pretty good chance of becoming president,
don't you owe it to the American people what you think about some of these ideas
specifically while you're running.
Clinton: I think what I owe the American people and tell them I will not spook them and
sound the alarm over social security because that's not merited, we have time to deal with
the problems. I will deal with it in a responsible fashion and the first thing I‘ll do is move
back towards fiscal responsibility. Unless we're committed to fiscal responsibility, you can
tinker around the edges and you're still going to have presidents like president bush, who
will continue to raise the social security trust fund and for the wealthy Americans and the
war in Iraq neither of which he's paid for. My principal objective is to get back to fiscal
responsibility and I want America know I‘ll do that and I‘m talking in great length about
healthcare and Medicare because those are crisis we have to deal with now.
(App., p. 128, Hillary Clinton, 2007-10-11, ll. 128-140)
Interesting is the occurrence of the phrase in my judgment, which also belongs
to the group of speaker-oriented boosters expressing beliefs. It appears six times in
the whole corpus and it is utilized only by one speaker, namely, George W. Bush. It
may therefore be considered as an idiosyncratic feature of this speaker.
Example 29
MR. WILLIAMS: How long can you sustain the policy, though, with people so vehement
in their doubt, the Congress voting as the Congress is voting, the polls showing what
they're showing?
PRESIDENT BUSH: Yeah. Well, I'm – you know, I'm hopeful that the decision I have
made is going to yield enough results so that the Iraqi government is able to take more of
the responsibility. Listen, they want the responsibility. You've heard their prime minister
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say, we're ready to go. And in my judgment, and more importantly, the judgment of the
military folks, they're not quite ready to go. And therefore, it is in our interest to help them
with an additional 21,000 troops, particularly in Baghdad, to help bring this violence down
and to deal with these radicals, whether they be Sunni radicals or Shia radicals.
(App., p. 105, George W. Bush, 2007-01-29, ll. 124-134)
In the extract below, a high frequency of the speaker-oriented booster I think
may be noticed. Here again, it expresses subjectivity of the speaker and thus a higher
degree of involvement. In addition, there are other types of boosters that contribute
to a higher level of emotiveness of the speaker. These types are also written in bold,
the type of booster is given in brackets. Emotiveness may be regarded as a booster in
itself. In interviews, politicians use simple syntactic structures, which is a sign of
emotiveness. They do not have enough time to prepare syntactically complex
sentence structures since they must react to interviewer‘s questions immediately.
They also want to provide as much information as possible. The abbreviation BDO
means ―discourse-organizing booster‖. This type will be dealt with in the next
section.
Example 30
QUESTION: You've also been behind the call for a big diplomatic push, as well. Do you
think you can convince President Bush to go along with you and your recommendation,
the report's recommendation that Iran and Syria have to be engaged?
BLAIR: Look (BHO), I think (BSO) the key diplomatic push is on Israel-Palestine, in
my view (BSO), and I totally (BSO) welcome what the report says on that and I think
(BSO) we've got to move forward on that very (BSO) much.
I think (BSO) in relation to Iran and Syria, I think (BSO) it's more a question of us
making sure that everybody in the region understands what their responsibilities are to help
Iraq. You know (BHO), I've reached out to Syria recently and said to them, "Look, here is
the strategic choice for you," and I don't think there's any problem with doing that at all
and I don't think the president's got a problem with doing that.
The only issue is, at the moment (BDO), Iran is not helping the Iraqi government. It's
undermining the Iraqi government.
So if people are to be part of the solution, it's got to be on an agreed basis and I think, in
principle, I think it's absolutely right (BSO). You bring in all the regional neighbors in
order to support the process.
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(App., p. 33, Tony Blair, 2006-12-10, ll. 104-121)
7.2.2.3 Discourse-organizing Boosters
As already mentioned at the beginning of Section 7.2.2, these accentuation
markers serve the function of emphasizing specific parts of the message and
items of information in the particular utterance. Expressions belonging to this
category of boosters are very diverse in the corpus and it is not possible to list all of
them here. Their complete list is on pages I-VIII. They range from enumerative
conjuncts first(ly), second(ly), third(ly), one, two, finally, first of all to expressions like actually,
in fact, the point is, the trouble is, this is what I mean, in other words, by the way, frankly,
particularly, the other thing is, the question is, another thing is, on the one hand ... on the other
hand. Pseudo-cleft sentences and all instances of repetition were also included in this
group of boosters because they are ―signals of importance and weight of the message
to follow‖ (Urbanová 2003:71). As with the previous groups of boosters, this
category will also be illustrated with examples from the corpus.
In Example 31, Tony Blair used several enumerative expressions to
emphasize the parts of utterances to follow. He maybe forgot about the words he
had already said, that is why he repeated secondly instead of saying thirdly.
Example 31
JEREMY PAXMAN: But Prime Minister, this is, you say, all about a man defying the
wishes of the United Nations. You cannot have it both ways.
If one of the permanent five members of the Security Council uses its veto and you, with
your friend George Bush, decide somehow that this is unreasonable, you can't then
consider yourself absolutely free to defy the express will of the Security Council. What's it
for otherwise?
TONY BLAIR: First of all, let me make two points in relation to that. Firstly you can't
just do it with America, you have to get a majority in the Security Council.
Secondly, because the issue of a veto doesn't even arise unless you get a majority in the
Security Council. Secondly, the choice that you're then faced with is this. If the will of the
UN is the thing that is most important and I agree that it is, if there is a breach of
Resolution 1441 which is the one that we passed.
If there is a breach and we do nothing then we have flouted the will of the UN.
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(App., pp. 8-9, Tony Blair, 2003-02-06, ll. 278-291)
In the next example, Harriet Harman uses a syntactic construction in the
initial position to emphasize the following part of the utterance:
Example 32
JON SOPEL: Would you favour a system like they have in Norway or where ever it is
where you get something like 80% of your salary for the first year, would you think that
that should be a priority for legislation.
HARRIET HARMAN: I think that we do have to make a priority investing in support for
families because my view is that if you get the family part right, almost everything else is
going to follow okay and this is not just a question of the individual desperately held
preference of individual parents, it's also an economic and social imperative. The two
most important things parents want to do is they want to provide an income for their
family, and they want to bring up their children well and we've got to back them up, being
able to do both.
(App., pp. 165-166, Harriet Harman, 2007-06-17, ll. 45-54)
Example 33 is quite long but it demonstrates many instances of discourse-
organizing boosters. The first discourse-organizing booster is the phrase hard for us to
fulfilling the function of intensification by repetition, which is considered as a
discourse-organizing device because it puts more emphasis on the particular parts of
the utterance. One more instance of repetition may be found in this excerpt, namely,
the repetition of the determiner many. Then, the phrases on the one hand ... on the other
hand are used in this extract. They are utilized twice with the same function - to make
specific parts of the message more prominent than the other parts. The adverb indeed
is the last discourse-organizing booster in this extract, having the function of
emphasizing a specific part of the message.
Example 33
QUESTION: Madame Secretary, I wanted to ask a question that has absolutely nothing to
do with any other country. (Laughter.) We're pulling up on the 40th anniversary of the
assassination of Martin Luther King. And regardless of what race we were or what class we
belonged to, it was a devastating time for America, without a doubt. And there's so much
talk about race in the race for the White House. What, if any, lessons do you think
Americans, as a whole, have learned since then?
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SECRETARY RICE: Well, you know, it's -- America doesn't have an easy time dealing
with race. I sit in my office and the portrait immediately over my shoulder is Thomas
Jefferson, because he was my first predecessor. He was the first Secretary of State. And
sometimes I think to myself, what would he think -- (laughter) -- a black woman Secretary
of State as his predecessor 65 times removed -- successor, 65 times removed? What would
he think that the last two successors have been black Americans? And so, obviously, when
this country was founded, the words that were enshrined in all of our great documents and
that have been such an inspiration to people around the world, for the likes of Vaclav
Havel, associate themselves with those documents. They didn't have meaning for an
overwhelming element of our founding population. And black Americans were a founding
population. Africans and Europeans came here and founded this country together;
Europeans by choice, and Africans in chains.
And that's not a very pretty reality of our founding, and I think that particular birth defect
makes it hard for us to confront it, hard for us to talk about it, and hard for us to realize
that it has continuing relevance for who we are today. But that relevance comes in two
strains. On the one hand, there's the relevance that descendents of slaves, therefore, did
not get much of a head start. And I think you continue to see some of the effects of that.
On the other hand, the tremendous efforts of many, many, many people, some of
whom, whose names we will never know and some individuals‘ names who we do know, to
be impatient with this country for not fulfilling its own principles, has led us down a path
that has put African Americans in positions and places that, I think, nobody would have
even thought at the time that Dr. King was assassinated. And so we deal daily with this
contradiction, this paradox about America, that on the one hand, the birth defect
continues to have effects on our country, and indeed, on the discourse and effects on
perhaps the deepest thoughts that people hold; and on the other hand, the enormous
progress that has been made by the efforts of blacks and whites together, to finally fulfill
those principles.
(App., pp. 248-249, Condoleezza Rice, 2008-03-27, ll. 592-625)
This section has described and exemplified three types of boosters occurring
in the corpus. It has shown that linguistic means that may be judged as boosting
devices are very diverse and that it is important to pay attention to the context of the
message since there are means which may have different functions in different
contexts. For example, absolutely is speaker-oriented booster which may, depending
on the context, express assurance, agreement or the degree of certain quality. The
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following section will examine the frequency of hearer-oriented, speaker-oriented
and discourse-organizing boosters in the corpus.
7.3 Frequency of Boosters in the Corpus of Political Interviews
As mentioned in Chapter 5.2, boosters as intensifying devices were analysed
in the corpus of 40 political interviews conducted with British and American
politicians, out of this number 20 interviews were done with male politicians and 20
interviews were carried out with female politicians.
The total number of boosters used by politicians is 3,449, as demonstrated
in Table 3. This means that boosters significantly outnumber hedges, with only 1,320
occurrences in the corpus. (The frequency of hedges and their functions will be
described in detail in Chapter 8.) As already stated in Section 5.6, interviewers were
not included in the analysis since the number of boosting and hedging devices as
linguistic means of showing speaker‘s involvement is only about 4%, which is a very
low proportion when considering the extent of the whole corpus.
Male politicians Female politicians Total
1,872 1,577 3,449
Table 3: Frequency of Boosters
Focusing on the difference between males and females, male politicians
used 1,872 boosters and female politicians made use of 1,577 boosters.
According to this result, these devices as means of strengthening the illocutionary
force of speech acts and showing speaker‘s involvement are utilized by both sexes in
almost the same extent since the size of male and female interviews is identical.
In the following sections, the frequency of boosters classified by their
contribution to discourse meaning and occurrence of the most frequent boosters in
the corpus will be discussed.
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7.3.1 Frequency of Boosters Classified by their Contribution to Discourse Meaning
A closer analysis of particular classes of boosters reveals that the most
frequent type used in the interviews analysed is the group of speaker-oriented
boosters. They are followed by discourse-organizing boosters, and finally, the
least frequent group of boosters according to their contribution to discourse
meaning are hearer-oriented boosters. The exact numbers can be found in Table 4
and Figure 1 below.
Booster Male politicians Female politicians Total
speaker-oriented 1,017 951 1,968
discourse-organizing 613 465 1,078
hearer-oriented 242 161 403
Total 1,872 1,577 3,449
Table 4: Boosters Classified by their Contribution to Discourse Meaning
Figure 1: Boosters Classified by their Contribution to Discourse Meaning
These results indicate that politicians want to affect opinions and attitudes
of the audience by attempting to show positive attitudes to the listeners,
subjectivity of the opinion, understanding, and agreement. They aim at
persuading the audience that they are the right persons for the function they
exercise. Expressions such as I think, I mean, I know, and I’m sure indicate a high
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degree of involvement of the speaker in the interactional process. Moreover, the
speakers show that they know what is important and that is why they emphasize this
issue and thus may strengthen their position in front of the audience. The number of
both discourse-organizing and hearer-oriented boosters is considerably lower than
the group of speaker-oriented boosters. It can be explained by the fact that
politicians concentrate predominantly on strengthening their position in front of
their audience.
7.3.2 Occurrence of the Most Frequent Boosters
In this section, five boosters with the highest frequency in the corpus will be
discussed, regardless of their contribution to discourse meaning. The frequency of
other boosters is considerably lower, and that is why they were not included in the
discussion. The occurrence of the most frequent boosters is summarized in Table 5
below.
Booster Male politicians Female
politicians Total
I think 259 318 577
very 111 163 274
you know 131 105 236
really 76 106 182
I mean 108 26 134
Table 5: Five Most Frequent Boosters in the Corpus
As is obvious from the results, the first position is occupied by the speaker-
oriented booster I think by both sexes. The present analysis reveals (see Chapter 6)
that I think may function either as a booster or as a hedge in different utterances,
depending on the context. Holmes confirms this observation: ―The function of I
think as a booster has rarely been discussed, yet there are instances where, from the
point of view of a pragmatic analysis, it cannot be interpreted in any other way.
Though, semantically, forms such as I think are regarded as weakening the
propositions they modify, it is clear that in context they may function quite differently‖
(Holmes 1995:93).
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It is important to take into account not only its function in context but also
the discourse genre. Chafe (1986) and Aijmer (1997) consider I think a typical
feature of informal conversation, while Jucker (1986) considers it a characteristic of
political discourse but no agreement concerning this issue has been reached so far.
Simon-Vandenbergen‘s study has revealed that the frequent occurrence of I think in
casual conversations and in political interviews ―has to do with the nature of the
discourse, in which participants are primarily engaged in the expression of opinions‖
(2000:46).
Lexical items very and you know also belong to the most frequent boosters in
the corpus, although their frequency of occurrence is much lower compared to that
of I think. The intensifying adverb very used as a speaker-oriented booster takes up
the second position in my data as regards the frequency of distribution. It is an
attitudinal booster with the function of ―expressing the degree of a certain quality [...]
reinforcing the positive or negative quality, thus reflecting the attitude of the speaker
towards the message‖ (Urbanová 2003:69).
As with I think, you know may also function as a booster or a hedge,
depending on the context. ―Its primary function may be to signal that the speaker
attributes understanding to the listener, it may appeal to the listener‘s sympathy, or it
may function as a booster to emphasize the mutual knowledge of the participants.
[...] Alternatively, you know may be more referentially oriented: it may function
primarily as a lexical hedge to signal linguistic imprecision or mark a qualification, or
it may express uncertainty about the propositional content of an utterance‖ (Holmes
1995:87-88).
Although you know has been described as a lexical item appearing to a great
extent in informal interaction rather than in formal contexts (Holmes 1995), my data
have revealed that it is very frequent in the genre of political interview, which
belongs to the public variety of spoken language. The reason is that you know is often
used to express mutuality and solidarity among speakers, which is important in
political interviews since politicians aim at influencing their audience. You know and
other hearer-oriented boosters contribute to a better orientation of the listeners in
interaction because these boosters lay emphasis on those parts of utterance which are
significant and relevant for the hearer. This interactional function of you know has
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also been confirmed by Schiffrin (1987:295) because, according to her research, it
helps the hearer filter the story and choose the most important facts.
Really was produced 182 times in the whole corpus. It also belongs to the
group of expressions that, according to the context, may be used as a booster or a
hedge. This context-sensitivity has also been proved in this research in spite of the
fact that the use of this expression as a booster is considerably more frequent.
Finally, I mean appears 134 times in the corpus. As Table 5 shows, it belongs
to one of the most common intensifying devices used by male politicians (108
instances) whereas it is used only 26 times by female politicians in the whole corpus
of interviews. According to these results, female politicians seem to prefer I think to I
mean. Schiffrin (1987) mentions several discourse functions of I mean, in political
interviews it functions as a ―marker of salient information, i.e. as an indicator of
information which is highly relevant for interpretation of the speaker‘s overall
message‖ (Schiffrin 1987:309). Thus again, it serves as a means of emphasizing the
subjective nature of speaker‘s attitudes and his/her involvement.
7.3.2.1 Approaches to “Discourse Markers”
From the pragmatic point of view, I think, I mean and you know have been
labelled as ―discourse markers‖ (Schiffrin 1987; Blakemore 2004), ―pragmatic
particles‖ (Aijmer 1997, 2002; Holmes 1995), ―discourse signals‖ (Stenström
1989), and ―commentary pragmatic markers‖ (Fraser 1996). As Blakemore (2004)
explains, the term ―discourse marker‖ is used to ―refer to a syntactically
heterogeneous class of expressions which are distinguished by their function in
discourse and the kind of meaning they encode‖ (2004:221). Blakemore further
points out that it is not possible to give a conclusive list of all discourse markers in a
language because the research into these linguistic devices has not been completed
yet.
The term ―discourse‖ is proposed to emphasize the fact that ―these
expressions must be described at a level of discourse rather than a sentence, while
the term ―marker‖ is intended to reflect the fact that their meanings must be
analyzed in terms of what they indicate or mark rather than what they describe‖
(Blakemore 2004:221, emphasis added). What delimits discourse markers from other
discourse indicators is their ability to mark relationships between the distinct
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parts of discourse. In other words, their function is to create connectivity in
discourse (Blakemore 2004:221-222).
Stenström‘s account of pragmatic markers attempts to examine different
levels of interactional process and make a connection between grammar and
discourse by determining when devices traditionally described in grammatical terms
have a primarily interactive function and vice versa. Stenström (1989:561-562)
suggests three types of pragmatic particles:
purely interactional - particles such as oh, mhm, yeah, etc. which do not function
as clause elements
mainly interactional - items whose primary function is that of pragmatic
devices but at the same time they may be used as clause elements in some
contexts (I see, I mean, you know, well, OK, etc.)
also interactional - diverse classes of adverbials which are used as interactional
or strategic devices (anyway, in fact, of course, maybe, really, certainly, etc.)
Stenström‘s classification as an interesting attempt to link grammar with
discourse, however, the categories she has proposed are too broad and vaguely
delimited to be used in my research. The boundary between ―mainly interactional‖
and ―also interactional‖ types of pragmatic particles is vague as it is difficult to
determine the reason why a particular particle was used - if it was a strategic device
or if it was a clause element without a specific discourse function.
Another approach to discourse markers has been proposed by Fraser (1990,
1996) who has determined four subclasses of pragmatic markers. Fraser (1996)
declares that sentence meaning may be divided into two separate parts. On the one
hand, there is the propositional content of the sentence, which ―represents a state
of the world which the speaker wishes to bring to the addressee‘s attention‖
(1996:167), on the other hand, there is the non-propositional part of the sentence,
which can be analyzed into pragmatic markers. These are defined by Fraser as the
―linguistically encoded clues which signal the speaker‘s potential communicative
intentions‖ (1996:168). Pragmatic markers may have the form of a single word, a
phrase, a clause or a particle.
Fraser‘s definition of a pragmatic marker is adequate for this research since it
implies that the speaker may have various communicative aims which s/he
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100
demonstrates by the use of various linguistic means. Utilizing various pragmatic
markers, the speaker may show his/her degree of involvement in interaction. As
Fraser quite correctly emphasises, pragmatic markers are not restricted only to one-
word expressions, but also whole clauses may function as pragmatic markers. This
broader approach to pragmatic markers, which is missing from Stenström‘s
classification, is also taken in this thesis.
The four different subclasses of pragmatic markers defined by Fraser are as
follows:
basic markers indicate the force of the basic message (forms such as I regret or
admittedly belong to this group)
commentary markers ―provide a comment on the basic message‖ (1996:168)
(e.g. frankly, stupidly)
parallel markers ―signal an entire message separate from the basic and any
commentary messages‖ (1996:168) (e.g. damn)
discourse markers show the relationship of the basic message to the previous
part of discourse (e.g. but, so, incidentally, etc.)
Each of these four subclasses may be further divided into more specific
groups of markers (see Fraser 1996). These specific groups of markers do not have
any relevance for my research because they do not appear in political interviews
under investigation. These markers are restricted to different types of discourse, for
example, performative expressions occur in institutional types of discourse, message
idioms can be found in informal language, etc.
Blakemore (2004:223) correctly objects to this classification by pointing out
that it is based on the ―unexplained distinction between content or descriptive
meaning and meaning which is signaled or indicated: an expression which functions
as an indicator (or marker) or does so simply on the grounds that it does not
contribute to ‗content‘.‖ Further, she adds that a reference to Grice‘s conventional
implicature (1989) would be appropriate because it can be regarded as the first
attempt to define non-truth-conditional meaning more precisely.
After a description of the frequency of occurrence of boosters in the corpus,
pragmatic functions of boosters in the corpus will now be discussed in greater detail.
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7.4 Pragmatic Functions of Boosters
As mentioned in the previous sections of this study, boosters may serve
various pragmatic functions in political interviews. In general, it can be stated that
these functions are connected with the genre of political interview as such. Thus, the
pragmatic functions of boosters in informal conversations may be different from
those in political interviews.
Urbanová (2003:72-73) distinguishes these functions of boosters:
empathizers/emphasizers
assurances
markers of agreement/understanding
markers of the degree of a certain quality
subjectivity of judgment and opinion
markers of topicalization
Seven functions of boosters were identified in the corpus, which are
summarized in Table 6 and Figure 2 below, together with the frequency of their
occurrence. As can be seen, the functions of assurance, agreement, subjectivity, and
the degree of a certain quality were taken over from Urbanová, while content-
oriented emphasis, hearer-oriented emphasis and intensification by repetition were
newly introduced.
Function Male Politicians Female Politicians Total
content-oriented emphasis
540 383 923
subjectivity 436 387 823
degree of quality 197 228 425
assurance 219 202 421
intensification by repetition
187 191 378
hearer-oriented emphasis
222 148 370
agreement 71 38 109
Table 6: Frequency of Boosters by Function
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Figure 2: Frequency of Boosters by Function
As indicated in Table 6 above, the most frequent function of boosters is
content-oriented emphasis with 923 occurrences, the second most frequent
function is subjectivity with 823 instances, and the third most frequent function is
expressing the degree of a certain quality which appears 425 times. Assurance is
almost as frequent as the degree of a certain quality (421 occurrences).
Intensification by repetition and hearer-oriented emphasis have nearly the same
frequency of occurrence, there is only an insignificant difference of 8 instances.
Agreement is with 109 appearances the least frequent function in the corpus.
In the following sections, a qualitative analysis of all functions of boosters in
the corpus will be given. Since the functions of boosters may be expressed by many
various means, it is not possible to give a complete list below, therefore, only several
expressions on the basis of their frequency were chosen. The list of all boosters
appearing in the corpus may be found on pages I-XIII. All boosters are emphasised
by double underline in the appendix of this thesis, with their categories and
abbreviations of functions written in brackets (the list of all abbreviations and
symbols used in the appendix can be found in the appendix of this thesis).
For example:
I think (BSO, Subj.) = I think is a speaker-oriented booster, its function is subjectivity
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
C.-o. emphasis
subjectivity degree of quality
assurance intens. by repetition
H.-o. emphasis
agreement
Male Politicians
Female Politicians
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7.4.1 Content-oriented Emphasis
Male Politicians Female Politicians Total
540 383 923
Table 7: Content-oriented Emphasis
The quantitative analysis of boosters reveals that their most frequent function
in the corpus is content-oriented emphasis. The highest frequency of occurrence of
this function may be interpreted as an effort of politicians to make specific parts
of their utterances more prominent than the others, which makes the message
more comprehensible and accessible to the listeners. When using enumerators
firstly, secondly, thirdly, the reply is more clearly structured and this arrangement tells the
listeners what to concentrate on.
Male politicians have used more means expressing this function than females.
It is also interesting that the most frequent function used by female politicians is not
content-oriented emphasis but subjectivity, even if the difference between these two
functions is very slight. From this it may be concluded that male politicians
concentrate more on the content of their messages than their female counterparts,
who prefer presentation of their own standpoints.
I have coined the term ―content-oriented emphasis‖ because linguistic means
used to express this function relate more to the content of the message rather than to
the participants of the interviews. It is expressed by dicourse-oriented boosters first of
all, first(ly), second(ly), third(ly), in other words, by the way, frankly, particularly, on the one hand
... on the other hand, the question is, the other thing is, what’s interesting is that, the answer is, the
problem is, to be frank, in part, after all, etc. Content-oriented emphasis is illustrated
below by several examples from the corpus.
Example 34
SCHIEFFER: Let's talk about energy independence. We remain, any way you cut it,
dependent on foreign oil. I know you want to open up the Arctic wildlife preserve for
drilling, but aren't we going to have to do more than that? And I just want to bring up one
thing. Tom Friedman, the columnist in the New York Times, had a column today, and he
said putting on a huge gas tax is the only way to really get Detroit's attention and get them
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to making other kinds of cars, and he said the only way to cause people to change their
ways. He says you have to change the culture. What's your reaction to that?
PRESIDENT BUSH: First of all, I'm against a huge gas tax. Secondly, I agree with Mr.
Friedman that we have got to become independent from foreign sources of oil. In other
words, we have got to wean ourselves off hydrocarbons, oil. And the best way, in my
judgment, to do it is to promote and actively advance new technologies so that we can
drive--have different driving habits. For example, there is--I'm a little hesitant because
I don't want to tell you what's in the State of the Union, let me put it to you that way.
(App., p. 75, George W. Bush, 2006-01-27, ll. 259-272)
In Example 34 above, George W. Bush wants to make his statements and
opinions more prominent, that is why he uses these enumerators to stress them.
When using these expressions, the speaker may order his thoughts better and also
provides better orientation for the listeners. The same applies to Example 35 below:
Example 35
MR. RUSSERT: Viewers can read the transcript from November 11 when I did talk to
Senator Obama about this. He also added that from his vantage point, the administration
had not made the case, but let people read it and make up their own minds.
I want to stay with your vote because that same day, Senator Levin offered an amendment,
the Levin amendment, and this is how the New York Times reported it. "The [Levin]
amendment called ... for the U.N. to pass a new resolution explicitly approving the use of
force against Iraq. It also required the president to return to Congress if his U.N. efforts
failed." ... Senator Levin said, "Allow Congress to vote only after exhausting all options
with the United States." You did not participate in that vote. You voted against Carl Levin,
who was saying give diplomacy a chance and yet you said no. You voted to authorize war.
The resolution you voted for, Robert Byrd said was a blank check for George Bush. Ted
Kennedy says it was a vote for war. James Carville and Paul Begala said anyone who says
that vote wasn't a vote for war is bunk.
SEN. CLINTON: Well, Tim, if I had a lot of paper in front of me, I could quote people
who say something very differently, so I know you're very good at this and I respect it, but
let's look at the context here. Number one, the Levin amendment, in my view, gave the
Security Council of the United Nations a veto over American presidential power. I don't
believe that is an appropriate policy for the United States, no matter who is our president.
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Number two, I have the greatest respect for Senator Levin. He is my chairman on the
Senate Armed Services Committee. And I--immediately after we did have the vote on the
authorization, went to work with him to try to make sure that every piece of intelligence we
had was given to the U.N. inspectors. And Senator Levin and I sent a letter to Secretary
Powell, we pushed that position very hard because we both had the same view that we
were going to put inspectors back in and we needed to let the inspectors do the job that
they were asked to do.
Number three, I actually joined with Senator Byrd on an amendment that would limit the
president's authorization to one year. I was very strongly in favor of limiting what President
Bush could do. Unfortunately, that amendment did not pass.
Fourth, it is absolutely unfair to say that the vote as Chuck Hagel, who was one of the
architects of the resolution, has said, was a vote for war. It was a vote to use the threat of
force against Saddam Hussein, who never did anything without being made to do so.
(App., pp. 136-137, Hillary Clinton, 2008-01-13, ll. 384-416)
In Example 36, the speaker wants to gain distance from her statement and
does not want to be responsible for it, therefore, she uses an emphasizing phrase and
also the name of another politician. The adverb frankly is also a sign of detachment
from the proposition.
Example 36
JON SOPEL: Yes but at the moment you're not saying that the code for admissions
should be statutory. Will you introduce a statutory code of practice for admissions?
JACQUI SMITH: No, what we're saying very clearly, Ruth Kelly said it very clearly
is, that this, there is nothing in here that is about re-introducing selection by the back door,
the front door or any other door and frankly, that's a, that is a side issue.
I know that my colleagues are concerned about admissions, that's because they share my
passion to make sure that every child gets the chance to make progress, that we push all
schools to be as good as they can do and that's why we spell out in the White Paper how
we support you know ...
(App., pp. 252-253, Jacqui Smith, 2005-11-27, ll. 40-48)
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7.4.2 Subjectivity
Male politicians Female politicians Total
436 387 823
Table 8: Subjectivity
Subjectivity is the second most frequent function of boosters in the
interviews. Concerning this function, the difference between male and female
politicians is not substantial. As already stated in the previous section, this function is
the most frequently used by female politicians. The high degree of subjectivity in the
analysed interviews shows that politicians concentrate on presenting their own
opinions and attitudes as correct and positive ones, they try to influence their
audience by emphasizing these views. They aim at sounding trustworthy and
honest in front of their audience and in this way they want to influence their
opinions. By employing these means, they also aim at justifying their position in
front of the audience.
Subjectivity of the speaker‘s opinion is expressed by the pragmatic particles I
think, I mean, I guess, I hope, I believe, and further by phrases in my view, in my opinion, my
point is, in my judgment, as far as I’m concerned, my attitude is, my view of this is. All these
means belong to the category of speaker-oriented boosters, whose complete list may
be found on pages IX-XIII.
Subjectivity may also be expressed by longer emphasizing phrases, as shown
in Example 37 (the phrase I believe that -- the thing I was most concerned about, frankly) and
in Example 38 (One of the things I think we need to do is) below. In both examples, there
are more boosters expressing subjectivity than the phrases mentioned so they are
also highlighted in bold.
Example 37
QUESTION: Well, I think the suggestion in the story is not that you‘re at fault, but maybe
the victim. I mean, do you feel that you‘re been a little bit victimized either on the price, or
do you have any concerns about security?
SECRETARY RICE: I believe that -- the thing I was most concerned about, frankly,
is the security side. And on that, the people who I rely on to make certain that the security
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measures are taken tell me that they are comfortable with the security measures that we
take. In terms of price, you know, we‘ll just have to look into that. But I hope the GPO is
giving us the best deal that they can.
(App., p. 239, Condoleezza Rice, 2008-03-27, ll. 103-110)
Example 38
Steve Richards
So how the heck can a government ensure such a target is reached? I mean, the private
sector decides how much so and so earns if they work in the private sector. How would
that target be met?
Harriet Harman
Well I think it has to be looked at by ministers across government. One of the things I
think we need to do is to have a legal requirement for a gender pay audit in the private
sector as well as the public sector. You can‘t tackle entrenched discrimination in pay if it‘s
hidden. The other thing is to look at how the public sector contributes to unequal pay. One
of the effects of contracting out catering and cleaning from the NHS and contracting out
homecare services from local authority social services, one of the effects has been to
actually see pay fall amongst mostly women workers. So I think we should take a look at
that. I think there‘s a lot we can do about it. The point about setting a target is you say
‗Right, this has been going on long enough. This matters. We care about it. We‘re going to
set a target and sort it out.‘
(App., p. 162, Harriet Harman, 2007-06-15, ll. 84-99)
In the following example, boosters in bold express the subjective attitude of
the speaker, which again is a sign of involvement. She tries to influence the listeners
and present her views as correct ones.
Example 39
MR. RUSSERT: Let me, let me ask you this way. Doris Kearns Goodwin, presidential
historian, I talked to her and she's been on MEET THE PRESS, talked about the qualities
in a president. And she said one of the most important is that you learn from mistakes.
Looking back on your vote in October of 2002, what can you learn from that mistake, the
way you'll make decisions in the future?
SEN. CLINTON: Well, I have said that obviously, I would never do again what George
Bush did with that vote. He misused and abused the authority that was given to him, in my
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opinion. And we can't turn the clock back. I've taken responsibility for it. It was a sincere
vote at the time, based on my assessment of, number one, what the potential, you know,
risks might be if left unchecked, given the problems that we were facing in the world with
global terrorism, and the hope that we would get inspectors back in to figure out what had
been going on since '98. We hadn't had inspectors since '98. I, I would not have given
President Bush the authority if I knew he would deliberately misuse and abuse it. And as
I said, I was told by the White House personally that the point of the authority was to
send a very clear message to Saddam Hussein that he was going to have to be held
accountable finally, that we would know once and for all what he had there that could be
used as he had used it in the past.
(App., p. 138, Hillary Clinton, 2008-01-13, ll. 460-477)
In Example 40, there are a lot of means of subjectivity and again, not only
pragmatic particles I think, I mean or I hope but also emphasizing phrases. There are
more examples of I think, not only those in bold. Instances which are not highlighted
in bold are hedges, which will be dealt with later (see Chapter 8).
Example 40
JEREMY PAXMAN: Yes, an unreasonable veto, as you put it. But if that happened, would
you be prepared to go to war despite the fact that apparently the majority of people in this
country would not be with you?
TONY BLAIR: Well you can only go, obviously, with the support of parliament but
I think that if you do get to a situation where the inspectors say, look we can't do, you
know, Saddam's not cooperating with us, we can't do this through inspections and there
wasn't just the United States and Britain but other countries too were supporting us in that
view, so you had a majority of countries in the UN Security Council, I think that would be,
I think that would make a difference to people.
And I also think that as, as more emerges about the nature of this regime, as well, I think
people, at least I hope they can realise why it is not safe to allow a regime such as this the
freedom to develop these weapons.
I understand it is not an easy task because I think the very first point that Jeremy was
making to me is the point that is most difficult for people, what is, you know, why now
are we suddenly doing this?
And my answer to that is actually this does have a long history to it and I think the one
thing that has changed my thinking about these issues, in relation to the 11th of
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September, is that, you know, I keep having this mental picture in my mind of August
2001 and coming along to people and saying there's this terrorist organisation in
Afghanistan, they are evil people who will try and mount major terrorist attacks on our
country, we've got to go into Afghanistan and deal with them.
I think people would have said to me, you know you must be crackers what on earth are
you on about. I mean people wouldn't have even have heard of who al-Qaeda was but
a month later it happened.
(App., p. 19, Tony Blair, 2003-02-06, ll. 775-799)
7.4.3 The Degree of a Certain Quality
Male politicians Female politicians Total
197 228 425
Table 9: The Degree of a Certain Quality
The degree of a certain quality, the next function expressed by boosting
devices, is close to the function of assurance with respect to the frequency of
occurrence (assurance occurs 421 times). It appears 425 times in the whole corpus.
Its distribution is slightly higher in female speakers. Adverbs very, really, pretty,
completely, absolutely, extremely, fundamentally, incredibly, profoundly, strongly, fully, totally, and
perfectly are used to fulfil this function in the corpus. These boosters belong to the
category of speaker-oriented, which means that they foreground a positive or
negative quality of the following expression and in this way, they show the
attitude of the speaker to the proposition expressed. Several examples of this
function may be found below:
Example 41
KING: Why is he wrong?
MCCAIN: Well, conventional thinking, obviously, was that we faced a threat that -- of
weapons of mass destruction. The intelligence was wrong. But the majority of Americans
supported that decision.
It was very badly mishandled by Rumsfeld and others, and we paid a very heavy price for
that. I complained bitterly about that failed strategy and I fought for the strategy that is
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now succeeding. And we've got a good general and we've got a good strategy and we are
succeeding..
(App., p. 187, John McCain, 2007-08-16, ll. 65-72)
In Example 41 above, the speaker uses very to emphasize negative qualities of
issues mentioned in the following parts of utterances. This use reflects his opposing
attitude to the Iraq War and foreign policy. By contrast, Example 42 demonstrates
highlighting a positive quality of the following adjective. David Miliband describes
and stresses positive qualities of Gordon Brown, ex-Prime Minister of the UK,
which he thinks is important for the listeners.
Example 42
JON SOPEL: Okay, let people draw their own conclusions about that. But another piece
of honest communications now. John Prescott says that Gordon Brown is "frustrating,
annoying, bewildering and prickly and could go off like a bloody volcano". Is that the
Gordon you know.
DAVID MILIBAND: No. I mean I don't do book reviews I'm afraid Jon, and so I haven't
read John Prescott's book. I work with Gordon Brown most days of the week. He's
someone who's absolutely passionate about the values that he believes in. He's clear about
the goals that we're pursuing and yes, as he said last week, he does get in to the detail but
that's important.
You need a Prime Minister who is able to have command of the detail, as well as the bigger
picture and so I don't recognize the portrait that John Prescott has set out and that's why
I think the government has to get on with the job, because what's fatal in politics, is if you
forget what you're actually meant to be doing, which is working on behalf of the people
who've elected you.
(App., pp. 193-194, David Miliband, 2008-05-11, ll. 142-154)
Hazel Blears uses speaker-oriented boosters really and pretty to accentuate
both positive and negative qualities of the adjectives to follow. A really good record
and pretty successful is an emphasis of positive qualities, really dangerous and a pretty
dim view is an emphasis of negative qualities. Again, the use of these boosters reflects
her attitude to the issues expressed.
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Example 43
JON SOPEL: I don't want to get hung up on the titles, but there was a time when a
Labour person would have been thrilled to be described as Blairite, because it - you know
they were being associated with the winning team. I just wonder whether it is seen a bit
more maybe as a handicap now?
HAZEL BLEARS: Well I, I think it's really dangerous erm if we actually distance
ourselves from what we've been doing over the last ten years.
If you think about it, in America, Al Gore kind of tried to put a bit of distance between
himself and Clinton and what people did was they voted for George Bush. What I don't
want us to do is to distance ourselves from all the good things that we've done over the last
ten years, because I do think we've got a really good record.
Because my concern is that people then might, you know, see David Cameron and his
Tories, as a bit more interesting. If people think that we're saying, well, we didn't get it all
right, then I think they'll take a pretty dim view of us. I mean we, we haven't got
everything right, but I think overall the record on health, on education, on tackling crime,
all of that is pretty successful.
(App., pp. 66-67, Hazel Blears, 2007-02-25, ll. 31-48)
7.4.4 Assurance
Male politicians Female politicians Total
219 202 421
Table 10: Assurance
Boosters expressing assurance appear in the corpus quite frequently but their
occurrence is about half that of content-oriented emphasis or subjectivity. As already
stated in Section 7.3.1, the frequency of occurrence is almost the same as that of the
degree of a certain quality. 421 instances of this function were produced in the whole
corpus. As shown in Table 10, male politicians used the function of assurance a little
more frequently than women.
Intensifying devices utilized by speakers to express assurance are these
expressions: I’m sure, it’s my honest belief, I am absolutely certain, I can assure you, really, of
course, obviously, absolutely, I (truly) believe, but one thing is for certain, I strongly believe, definitely,
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and clearly. All expressions are speaker-oriented boosters because the speaker wants
to show certainty and confidence about his/her claims. As already stated, the
occurrence of this function is about half that of content-oriented emphasis or
subjectivity. My explanation is that politicians do not show much assurance because
they want to save face in front of their audience in case their claims later prove to
be untrue. They do not want to be accused of lying. Examples from the corpus to
exemplify this category follow.
In Example 44, George W. Bush assures the audience of cooperation with
allies of the USA in the Iraq War. He presents his personal views and certainty about
his assertions, and that is why speaker-oriented boosters certainly and of course are used.
Example 44
SCHIEFFER: Well, let me ask you: If they continue to insist that they're going to do it in
their country, Senator Clinton, for example, who seems closer to your policy on Iraq than
to some in her own party, is already saying sanctions now. Do you think sanctions would
work against Iran?
PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, first of all, we have already sanctioned Iran. The United States
Government has got sanctions in place on Iran. I think probably what she is referring to is
whether or not we should refer Iran to the United Nations Security Council. I have said
that is certainly a very--a real possibility, and that once we are in the Security Council, of
course, that's one of the options, but we are going to work with our friends and allies to
make sure that when we get in the Security Council, we will have an effective response.
(App., p. 71, George W. Bush, 2006-01-27, ll. 67-78)
Similarly in Example 45, Blair wants to persuade his viewers about his
confidence in the British Navy in Iraq. He wants to assure them that he knows that
the situation is difficult.
Example 45
JON SOPEL: And what about what you're hearing from the Conservative leader, David
Cameron, that there ought to be a board of inquiry in to all the events sounding - the
taking of the sailors in Iran.
TONY BLAIR: Well there will be an inquiry, the Navy always do conduct an inquiry if
their people are taken captive in that way and I'm sure as the Navy has already said,
that they will look in to it very carefully, see what lessons can be learnt. Let's not forget the
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essential thing, is that fifteen of our personnel were taken capture and they were returned
safe and unharmed and let me emphasise to you there was no deal made, there was no
trade, there was no offer from us.
We got them back without any deal at all and we got them back safe and that was the
priority we had throughout. And it's obviously a very difficult time for the Navy, a very
traumatic time for the people concerned, but the important thing is that we did get them
back.
(App., p. 60, Tony Blair, 2007-04-15, ll. 345-358)
In the following extract, David Cameron assures the viewers of his attitude to
the family and marriage by using the phrase that’s what I believe which stresses his
certainty about this proposition:
Example 46
JON SOPEL: Okay, but your family policies ... this is poll-driven isn't it because you found
out that the people when they've started a family, tend to move away from the
Conservative Party. We've heard about all this polling data you've got and suddenly we get
a speech on the family.
DAVID CAMERON: No, not at all. If you look at what I said you know since running for
Leader of the Party, I put the family absolutely front and centre. In fact some of the things
I've said like Bac... are unpopular with some people, they say, oh you're going to put a lot
of people off. In the end, you've got to say what you believe. I happen to believe marriage
is really important and I think we should back it and if people don't agree with me, when
I'm sorry, that's my view.
That's what I believe. So this is not about polling ... it's about what I would bring to
politics, my vision of what a good society is and how we try and build it and in the end ...
I think in politics all you can do is put yourself forward, say what you believe. Tell people
what you're passionate about and then they'll make their minds up.
(App., p. 120, David Cameron, 2008-03-16, ll. 216-230)
7.4.5 Intensification by Repetition
Male politicians Female politicians Total
187 191 378
Table 11: Intensification by Repetition
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This function appears 378 times in the corpus. As with the previous function
of assurance, there is an insignificant difference in the occurrence of this function
between the male and female speakers. Repetition of linguistic forms contributes to
stronger emphasis of the claims made by the speaker. Discourse-oriented
boosters are the most frequent category of boosters having the function of
intensification by repetition, in concrete terms, they appear in 229 cases. This
function is also expressed by speaker-oriented boosters (132 times) and by hearer-
oriented boosters (17 occurrences). For a better illustration, these examples form the
corpus were chosen:
Example 47
BLITZER: Even as we speak right now, there are reports he might be released. He might
be declared insane, not capable of withstanding a trial. What's the latest information you
have from the government of Afghanistan?
RICE: Well, I've seen reports, Wolf, but I'm really working from largely press reports, too,
that they may dismiss the case for reasons having to do with the judicial nature of the case.
We have to understand -- and we do want a favorable resolution of this. Mr. Rahman
should not face these charges. There should be a resolution of this case. But this is also
a young democracy, and we have to recognize that, unlike the Taliban, it actually has
a constitution to which one can appeal about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
We as Americans know that in democracy, as it evolves, there are difficult issues about
state and church, or in this case, state and mosque. But there are difficult issues about
the rights of the individual.
And so we expect that, given our own history, that we would know that Afghans are going
to have to go through this evolution. But we're going to stand firm for the principle that
religious freedom and freedom of religious conscience need to be upheld, and we are
hoping for a favorable resolution in this case very soon.
(App., p. 199, Condoleezza Rice, 2006-03-26, ll. 31-47)
In Example 48, discourse-oriented booster good for is repeated to emphasise
the problems with democracy, the stress is put on the content of the message.
Intensification of the Illocutionary Force
115
Example 48
JON SOPEL: What happens if Prime Minister Cameron, two years in to office, finds that
the chocolate bars are still at the front of the supermarket at the check out. Will you
legislate then.
DAVID CAMERON: Well let's take a good example where you know, parents are very
worried by advertising on television to children. You know, what you should be doing as
a government is trying to get business to face up to its responsibilities and behave
responsibly and if that doesn't work then there is always the threat of regulation and
legislation at the end of it. But I think it's much stronger if you try to get business to accept
their responsibilities, which they're not doing. Take climate change... actually, you know,
Marks & Spencer... (interjection)
BOTH TOGETHER
DAVID CAMERON: ... it's a very short point. Marks & Spencer and Tesco and others are
doing more than the government is asking them to because they think it's actually good for
them and good for their business, good for their customers and the rest of it. So don't
think that business is just out to make money and doesn't care about its responsibilities, it
does. And we really are beginning to see that.
(App., p. 118, David Cameron, 2008-03-16, ll. 129-145)
Repeating the speaker-oriented booster I think we will make gains, the speaker
emphasises his attitude towards the message, so the focus is predominantly on the
speaker, not on the content of the message as such:
Example 49
JON SOPEL: Okay, so you talked about that change then, give it ' you heard what we were
saying with John Sergeant a moment ago, how many gains are you going to make.
WILLIAM HAGUE: That's not a game I'm going to get in to of how many gains are we
going to make and it's a complex set of elections, as John Sergeant was quite rightly
pointing out. I think we will make gains and I think we'll make gains in many parts of
the North of England as well as in the South. In parts of the South of course, there are no
Labour seats left to gain, which further complicates interpreting the election results. But,
no I, we are optimistic about Thursday night, we're getting very good canvassing returns
and in particular, as I say, we're getting them here in many parts of the North of England
and I think that it will be a very important advance.
(App., p. 159, William Hague, 2008-04-27, ll. 49-59)
Intensification of the Illocutionary Force
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7.4.6 Hearer-oriented Emphasis
Male politicians Female politicians Total
222 148 370
Table 12: Hearer-oriented Emphasis
The function which I termed ―hearer-oriented emphasis‖ belongs to the least
frequent functions in the corpus, although there is an insignificant difference of only
8 expressions when compared to intensification by repetition. It appears 370 times in
the corpus; male politicians used linguistic means that express this function more
frequently than females. It is represented by hearer-oriented boosters you know, you
see, look, listen, as you said, let me emphasise to you, let me repeat to you, and as you know. As
the designation of the function suggests, these forms direct attention to the hearer
and emphasise relevant parts of the message, which allows the hearer to
concentrate on the speaker‘s utterances. ―They can also question the validity of the
given utterance, asking indirectly for its confirmation‖ (Urbanová 2003:69).
Turning the attention to the hearer and stressing the important parts of the
message is demonstrated in Example 50 below. Theresa May uses hearer-oriented
booster look because she wants to emphasise her message and at the same time she
wants to have the attention of her listeners:
Example 50
JON SOPEL: You suggested to the Speaker that you shouldn't be there because you
shouldn't be deciding these issues yourself.
THERESA MAY: But look. The position is that the House of Commons has to decide
ultimately, what the procedure is going to be for deciding the allowance. I think it's right
that we look at this issue at the moment but that we take in outside expertise and certainly
as the Speaker has recently - he made an announcement to MPs about how this was
progressing, it will include for example talking to people on the committee on standards in
public life, understanding their views as to what parliament should be doing.
(App., p. 184, Theresa May, 2008-03-09, ll. 132-140)
In the following excerpt, Hillary Clinton asks indirectly for confirmation of
her utterance, using hearer-oriented booster as you well know, you know. She puts more
Intensification of the Illocutionary Force
117
emphasis on her message because she is not certain about her listeners‘ knowledge.
You know occurring in the first utterance is not highlighted since it is a hedge with a
different function.
Example 51
MR. RUSSERT: If you don't think Senator Obama is ready to be president, then he
wouldn't be ready for vice president.
SEN. CLINTON: Well, you know, I'm not--you're once again taking words I didn't say.
I'm asking people to compare and contrast our records. I believe that we need a president
ready on day one. I'm putting forth my qualifications, my experience, my 35 years of
proven, tested leadership, sometimes, as you well know, you know, walking through the
fires, being prepared to take on whatever the Republicans send our way. I want people to
make an informed decision. Look, I trust voters. Voters decide on whatever basis they
think is important to them. I just want them to have a full range of information to make
that decision.
(App., pp. 133-134, Hillary Clinton, 2008-01-13, ll. 248-257)
In Example 52, when making use of the hearer-oriented phrase let me
emphasise to you, Tony Blair stresses his point very strongly and turns to the hearer
very explicitly. After this phrase, repetition of a part of the utterance follows (there was
no ...), which is another means of showing emphasis.
Example 52
JON SOPEL: And what about what you're hearing from the Conservative leader, David
Cameron, that there ought to be a board of inquiry in to all the events sounding - the
taking of the sailors in Iran.
TONY BLAIR: Well there will be an inquiry, the Navy always do conduct an inquiry if
their people are taken captive in that way and I'm sure as the Navy has already said, that
they will look in to it very carefully, see what lessons can be learnt. Let's not forget the
essential thing, is that fifteen of our personnel were taken capture and they were returned
safe and unharmed and let me emphasise to you there was no deal made, there was no
trade, there was no offer from us.
We got them back without any deal at all and we got them back safe and that was the
priority we had throughout. And it's obviously a very difficult time for the Navy, a very
Intensification of the Illocutionary Force
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traumatic time for the people concerned, but the important thing is that we did get them
back.
(App., p. 60, Tony Blair, 2007-04-15, ll. 345-358)
7.4.7 Agreement
Male politicians Female politicians Total
71 38 109
Table 13: Agreement
The least frequent function in the corpus is agreement. It appears only 109
times in the whole corpus, with a low frequency of occurrence especially in female
politicians. It is indicated by the use of speaker-oriented boosters right, rightly,
absolutely, as you rightly say/imply, I (totally) agree (with you), exactly, it’s true, that’s right, yes,
and yeah. They are used more recurrently in informal conversation. The reason is that
in the genre of political interview, the interviewer usually asks challenging and
controversial questions which s/he assumes the interviewee may not like. The
politician will have to explain and vindicate his points of view, which may be
attractive for the audience. This challenging style of communication explains the rare
use of agreement in political interviews.
In Example 53, William Hague shows his agreement with the policy of
Gordon Brown and David Miliband concerning the situation in Zimbabwe. This
agreement is further stressed by the booster fully.
Example 53
JON SOPEL: To a much more serious subject if you don't mind me describing it in that
way. The situation in Zimbabwe. The government at the start, the British government seem
to have a rather softly softly approach, it then became slightly more belligerent. Do you
think that the British government has been sending mixed messages over the elections in
Zimbabwe.
WILLIAM HAGUE: They did have a softly softly approach to begin with but I fully
agree with what Gordon Brown and David Miliband have said over the last couple of
weeks. I think it's very important that Britain helps to focus international attention on the
outrages that are taking place now in Zimbabwe, so I don't want to get in to criticizing the
Intensification of the Illocutionary Force
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government on this. I think there are one or two additional things they could do that would
send an even clearer message.
For instance I think more can be done now to prepare for the day after Mugabe, to get
ready and to show the people of Zimbabwe that the world is ready to welcome them, to
help them when they are set on a path to democracy and to respecting the rights of all the
people of Zimbabwe. So I think we could do more on that side. But I don't think they're
sending mixed messages, I think they've been saying the right things over the last two
weeks.
(App., p. 159, William Hague, 2008-04-27, ll. 78-93)
In the following extract, Michael Gove reacts to the interviewer‘s question
specifying the date of raising the tax on fuel and confirms this by agreement:
Example 54
JON SOPEL: Okay. What about the 2p addition on fuel duty. Should the government go
ahead with that now, given the position of families.
MICHAEL GOVE: Well every tax question has to be looked at through the prism of the
fact that the government are re-writing their budget. It would be completely inappropriate
for us now to say that we are definitely going to do this or that in terms of tax.
(interjection) We're at the stage ...
JON SOPEL: This is coming in this October.
MICHAEL GOVE: Yes, exactly.
BOTH TOGETHER
MICHAEL GOVE: We're at the stage now where we can outline broad themes and we can
outline in particular areas how we'd like to reform things in education we have, in health we
have, in welfare we have, in prisons we have. You know that delicate questions of the
precise tax rate, tax and spending questions like that, have to wait until we've actually seen
the books that we inherit. We know for example ...
(App., p. 156, Michael Gove, 2008-04-29, ll. 109-123)
As with the extract above, in Example 55, Yvette Cooper confirms the
interviewer‘s assertion using the speaker-oriented booster that’s right:
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Example 55
JON SOPEL: But you've had a review on this, the Barker Review, that looked at what the
availability would be of brown field sites, came up with a figure of just under being able to
create a million new homes, your estimate is that you need three and a half million new
homes.
YVETTE COOPER: That's right. And the thing about brown field land is that it comes,
it becomes available all the time because you have you know, maybe a factory that closes or
maybe use that changes in a particular area, so brown field land does develop and change.
But ultimately, it is for local councils to decide what is the best location in their area, and
they have to look at all the areas you know, around the town, the town centre, in their
communities, because they'll know best where these homes should best be built to meet
their local needs.
(App., p. 144, Yvette Cooper, 2007-07-15, ll. 17-27)
7.5 Conclusion
It is evident from the research presented in this chapter that boosting devices
perform various pragmatic functions in the genre of political interview (see Figure 3
below). All these pragmatic functions contribute to a higher degree of speaker‟s
involvement of this discourse genre. With reference to the differences between male
and female speakers, as regards the functions of boosting devices in general, there are
no substantial distinctions, which is attributable to the fact that female politicians
have used fewer boosters overall than their male counterparts, so the absolute
numbers are lower.
Figure 3: Pragmatic Functions of Boosters
Pragmatic Functions of Boosters
C.-o. emphasis
subjectivity
degree of quality
assurance
intens. by repetition
H.-o. emphasis
agreement
Intensification of the Illocutionary Force
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The most frequent function of boosters performed by females is subjectivity,
which means that female politicians focus on presenting their own values and
attitudes as true and in this way attempt to influence the audience. Female
politicians used more boosting devices which express the degree of a certain quality.
This result confirms the feature that has already been observed, namely, that women
have a more difficult position for asserting themselves in the field of politics,
thus, their language must show certainty and confidence for them to be perceived as
competent for the position of a politician. Since males do not have to justify their
position in front of the public to such a great extent as women do, they, in addition,
focus on foregrounding those parts of utterances which are significant for the
hearer. That is why the linguistic means whose function is to express hearer-oriented
emphasis appears more frequently by males. Males also pay a greater attention to
the content of the message, so the most frequent function occurring by male
politicians is content-oriented emphasis.
To sum up, the use of boosting devices in the genre of political interview is,
as is evident from the research, very common and recurrent, which contributes to a
higher degree of involvement. Therefore, it cannot be claimed that this type of
discourse belongs to low-involved genres. In addition, the choice of particular
devices depends to some extent on the speaker‘s decision and his/her personal
preferences.
As mentioned in the previous sections, accentuation is not the only linguistic
means used to modify the illocutionary force. Chapter 8 will describe another
concept, namely, attenuation of the illocutionary force.
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122
8 Attenuation of the Illocutionary Force
8.1 Introduction
As in the previous chapter dealing with boosting devices, this section will be
structured in a similar way. First, it will introduce classifications of hedging devices
(Subchapter 8.2), the next section will deal with the frequency of hedges in the
corpus (Section 8.3) and finally, in Section 8.4 quantitative and qualitative analyses of
pragmatic functions of hedges will be given.
8.2 Classifications of Hedges
As the present analysis shows, boosting and hedging devices belong to
important linguistic means reflecting speaker‘s involvement in interaction. Chapter 7
dealt with boosting devices, their classifications and pragmatic functions in the
corpus of political interviews. Just like boosters, hedges may be classified into
categories according to their contribution to discourse meaning. This classification of
both boosting and hedging devices is appropriate for the present research as it
reflects the attitude of the participants to the content of the message. For this reason
it was used in this thesis. This categorization will be described in Section 8.2.3. There
are other classifications of hedges, one suggested by Quirk et al. (1985), and another
proposed by Brown and Levinson (1987), which will be outlined in Sections 8.2.1
and 8.2.2.
8.2.1 Quirk et al.’s Classification of Hedges
Quirk at al. (1985) define downtoners as items which ―have a generally
lowering effect on the force of the verb or predication and many of them apply a
scale to gradable verbs‖ (1985:597). They belong to the group of intensifiers but as
Quirk at al. emphasize, this term does not relate only to devices which are used to
strengthen the illocutionary force. ―Rather, an intensifying subjunct indicates a point
on an abstractly conceived intensity scale; and the point indicated may be relatively
low or relatively high‖ (1985:589).
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Quirk at al. (1985: 597) suggest the following classification of downtoners:
approximators indicate ―an approximation to the force of the verb‖ and at the
same time they imply that ―the verb concerned expresses more than is relevant‖
(e.g. nearly, almost, practically)
compromisers decrease the force of the verb only moderately and similar to
approximators they indicate that the item related expresses more than it is
suitable (e.g. kind of, sort of, quite, rather, more or less)
diminishers ―scale downwards‖ and their rough meaning is ―to a small extent‖.
They are further divided into the ‗expression diminishers‘ which indicate ―only
part of the potential force of the item concerned‖ (e.g. partly, partially, slightly,
somewhat, to some extent, a bit, a little, etc.), and into ‗attitude diminishers‘ which
imply that ―the force of the item concerned is limited‖ (e.g. only, merely, just,
simply etc.) (1985:598)
minimizers are ―negative maximizers‖, meaning ‗(not) to any extent‘. There are
two groups of minimizers - negatives such as hardly, little, scarcely; and
nonassertives in the least, at all, a bit, etc.
This categorization proposed by Quirk et al. rests on semantic differences
among downtoners. All types of these hedging devices serve the function of reducing
the illocutionary force, however, approximators and compromisers combine this
function with questioning the appropriateness of the item concerned, diminishers
and minimizers grade the intensity of the related item (Quirk et al. 1985:597). This
classification is purely semantic, therefore, the classification of hedges according to
discourse meaning, which express the attitude of the speakers towards the message,
is preferred in this thesis.
8.2.2 Brown and Levinson’s Classification of Hedges
In this section, Brown and Levinson‘s classification of hedges will be
introduced. These scholars have proposed a categorization of hedges within the
framework of negative politeness. They introduce these basic groups of hedges:
a) hedges on illocutionary force
b) hedges addressed to Grice’s Maxims
bi) quality hedges
bii) quantity hedges
biii) relevance hedges
Attenuation of the Illocutionary Force
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biv) manner hedges
c) hedges addressed to politeness strategies
d) prosodic and kinesic hedges
(Brown and Levinson 1987:146ff.)
Ad a) hedges on illocutionary force
A significant subgroup of hedges on illocutionary force are performative
hedges because they are ―the most important linguistic means of satisfying the
speaker‘s want [...]. Such hedges may be analysed as adverbs on (often deleted)
performative verbs that represent the illocutionary force of the sentence‖ (1987:146).
In English, there are expressions, for example in fact, in a way, in a sense, it seems to me,
etc. with this function, which are called ‗adverbial-clause hedges‘ (1987:162). Hedges
on illocutionary force include also particles (really, certainly, sincerely, etc.) as means of
hedging the propositional content (Brown and Levinson 1987:147).
Ad b) hedges addressed to Grice’s Maxims
This category of hedges highlight the fact that ―the cooperative condition is
met, or serve notice that it may not have been met, or question whether it has been
met‖ (Brown and Levinson 1987:164). There are four types of hedges relating to
Grice‟s Maxims of the Cooperative Principle:
Ad bi) quality hedges
Quality hedges indicate that ―the speaker is not taking full responsibility for
the truth of his utterance‖, for example: I think, I assume, there is some evidence that, etc.
Alternatively, they emphasize the speaker‘s commitment to the truth of the
proposition: I absolutely promise/believe that..., or finally, they indicate the speaker‘s
irresponsibility to inform the hearer: as you know, as it is well known, etc. (1987:164-
165).
Ad bii) quantity hedges
Quantity hedges point out to the fact that the information provided by the
speaker will not be as accurate as expected. Thus, these expressions are used to signal
the imprecision: roughly, more or less, approximately, or so, to some extent, etc. (1987:166).
Attenuation of the Illocutionary Force
125
Ad biii) relevance hedges
Relevance hedges are associated with the topic change. As Brown and
Levinson put it, ―because of the sensitivity of topic changes as impositions on
hearer‘s face, such changes are often done off record‖ (1987:168-169). Attenuating
devices that indicate this change may be these: this may not be relevant/appropriate/timely,
but..., now is probably the time to say..., by the way..., anyway..., etc. (1987:169).
Ad biv) manner hedges
Manner hedges are used to ―redress all kinds of FTAs [face threatening acts] -
for example, insults‖ (1987:171). These include: ... if you see what I mean/I’m driving at,
in a nutshell, you see, to put it more simply, what I meant was..., etc.
Ad c) hedges addressed to politeness strategies
Brown and Levinson add that all these Maxim hedges, mentioned above, are
used very frequently in everyday interaction. In addition to these hedges, there is
another type of devices which ―function directly as notices of violations of face
wants‖ (1987:171). These hedges are called ―hedges addressed to politeness
strategies‖. Brown and Levinson give these examples of this category of hedges:
frankly, to be honest, honestly, I must say (1987:171-172).
Ad d) prosodic and kinesic hedges
This kind of hedging devices, the last type mentioned by Brown and
Levinson, accompanies verbal hedges in that they may emphasize them and so
indicate a higher degree of tentativeness. ―The raised eyebrow, the earnest frown, the
umms and ahhs and hesitations that indicate the speaker‘s attitude toward what he is
saying, are often the most salient clue to the presence of an FTA, even cross-
culturally‖ (1987:172).
Brown and Levinson‘s classification is relevant and useful and it is possible to
use it for an analysis dealing with negative politeness. However, this thesis focuses on
boosting and hedging devices from the point of view of their contribution to
discourse meaning. When applying the classification relating to discourse meaning,
speaker‘s attitude to the proposition is manifested better. In addition, the last
category in Brown and Levison‘s classification, prosodic and kinesic hedges, are
Attenuation of the Illocutionary Force
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actually extralinguistic means whose investigation is beyond the scope of the present
analysis, as mentioned in Section 2.9.
8.2.3 Classification of Hedges by their Relationship to Discourse Meaning
As explained in the previous sections, the most relevant classification for this
thesis is the classification relating to discourse meaning. According to the
relationship to discourse meaning, hedges may be divided into groups which roughly
correspond to that of boosters. The following categorization has been proposed by
Holmes (1984:359ff.):
speaker-oriented
hearer-oriented
content or other-oriented hedges
In this analysis, speaker- and hearer-oriented categories of hedges are used in
the same way as they have been described by Holmes. The last category, content or
other-oriented hedges, was narrowed to ―content-oriented‖ hedges which attenuate
the force of the proposition as a whole. The reason is that other-oriented hedges as
Holmes defines them is a too broad category of various types of expressions, so
called ―deresponsibilizing devices‖, that focus on a ―semantic distinction between
appearance and reality as the basis of the attenuation‖ (Holmes 1984:361).
Expressions which she includes in this category are on the face of it, superficially,
ostensibly, nominally, theoretically, etc. These linguistic means do not appear in the corpus
at all that is why the focus is only on content-oriented hedges.
Since hedges and their functions may be expressed by various linguistic
means, it is not possible to list all of them in the chapters below. Therefore, only
several selected expressions are shown there; all hedges occurring in the corpus may
be found on pages XIV-XVI. All hedges are underlined in the appendix of this thesis
and their types and functions are abbreviated in brackets, for example:
you know (HHO, H.-o. uncert.) = you know is a hearer-oriented hedge, the function is
hearer-oriented uncertainty
Attenuation of the Illocutionary Force
127
8.2.3.1 Speaker-oriented Hedges
This type of hedges includes linguistic devices that are used to express
speaker‟s doubts and uncertainty in relation to the validity of the particular
proposition (Holmes 1984:359). This category of hedges comprises verb phrases
having the form the first-person singular pronoun I + a verb of cognition - I suppose,
I guess, I would hope, I think, I don’t think, I mean, and I assume, and the adverb perhaps.
Hedges, as well as boosters, may be expressed not only by one- or two-word
expressions but also, and very often they are, expressed by a whole clause or a
sentence or a part of clause or sentence. This is shown in Examples 56 and 57:
Example 56
JON SOPEL: Well, let's talk about why this has all come about most recently and the rows
there have been over MPs pay and MPs allowances and particularly Derek Conway. We've
had Nick Clegg talking about getting rid of the MP as a Derek Conway clause. An MP is
able to claim four hundred pounds a month for food on their second home without any
receipts. Why.
THERESA MAY: Well that's - the system has grown up because frankly, on that particular
allowance, and I've said, I mean I believe that that allowance we should take that
housing allowance out - that's my personal view, take that housing allowance out.
I think we should ...
(App., p. 183, Theresa May, 2008-03-09, ll. 58-65)
Example 57
JON SOPEL: Do you see any similarities between yourself and Barack Obama.
DAVID CAMERON: Not really no because I think American politics and British politics
are quite different. He's a Democrat, I'm a Conservative. I mean I suppose we're both
trying to, you know, kind of overturn the government and win. I enjoy watching him
and he's a great speaker.
But I'm also a big John McCain fan. I think the plain speaking of this man who just, you
know, he goes to Michigan and says look, I know we've lost a lot of jobs here but I've got
to tell you they're not coming back. You know, it's so frank and refreshing to see
somebody who really tells it how it is.
(App., p. 120, David Cameron, 2008-03-16, ll. 231-240)
Attenuation of the Illocutionary Force
128
In the following extract, the participants discuss the US - French relationship.
Rice assures the listeners of a good relationship with this country but she is not
certain about the future development and admits a possible occurrence of problems
by hedging the last utterance by the use of perhaps:
Example 58
QUESTION: Tell me, the French have elected a new president. What impact might this
have on the bilateral relationship between the United States and France?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, I've had an opportunity to meet Mr. Sarkozy on a couple of
occasions and he's a ball of energy, and I think he will -- obviously he's run on a platform
of reform and it'll be very interesting to see. But of course, we've had good relations with
France, and particularly on some issues like Lebanon and the Middle East, and I really do
really look forward now to intensifying those efforts because we need a strong and vibrant
France as a part of the transatlantic relationship that can help to deal with these very
difficult problems.
We've had our differences in the past with France, but really the relationship has been
going in the right direction for some time now and I expect that it's going to continue and
perhaps accelerate some.
(App., p. 215, Condoleezza Rice, 2007-05-07, ll. 7-19)
8.2.3.2 Hearer-oriented Hedges
This group of hedges expresses uncertainty or hesitation relating to the
hearer. As the present research confirms, and as has already been mentioned in the
previous chapter dealing with boosters, one and the same expression may, in some
contexts, function as a booster or a hedge, respectively. This is also true about the
hearer-oriented hedge you know. Holmes (1990:189) correctly emphasizes that you
know is a ―complex and sophisticated pragmatic particle [...]. It may act as a turn-
yielding device, as a linguistic imprecision signal, as an appeal to the listener for
reassuring feedback, or as a signal that the speaker attributes understanding to the
listener.‖
Linguistic means appearing in the corpus that belong to the category of
hearer-oriented hedges are not as diverse as those of other categories. The reason is
that it is the least frequent category not only of hedging but also of boosting devices.
It is mostly expressed by the discourse marker you know in the corpus.
Attenuation of the Illocutionary Force
129
In Example 59, Hazel Blears expresses her uncertainty about the elections in
the UK and turns to the hearer by using you know:
Example 59
JON SOPEL: I don't want to get hung up on the titles, but there was a time when a
Labour person would have been thrilled to be described as Blairite, because it - you know
they were being associated with the winning team. I just wonder whether it is seen a bit
more maybe as a handicap now?
HAZEL BLEARS: Well I, I think it's really dangerous erm if we actually distance ourselves
from what we've been doing over the last ten years.
If you think about it, in America, Al Gore kind of tried to put a bit of distance between
himself and Clinton and what people did was they voted for George Bush. What I don't
want us to do is to distance ourselves from all the good things that we've done over the last
ten years, because I do think we've got a really good record.
Because my concern is that people then might, you know, see David Cameron and his
Tories, as a bit more interesting. If people think that we're saying, well, we didn't get it all
right, then I think they'll take a pretty dim view of us. I mean we, we haven't got everything
right, but I think overall the record on health, on education, on tackling crime, all of that is
pretty successful.
(App., pp. 66-67, Hazel Blears, 2007-02-25, ll. 31-48)
In Example 60, Cameron rejects any similarities between himself and Barack
Obama and explains why. He also talks about John McCain, another candidate for
US president. Cameron has to formulate his ideas very quickly, and that is why he
uses not only the hedge you know but also just, which, however, belongs to the
category of content-oriented hedges.
Example 60
JON SOPEL: Do you see any similarities between yourself and Barack Obama.
DAVID CAMERON: Not really no because I think American politics and British politics
are quite different. He's a Democrat, I'm a Conservative. I mean I suppose we're both
trying to, you know, kind of overturn the government and win. I enjoy watching him and
he's a great speaker.
But I'm also a big John McCain fan. I think the plain speaking of this man who just, you
know, he goes to Michigan and says look, I know we've lost a lot of jobs here but I've got
Attenuation of the Illocutionary Force
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to tell you they're not coming back. You know, it's so frank and refreshing to see
somebody who really tells it how it is.
(App., p. 120, David Cameron, 2008-03-16, ll. 231-240)
In the following extract, the speaker is not certain about what to say next, she
needs some time to think of the right words, so at first she uses the hearer-oriented
hedge you know and then she continues her talk:
Example 61
JON SOPEL: But you've had a review on this, the Barker Review, that looked at what the
availability would be of brown field sites, came up with a figure of just under being able to
create a million new homes, your estimate is that you need three and a half million new
homes.
YVETTE COOPER: That's right. And the thing about brown field land is that it comes, it
becomes available all the time because you have you know, maybe a factory that closes or
maybe use that changes in a particular area, so brown field land does develop and change.
But ultimately, it is for local councils to decide what is the best location in their area, and
they have to look at all the areas you know, around the town, the town centre, in their
communities, because they'll know best where these homes should best be built to meet
their local needs.
(App., p. 144, Yvette Cooper, 2007-07-15, ll. 17-27)
8.2.3.3 Content-oriented Hedges
As the name suggests, this category of hedges relates to the content of the
message. When using a content-oriented hedging device, the force of the speech act
is attenuated and thus it indicates uncertainty and evasiveness of the speaker.
Holmes includes also ―other-oriented‖ hedges in this category. As already explained
above (see Section 8.2), this viewpoint is too broad for this research and in addition,
expressions belonging to the group of other-oriented hedges do not appear in the
corpus.
Linguistic means which contribute to attenuation of the content of the
message and refer more to this content rather than to the participants of the
interactional exchange are more varied than hearer-oriented hedges. That is why their
complete list may be found on pages XIV-XV and here, the discussion was restricted
Attenuation of the Illocutionary Force
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to only some expressions. Content-oriented hedges found in the corpus are:
epistemic adverbs probably, possibly, and maybe, modal verbs may, might, could, and other
expressions such as well, sort of, kind of, more or less, in fact, quite, simply, relatively, just,
actually, etc.
In the following extract from the corpus, the speaker uses several content-
oriented hedges. Well in the initial position in the first utterance is a sign for the
hearer that the speaker will start speaking. Modal verbs may and might and the modal
adverb maybe indicate uncertainty and assumption of the speaker, quite attenuates the
quality of the adjective strong.
Example 62
JON SOPEL: Well I'm joined now by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local
Government. Ruth Kelly, welcome to the Politics Show. We saw, at the end of that report
there from Max Cotton, a youngster wearing at T-shirt saying 'Soldier of Allah'. Born and
bred in the UK, wearing that sort of T-shirt. It sort of underlines the scale of the task.
RUTH KELLY: Well I think that is a particularly worrying sign, but I don't think that
that's the only issue that we're dealing with in the Report from the Commission on
Integration and Cohesion. One of the things I understand that they do in their report is
analyse very clearly, that each community, each town, each city in the country, faces very
different challenges.
In some that may be, as in Halifax, that the issue might be about how Muslims integrate
with non-Muslims, in others, such as Boston in Lincolnshire, a small rural towns suddenly
facing really quite strong wave of migration from the A8 European countries, who've
come here maybe on a very short time basis to work, the challenge and the nature of the
challenge is altogether different.
(App., p. 177, Ruth Kelly, 2007-06-10, ll. 8-23)
In Example 63, David Cameron is not sure about the exact number of GDP
(= gross domestic product), so he hedges his utterance by basically, which is an
indication that the number to follow is vague. Another interpretation could be that
Cameron knows the exact number of GDP and uses basically as a means expressing
approximation. Another hedge in this excerpt is the adverb actually, which expresses
the speaker‘s uncertainty about the following proposition:
Attenuation of the Illocutionary Force
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Example 63
JON SOPEL: So is the American example wrong, where there are tax cuts being
introduced to help kickstart the American economy (interjection)
BOTH TOGETHER
DAVID CAMERON: No. Listen. Let me try and explain. The reason they can do that in
America is they have not got as big a budget deficit, as a share of national income as we've
got. Because our deficit is basically 3% of GDP, there's nothing left in the locker. If the
government had announced some big tax cut on budget day, I think actually the markets
would have taken fright.
(App., p. 117, David Cameron, 2008-03-16, ll. 61-68)
In Example 64 below, well is used to opening of Cooper‘s reply. The hedge
sort of is a typical sign of informal conversation, however, it also frequently appears in
political interviews, which is an indication of conversationalization of this type of
discourse, as explained in Chapter 3.5. Sort of is a vague expression relating to
implicitness. As Urbanová points out ―it is not always necessary or possible to
make explicit references to the extralinguistic reality and specify details‖ (2003:61).
Therefore, speakers use expressions such as sort of or kind of which mean anything
(Urbanová 2003:62).
Example 64
JON SOPEL: A lot more council housing.
YVETTE COOPER: Well, this is not about a return to the old sort of 50s council estates.
I don't think that's the right approach and I don't think anybody would support that, where
you have, you know, the council estate on one side of town, the executive estate on the
other. This is about developing mixed communities and that means a lot more working in
partnership, you know, with other organisations, be they housing associations or
developers or others.
JON SOPEL: You say that's not what people want. That's exactly what a lot of local
Labour councillors would love to see. The ability to build...
YVETTE COOPER: No, I don't think that's right. What they want to see is mixed
communities.
(App., p. 146, Yvette Cooper, 2007-07-15, ll. 110-121)
Attenuation of the Illocutionary Force
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8.3 Frequency of Hedges in the Corpus
In the following parts of this thesis, the frequency of hedges in the corpus
will be dealt with and the results of quantitative and qualitative analysis will be
described and interpreted. As discussed in Chapter 5.2, the extent of the corpus is 40
political interviews with British and American politicians.
Male Politicians Female Politicians Total
754 566 1,320
Table 14: Frequency of Hedges
The total number of hedges in the corpus is 1,320, as demonstrated in
Table 14. In comparison to the number of boosters (3,449 in the whole corpus), this
figure is considerably lower. The reason is that politicians aim at emphasizing certain
facts which are important for their listeners, they try to be confident and sound
persuasive. They also stress their own attitudes and opinions. Politicians do not want
to show uncertainty, evasiveness or hesitation in front of the audience, at least not to
a great extent. Additionally, boosters are used to emphasise positive information and
hedges are used to attenuate negative facts, which, however, seems to be a general
principle of their use. Male politicians used more hedging devices than females,
in concrete terms 754 hedges, females used 566 attenuating devices.
8.3.1 Frequency of Hedges Classified by their Contribution to Discourse Meaning
The present analysis is based on the classification proposed by Holmes
(1984), which is explained in Section 8.2. As mentioned above, three types of hedges
relating to discourse meaning are distinguished in this thesis: speaker-, hearer-, and
content-oriented. Their frequency is summarized in Figure 4 and Table 15 below:
Attenuation of the Illocutionary Force
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Figure 4: Hedges Classified by their Contribution to Discourse Meaning
Hedge Male Politicians Female
Politicians Total
content-oriented 470 387 857
speaker-oriented 180 124 304
hearer-oriented 104 55 159
Total 754 566 1,320
Table 15: Hedges Classified by their Contribution to Discourse Meaning
Table 15 demonstrates that the most frequent category of hedges in the
corpus are content-oriented hedges. They occur in 857 instances in total. They are
followed by speaker-oriented hedges, however, their frequency of occurrence is
significantly lower, 304 instances. Finally, hearer-oriented hedges are the least
frequent kind of hedges, appearing 159 times in the whole corpus.
Generally, politicians concentrate on asserting themselves in front of their
audience and they do not want to show uncertainty, therefore, the number of
boosters in the corpus prevails over the number of hedges. Content-oriented hedges
function as devices which reduce responsibility of politicians for their claims. If
a politician uses adverbials such as possibly, maybe or probably, the likelihood of a
potential accusation of lying is decreased. Speaker-oriented hedges express
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
content-oriented speaker-oriented hearer-oriented
470
180104
387
124
55
Female
Male
Attenuation of the Illocutionary Force
135
assumption and hesitation of the speaker, which may be a signal that the
politician is uncertain or that s/he withholds some information. However, it is
very difficult to determine if the politician really does not know the information or if
s/he deliberately withholds it. Sometimes s/he must do it because some information
is confidential and cannot be disclosed to the public. Hearer-oriented hedges express
uncertainty that is addressed towards the hearer. This type of hedges is not so
frequent since politicians concentrate more on hedging the content of their messages
and not on the hearer so much.
8.3.2 Occurrence of the Most Frequent Hedges
In this section, the hedges with the highest overall frequency of occurrence in
the corpus will be described. As with boosters, this concerns all hedges in the corpus
regardless of their contribution to discourse meaning. The following table
demonstrates the most frequent hedges in the corpus used by male and female
politicians:
Hedge Male Politicians Female
Politicians Total Number of
Occurrences
well 126 148 274
just 105 78 183
you know 99 54 153
I think 69 40 109
actually 44 40 84
Table 16: The Most Frequent Hedges in the Corpus
As is evident from the table above, all these expressions also function as
boosters, even though some of them, such as well, actually and just, predominantly
function as hedges. The most frequent hedge in the whole corpus is the discourse
marker well, followed by just and you know. Concerning the differences between male
and female politicians, there is a slightly higher distribution of well in females. By
contrast, males produced just, you know, I think and actually more frequently.
Attenuation of the Illocutionary Force
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8.4 Pragmatic Functions of Hedges
The present thesis provides not only a quantitative analysis of hedges
appearing in the corpus but also their qualitative analysis, which will be dealt with in
this section.
As with boosting devices, identification of the functions of hedges caused
problems in some cases because the context did not allow a proper specification of
their function and, as already mentioned above in the analysis of boosters, the use of
hedges may be conventional and habitual. Nine functions of hedges were identified
in the corpus, as may be observed in Figure 5 and Table 17 below. Five of these
pragmatic functions are my own designations: attenuation of the forthcoming
message, hearer-oriented uncertainty, hesitation, content-oriented uncertainty, and
evasiveness. Four functions of hedges draw on Urbanová‘s classification of
attenuation types (2003:60), namely, assumption, unspecified reference, detachment,
and negative politeness. To be specific, Urbanová determines these functions of
hedges:
negative politeness
assumption, consideration
unspecified reference
detachment, reservation
depersonalization
self-evaluation
non-commitment
conversational gambit
afterthought
positive politeness
sarcasm
contradiction
(Urbanová 2003:60)
Figure 5 and Table 17 below give a summary of all pragmatic functions of
hedges together with the frequency of occurrence in males and females:
Attenuation of the Illocutionary Force
137
Figure 5: Frequency of Hedges by Function
Function Male Politicians Female
Politicians Total
attenuation of the forthcoming message
414 321 735
assumption 135 108 243
hearer-oriented uncertainty
67 40 107
unspecified reference 22 28 50
hesitation 30 18 48
content-oriented uncertainty
27 14 41
negative politeness 19 18 37
detachment 15 17 32
evasiveness 25 2 27
Table 17: Frequency of Hedges by Function
Attenuation of the forthcoming message together with assumption are
two most frequent functions, although the frequency of occurrence of assumption is
substantially lower. Other functions occur even less frequently, which relates to the
overall lower distribution of hedges as such, as has already been mentioned above.
The following sections offer a description of these pragmatic functions in detail.
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
450Male Politicians
Female Politicians
Attenuation of the Illocutionary Force
138
8.4.1 Attenuation of the Forthcoming Message
Male Politicians Female Politicians Total
414 321 735
Table 18: Attenuation of the Forthcoming Message
This function is by far the most frequent one in the corpus, as demonstrated
in the table above. It is utilized by male speakers more frequently than by their
female counterparts. Males produced 414 instances of this function, while females
used it 321 times. Hedging devices that are used to express this function are very
varied. For this reason, only several expressions will be mentioned below, all these
devices may be found on pages XIV-XVI.
Attenuation of the forthcoming message is expressed by the verb phrases I
would hope, I would say, I mean, further by expressions well, just, a little, a little bit, in fact,
actually, in a sense, quite, etc. They serve the function of attenuating the forthcoming
parts of the utterance and thus, the illocutionary force of the proposition is
weakened. In this connection, Urbanová (2003:60) states that attenuation is ―closely
connected with tact, modesty and generosity. In general it complies with the
requirement for acceptability of human speech behaviour.‖
In Example 65, George W. Bush speaks about his family and the impact his
presidential function had on the life of his wife and their daughters. He hedges the
quality of the adjective hesitant using a little, and in the next utterance, the phrase I
would say hedges the rest of his statement. He does not want to sound too reserved,
therefore, he uses these hedges:
Example 65
SCHIEFFER: What has been the impact on your family?
PRESIDENT BUSH: We are as close to them now as we have ever been. Laura and I have
got a great relationship. There is nothing like some outside pressure to bring you closer
together. Secondly, I'm incredibly proud of her. She's a partner in this job in many ways.
The First Lady has got a big responsibility in an administration. She could help define an
administration. People look at Laura, and they could learn something about me, and when
they look at her and learn something about me, they have to say, "He's a pretty smart old
Attenuation of the Illocutionary Force
139
guy to pick Laura as a wife." She is--I have got a 45-second commute home, so we spend
a lot of time with each other. And our girls I'm a little hesitant to talk about them because
they don't want me to bring them out in the public arena, but they're doing just great. So,
I would say this has been very a positive experience on our family.
(App., p. 77, George W. Bush, 2006-01-27, ll. 369-380)
In the next excerpt, Alan Duncan expresses doubts about the possibility of
analysing all by-election results and uses the hedge almost to show his skepticism. He
does not want to express it directly, so he attenuates the force of the forthcoming
message using this hedge.
Example 66
JON SOPEL: Okay, stay with us cos I want to ask you a couple of other issues that are
obviously really important at the moment politically, I just wanted to say that if you want to
find out more on this issue about nuclear generation and some of the issues surrounding it,
you can go to our web site now, their the addresses are there for you just now. But let me
just say Alan Duncan, recent events - the Bromley by-election. What are the lessons from
it. I mean you just scraped home. Was that because the appeal of David Cameron isn't that
great or because your candidate and your campaign wasn't Cameronite enough.
ALAN DUNCAN: I think all by-election results are almost impossible to analyse. Of
course they matter for the local result. In terms of any general lessons that can be learnt it's
very very difficult indeed because at the moment we've got, you know the result in Bromley
and yet we've also got national opinion polls which say that David Cameron is far more
popular than Gordon Brown and Blair.
(App., p. 150, Alan Duncan, 2006-07-02, ll. 100-111)
Example 67 shows that, as with boosters, the functions of hedges may be
expressed not only by one- or two-word linguistic devices but also by parts of
utterances or even by whole utterances (see Section 8.4.9). The speaker attenuates
her utterance by this vague part highlighted in bold. She admits that not everyone
read that document but her vagueness is adequate since she does not want to
withhold any information. In that situation, it is not necessary for the listeners to
know the exact number of people who read it.
Attenuation of the Illocutionary Force
140
Example 67
MR. RUSSERT: Again, learning from mistake, do you wish you had read the National
Intelligence Estimate, which had a lot of caveats from the State Department and the
Energy Department as to whether or not Saddam Hussein really had a biological and
chemical and active nuclear program?
SEN. CLINTON: I was fully briefed by the people who wrote that. I was briefed by the
people from, you know, the State Department, the CIA, the Department of Defense; all of
the various players in that. And many people who read it--well, actually, not very many
people read the whole thing because we were getting constant briefings. And people--
some people read it and voted for the resolution, some people read it and voted against the
resolution. I felt very well briefed. And it wasn't just what the Bush administration was
telling us in the NIE, I went way outside of any kind of Bush administration sources;
independent people, people from the Clinton administration, people in the British
government. I looked as broadly as I could at how to assess this.
(App., p. 138, Hillary Clinton, 2008-01-13, ll. 484-497)
8.4.2 Assumption
Male Politicians Female Politicians Total
135 108 243
Table 19: Assumption
Assumption is another function performed by hedges. Although it is the
second most frequent function, its frequency is only 243 occurrences in total. There
is no substantial contrast between males and females concerning the distribution of
this function, as shown in Table 19 above.
This function is expressed by the modals might, could, may, by the adverbials
probably, perhaps, possibly, maybe, supposedly, and by the verb phrases I think, I don’t think,
I mean, and I suppose. When using expressions such as supposedly, perhaps, I suppose, the
speaker does not make a firm assertion about the views expressed, rather, s/he
signals that s/he does not want to take full responsibility for his/her claims and
wants to gain detachment from his/her assertions.
Attenuation of the Illocutionary Force
141
Consider the epistemic modal forms below, pragmatically functioning as
hedges of assumption. All of them express that the speaker does not want to be
responsible for the claims of somebody else:
Example 68
JEREMY PAXMAN: Hans Blix said he saw no evidence, either of weapons manufacture,
or that they had been concealed.
TONY BLAIR: No, I don't think again that is right. I think what he said was that the
evidence that he had indicated that the Iraqis were not cooperating properly and that, for
example, he thought that the nerve agent VX may have been weaponised.
And he also said that the discovery of the war heads might be - I think I'm quoting here -
may be the tip of an iceberg. I think you'll find that in that report.
(App., p. 5, Tony Blair, 2003-02-06, ll. 100-108)
In Example 69, the speaker makes several assumptions about what could
happen in Iraq. He cannot know for certain, and that is why he uses the phrase I
think, which stresses his own opinion and at the same time, expresses his uncertainty
about the future situation in Iraq. In this case, it cannot be taken as a weakness of the
speaker or indication that he wants to be evasive. He uses these assumptions because
he simply cannot be sure what will happen, and can only make predictions.
Example 69
KING: When some like yourself say, if we leave now, there will be chaos, what's there
now?
MCCAIN: I think what you saw the other day or yesterday...
KING: Yesterday.
MCCAIN: ...that horrific bombing, I think you'd see that everywhere. I think you would
see a bloodletting between two million Sunni in Baghdad and four million Shia in Baghdad
at an incredible level. I think if the Kurds required -- declared their independence, the
Turks would not stand for it.
I think the Saudis would believe they have to support the Sunni. The Iranians, who are
already penetrating Southern Iraq, would be emboldened and I think you would even see
the Syrians emboldened as far as destabilizing and overthrowing the government of
Lebanon and the State of Israel, in greater danger. I think you would see Pakistan and
Attenuation of the Illocutionary Force
142
Afghanistan situation worsen and Musharraf being in a less secure position. I think there
are ripple effects that would take place throughout the Middle East.
(App., p. 188, John McCain, 2007-08-16, ll. 107-120)
As with the previous example, the following speaker makes an assumption
about a hypothetical situation. She cannot be sure about the result of this situation,
so she uses the content-oriented hedge probably:
Example 70
JON SOPEL: And I just want to digest something else you just said there in the course of
that answer. So you believe at the moment, MPs are under paid.
THERESA MAY: No, what I said was that I think that what should happen in looking at
the allowances system. I personally would prefer a system where we didn't have a housing
allowance, but you have to recognise that MPs need, most MPs need to have two homes,
so you'd probably have to put an increase in salary in order to compensate for that
allowance. That raises all sorts of other questions, which is why this has to be looked at
very carefully.
(App., p. 183, Theresa May, 2008-03-09, ll. 84-91)
8.4.3 Hearer-oriented Uncertainty
Male Politicians Female Politicians Total
67 40 107
Table 20: Hearer-oriented Uncertainty
Hearer-oriented uncertainty is the third most frequent function in the corpus.
Like all functions of hedges, with the exception of unspecified reference and
detachment, this function is more frequent in male politicians than in females. It
occurs 67 times by males and 40 times by females.
There is only one hedging device with the function of hearer-oriented
uncertainty in the corpus, namely, the discourse marker you know. As already stated
above, this marker is context-sensitive and thus it can function both as a booster and
a hedge. As Holmes correctly emphasizes, you know as a booster ―expresses the
speaker‘s confidence or certainty [...] concerning the addressee‘s relevant background
knowledge and experience, attitudes and anticipated response. In this category, too,
Attenuation of the Illocutionary Force
143
belong instances of you know where it serves an emphatic function to reassure the
addressee of the validity of the proposition‖ (1990:189). In this connection, Östman
(1981:17) describes the ‗prototypical‘ meaning of you know: ―The speaker strives
towards getting the addressee to cooperate and/or accept the propositional content
of his utterance as mutual background knowledge.‖
When you know serves as a hedge it indicates ―uncertainty of various kinds‖
(Holmes 1990:189). Holmes distinguishes ―addressee-oriented uncertainty‖,
which I have designated ―hearer-oriented uncertainty‖, and ―message-oriented
uncertainty‖, which I have termed ―content-oriented uncertainty‖. The terms
―hearer-oriented uncertainty‖ and ―content-oriented uncertainty‖ are more
appropriate in this analysis with respect to the designations of the particular types of
hedges. Hearer-oriented uncertainty ―relates to the speaker‟s uncertainty
concerning the addressee‟s attitudes or likely response in the interaction‖
(Holmes 1990:189, emphasis added).
In the example below, the context-sensitivity of you know is demonstrated.
The speaker uses the discourse marker you know twice but each time, the function is
different. The first instance is hearer-oriented hedge (HHO) showing hearer-oriented
uncertainty. The speaker is not sure about the hearer‘s acceptance of the message
expressed. The second instance of you know is hearer-oriented booster (BHO)
showing hearer-oriented emphasis. The speaker wants to emphasise her party‘s
experience in the government to the hearer:
Example 71
JON SOPEL: So you could pull, you could pull that emergency cord and say 'stop Gordon,
you can't do this'.
HAZEL BLEARS: Well I don't think our government is in the business of, of being you
know (HHO), careering ahead without thinking about all the implications, without getting
it absolutely right. You know (BHO) we've got ten years experience here and this is a bit
of a contrast between us and the Tories. We've got an experienced, mature government,
who have had to make some pretty tough decisions, but actually you look round that
Cabinet table and you have got a lot of skills. And I do think that this isn't simply again
about individuals and personalities, it's about getting the policies absolutely right.
(App., p. 69, Hazel Blears, 2007-02-25, ll. 154-164)
Attenuation of the Illocutionary Force
144
In the following extract, at the very beginning of her utterance, Rice uses the
hedging phrase well, you know that relates to the addressee. She is uncertain since the
race is a very sensitive topic in the USA. She attempts to formulate her answer
properly because she is not sure if she is accepted by the hearer or not.
Example 72
QUESTION: Madame Secretary, I wanted to ask a question that has absolutely nothing to
do with any other country. (Laughter.) We're pulling up on the 40th anniversary of the
assassination of Martin Luther King. And regardless of what race we were or what class we
belonged to, it was a devastating time for America, without a doubt. And there's so much
talk about race in the race for the White House. What, if any, lessons do you think
Americans, as a whole, have learned since then?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, you know, it's -- America doesn't have an easy time dealing
with race. I sit in my office and the portrait immediately over my shoulder is Thomas
Jefferson, because he was my first predecessor. He was the first Secretary of State. And
sometimes I think to myself, what would he think -- (laughter) -- a black woman Secretary
of State as his predecessor 65 times removed -- successor, 65 times removed? What would
he think that the last two successors have been black Americans? And so, obviously, when
this country was founded, the words that were enshrined in all of our great documents and
that have been such an inspiration to people around the world, for the likes of Vaclav
Havel, associate themselves with those documents. They didn't have meaning for an
overwhelming element of our founding population. And black Americans were a founding
population. Africans and Europeans came here and founded this country together;
Europeans by choice, and Africans in chains.
(App., p. 248, Condoleezza Rice, 2008-03-27, ll. 592-609)
The speaker may also use a part of utterance to signal hearer-oriented
uncertainty. In Example 73, Yvette Cooper is not certain about the reaction of the
hearers to her reply concerning the problems in the British countryside. She uses a
hedging phrase to attenuate her answer:
Example 73
JON SOPEL: Because one of the things we saw in that film there, in Germany was that
people that person saying, look, you can't just worry about fossilizing the countryside and
Attenuation of the Illocutionary Force
145
keeping that beautiful and then just cramming everybody tight in to cities and towns.
They've got to have quality of life too.
YVETTE COOPER: Well you've got to improve both the towns and cities but also rural
areas. We've been working for example with the affordable rural housing commission on
the need to build more affordable housing in rural areas because sometimes you get small
villages and areas where they are in danger of becoming fossilized if they don't have small
numbers of affordable homes and other homes being build in those communities too. So
this is about you know, recognising the different character of different communities but
every single community recognising that more homes do need to be built.
(App., pp. 144-145, Yvette Cooper, 2007-07-15, ll. 40-50)
8.4.4 Unspecified Reference
Male Politicians Female Politicians Total
22 28 50
Table 21: Unspecified Reference
This function appears 50 times in the whole corpus, as demonstrated in
Table 21. Even if it belongs, together with detachment, to the functions of hedges
which are more frequent in females than in males, the difference displayed by both
genders is not so striking.
Unspecified reference is expressed by the content-oriented hedges sort of and
kind of in the corpus. It is connected with vagueness of the speaker‘s expression.
Even though the use of kind of or sort of is generally associated with informal
conversation (Urbanová 2003:62), they can be found in the genre of political
interview as well. As already stated, explicit references to extralinguistic reality may
not be possible or necessary, therefore, speakers use these linguistic means. They do
not carry any semantic meaning, thus, they do not contribute to the factual
meaning of utterances. In addition, they may be a feature of an individual speaker‘s
expression.
In Example 74, Bush is hesitant about the proper explanation of the phrase
―act of war‖ so he uses the hedge kind of to indicate uncertainty relating to the
content of his message. This uncertainty stems from the imprecision of the
interviewer because he uses this term without explaining what exactly he means by it.
Attenuation of the Illocutionary Force
146
Example 74
PELLEY: Your military officers say that Iranian agents today are killing American troops
on the ground in Iraq. Is that an act of war on the part of Iran against the United States?
BUSH: I think what they're saying is, is that the Iranians are providing equipment that is
killing Americans. Either way it's unacceptable. As I said in my speech the other night, we
will take measures to protect ourselves. We will interrupt supplies. We will find people that
if they are, in fact, in Iraq killing Americans, they'll be brought to justice.
PELLEY: Is that an act of war against the United States on the part of the Iranian
government?
BUSH: I'm not a lawyer. So act of war is kind of a ... I'm not exactly sure how you define
that. Let me just say it's unacceptable.
(App., p. 93, George W. Bush, 2007-01-14, ll. 261-270)
In the next extract, Hillary Clinton admits that she does not like talking about
herself. She uses several hedging expressions in one utterance, which shows her
uncertainty about the content of the other part of her assertion. The reference of sort
of is not very clear. She needs time to prepare her reply, and consequently she uses
hedges you know and sort of to gain time.
Example 75
MR. RUSSERT: In New Hampshire, now, the famous scene in Portsmouth where you
showed some emotion, was that exhaustion, frustration? What was it?
SEN. CLINTON: No. It was actually, Tim, a moment of real emotional connection. Those
of us who are running for office and holding office, I know it may be hard to believe, we're
also human beings. And when I spend my time out on the campaign trail, it's usually about
what I can do for somebody else. You know, I'm very other directed. I don't like talking
about myself, I don't like, you know, sort of the, the whole atmosphere of how people,
you know, are judged in American politics too often as to, you know, what you say instead
of what you do. And so for me it's always about what can I do for you? How can I help
you? And I was very touched when that woman said, "Well, how are you doing? How do
you get up in the morning?" Because really, the question is for so many of the people that
I meet, how does anybody get up in the morning?
(App., pp. 132-133, Hillary Clinton, 2008-01-13, ll. 190-203)
Attenuation of the Illocutionary Force
147
The use of sort of in the utterance in Example 76 below demonstrates that this
expression does not have any semantic meaning and functions predominantly as a
filler:
Example 76
JON SOPEL: And just very briefly, what about the argument that says, why are you letting
a handful of generals stop an aid effort to a population that may be starving and in risk of
disease. Why not just in there and drop the aid yourselves.
DAVID MILIBAND: Well, I think that the simple answer to that is that all the
development experts say that that's not a very effective way of delivering aid. It might be
the absolute last resort, but all of the people who are real experts in this area, humanitarian
fighters who, fighters is the wrong word, humanitarian experts and aid workers who make
all the difference on the ground, are clear that that is very much the third, fourth, fifth or
even sixth best solution.
It's a last resort and what counts is to try to get the sort of movement that you've seen on
the clips before this interview of trucks and of aero planes, actually delivering not just
mosquito nets but food, critically rice, also tents to provide some shelter and also obviously
basic medical equipment, but that all needs people as well as material.
(App., p. 192, David Miliband, 2008-05-11, ll. 65-78)
8.4.5 Hesitation
Male Politicians Female Politicians Total
30 18 48
Table 22: Hesitation
As regards hesitation, it is comparable with the previous function of
unspecified reference as for its frequency of occurrence. It was used 30 times by
males, whereas it occurred 18 times by females, so the total number is 48 instances in
the corpus. What is interesting is the difference between male and female politicians
in the distribution of this function. The occurrence is much lower in females. My
claim is that female politicians feel the necessity to assert themselves in front of their
audience and therefore, they pay more attention to the choice of linguistic means
they use. When answering the interviewer‘s questions, they do not want to show
hesitation or evasiveness.
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148
Markers of hesitation which can be found in the corpus are: well, I think, you
know, mmm, just, and it’s like you know.
As Examples 77 and 78 below indicate, these means often appear in
combinations and in succession. The speakers have to prepare what to say next and
formulate their replies very quickly, which may sometimes be difficult:
Example 77
JON SOPEL: Very briefly, they've said that there's going to, I've read that there's already
a web site, Blair Foundation.com. Is that the sort of thing you might be doing after, when
you leave.
TONY BLAIR: It's, it's, I know you'll be getting fed up with me for saying that is another
question I'm not going to answer. Because if I start talking about what I'm going to do
afterwards, well it's, you know, just gets in to a further difficulty. I mean I, I think that
- who knows in the time to come, I know I'm the first Prime Minister that's ever said
look, you know, I'm not going to fight another election and I'm going to go at an age
where I suppose, for many Prime Ministers, they actually enter the job, but I think you
should just get used to that because I think over in the times to come - this is going to
happen again and you might as well just, you know, let's er, let's accept that the most
important thing is to keep doing the best for the country in the time that remains.
(App., p. 52, Tony Blair, 2007-01-28, ll. 402-414)
Here again, Bush must reply something to the interviewer‘s question but it is
difficult to react immediately. Even if the main topics of the interview are known to
him in advance, it is not possible to estimate the development of the discussion.
Moreover, a good interviewer gives challenging and tough questions to the
interviewee since s/he wants to make the interview more interesting for the audience
and to gain as much information as possible.
Example 78
COURIC: a major shift in your philosophy of the world.
BUSH: Yeah, it really has been, it–
COURIC: How so?
BUSH: Well, it reminded me that – that we're in– we're in a – a– a major struggle with
extremists. You know, when you really think about why would somebody kill 3,000
Americans? And the – I – I thought that, the more I learned, the more I realized that this
Attenuation of the Illocutionary Force
149
is an enemy that – is bound by ideology and has got desires. They wanna drive us out of
the region. They wanna establish a caliphate, which is like a Muslim, you know, empire.
And I realized the struggle was more than just defeating an al-Qaeda. It is really an
ideological war between extremism and moderation and reasonableness. And it's been a – it
was a profound moment. It was – but – but I – I say that. But it was no more profound
than the– the thousands of our citizens who lost a loved one. And so the – September the
11th is gonna be a sad moment, a day of remembrance and a day of commitment.
(App., p. 78, George W. Bush, 2006-09-06, ll. 20-34)
In Example 79, Hillary Clinton does not agree with the interviewer‘s claim.
At first, she uses hesitation markers since she does not know immediately how to
react.
Example 79
MR. RUSSERT: If you don't think Senator Obama is ready to be president, then he
wouldn't be ready for vice president.
SEN. CLINTON: Well, you know, I'm not -- you're once again taking words I didn't say.
I'm asking people to compare and contrast our records. I believe that we need a president
ready on day one. I'm putting forth my qualifications, my experience, my 35 years of
proven, tested leadership, sometimes, as you well know, you know, walking through the
fires, being prepared to take on whatever the Republicans send our way. I want people to
make an informed decision. Look, I trust voters. Voters decide on whatever basis they
think is important to them. I just want them to have a full range of information to make
that decision.
(App., p. 133-134, Hillary Clinton, 2008-01-13, ll. 248-257)
8.4.6 Content-oriented Uncertainty
Male Politicians Female Politicians Total
27 14 41
Table 23: Content-oriented Uncertainty
Content-oriented uncertainty appears 41 times in the corpus, with a higher
distribution in males (27 instances) than in females (14 instances). This, again,
confirms the claim that female politicians want to assert themselves in front of
Attenuation of the Illocutionary Force
150
the audience and want to show certainty and responsibility for their assertions.
Using hedges expressing this function may be interpreted as an attempt of the
speaker to disclaim the responsibility for his/her words and thus to protect
his/her face.
This function is expressed by speaker-oriented hedges I mean, I think, I don’t
suppose and I’m quite certain, by content-oriented hedges in fact, well, actually, and by the
hearer-oriented hedge you know. Apart from these expressions, the speakers use
longer parts of utterances to fulfil this function, as shown in Example 80:
Example 80
MR. LEHRER: General Casey said yesterday that the commander said that it may be
spring or even summer before we have any signs of success from the new program -
PRESIDENT BUSH: Yes.
MR. LEHRER: -- from the new strategy, and even then I can't guarantee you that it's going
to work. That's the general; that's the guy who is the commander.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, I - look, I mean, I think that's a -
MR. LEHRER: That's -
PRESIDENT BUSH: -- that's a sober assessment. Well, it's a sober assessment. I think he's
not going to stand up and make guarantees that may or may not happen, but he is also the
general who felt like we needed more troops, and he's also the general that believes this is
the best chance of working. I think he's giving a realistic assessment for people.
(App., p. 98, George W. Bush, 2007-01-16, ll. 153-164)
In Example 81, the whole utterance may be determined as content-oriented
uncertainty of the speaker. He does not know how to express himself, he is not
confident about his words, therefore so many hedges are used in one utterance:
Example 81
JON SOPEL: And of the things, other things you said when you started, which was aside
from Let the Sun Shine In, was about ending the Punch & Judy politics and you've kind of
... this is the way you talk now about this government and the kind of weak man, the
strange man in Downing Street, what a phoney he now looks, you're weak. How does that
square up with ... (interjection)
Attenuation of the Illocutionary Force
151
DAVID CAMERON: Well I feel incredibly frustrated for the country with this
government that it's just sort of limping on. So I sometimes maybe let that frustration
show too much and I do accept in the House of Commons, you know, Prime Minister's
questions is quite, what's the word ... (interjection)
JON SOPEL: Confrontational.
DAVID CAMERON: Confrontational. It is and you, you can't really get away from that.
And maybe it was, you know, I think maybe it was a mistake to say that you can.
You just ... the point is ...
(App., p. 121, David Cameron, 2008-03-16, ll. 258-271)
In Example 82, the highlighted part of Yvette Cooper‘s utterance may again
be judged as content-oriented uncertainty. The speaker is hesitant and uncertain
about the content of the proposition expressed and therefore she uses several hedges
- I think, you know, really and simply in one utterance.
Example 82
JON SOPEL: You keep stressing that it's up to local authorities, local councils to decide
what is the best thing to do. What do you do with the local council who say, well frankly,
we don't think we want to build that much.
YVETTE COOPER: Well we do have a serious problem with Conservative local councils
in particular across the south east region in particular, but not just there, who are opposing
increases in housing... the south east Regional Assembly indeed has been arguing for cuts
in the level of house building over the next few years, which I just think is bonkers, given
the needs that we have. But I think it's, you know, it's not on really for councils to
simply turn their backs and say, well we don't want any new houses round here, build
them somewhere else. Build them in another community, build them in another town.
Every town, every city, every community has first time buyers who can't get on the ladder,
has sons and daughters who are still stuck living at home with their mum and dad because
they just can't afford anywhere to live, that is not fair and every community needs to
recognise its responsibility to do something about that.
(App., p. 145, Yvette Cooper, 2007-07-15, ll. 51-65)
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152
8.4.7 Negative Politeness
Male Politicians Female Politicians Total
19 18 37
Table 24: Negative Politeness
Negative politeness belongs to the least frequent functions of hedges in the
corpus, as demonstrated in Table 24 above. The distribution in both genders is
almost the same, with 19 occurrences in male politicians and 18 occurrences in
female politicians. Negative politeness in political interviews may be considered as a
face-saving strategy of the speaker. S/he does not want to lose his/her face in
front of their potential voters. This pragmatic function is expressed by the phrases I
don’t think and I would disagree in the corpus.
In Example 83, the participants discuss the question of crime committed by
children. Tony Blair expresses his disagreement indirectly by using the hedging
phrase I don’t personally think:
Example 83
JON SOPEL: Okay, well let's talk about another area of your legacy. I mean you came to
prominence in sort of the early '90s when you, after the Jeremy Bulger killing, and you said
you've got to be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime. And here you are, ten
years as Prime Minister, we see kids going around knifing each other in London, shooting
carried out by children. Isn't that an area of failure?
TONY BLAIR: Well it's certainly an area of huge challenge, but surely the most important
thing for a government is whether crime has fallen or risen since the time we've been in
power.
And there is only one government since World War II, that will end its time with crime
down not up, and that's ours. Crime under the last Conservative government doubled. It's
fallen under this government. I mean, take the British crime survey, not some you know,
government statistic as it were.
If you look at these knife and gun crimes, yes, they're horrific, but it's their very exceptional
nature that is horrific, and as I've been saying recently, I don't personally think this is
a general problem... (interjection)... I think it's a very specific problem.
(App., p. 56, Tony Blair, 2007-04-15, ll. 167-182)
Attenuation of the Illocutionary Force
153
In the example below, when discussing a very sensitive issue of the Iraq War,
Bush is not certain about his words and he does not want to say directly that the
interviewer is actually telling the truth, therefore, he is using the hedging phrase to
attenuate the force of his words:
Example 84
SCHIEFFER: Let me--let me ask you, everyone in the government says the nuke—the
military option can never be taken off the table. Have you actually reviewed plans, if it
came to exercising the military option?
PRESIDENT BUSH: I think it's best I just leave it that all options should be on the table,
and the last option is the military option. We have got to work hard to exhaust all
diplomacy and that's what you're--that's what the country is seeing happen.
SCHIEFFER: But is that possible? Some people say with our forces stretched thin in Iraq
already, we might not be able to launch an attack on anybody.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, I--I--I--I would disagree with that. I think we've got plenty
of capability, but I--it--it--it--the first option, of course, is to--is to solve this problem
diplomatically, and that's where we are working to do.
(App., p. 71, George W. Bush, 2006-01-27, ll. 84-96)
The speaker in Example 85 expresses her disagreement with the interviewer
but again, indirectly. Instead of saying ―that‘s wrong‖, she softens her utterance by
this hedging phrase. The reason may be that she does not want to sound too
authoritative.
Example 85
JON SOPEL: You say that's not what people want. That's exactly what a lot of local
Labour councillors would love to see. The ability to build...
YVETTE COOPER: No, I don't think that's right. What they want to see is mixed
communities.
JON SOPEL: So there's no desire, what happened during the Deputy Leadership
campaign, when we had candidate after candidate talking about the need for more council
housing.
YVETTE COOPER: Well of course, we need more social housing, we need more shared
ownership housing and we need more private housing. We're completely clear about that.
Attenuation of the Illocutionary Force
154
We need more of all of those three and we need councils to be playing a much stronger
role than they are at the moment.
(App., p. 146, Yvette Cooper, 2007-07-15, ll. 118-128)
8.4.8 Detachment
Male Politicians Female Politicians Total
15 17 32
Table 25: Detachment
With 32 occurrences, detachment is the second least frequent function of
hedges in the corpus. Female speakers used it 17 times and male speakers produced
15 instances of this function. Detachment is expressed by the phrases I don’t think, I
would say, and I wouldn’t say in the corpus, as demonstrated by the examples below.
The reason why this function is not so frequent in political interviews may be
seen in the claim that politicians express involvement with rather than detachment
from their utterances. At this point, it should be anticipated that this does not apply
to two kinds of modality, namely deontic necessity and circumstantial possibility,
which will be dealt with in the next chapter. My explanation is that spoken discourse
has specific features of its own and it is not possible to make too broad
generalizations. Politicians cannot be detached too much because their aim is to
gain voters. If they were detached, they would not be successful with the
audience and therefore it would be difficult to influence their voters. By contrast,
when showing involvement, they are closer to them. They want to express
themselves as their listeners do, and consequently their language also contains
features of informal language. Politicians focus not only on transmission of
information and facts but they also want to establish relationship with their
audience. This feature of communication was called ―phatic communion‖, which
has already been explained in Sections 2.3 and 2.4.1 of this thesis.
Discussing events that happened in Rangoon (a natural disaster), David
Miliband wants to show his detachment from the number of people who passed
away during this catastrophe. He uses the phrase I don’t think expressing his doubts
about the number of victims officially reported.
Attenuation of the Illocutionary Force
155
Example 86
JON SOPEL: I'm joined from his constituency by the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband.
Mr Miliband, thank you very much for being with us.
First of all, can you give us your assessment of the latest figures that you're getting on the
number of people who may have died, the number of people who need help.
DAVID MILIBAND: Well, good afternoon. The message that's come back from
Rangoon, from our Ambassador there, to Douglas Alexander and to the Development
Secretary and myself overnight, paints a very grim picture which is that I would be amazed
if there haven't been about a hundred thousand people who'd died already, although,
I don't think that that is a confirmed figure.
As I say, I'd be amazed if it doesn't reach that number. But what's more, hundreds of
thousands more are at risk and a natural disaster is turning in to a humanitarian catastrophe
of genuinely epic proportions, in significant part because of what I would describe as the
malign neglect of the regime.
(App., p. 191, David Miliband 2008-05-11, ll. 6-18)
In Example 87, Tony Blair has to explain various sensitive issues in the UK,
such as lack of doctors and nurses, lack of teachers and rising violent crime. He
wants to gain detachment from his and his party‘s previous broken promises by
using the hedging phrase I would say:
Example 87
JEREMY PAXMAN: Prime Minister, there aren't enough doctors or nurses. There aren't
enough teachers. There are more cars on the road than when you came to power. The train
service doesn't work. Violent crime is rising. Is that what you meant by the new Britain?
TONY BLAIR: No. We accept there are all sorts of things we still have to do - to take each
one of those things in turn. There are more doctors than when we came to power. There
are about 17,000 more nurses. Crime is down 10%, burglary down 25%. I would say, we
don't say we've done everything. We've made a start, we've laid foundations.
PAXMAN: You said "over the five years of a Labour Government, we will rebuild the
NHS."
BLAIR: We made a specific pledge on waiting lists. And we said we'd start to put right the
rebuilding of a National Health Service where it depended on need. And as a result we've
actually got some 17,000 more nurses and more doctors.
Attenuation of the Illocutionary Force
156
(App., p. 20, Tony Blair, 2003-04-29, ll. 6-16)
In the following example, Hazel Blears explains disagreements in the Labour
Party but since they are not fully solved and she does not want to admit them in
front of the public, she hedges her statement by the phrases I wouldn’t say and I don’t
think to gain detachment from her explanation and problems in the party:
Example 88
JON SOPEL: How well would you say the truce is holding in the Party?
HAZEL BLEARS: I wouldn't say it's a truce because I don't think we're at war. What
we have got now is people who've been through some pretty turbulent times in the last few
weeks.
I think have realized that that damages us all, enormously; particularly colleagues in
marginal seats who I feel very strongly about and we've got to make sure that we are
a united party.
The public is very unforgiving of politicians who spend more time talking about their own
jobs and futures, rather than being concerned with the jobs of (overlap) .
(App., p. 63, Hazel Blears, 2006-09-17, ll. 70-78)
8.4.9 Evasiveness
Male Politicians Female Politicians Total
25 2 27
Table 26: Evasiveness
Evasiveness is the least frequent function of hedges, as shown in Table 26
above. The difference between male and female politicians is very significant. Only
two occurrences in females prove the claim that they try to control their language
and express themselves to the point. It relates to their need to defend their position
in front of the audience and to assert themselves in the area of politics.
In general, evasiveness in political interviews is associated with the tendency
to avoid commitment to speaker‟s statements. The answers are indirect and not
straightforward. This function cannot usually be performed only by a one-word
expression or a short phrase, but rather by whole utterances, as demonstrated in the
examples below.
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157
In Example 89, Jacqui Smith does not answer the interviewer‘s question
about opposing the proposals at all. Her reply is evasive, she does not want to
answer the question because she cannot explain it to the listeners properly without
losing her face:
Example 89
JON SOPEL: What of the charge that this is a policy essentially to deal with the problem
in London that is irrelevant to the rest of the country.
JACQUI SMITH: Well, that's completely wrong. In actual fact of course, what we've
succeeded in doing in London is to improve standards quite considerably.
Frankly the areas where we need to do more to improve the numbers of young people
getting five good GCSEs are the north west, the north east, the west Midlands, my
constituency, where I want to be confident that every child is getting the absolutely best
that they can do in our schools. This is a policy that is about the whole country and it's
about every single child.
JON SOPEL: Why are so many Labour MPs opposed to the proposals?
JACQUI SMITH: Well, er, Labour MPs often came in to the Labour Party as I did,
because they are passionate about education. Passionate about the chances that
that gives to children, particularly those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds.
JON SOPEL: That doesn't answer the question.
JACQUI SMITH: And that, well, I'm just coming to that. And that is why they like I, want
to make sure that these are policies which deliver that. We believe that they are, (interjects)
... we want to ...
(App., p. 253-254, Jacqui Smith, 2005-11-27, ll. 84-101)
In the next example, the interviewer specifies his question but Duncan‘s first
reaction to it is very evasive and he claims that it is not the issue which the
government is dealing with now:
Example 90
JON SOPEL: What I want to ask you is are you for or against nuclear power.
ALAN DUNCAN: The, the government is not looking at that. Tony Blair's saying he
is, but if you look at the terms and conditions of the Energy Review, there's no money on
offer. Now we've never before seen a nuclear power station built in Britain by the private
sector alone.
Attenuation of the Illocutionary Force
158
So the question is what are the terms and conditions and what is the investment climate
which we agree with Dieter Helm, should be a long one, in which this might happen and
could happen fairly and it would need a number of things. It would need a proper solution
to the handling of nuclear waste.
(App., p. 149, Alan Duncan, 2006-07-02, ll. 53-62)
Below, the interviewer mentions a sensitive issue for Michael Gove, which is
election results. His answer is very evasive because he is aware of the problems.
Gove wants to avoid answering the question but the interview insists on him
answering it.
Example 91
JON SOPEL: Wouldn't it be catastrophic for you not to win it, in the sense that you
haven't won a by-election for twenty six years.
You know, Labour were piling up big majorities in places like Wirral and mid Staffordshire
in the 1990s, which was the sign that actually, it looked like they were on course to win the
next General Election in '97. Don't you need to be doing exactly the same thing and Crewe
and Nantwich should be a plum ripe for picking.
MICHAEL GOVE: Well Jon, that's exactly the sort of thing that you and other
commentators enjoy talking about.
JON SOPEL: I'm just asking you.
MICHAEL GOVE: But as far as I'm concerned, the important thing to do is to
concentrate on acknowledging yes, that the public want to know more about the
Conservative Party. Harriet Harman quite rightly pointed out earlier, that we're now
entering that stage in the life time of this parliament, when people are going to ask about
Conservative ideas and they want to know how Conservative ideas will make a difference.
(App., p. 154, Michael Gove, 2008-04-29, ll. 33-46)
8.5 Conclusion
In the corpus of political interviews there appear diverse lexical items the
function of which is to attenuate the illocutionary force of utterances. Although
hedging devices occur less frequently than boosting devices in the corpus, they
belong to important linguistic means of showing speaker‟s involvement in
political interviews as well. It is due to the fact that, on the one hand, politicians
Attenuation of the Illocutionary Force
159
want to show power and assert themselves in front of their audience and do not
want to look uncertain or hesitant. On the other hand, they aim at being closer to
their voters, and as a result they show a high degree of involvement in their
language. They want to use a similar language as their voters, therefore, there are
signs of informality in their language.
Figure 6: Pragmatic Functions of Hedges
As shown in Figure 6, hedging devices were divided into nine pragmatic
functions, the most frequent of them being attenuation of the forthcoming
message. Politicians do not want to sound too authoritative and reserved so they
use hedging devices I think, I would say, I would think, etc. to soften their propositions.
A very low frequency of occurrence of functions of detachment and evasiveness
confirms a high degree of speaker‘s involvement in the genre of political interview. It
relates to what has already been pointed out: by being detached and evasive,
politicians would not have confidence of their voters. By contrast, they want to be in
touch with public.
As regards the difference between male and female politicians, the present
analysis reveals that in case of hedging devices, these difference are not significant.
Females used more hedging devices expressing unspecified reference and
detachment but the difference is insignificant (the difference between females and
males considering unspecified reference is six instances and mere two instances in
Pragmatic Functions of Hedges
attenuation
assumption
h.-o. uncertainty
unspecified reference
hesitation
c.-o. uncertainty
negative politeness
detachment
evasiveness
Attenuation of the Illocutionary Force
160
the case of detachment). What is interesting is the frequency of occurrence of
evasiveness. Males produced 25 instances, while females used it only twice. As
already explained in Section 8.4.9, female politicians feel the need to vindicate their
position in the area of politics since this sphere is usually connected with men. Some
voters may not believe in the abilities of females in top politics, female politicians are
aware of this and try to counterbalance this by using a language similar to their male
counterparts.
Speaker‘s involvement in political interviews manifests itself not only by
using boosting and hedging devices but also by using modal expressions. The next
chapter will discuss the concept of modality in political interviews in greater detail.
Modality
161
9 Modality
9.1 Introduction
As anticipated in the previous section, this chapter will deal with modality in
the corpus of political interviews. Needless to say, it is a distinct linguistic category
which has been described from various viewpoints. It has also been contrasted with
the related notions of mood and evidentiality (cf. Frawley 1992; Hoye 1997; Palmer
2001; Huddleston and Pullum 2002; among others). A comparison of these concepts
with modality will be provided in Sections 9.1 and 9.2. Modality is classified into
several types, which will be described in Section 9.5. Apart from classifying modality
into epistemic and deontic types, there have been other classifications, they are
mentioned in Section 9.6. As with boosting and hedging, the frequency of
occurrence of modal expressions in the corpus was investigated. A quantitative and
qualitative analysis of these expressions and types of modality is offered in Section
9.9. Section 9.10 deals with gender-specificity and modality and Section 9.11
describes an interesting topic of modal combinations.
As already mentioned, the expression of speaker‘s attitude towards the
proposition is also connected, apart from the intensification or attenuation of the
illocutionary force, with the concept of modality, which equally functions as a means
of modifying the illocutionary force of utterances. The main reason for this is the
fact that speakers or writers communicate not only bare facts but also their own
stance toward the proposition. ―Speakers often qualify their statements with
respect to believability, reliability, and general compatibility with accepted fact‖
(Frawley 1992:384). In this connection, Urbanová (2003:27) correctly points out that
it is not possible to separate the ―matter-of-fact content [of the message] from the
attitudinal aspects‖.
9.2 Mood and Modality
This section will explain the differences between mood and modality and it
will introduce approaches of several scholars to this issue (Bybee and Fleischman
1995; Huddleston 1984; Lyons 1977; Huddleston and Pullum 2002; Frawley 1992;
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Hoye 1997; Palmer 2001). The relationship between these two concepts is often
discussed in literature owing to the frequent confusion over the use of these two
terms. ―[...] mood refers to a formally grammaticalized category of the verb which
has a modal function. Moods are expressed inflectionally, generally in distinct sets of
verbal paradigms, [...], which vary from one language to another in respect to number
as well as to the semantic distinctions they mark‖ (Bybee and Fleischman 1995:2, my
emphasis).
―[...] mood is a category of grammar, modality a category of meaning.
Mood is the grammaticalisation of modality within the verbal system. The term
‗mood‘ is usually applied to inflectional systems of the verb, as in the contrast
between indicative, subjunctive, and imperative in such languages as Latin, French,
and German.‖ (Huddleston and Pullum 2002:172, emphasis added). In addition,
Lyons (1977:848) states that ―mood is a grammatical category that is found in some,
but not all languages.‖
Huddleston (1984:164) proposes a distinction between ―an analytic mood
system‖ and ―a synthetic mood system‖ in different languages. An analytic mood
system manifests itself in languages in which modal auxiliaries are markers used to
express ―the contrast between factual assertion and various kinds of non-factuality
and/or non-assertion‖ (1984:164). English is such a type of language because there is
no inflectional system of mood, but there is a difference between ―He is downstairs, He
may be downstairs, He must be downstairs, and so on‖ (1984:164, italics in original), which
clearly falls within the semantic area. ―Where mood is expressed through verbal
inflection, it can be described as synthetic‖ (Hoye 1997:39).
As mentioned above, mood is a grammatical category in contrast with
modality which is a semantic phenomenon. Huddleston and Pullum (2002:173)
assert that ―modality is centrally concerned with the speaker‘s attitude towards the
factuality or actualization of the situation expressed by the rest of the clause‖. A
similar description has been provided by Palmer (2001:1): ―Modality is concerned
with the status of the proposition that describes the event.‖ He continues by stating
that it is different form tense and aspect in that ―it does not refer directly to any
characteristic of the event, but simply to the status of the proposition‖ (Palmer
2001:1).
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Further, what is important to take into consideration is the fact that has been
proposed by Frawley: ―The notional content of modality highlights its association
with entire statements. Modality concerns the factual status of information; it signals
the relative actuality, validity, or believability of the content of an expression. Modality
affects the overall assertability of an expression and thus takes the entire proposition
within its scope‖ (Frawley 1992:385, italics in original). Bybee and Fleischman (1995)
add that modality is expressed ―in a variety of ways: morphological, lexical, syntactic,
or via intonation. These are not mutually exclusive‖ (1995:2).
Halliday (1970) proposes a different approach towards mood and modality
from the above-mentioned ones and draws a distinction between the three concepts
of modulation, modality and mood. He states that these concepts are different but
at the same time they are ―in some sense semantically alike‖ (1970:342). Since
Halliday considers these concepts from the viewpoint of the functions of language,
he claims that modality is ―derived from the „interpersonal‟ function of language‖
(1970:342, my emphasis), expressing ―the speaker‘s assessment of probability and
predictability. It is external to the content, being part of the attitude taken up by the
speaker‖ (1970:349, my emphasis). Because of the expression of the speaker‘s
attitude towards the factual content of the utterance, modality is, at the same time,
oriented towards the ideational function of language (1970:349, my emphasis).
The concept of modulation is different because ―it is ideational in function,
and expresses factual conditions on the process expressed in the clause‖ (1970:343).
It presents the relationship of the participant to the process (1970:349).
Finally, mood is often regarded as an interrelation of two functions. On the
one hand, it is connected with the textual function of language which regards the way
how sentences are organized to form a text, on the other hand, it relates to the
interpersonal function which is concerned with the ―speaker‘s choice of role in the
communicative situation (1970:325, note 9).
9.3 Evidentiality
The concept of evidentiality is related to the speaker‘s attitude to the
proposition, therefore it is mentioned here. However, it is beyond the scope of this
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thesis to examine evidentiality more thoroughly since it focuses predominantly on
the source of knowledge of the information.
Evidentiality is a semantic category ―which allows a speaker to
communicate her attitude to the source of her information‖ (Saeed 1997:131). In
other words, it means that the speaker denotes the source of the information
expressed. The hearer learns ―whether the statement relies on personal first-hand
knowledge, or was acquired from another source; and if the latter, perhaps to say
something of the source‖ (Saeed 1997:132). Palmer (2001) considers evidentiality a
type of epistemic modality. By contrast, Aikhenvald points out that ―evidentiality is a
category in its own right, and not a category of epistemic or some other modality, or
of tense-aspect‖ (2003:1). The reason why evidentiality should not be regarded as a
part of epistemic modality is that ―evidential markers may indicate a speaker‘s
attitude towards the validity of certain information but do not have to‖ (2003:13).
Every language has its own evidential devices but ―not every language has
grammatical evidentiality‖ (Aikhenvald 2003:1). This has also been confirmed by
Chafe (1986) who states that English ―expresses evidentiality with modal auxiliaries,
adverbs, and miscellaneous idiomatic phrases, although not, for example, with a
coherent set of verb suffixes [...]‖ (Chafe 1986:261).
Chafe (1986) applies a broader approach to evidentiality involving attitudes
towards knowledge. He defines so called ―modes of knowing‖, i.e. ―various ways in
which knowledge is acquired‖ (1986:263). These modes include:
belief
In this mode, ―concern for evidence is downgraded‖ (1986:266). One believes in
things because somebody else who they have confidence in believe in them too.
These expressions of belief are typical of English: I think, I guess, and I suppose
(1986:266). Chafe gives this example of belief: I think that a lot of the time I’ve been
misjudging her.
induction
Induction is a mode of knowing, in which evidence is very important. English
usually does not indicate ―what the nature of the evidence was. The most common
marker which serves this function is must, which signals an inference with a high
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degree of reliability‖ (Chafe 1986:266, italics in original), for example : It must have
been a kid.
hearsay evidence
One learns of many things because other people tell us about them. Some
languages make use of affixes or particles ―to qualify knowledge as having been
acquired through language rather than direct experience‖ (Chafe 1986:268). English
does not have these devices so it uses various phrases to fulfil this function, e.g.
people say, they say, I’ve been told (1986:268). To illustrate this mode of knowing, Chafe
provides this example: They were using more verbs than English speaking kids have been
said to learn.
deduction
The last mode of knowing defined by Chafe, deduction, relates to a ―hypothesis
from which conclusions about evidence can be deduced. Typical markers of
deduction are should and presumably‖ (Chafe 1986:269, italics in original), e.g. Adults
presumably are capable of purely logical thought (1986:269).
To conclude, the concept of evidentiality is not investigated more thoroughly
here since this thesis focuses on the speaker‘s attitude towards the assertion and on
the degree of certainty the speaker has about his/her proposition, not on the source
of knowledge of the information.
9.4 Subjectivity vs. Objectivity
One feature that is intrinsically related to modality is the difference between
subjectivity and objectivity. Palmer (1986) claims that ―modality in language [...]
seems to be essentially subjective. [...] It could even be further argued that
subjectivity is an essential criterion for modality. Modality could [...] be defined as the
grammaticalization of speakers‘ (subjective) attitudes and opinions‖ (Palmer
1986:16).
Subjectivity is usually related to epistemic modality but some scholars
associate it also with deontic modality, as, for example, Lyons who understands it as
speaker‟s involvement: ―Subjectivity is a matter of speaker‘s, or more generally, of
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the locutionary agent‘s involvement of himself in the utterance. In the case of
epistemic modality what is involved is his knowledge (or beliefs). In the case of
deontic modality it is his will and authority that is involved. But in both cases it is the
locutionary agent who is the source of the modality‖ (Lyons 1983:111).
Hoye points out, however, that when analysing deontic modality from the
point of view of subjectivity, problems may appear because there are different
degrees of speaker‟s involvement (1997:43-44). According to him, the sentence
Can I just try come more cake? undoubtedly involves the speaker ―but the source of
permission or obligation may be external where there is no degree of speaker
involvement whatsoever unless the speaker is identified as a member of the society
or institution instigating the action‖, as in Will lecturers kindly refrain from missing classes?
(Hoye 1997:43).
The majority of authors who deal with subjective and objective modality do
not provide any formal definitions. Lyons explains that objective modalized
statements express speaker‘s distance from the proposition. These statements may
be considered true or false without much difficulty. By contrast, ―subjectively
modalized statements [...] are statements of opinion, or hearsay, or tentative
inference, rather than statements of fact‖ (Lyons 1977:799, my emphasis), which
means that these statements include a subjective point of view that is presented as
true. However, the distinction between subjective and objective modality is not so
obvious in everyday language use, as Lyons (1977:797) points out.
The next section will look into types of modality in greater detail.
9.5 Types of Modality
Since modality is broad in its scope and different disciplines have approached
this concept from different angles, no agreement has been reached as far as the
number and type of modalities are concerned. An early attempt to define types of
modality is Jespersen‟s classification (1992 [1924]) containing twenty subcategories
of modality which express ―certain attitudes of the mind of the speaker towards the
content of the sentence‖ (1992 [1924]:313). Jespersen himself concedes that ―the
categories frequently overlap, and some of the terms are not quite unobjectionable‖
(1992 [1924]:320). Nevertheless, his classification is important since it distinguishes
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two principal types of modality, ―containing an element of will‖ and ―containing
no element of will‖ (Jespersen 1992 [1924]:319-320), which corresponds to the core
distinction between deontic and epistemic modality.
Rescher (1968:24ff), an American philosopher, also deals with modality and
puts forward its in-depth classification. In spite of the fact that his categories rest on
philosophical rather than linguistic grounds, there are two, out of eight basic types
of modality which are significant for natural languages: epistemic and deontic
modality. This has also been confirmed by Hoye: ―In terms of natural language,
there seems to be a consensus among interested parties that at least two modalities
are primitive: namely, deontic and epistemic‖ (1997:42). This terminology is also
used by Palmer (2001), Lyons (1977), Frawley (1992), among others.
There is another type of modality, namely, dynamic modality which denotes
the subject‘s ability or willingness to do something (de Haan 2006:29).
9.5.1 Epistemic Modality
Epistemic modality ―is concerned with matters of knowledge or belief on
which basis speakers express their judgements about states of affairs, events or
actions‖ (Hoye 1997:42). In other words, ―it concerns the speaker‘s attitude to the
factuality of past or present time situations [...]‖ (Huddleston and Pullum 2002:178).
Thus, in the modalised proposition She may/might/must/could be ill, the speaker
communicates his or her subjective attitude to the proposition and so s/he
modifies the illocutionary force of the utterance.
Frawley defines epistemic modality in the following way: ―The structural and
semantic resources available to a speaker to express judgment of the factual status
and likelihood of a state of affairs‖ (1992:407), and he continues by stating that
―epistemic modality is a handy cover term for the way that language denotes and
encodes the following concepts, among others: possibility, necessity, inference,
belief, report, hearsay, conclusion, deduction, opinion, commitment, speculation,
quotation, doubt, evidence, and certainty‖ (1992:407, italics in original).
Coates (1983) states that epistemic modality ―is concerned with the speaker‘s
assumptions or assessment of possibilities and, in most cases, it indicates the
speaker‘s confidence (or lack of confidence) in the truth of the proposition
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expressed‖ (Coates 1983:18). In this connection, Frawley emphasizes that epistemic
modality relates to the expression of truth, but it is ―truth relativized to a speaker‖
(1992:407).
Epistemic modality in Palmer‘s classification (2001:8ff) is subsumed, together
with evidential modality, under the category of propositional modality. The main
reason for this is that they both relate to the ―speaker‘s attitude to the truth-value or
factual status of the proposition‖ (Palmer 2001:8). However, there is a difference
between these two types: ―With epistemic modality speakers express their judgments
about the factual status of the proposition, whereas with evidential modality, they
indicate the evidence they have for its factual status‖ (2001:8). Palmer divides
epistemic modality into three types:
speculative
deductive
assumptive
As Palmer (2001:25) points out, not all three types of epistemic modality are
always present in all languages, but in English all these kinds can be found.
Epistemic speculative modality is expressed by the modal verb may that
conveys ―a possible conclusion‖ (Palmer 2001:25), as for example in the sentence
―John may be in his office” (2001:25). It implies that the speaker is not sure whether John
is in his office or not. It is possible that he is there but it is not certain. The modal
verb must is employed for the expression of epistemic deductive modality and it
conveys ―the only possible conclusion‖, as in ―John must be in his office”. The speaker is
certain that John is in his office and makes ―a firm judgment, on the basis of
evidence‖ (2001:25).
Huddleston and Pullum (2002:178ff) describe epistemic modality in a similar
way but use a different terminology. They have divided epistemic modality into two
types: epistemic necessity, or strong modality and epistemic possibility, or
weak modality. Strong modality is what Palmer calls deductive type of epistemic
modality and weak modality corresponds to his speculative modality.
The last type of epistemic modality defined by Palmer is assumptive
modality. It is expressed by the modal verb will which indicates ―a reasonable
conclusion‖, as in the case of, ―John will be in his office”, for example. The assertion
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stems from the facts that are generally known about John; for example, he always
starts his work at a particular time, he is a workaholic, etc. (Palmer 2001:25).
Huddleston and Pullum (2002:188) state that will is similar to other modal verbs
semantically, pragmatically and syntactically, but it expresses ―a lower degree of
modal meaning‖, thus, they treat it separately. They consider three uses of will that
fall within epistemic modality: central-epistemic, futurity and conditional
consequence. The category of central-epistemic corresponds to epistemic
assumptive modality defined by Palmer.
Palmer also draws attention to the fact that there are two ―not entirely
compatible contrasts‖ within the English modal system (2001:25). The first concerns
the strength of the conclusion, manifested as the choice between epistemic
possibility and epistemic necessity. In other words, there is a difference between
what is epistemically possible (may) and what is epistemically necessary (must). The
second makes a difference between ―an inference from observation and an inference
from experience or general knowledge, i.e. between deductive (must) and assumptive
(will)‖ (Palmer 2001:25) (my italics).
9.5.2 Deontic Modality
This type of modality is generally defined with regard to obligation,
prohibition or permission (see Palmer 2001, Huddleston and Pullum 2002, Kratzer
1978). ―‗Deontic‘ is derived from the Greek for ―binding‖, so that here it is a matter
of imposing an obligation or prohibition, granting permission, and the like. [...] The
person, authority, convention, or whatever from whom the obligation, etc., is
understood to emanate we refer to as the deontic source‖ (Huddleston and Pullum
2002:178, emphasis in original). In other words, this modality expresses ―the
imposition of a state of affairs on individuals, or, with the modality as deixis, the
imposition of an expressed world on a reference world‖ (Frawley 1992:420). To give
an example, in All passengers must show their passports (my example), the modal verb must
is used in the deontic sense with the meaning ―they are obliged to show their
passports‖. In You may use my mobile phone (my example), the person is giving
permission to another person by utilizing the modal verb may.
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Huddleston and Pullum distinguish between two types of deontic modality.
As with epistemic modality, they designate them strong and weak. Strong deontic
modality is also called ―deontic necessity‖ or ―strong obligation‖ and is
expressed by the modal verb must. Weak deontic modality is also called ―deontic
possibility‖ and is expressed by may (Huddleston and Pullum 2002:182).
Obligation and permission, two categories of deontic modality, have also
been identified by Frawley (1992:421ff). However, he adds another essential
characteristic of deontic modality, which is futurity, or ―the directionality of the
events‖ (1992:424). By this he means that ―deontics always point to some upcoming
state of affairs from the reference world‖ (1992:424).
Palmer (2001) states that ―deontic and dynamic modality refer to events that
are not actualized. These are events that have not taken place, but that are merely
potential, and may, therefore, be described as ‗event modality‘‖ (Palmer 2001:70).
The difference between deontic and dynamic modality is that ―with dynamic
modality the conditioning factors are external to the person indicated as the subject
[...], whereas with deontic modality they are internal [...]‖ (2001:70). Palmer (2001)
divides deontic modality into three types:
obligative
permissive
commissive
Deontic obligative modality corresponds to Huddleston and Pullum‘s
deontic necessity and deontic permissive modality is denoted as deontic
possibility in Huddleston and Pullum‘s terminology. Palmer also includes the
―commissive type‖ under deontic modality which he defines as a situation ―where
the speaker guarantees that the action will take place‖ and is signalled by the modal
verb shall (2001:70).
9.5.3 Dynamic Modality
Dynamic modality has been defined by Perkins (1983) as a type of modality
that refers to ―the relationship which exists between circumstances and unactualized
events in accordance with natural laws‖ (1983:11). Huddleston and Pullum add that
―the clearest cases of dynamic modality are concerned with properties and
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dispositions of persons, etc., referred to in the clause, especially by the subject NP‖
(2002:178).
As already mentioned, dynamic modality together with deontic modality are
two types of event modality, which were identified by Palmer. Further, he defines
two types of dynamic modality, the one expressing ability, which he calls ―abilitive
dynamic modality‖, and the other conveying willingness, which is called ―volitive
dynamic modality‖ (Palmer 2001:76ff.). Abilitive dynamic modality is expressed in
English by can, volitive modality by will. Thus, in the sentence ―He can run a mile in
under four minutes” (Palmer 2001:77), can expresses an ability of the subject to manage
something. Will in ―She loves him and she won’t leave him‖ (2001:78) expresses willingness
of somebody to do or not to do something (2001:78).
Huddleston and Pullum (2002:179) emphasize that the borderline between
deontic and dynamic modality is not always clear. For example, the sentence The most
we can expect is a slight cut in the sales-tax cannot be clearly classified as either dynamic or
deontic modality. Eventually, they categorize it as dynamic modality because ―no
person or institution is identifiable as a deontic source - they might be glossed with
―permissible‖, but not with ―permission‖ (2002:179).
It should be pointed out here that these modal verbs are also used for
expressing other types of modality. Can is used to express deontic modality and also
epistemic modality but only in its negative form. Will expresses not only willingness
but it is also used as an assumptive.
9.6 Other Classifications of Modality
Some authors (Bybee at al. 1994; Coates 1983; among others) who deal with
modality have suggested different classifications of this concept. Nuyts (2006:6)
states that there are two main reasons for it. First, they want to highlight different
semantic relationships among categories, second, they focus on providing a new
approach to modality, such as a concentration on ―properties of the linguistic forms
expressing modal categories‖ (Nuyts 2006:6).
An influential categorization has been proposed by Bybee, Perkins and
Pagliuca (1994:177ff), who have defined four types of modality:
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agent-oriented
speaker-oriented
epistemic
subordinating moods
Agent-oriented modality includes ―the existence of internal and external
conditions on an agent with respect to the completion of the action expressed in the
main predicate‖ (Bybee et al (1994:177). However, Bybee et al. emphasize that this
modality is a ―part of the propositional content of the clause and thus would not be
considered a modality in most frameworks‖ (1994:177). The main reason why they
have included it in their study is that ―these modal senses are the diachronic sources
of most senses that DO qualify as modality in other studies‖ (1994:177, emphasis in
original). Types of modality that fall within this category are obligation, necessity,
ability, and desire. A significant type of agent-oriented modality is root possibility,
which relates not only to the internal condition of ability, but also to external factors,
which include social and physical conditions (Bybee et al. 1994:178). Coates
(1983:114) gives this example of root possibility:
I actually couldn‟t finish reading it because the chap whose shoulder I was reading the
book over got out at Leicester Square.
Speaker-oriented modality covers directives, such as imperatives,
prohibitives, optatives, hortatives, admonitives (warnings), and permissives. These
directives ―represent speech acts through which a speaker attempts to move an
addressee to action‖ (Bybee and Fleischman 1995:6). In other words, ―speaker-
oriented modalities do not report the existence of conditions on the agent, but rather
allow the speaker to impose such conditions on the addressee‖ (Bybee et al.
1994:179). Within this framework, agent-oriented and speaker-oriented modality are
close to deontic/dynamic distinction of modality. What is yet important in Bybee et
al.‘s classification is the so called ―enabling factor‖. If this factor is the speaker
himself, then it is an instance of speaker-oriented modality; otherwise we are dealing
with the agent-oriented modality (de Haan 2006:31).
Epistemic modality ―indicates the extent to which the speaker is committed
to the truth of the proposition‖ (Bybee et al. 1994:179). Apart from possibility and
probability, it includes inferred certainty, which implies that the speaker is convinced
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of the truthfulness of the proposition, as in the sentence There must be some way to get
from New York to San Francisco for less than $600, for example (Bybee et al. 1994:180).
Finally, subordinating moods relate to the modality employed in subordinate
clauses, such as complement clauses, concessives and purpose clauses.
When studying modality, one can encounter the term ―root modality‖,
especially in the Anglo-American literature. As de Haan (2006:29) points out, the first
significant study to make use of this term and define the notion of root modality
seems to be Coates‘ corpus research (1983) into the English modals.
In actual fact, Coates (1983) uses the term ―root modality‖ as a cover term
for both dynamic and deontic modality. However, she finds the term ―deontic‖
inappropriate since ―it refers to the logic of obligation and permission‖ (1983:20-21)
that is why she prefers the term ―root modality‖ for all other types, including
dynamic modality. She explains this by appealing to the fact that common root
modals express a variety of meanings, obligation and permission being only the core.
Moreover, according to Coates, the division of modality into deontic and dynamic
overlooks the fact that all non-epistemic uses of must, for example, are
interconnected and gradual, i.e. they lie on a continuum ranging from a strong
obligation to a weak obligation (1983:20-21). ―By subdividing this category, Palmer is
forced to choose arbitrary cut-off points, and to obscure the essential unity of the
Root modals‖ (Coates 1983:21). However, she is well aware of the fact that a deontic
explication is more appropriate in contexts where ―the authority structure is well-
defined‖ than in less clearly defined contexts (1983:21).
To conclude, it can be stated that although there is a difference between
the terms “deontic” and “root” modality, this difference is very fine and
sometimes these two terms are not distinguished properly and are used as
interchangeable. When using the term ―root‖, the authors probably want to
indicate that ―there are aspects of modality that lie outside the traditional domain of
modality in logic [...]. The use of a term such as root modality highlights this aspect
of modality‖ (de Haan 2006:30).
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9.7 Classification of Modality in this Study
The classification of modality proposed in this study follows the traditional
division of modality into two primary semantic categories: epistemic and deontic, and
their subtypes. The research will not concentrate on dynamic modality since it does
not express the modification of illocutionary force to such a great extent as epistemic
and deontic modalities. The terminology used rests partly on Palmer‘s division of
modality, partly on Huddleston and Pullum‘s types of modality. However, Palmer‘s
categorization of modality is problematic and simplistic in some respects and it is not
possible to follow it in all of its points. When analysing the corpus of political
interviews, there were many sentences with the modal verb can which could not be
determined according to Palmer‘s classification. Consider the use of could in
Examples 92 and 93 below. They fall neither into the category of deontic possibility
nor into dynamic abilitive modality. That is why I have employed the category of
―circumstantial possibility‖, which is mentioned by Huddleston and Pullum
(2002:197) as it seems to be appropriate in these cases. Circumstantial possibility
expresses a possibility which can happen under certain circumstances.
Example 92
QUESTION: Let me tell you about a current poll. Iraqis were asked about their lives
today, Madame Secretary. Listen to these results: Nearly nine in ten people said that they
live in fear that the violence that is ravaging their country will strike them or the people
they live with. That's startling. Ninety percent fear that they'll fall victim to the violence in
that country right now. Don't you have to wonder what that percentage would have been
under Saddam?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, under Saddam, I guess, the fear would have been that he could
have come into your village with his secret police, lined up the women and men and shot
them and put them in the mass graves as he did in villages in the south and in Kurdish
territory or used chemical weapons against your neighborhood. I don't doubt that the Iraqi
people have a lot of fears. It's a very violent circumstance, particularly in and around
Baghdad. It's a circumstance that the Iraqi Government understands that it has to get
under control. That's why this opportunity that is afforded by the Baghdad security plan
thus far going relatively well, though I would be the first to say that there will be good days
and bad days. This gives them an opportunity now to deliver security for their people and
to delivery it as a democratic government for all Iraqis.
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(App., pp. 206-207, Condoleezza Rice, 2007-03-19, ll. 35-50)
When justifying British intervention in the Iraq War, Tony Blair explains the
situation there and asks a rhetorical question about the possibilities of Iraqi people.
Using can’t in that question, he expresses that the situation of Iraqi people could
change under certain circumstances:
Example 93
DF: In terms of Iraq, prime minister, in the light of the latest figures from the Iraqi health
ministry, that the number of Iraqis who have died is between 100,000 and 150,000 and so
on, with those scale of figures, if you had known that that was the scale of bloodshed,
would you have still gone to war?
TB: Well the alternative was leaving Saddam in charge of Iraq, where hundreds of
thousands of people died, there were a million casualties in the Iran/Iraq war, Kuwait was
invaded and four million people went into exile.
So the idea that Iraqis should be faced with the situation where they either have a brutal
dictator in Saddam or alternatively a sectarian religious conflict, why can't they have in Iraq
what their people want? Which is a non-sectarian government, a government that is elected
by the people and the same opportunities and the same rights that we enjoy in countries
such as this.
(App., p. 38, Tony Blair, 2006-12-11, ll. 65-76)
More examples of circumstantial possibility may be found in Section 9.9.4.
Additionally, I have identified a new category of modality which I label
―epistemic attitudinal modality‖. This category comprises modal adverbs actually,
frankly and really. All instances of uses of these adverbs are epistemic in that they
express speaker‟s stance to the proposition and in this way they modify its
illocutionary force. It was not possible to place these adverbs within the subtypes of
epistemic modality as they express neither possibility, necessity nor assumption that
is why a new type of modality was determined. To illustrate this category, there are
two examples from the corpus, more examples may be found in Section 9.9.3.
These three instances of really and actually used in the example below are,
pragmatically speaking, boosters, which means that their pragmatic function is to
accentuate the force of the utterance. They express the attitude of the speaker
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towards the proposition, which means that they are epistemic in their nature, that is
why they fall under the category of epistemic attitudinal modality:
Example 94
JON SOPEL: I don't want to get hung up on the titles, but there was a time when a
Labour person would have been thrilled to be described as Blairite, because it - you know
they were being associated with the winning team. I just wonder whether it is seen a bit
more maybe as a handicap now?
HAZEL BLEARS: Well I, I think it's really dangerous erm if we actually distance
ourselves from what we've been doing over the last ten years.
If you think about it, in America, Al Gore kind of tried to put a bit of distance between
himself and Clinton and what people did was they voted for George Bush. What I don't
want us to do is to distance ourselves from all the good things that we've done over the last
ten years, because I do think we've got a really good record.
(App., p. 66, Hazel Blears, 2007-02-25, ll. 31-42)
As with really and actually in Example 94 above, in Example 95 the adverb
frankly boosts the force of the forthcoming message and expresses the attitude of the
speaker towards it. So again, it may be identified as an instance of epistemic
attitudinal modality.
Example 95
JON SOPEL: What of the charge that this is a policy essentially to deal with the problem
in London that is irrelevant to the rest of the country.
JACQUI SMITH: Well, that's completely wrong. In actual fact of course, what we've
succeeded in doing in London is to improve standards quite considerably.
Frankly the areas where we need to do more to improve the numbers of young people
getting five good GCSEs are the north west, the north east, the west Midlands, my
constituency, where I want to be confident that every child is getting the absolutely best
that they can do in our schools. This is a policy that is about the whole country and it's
about every single child.
(App., p. 253, Jacqui Smith, 2005-11-27, ll. 84-93)
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177
9.8 Expressions of Modality
On account of the extensive content of modality, one can anticipate the
existence of various kinds of linguistic means indicating this phenomenon. However,
some studies on modality have focused their attention only on the modal auxiliaries,
cf. Perkins 1983: ―Discussion of modality in linguistics has [...] been concerned
almost exclusively with the syntactic class of modal auxiliary verbs [...]. Besides the
modal auxiliaries, however, there is a wide range of linguistic devices in English
which are equally deserving of the semantic label ‗modal‘, but in linguistic treatments
these are invariably mentioned only in so far as they may serve as paraphrases to
illuminate the meaning of the modal auxiliaries‖ (Perkins 1983:19). As Hermerén
(1978:11) rightly observes, modal expressions do not appear individually but they can
occur in various combinations in the same sentence, which can also be proven by the
results from the corpus. The possible combinations of modal expressions will be
discussed in Section 9.11.
Linguistic expressions of modality differ across languages, which is
determined by the type of a particular language. Below are all lexical means that are
used to express modality in English as they occur in the corpus:
modal auxiliary verbs - must, have to, may, might, can, could, should, ought to
modal adjectives - possible, probable, likely, certain, sure
modal adverbs - perhaps, possibly, probably, maybe, really, surely, certainly, actually,
frankly
pragmatic particles - I think, I mean, I guess
Modal adjectives and adverbs, modal auxiliary verbs in an epistemic modal
function, and pragmatic particles (Aijmer 2002; Holmes 1995) are, apart from
expressing modality, also used to express various pragmatic functions which
depend on their use either as a boosting device or as a hedging device (see Chapters
7 and 8). From this research it follows that both these functions, the pragmatic
function and the modal function, of these linguistic means are interrelated in
that sense that they express very similar meanings. This claim is in contrast to
the previous research of Coates (2003:331ff) who separates these two functions. It
must be stressed here that this finding applies only to epistemic types of modality, it
does not apply to deontic types and to circumstantial possibility since lexical means
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178
of these types of modalities do not modify the illocutionary force of propositions to
the same extent as epistemic means do.
9.9 Frequency of Occurrence of Modal Expressions and Types of Modality
This section will provide quantitative and qualitative analyses of modal
expressions appearing in the corpus. The total number of all modal expressions,
i.e. modal verbs, modal adverbs and adjectives, and pragmatic particles is 2,203, as
demonstrated in Table 27 and Figure 7 below. Male politicians used 1,079 modal
expressions and females used 1,123 modal expressions, which means that there is no
substantial difference between both genders as for the frequency of occurrence of
these linguistic means.
Male Politicians Female Politicians Total
1,079 1,124 2,203
Table 27: Frequency of Occurrence of Modal Expressions
Table 28 and Figure 7 below summarize all types of modality examined and
the number of occurrences produced by males, females and by both genders
together. The most frequent type of modality is epistemic possibility with 1,061
occurrences followed by deontic necessity (565 occurrences) and epistemic
attitudinal modality (369 occurrences). The least frequent type of modality is
deontic possibility with mere 23 appearances in the whole corpus.
Figure 7: Types of Modality and Number of Occurrences
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
epistemic possibility
deontic necessity
epistemic attitudinal
circumstantial possibility
epistemic necessity
deontic possibility
male politicians
female politicians
Modality
179
Type of modality Male Politicians Female
Politicians Total
epistemic possibility 551 510 1,061
deontic necessity 254 311 565
epistemic attitudinal 178 191 369
circumstantial possibility 50 48 98
epistemic necessity 36 51 87
deontic possibility 10 13 23
Table 28: Types of Modality and Number of Occurrences
In the following sections, particular types of modality will be analysed from
the point of view of the frequency of their occurrence. All categories of modality will
be illustrated with examples from the corpus. As with boosting and hedging devices,
all modal expressions are highlighted in the attachment to this thesis. Depending on
the type of modality, they have a particular background colour. Epistemic types of
modality have a yellow background, deontic modalities have a red background and
circumstantial possibility is highlighted with turquoise colour. The type of modality is
abbreviated in brackets and is also coloured, for example:
could (E. poss.) = the modal verb could belongs to epistemic possibility, therefore, it
has a yellow background
must (D. nec.) = must has a red background colour because it expresses deontic
necessity
can (C. poss.) = in this case, the modal verb can expresses circumstantial possibility
that is why it is in turquoise colour
As already stated above, an expression may function as a booster or as a
hedge and at the same time, it may express modality. Therefore, some expressions
are underlined and have the abbreviation of a type of booster or hedge and its
pragmatic function in brackets and they also have a coloured background according
to the corresponding type of modality:
certainly (BSO, Assur.) (E. nec.) = certainly functions as a speaker-oriented booster
expressing assurance; that is why it is double underlined and it is also a modal
expression of epistemic necessity, therefore it has a yellow background
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I don't think (HSO, Neg. pol.) (E. poss.) = I don’t think is a speaker-oriented hedge
expressing negative politeness and also a modal expression of epistemic possibility
9.9.1 Epistemic Possibility
Male Politicians Female Politicians Total
551 510 1,061
Table 29: Epistemic Possibility
This kind of modality is the category with the highest frequency of
occurrence in the corpus, both in male and female politicians, as demonstrated in
Table 29. The reason is that the phrase I think is the most frequently used linguistic
means coming under this category. Epistemic possibility is expressed, apart from I
think, by the pragmatic particles I don’t think and I mean, by the modal auxiliary may, its
preterite form might, by the lexical modals possible, perhaps, possibly, probably, maybe,
apparently and likely in the corpus.
The frequency of occurrence of these lexical means is summarized in Table 28
below:
Type of modality Male Politicians Female
Politicians Total
I think 328 358 686
I mean 108 26 134
I don’t think 35 45 80
may 28 21 49
might 18 27 45
probably 14 6 20
maybe 7 12 19
perhaps 5 9 14
possible 6 3 9
possibly 2 1 3
likely 0 1 1
apparently 0 1 1
Table 30: Modal Means of Epistemic Possibility
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181
Out of all these means, the most frequent expression is the phrase I think
(686 occurrences in total) followed by I mean (134 occurrences) and I don’t think
(appeared 80 times). As regards epistemic possibility conveyed by the modal verbs
may or might, the number of occurrences is much lower when compared to the
pragmatic particles. Finally, lexical modals show an even lower number of occurrence
than modal verbs.
In case that linguistic means of epistemic possibility hedge the illocutionary
force of utterances, they express uncertainty, assumption, lack of commitment
to the proposition and doubt of the speaker. Politicians may also take their
listeners into consideration and offer them a prediction or hope for the future. Their
use may also be interpreted as a face-saving strategy of the speaker. If the
expressions of epistemic possibility boost the illocutionary force of speech acts, they
emphasise their views and express subjectivity. They try to influence their
voters.
In Example 96, there is a discussion about the Middle East peace between
Tony Blair and David Frost, a reporter of Al Jazeera English (English version of the
Arabic news channel). Blair is not sure about the development in Palestine, which is
singalled by the use of the phrase I think expressing his uncertainty and assumption.
The first use of I think in this extract indicates the uncertainty about the possibility of
reaching agreement in this conflict. The second use of I think expresses Blair‘s
assumption about the future cooperation among the EU and the USA in the Middle
East:
Example 96
DF: But whatever the EU can do with the Palestinians and so on, and they obviously can
do something, is it in fact progress and this target you have for Middle East peace, while
you're in office if possible it all depends on the United States putting wholehearted
pressure on Israel?
TB: Well you're absolutely right in saying the role of the US is crucial but you see I think
that both the United States and Israel will want to make progress provided we can get
a national unity government on the Palestinian side.
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182
That is in line with the principles laid out by the United Nations so that there‘s mutual
recognition of an Israeli state and a Palestinian state, and then we‘ve got to clear all the
obstacles out of the way and get on with it.
I think the Europeans can play a great part as you rightly imply in helping the Palestinian
Authority and then it's for the Americans and ourselves and others obviously to work with
Israel in trying to make progress.
(App., p. 37, Tony Blair, 2006-12-11, ll. 23-34)
In the following extract, William Hague expresses lack of commitment to his
proposition about returning an amount of money to people which they paid for a
tax. He uses the phrase I don’t think which express detachment from that assertion.
Using might he indicates a possibility of getting that money but he doubts it and does
not believe it too much.
Example 97
JON SOPEL: Okay, Labour have committed a U-turn this week but does it really matter if
the government ends up in the right place and having to rid of the worse bits of the policy
that were causing that anger.
WILLIAM HAGUE: Well it's not clear how complete this U-turn has been. Of course,
they're now very unclear about whether everybody who is losing out as a result of the
abolition of the doubling of the 10p tax band, is going to be compensated and when they
are going to be compensated.
There will be a further debate about this in the House of Commons tomorrow and I don't
think people are going to be impressed with the idea that they might get some of the
money back in a year and a half's time or something like that and they know that Gordon
Brown has only given in on this because he had to; not because he actually was persuaded
that lower paid people were being hit by his measures, but because he was forced by the
Conservatives and his own backbenchers, in to a change of tack, so I don't think he's
going to get a lot of credit for that.
(App., p. 158, William Hague, 2008-04-27, ll. 19-32)
In Example 98, Theresa May discusses a breakdown of trust between people
and politicians. Using I think, she expresses her opinions and assumptions about this
problem, about what could be done in the future and how to solve it. Perhaps also
indicates these assumptions.
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183
Example 98
JON SOPEL: I just wonder, whether you feel that you are trusted, whether you are seen by
the public as an honourable member.
THERESA MAY: I think there is a break down of trust generally, between people and
politicians. I think that's come about for a whole variety of reasons. This issue we've just
been talking about, the question of allowances and budgets and expenses, is one aspect of
it.
I think there's also another aspect of break down of trust which is about broken promises
and we saw a very good example of that in the House of Commons last week with the
issue of the European Referendum. Three parties campaigned to have a referendum, only
one party was willing to stand up and be counted on that, when the time came in the
House of Commons.
So there is a break down of trust. There's much more we can be doing in parliament, we
could be giving more power back to people at local government level, through local
referendums. We could be giving more power to people to initiate debates and perhaps
Bills in the House of Commons. I think we need to open up how we do things, to restore
that break down of trust.
(App., p. 185, Theresa May, 2008-03-09, ll. 150-165)
Below, the phrase I think expresses subjectivity of Alan Johnson about things
concerning children‘s obesity and the restriction of junk food advertising. I think
functions as a booster pragmatically and strengthens the illocutionary force of the
utterance.
Example 99
JON SOPEL: Okay, let's talk about obesity in children because I think 16% of our children
are now considered to be obese and the government has taken action. There's a ban on
advertising of junk foods on specific children's programming, but of course we all know
that children watch a lot of other programmes like, I don't know, Coronation Street, the X
Factor, Saturday Night Takeaway, whatever it happens and there, you're getting a lot of
adverts for junk foods, now why not just say, actually, no junk food advertising before the
nine o clock watershed.
ALAN JOHNSON: Because I think that would be too drastic as a first step. a first step,
and it's a very important first step which was introduced in January as you rightly say, is we
ban food advertising from children's programmes, we look at the effect of that, which is
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what we've agreed to do, and the advertising industry have brought forward that review to
the summer, which was initially going to be at the end of the year and then we look at the
effects of that, we have an evidence base, before we move on to the next step.
(App., p. 174, Alan Johnson, 2008-04-13, ll. 75-87)
As mentioned above, one aspect that is closely connected with epistemic
modality is subjectivity, which has already been mentioned in Section 9.4. This
applies not only to the phrases I think and I mean, but also to the modal auxiliaries
may and might. This can be explained by the fact that the speaker is not certain about
the truth value of the proposition so s/he presents it as a mere possibility, which is
also shown in Example 99 above. This assumption has been confirmed by Hoye
(1997:43-45), who asserts that ―subjectivity can certainly be regarded as an essential
feature of epistemic modality since the speaker is expressing judgements in
accordance with his own (subjective) set of beliefs‖ (1997:43).
Huddleston and Pullum (2002) also mention the subjective use of may and
add that this modal auxiliary can also be used to express objectivity. This relates to
cases ―where it is a matter of public knowledge [...], rather than the speaker‘s
knowledge‖ (2002:181). As for lexical modals expressing epistemic possibility,
―possible and possibly are objective perhaps and maybe are usually subjective‖
(Huddleston and Pullum 2002:208). Perhaps in Example 98 above shows subjectivity
of the speaker since she explains her personal attitude to the problem. By contrast,
the use of possible in Example 100 expresses objectivity and impartiality of the
speaker:
Example 100
BLITZER: Do you want someone other than Ibrahim al-Jaafari to be the prime minister?
RICE: This is something that the Iraqis have got to determine. They have got to determine
whether or not it is possible to achieve a government of national unity with that particular
candidate.
The Shia do not have enough votes to govern on their own. And so they have to bring into
coalition others from -- who won in the electoral process. That is what they're doing, and
I think they're doing a remarkable job.
(App., p. 201, Condoleezza Rice, 2006-03-26, ll. 107-113)
Modality
185
9.9.2 Deontic Necessity
This type of modality is expressed by the modal auxiliaries must, should, ought to
and the verb forms have to and have got to in the corpus. While the modals should and
ought to are interchangeable, the difference between must and have to is the question of
subjectivity. ―Prototypical deontic modality is subjective, with the speaker as the
deontic source, the one who imposes the obligation or grants permission. But it can
also be objective, most obviously in reports of rules and regulations‖ (Huddleston
and Pullum 2002:183). To illustrate this distinction, Huddleston and Pullum give
these examples:
You must clean up this mess at once. - subjective
We must make an appointment if we want to see the Dean. - objective
(Huddleston and Pullum 2002:183)
Palmer speaks about have to, an alternative to must, ―which generally indicates
that the speaker takes no responsibility for the obligation‖ (2001:75). Thus, there is a
difference between:
You must come and see me tomorrow.
You have to come and see me tomorrow.
(Palmer 2001:75)
The first sentence expresses a suggestion or an invitation; the second implies
that ―there is some compelling reason independent of the speaker. If there is not a
reason, then the addressee might take offence, regarding it as presumptuous of the
speaker to say what he or she has to do‖ (Palmer 2001:75). In short, ―with MUST,
the speaker has authority, while with HAVE TO the authority comes from no
particular source‖ (Coates 1983:55, emphasis in original).
Deontic necessity, or sometimes called strong obligation (Huddleston and
Pullum 2002:182), is the second most frequent type of modality in the corpus,
although its occurrence is considerably lower than that of epistemic possibility. As
may be seen in Table 31 below, it appears 565 times, with a higher frequency of
occurrence in females.
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186
Male Politicians Female Politicians Total
254 311 565
Table 31: Deontic Necessity
The number of occurrence of linguistic means expressing deontic necessity in
the corpus may be found in Table 32 below:
Modal means Male Politicians Female
Politicians Total
have to 75 173 248
should 77 77 154
have got to 79 44 123
must 15 8 23
ought to 8 9 17
Table 32: Modal Means Expressing Deontic Necessity
As shown in Table 32 above, there is a considerable difference in the
frequency of occurrence of the modals must and have to or have got to in the corpus.
This is connected, on the one hand, with expressing subjectivity of the speaker
who, by using must, imposes the obligation, or on the other hand, if the speaker does
not want to be responsible for the obligation, s/he uses the form have to or have got
to. This contrast between must and have to explains a much higher occurrence of the
latter form in political interviews. It may be interpreted as an attempt of the
speaker to gain detachment from the proposition expressed. Politicians do not
want to take responsibility for the obligation imposed, which can be regarded as a
face-saving strategy. In case the form have to is used, it means that the speaker is
not involved or does not want to be involved in the utterance expressed and
rather, s/he wants to shift the responsibility on somebody else. This fact applies
especially to female politicians who used the forms have to or have got to 217 times,
compared to only 154 occurrences of these forms by males.
Consider the subjectivity expressed by the modal must in the example below.
Condoleezza Rice expresses the obligation of the USA to defend their borders. The
obligation is imposed on the State Department, which should enforce border
security.
Modality
187
Example 101
BLITZER: The president meets this week with the leaders of Canada and Mexico.
Immigration, illegal immigration in the United States, a big issue. The House passed
legislation which would make it a felony for an illegal immigrant in the United States simply
to be here. Is that something the Bush administration supports?
RICE: The president has very clearly stated the principles on which we would work to try
and get a more humane and effective immigration law, and those principles include that we
really must, of course, defend our border, and we've put a lot of money into border
security. The State Department has enhanced its request for border security. We are
obviously determined that U.S. laws should be enforced.
(App., p. 204, Condoleezza Rice, 2006-03-26, ll. 276-285)
As mentioned above, must does not express only subjective deontic modality
but it may also be objective when expressing obligation imposed by an authority as a
regulation or rule. The use of have to in this extract is also objective, the speaker does
not want to have responsibility for it and he wants to gain detachment:
Example 102
JEREMY PAXMAN: You've just said the decision was taken by the inspectors to leave the
country. They were therefore not thrown out.
TONY BLAIR: They were effectively thrown out for the reason that I will give you. Prior
to them leaving Iraq they had come back to the Security Council, again and again, and said
we are not being given access to sites. For example, things were being designated as
presidential palaces, they weren't being allowed to go in there.
As a result of that, they came back to the United Nations and said we can't carry out the
work as inspectors; therefore we said you must leave because we will have to try and
enforce this action a different way. So when you say the inspectors, when you imply the
inspectors were in there doing their work, that is simply not the case.
(App., p. 4, Tony Blair, 2003-02-06, ll. 57-66)
In the extract below, Janet Napolitano discusses agreements and
disagreements of Obama‘s and McCain‘s policy. She explains what the legislation is
obliged to do. She expresses her detachment from it:
Modality
188
Example 103
NEIL CAVUTO, HOST: All right. All right, so Barack Obama plans to show up for
Friday`s big debate at Ole Miss. John McCain does not. He is keeping his campaign going.
John McCain is not. He insists he calls -- called John McCain first. John McCain says he
called him first. So, these
two aren`t even remotely in synch on this issue.
Governor Janet Napolitano, Democrat of Arizona, joins me right now. She`s a big Obama
supporter.
Governor, these two are not on the same page.
GOV. JANET NAPOLITANO (D), ARIZONA: Well, I think actually, they are on some
fundamentals. They`re on the same page in terms of what any kind of bailout legislation
needs to look like, that it has to have independent oversight, that it has to protect home
buyers, that it has to repay taxpayers, and it has to ensure that the CEOs and others who
have profited over the last few years don`t make profits out of this bailout.
(App., p. 195, Janet Napolitano, 2008-09-24, ll. 5-17)
As already mentioned, deontic necessity may be expressed not only by must or
have to, but also by the modal auxiliary should. The deontics must and should are both
used to impose an obligation. The difference is that obligation laid by must is stronger
than that laid by should. As regards the form ought to, most sources agree on its
interchangeability with should (cf. Huddleston and Pullum 2002:186; Palmer 1979:100;
Hoye 1997:109), however, in spoken discourse should is used more frequently than
ought to, which is also indicated in the present analysis. Should was used 154 times in
the corpus, while ought to only 17 times by both genders, as Table 32 demonstrates.
Should and ought to occur 171 times in total compared to 371 occurrences of have to
and have got to. It can be interpreted as an effort of politicians to sound
authoritative and detached rather than responsible for their claims.
In Example 104, the topic discussed is obesity in the UK. Alan Johnson cites
an argument of a scientist who claims that governments should not interfere in
solving this problem since it is similar to smoking or sexual health. When using should
not, the obligation implied by this modal is not so strong:
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189
Example 104
JON SOPEL: I'm joined now by Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary. Welcome to the
Politics Show. How seriously do you see the problem of obesity.
ALAN JOHNSON: Well, I see it's a very serious problem mainly because we asked the
scientists and the clinicians to look at this, we asked them to look at what the world would
look like in 2050 in relation to obesity and it was their report that's driven our policy and
it's the science and the clinicians view that will guide us through this and I think Max's, I'm
obviously with Gill on this argument, Max's argument was not just an argument about
obesity, it was an argument about public health, it was saying that governments shouldn't
intervene, whether it's on smoking, whether it's on issues like sexual health; governments
simply shouldn't intervene at all, that's the extreme libertarian view and I think that's
wrong. And on obesity and life style epidemics, we now know that it's as big a problem
now as smoking was in the '60s.
(App., p. 173, Alan Johnson, 2008-04-13, ll. 7-18)
Discussing a conference about Iraq, Condoleezza Rice explains the
obligations which the states involved in the Iraq conflict have. According to her, they
should stabilize Iraq. She used ought to to signal that this obligation should be urgently
fulfilled but, at the same time, it indicates that other things should also be done, not
only this one.
Example 105
QUESTION: But they could have had a foreign minister-to-foreign minister conversation
in Egypt if they wanted to, foreign minister-to-foreign minister, and they chose not to do it.
SECRETARY RICE: Well, I believe that what I said, Charlie, was that if the opportunity
proposed -- showed itself, of course, I'd be very happy to greet my Iranian counterpart. It
didn't happen. We didn't seek a bilateral with them. They didn't seek a bilateral meeting
with us. Our officials did on the margins of the conference have a chance to exchange
some views about Iraq.
But again, this was a conference not about U.S.-Iranian relations, not about U.S.-Syrian
relations. This was a conference about Iraq. And if the neighbors, including those of us
who are deeply involved in Iraq, can find a way to work together to help stabilize Iraq, we
ought to do it.
(App., p. 217, Condoleezza Rice, 2007-05-07, ll. 107-117)
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190
9.9.3 Epistemic Attitudinal Modality
Male Politicians Female Politicians Total
178 191 369
Table 33: Epistemic Attitudinal Modality
As already mentioned above, this category is somewhat special since it has
not been identified in the relevant literature, to my knowledge, but it is quite
numerous in the corpus; in concrete terms, it is the third most frequent kind of
modality with 369 occurrences in total. Female politicians expressed it more
frequently than male politicians, as Table 33 shows. It is expressed by the pragmatic
particles really, actually and frankly; really being the most frequent one, which illustrates
Table 34 below.
Modal means Male Politicians Female
Politicians Total
really 76 106 182
actually 91 53 144
frankly 11 32 43
Table 34: Modal Means Expressing Epistemic Attitudinal Modality
Really is used by females more frequently than by males, by contrast, male
politicians prefer using actually. Out of 43 occurrences of frankly in total, 32 are
utilized by females.
All examples of really, actually and frankly in the corpus are expressions of
epistemic stance since they relate to the speaker‟s attitude to the truth of the
proposition and to modifying the illocutionary force. The problem with these three
adverbs is that they cannot be placed within any subtype of the epistemic modality
proposed here because they express neither epistemic necessity, possibility nor
assumption. That is why I have suggested a special category of epistemic modality.
The main reason for using these pragmatic particles by the speaker is to
show his/her involvement. As can be seen, they are used by politicians quite often,
which may be ascribed to the fact that politicians, in spite of showing detachment
from what they say, do not want to lose face in front of their audience, they try to
Modality
191
show their involvement with the proposition expressed. They attempt to be closer
to their voters and speak a similar language as they do.
Here again, it may be observed that pragmatic and modal functions are
interrelated. Apart from their modal functions, all three adverbs function
pragmatically both as boosters or hedges. Their pragmatic functions as boosters are
the expression of assurance (really) and content-oriented emphasis (actually, frankly); as
hedges they attenuate the force of the given utterance (for a more detailed account of
these pragmatic functions see Chapter 7, Sections 7.4.4 and 7.4.1, and Chapter 8,
Section 8.4.1). Consider the examples below which illustrate this type of modality.
In the example below, the question of terrorism is discussed. Bush expresses
his fears about the security of the Americans. He wants to stress his worries by the
use of speaker-oriented booster really that shows his involvement with this big
problem the USA faces and the fact that he tries to solve it in some way.
Example 106
COURIC: When you think about the threats out there, what is your biggest fear?
BUSH: Well – my biggest fear is somebody will come in and slip in this country and kill
Americans. And I can't tell you how. Obviously there would be the spectacular. That would
be the use of some kind of biological weapon or weapon of mass destruction. But as we
learned recently from the British plots, people were, you know, gonna get on airplanes and
blow up airplanes with innocent people flying to America.
And – you know, one way to look at it is we have to be right 100 percent of the time in
order to protect this country, and they gotta be right once. And it's just a – just a fact of
life. The – the – we're facing an enemy, Katie, that just doesn't care about innocent life.
I mean, they really are evil people.
(App., p. 78, George W. Bush, 2006-09-06, ll. 37-47)
In the following extract, Alan Duncan criticizes the attitude of Tony Blair to
nuclear power stations. He points out his reluctance to act by using the booster really.
At the same time, he does not want to sound too critical, therefore he uses the
hedges actually which should attenuate the forthcoming message:
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192
Example 107
JON SOPEL: You say, you heard Bernard Ingham there saying that the Tories are
incredibly vague about all of this. I mean would you like to end some of the vagueness or
are you just going to say, well we just don't know yet because of these new technologies
that are coming on stream.
ALAN DUNCAN: Well you're pretending that the government is not vague. Now we all
hear Tony Blair saying you know, I want nuclear power stations but actually, if you look at
the print, he's really leaving it all to the markets, so it doesn't matter what he says because
nothing that he says actually, in terms of government policy is going to be converted in to
it actually happening, so let's not allow ourselves to be diverted by this rhetoric.
(interjection) ...
(App., p. 148, Alan Duncan, 2006-07-02, ll. 20-29)
In Example 108, Hillary Clinton points out that it is necessary to find a new
solution and approach to the Iraq conflict and to the fight with terrorism. These
problems should be viewed as they really are. She proposes to change the people in
charge. She emphasizes the content of her message by using the adverb frankly. As
already mentioned, frankly is more typical of female politicians. My claim is that they
aim at having a positive and responsible attitude to their audience. They want to be
frank and honest and they do not want to pretend anything as regards the
relationship to their voters since they believe that in this way, they gain their
confidence more easily. This, again, relates to the position of women in the area of
politics, which is not as strong as the position of male politicians.
Example 108
McFadden: Is there a link between Iraq, the war in Iraq and terrorism? The president says
yes. What do you say?
Clinton: Well, the president is right, if you're talking about today, but not if you're going
back to 9/11 or 2002, when the vote was cast, or even March 2003, when the invasion
occurred. ... I just wish that this president and vice president would get out of the bubble
they're in, quit listening to the people they're listening, change their national security team
and maybe bring in some new voices, which is why I've called for the resignation or the
firing, frankly, of Donald Rumsfeld.
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But, instead, they're back to business as usual, trying to make links that don't exist, trying to
draw historical analogies that are not accurate. I think that does a great disservice not only
to the American people, but, frankly, to the quality of decision-making.
(App., p. 124, Hillary Clinton, 2007-10-11, ll. 107-118)
9.9.4 Circumstantial Possibility
Male Politicians Female Politicians Total
50 48 98
Table 35: Circumstantial Possibility
Circumstantial possibility is, with 98 occurrences, the fourth most frequent
category of modality in the corpus, as demonstrated in Table 35 above. The
difference between males and females is mere two instances, which is insignificant.
Circumstantial possibility is expressed by the modal auxiliary can, both in the present
and past tense, the frequency of occurrence of the forms of this modal expressing
this type of modality is summarized in Table 36 below:
Modal means Male Politicians Female
Politicians Total
can 25 20 45
could 20 16 36
can’t 3 12 15
couldn’t 2 0 2
Table 36: Modal Means of Circumstantial Possibility
Although circumstantial possibility occurs in the corpus quite frequently, it is
not mentioned by Palmer. This is quite surprising because in the corpus there are
examples of the modal verb can that cannot be determined according to his
classification. Circumstantial possibility has been identified by Huddleston and
Pullum (2002:184, 197) who define it as a possibility that is likely to happen
under certain circumstances. According to Palmer‘s classification, can is used to
refer to permission or ability. As is evident, could, in Example 109 below, expresses
neither of these categories. In this context, it is used to indicate the possibility for
Iran to have a nuclear weapon on condition that it gains the technology for
constructing it.
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194
Example 109
MCFADDEN: New York Congressman Gary Ackerman said yesterday, "Everybody at
Annapolis has one thing in common: not a love of Israel or the Palestinians, but the fear of
Iran." Everybody needs a relative to protect them from Iran.
RICE: Well, clearly there is every reason to have a deep concern about Iran, about Iran's
support for terrorism and against the peoples of Lebanon and of Iraq and of the
Palestinian territories.
There's a reason to worry about an Iran that is trying to gain the technology that could lead
to a nuclear weapon, because enrichment and reprocessing capability, which is what the
world is trying to stop, is a technology that if used in certain ways can lead to a nuclear
weapon.
So there are reasons to worry about that. Clearly, there are reasons to worry about Iranian
aggression and ambition and what they're doing in the region.
I think people were there at Annapolis because they want to support a Palestinian state, but
of course extremism in the region is something that threatens everybody in that room.
(App., p. 231, Condoleezza Rice, 2007-11-28, ll. 276-289)
In the next extract, the topic discussed is containment of Saddam Hussein.
Blair explains that it was not possible under any circumstances to keep troops in Iraq
for a long time. He uses the negative modal form couldn’t, which indicates this
impossibility.
Example 110
QUESTION: But if he could have been isolated with the inspectors there, if he could have
been surrounded by 250,000 troops, the entire world, he wouldn't have been able to hold
on forever.
BLAIR: Yes, but you couldn't have kept -- we can go over this again and again, but,
I mean, you couldn't actually, frankly, have kept quarter of a million troops down there.
It's very long.
At some point, you had to come to a situation where he had a chance of heart or there was
a change of regime, and I think what is interesting is that actually removing Saddam took
two or three months.
(App., p. 35, Tony Blair, 2006-12-10, ll. 200-208)
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The subject of discussion in Example 111 is a natural disaster in Rangoon
and the help of various humanitarian organizations. Miliband assures British people
who decided to contribute an amount of money that this money will be used
properly. He stresses it with the modal verb can, which emphasizes that on condition
that they contributed in the UK, they do not have to worry.
Example 111
JON SOPEL: If someone is at home listening to this interview with you and you're
describing the desperate situation there, but also the reluctance of the regime to help, why
on earth would you part with your money to help the situation if you're not sure that the
money you give is going to be turned in to mosquito nets that will get to the people who
need it.
DAVID MILIBAND: Well I want to address that very directly. Anyone who's given
money in Britain, can be sure that it will be properly used, because it won't go - and it
won't go in to the regime's military coffers. Our aid is channeled through organizations like
Save the Children, who rightly have a very high reputation and I think that that's why there
is this very important next thirty six hours.
I mean, the last six or seven days have been really inexplicable I think, to most people, that
it should have taken so long. You rightly drew the comparison with the tsunami and the
response that happened then. But of course the government in that case, actually
welcomed the international community, rather than rejecting it. But I think that we are
clear that our aid will go when it's able to do go, and that's the right basis on which to
appeal to people.
(App., p. 192, David Miliband, 2008-05-11, ll. 48-64)
The examples above show that the reason why politicians use the modal
forms can and could with this meaning may, again, be due to signalling detachment
from their utterances and showing irresponsibility for them. Again, it can be judged
as a face-saving strategy. They are not sure if the particular event happens or not,
that is why they present it as possible but only under certain circumstances.
9.9.5 Epistemic Necessity
Male Politicians Female Politicians Total
36 51 87
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196
Table 37: Epistemic Necessity
Epistemic necessity, or strong modality, belongs, together with deontic
possibility, to the least frequent types of modality appearing in political interviews. It
is expressed in 87 utterances in the whole corpus, out of which 36 were produced by
males and 51 instances were produced by females, as shown in Table 37. Concerning
linguistic expression of this type of modality in the corpus, it includes the modal
auxiliary can in its non-assertive form, modal adjectives sure and certain, and the modal
adverbs surely and certainly. The number of occurrences of these lexical means is
summarized in Table 38 below:
Modal means Male Politicians Female
Politicians Total
certainly 18 34 52
sure 12 6 18
can’t 1 8 9
certain 1 3 4
surely 4 0 4
Table 38: Modal Means of Epistemic Necessity
This type of modality can also be expressed by must, utilized as a strong
modal, however, it does not occur in my corpus at all. Must in its epistemic use
―conveys the speaker‟s confidence in the truth of what he is saying, based on a
logical process of deduction from facts known to him (which may or may not be
specified)‖ (Coates 1983:41, my emphasis). This use of must is subjective. Objective
epistemic necessity ―involves strict semantic necessity‖ (Huddleston and Pullum
2002:181). However, Coates claims that objective epistemic modality, though present
in natural language, is not very usual (1983:18).
Epistemic must is not utilized in the corpus at all. The explanation for this
could be that it sounds too authoritative and, as stated above, it communicates
confidence of the speaker about what s/he is saying, which may be restrictive for
politicians in that it does not leave them any room for mitigating the force of their
utterances. Politicians tend to leave some room for changing their opinion,
modifying their assertions and also for saving their face in case of potential
accusation of lying.
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Modal adjectives and adverbs occur more frequently in the corpus than
epistemic modals verbs. The most frequent of them is certainly. It is interesting that
the modal adverb surely is not so frequent, although there is no semantic difference
between surely and certainly. Both genders prefer using certainly, female speakers did
not use surely at all. Below, there are several examples from the corpus to illustrate
this category.
When discussing the issues concerning the return from maternity leave to
work, the interviewer asks Harriet Harman about the policy of the Labour Party
relating to this subject. She assures the audience, by using the epistemic certainly,
about various choices the parents have in this respect. Pragmatically, certainly
functions as a speaker-oriented booster expressing assurance, which proves that
pragmatic and modal functions in epistemic use are manifestations of the same
meaning.
Example 112
JON SOPEL: Harriet Harman welcome to the Politics Show. Just focusing on that report
that we just saw there. Have your policies been too one-sided, too much encouragement
maybe to get women back to work, but not actually giving them the facility to stay at home
if they wanted to with their children.
HARRIET HARMAN: I don't think they have been one-sided but certainly, there does
need to be more choice for families in the very early years of a child's life. You see, the
national minimum wage was something which actually gave parents more time at home
with their children because if you've got a very low wage then you have to work all hours to
make ends meet. And one of the objectives of that national minimum wage topped up by
the tax credit, was to give some families the opportunity, who otherwise couldn't afford it,
to have one of the couple staying at home full time, or one only working part time and the
reality is that the lower down the income scale you are, the less choice you've got. If you're
high up the income scale, then irrespective of your housing costs and such like, you can
make those choices and we need to support those families, who are constrained in their
choice because it's hard for them to make ends meet.
(App., p. 165, Harriet Harman, 2007-06-17, ll. 9-24)
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In the extract below, Sarah Palin expresses her assurance to the listeners of
Barack Obama‘s patriotism. The phrase ―I am sure‖ focuses on the speaker‘s
responsibility for her claim.
Example 113
VARGAS: But, set the record straight. Do you think Senator Obama is as patriotic, as
American, as honorable as John McCain?
PALIN: I am sure that Senator Obama, ... cares as much for this country as McCain does.
Now, McCain has a strong, solid track record of his ... I think, some manifestations of the
opportunities that he's had to prove that patriotism, and that love for country, but no. A ...
and I don't want anybody to ever put words in my mouth, and, and, you know, I'll fight
hard against any kind of false allegation in terms of what I've said or what I've meant. I'm
... I'm, for the record, stating, no, that, I'm not calling someone out on their love of country
or level of patriotism.
(App., p. 198, Sarah Palin, 2008-10-29, ll. 55-63)
In Example 114 below, the speaker uses two means of epistemic necessity in
one utterance, which even more emphasises her claim. Using certainly directs more
attention to the speaker‘s involvement to the proposition.
Example 114
QUESTION: The President of Syria also says that the United States has a large border
with Mexico and we can't prevent a lot of people from coming in. And he also says that
there has to be a relationship before full cooperation can take place.
SECRETARY RICE: Well, a relationship, of course, is going to depend on whether or not
Syria actually carries out the objectives and the responsibilities that it says it needs to carry
out. But this isn't a quid pro quo. This isn't somehow a favor for the United States. I can
assure you that Syria, with extremists transiting through Syria, that the Syrians are going to
find themselves in a situation in which that's destabilizing for Syria.
And it certainly can't be very good for Iraq's neighbors to have a situation in which
extremists are able to move across borders, to kill innocent Iraqis, to create large refugee
flows -- something that the Syrians complain loudly about. So I would hope that Syria
would do this in its own interests, and if there is cooperation to be had on that border,
then, of course, the United States would want to cooperate.
(App., p. 216, Condoleezza Rice, 2007-05-07, ll. 58-71)
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9.9.6 Deontic Possibility
Male Politicians Female Politicians Total
10 13 23
Table 39: Deontic Possibility
As shown in Table 39 above, deontic possibility is not so frequent in political
interviews; altogether, there are 23 occurrences: males produced this type of modality
10 times in the corpus and females produced it in 13 utterances. The low number of
appearances may be explained by the genre of political interview itself since this
modality expresses giving permission, which is not typical of this genre. Deontic
possibility may be found more frequently in different types of spoken discourse, such
as informal face-to-face conversation.
Deontic possibility is expressed by the modal verbs may and can, with may
being restricted to the formal style and can to the informal one. As proposed by
Coates (1983:147), may and might are interchangeable in their epistemic uses, which is
not true about their deontic interpretations since the use of might, in this sense, is
―extremely rare‖, as claimed and proven by Hoye (1997:94-95).
In the corpus, there appear only instances of deontic possibility expressed by
the modal auxiliary can, as Table 40 below demonstrates. Although may is frequently
used in formal style, it does not occur in the corpus. Therefore, the use of can may be
a sign of tendency to informality in this genre.
Modal means Male Politicians Female
Politicians Total
can 4 10 14
could 3 2 5
can’t 3 1 4
Table 40: Modal Means of Deontic Possibility
In Example 115, Condoleezza Rice tells a story about her grandfather, who
as an African-American had problems with receiving education. Both modal verbs
could express deontic necessity since they relate to obtaining permission to go to
college and to receiving a scholarship.
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Example 115
RICE: [...] But I want to just close with this little story because -- maybe some of you‘ve
heard it. But -- my grandfather, my father's father, was a sharecropper's son in Ewtah,
Alabama -- E-w-t-a-h, Alabama. And for some reason, he decided he wanted to get book
learning. And so he would ask people who came through where could a colored man go to
college. And they said, well, there's Stillman College, which is a little Presbyterian school
about 60 miles from here, but you're going to have to pay to go there. So he saved up his
cotton and he got enough money from his cotton to go to Stillman. He made his way to
Stillman. He made it through his first year of school. And then the second year they said,
okay, now where's your tuition for the second year? And he said, well, I‘ve paid with all the
cotton I had. And they said -- he said, but -- well, how are those boys going to school?
They said, well, you know, they have what's called a scholarship. He said -- and if you
wanted to be a Presbyterian minister, then you could have a scholarship too. And my
grandfather said, oh, you know, that's exactly what I plan to do. (Laughter.)
(App., p. 251, Condoleezza Rice, 2008-03-27, ll. 713-726)
In Example 116, there are two instances of can illustrating deontic possibility.
The discussion is about the last presidential campaign in the USA. The interviewer
asks Hillary Clinton if Barack Obama is prepared to be president of the USA. Can in
the utterances below expresses that the voters are permitted to ask questions during
the election campaigns.
Example 116
MR. RUSSERT: But is Barack Obama ready to be president?
SEN. CLINTON: That is up for voters to decide, Tim. You know, you can ask that
question of him, voters can ask that question, but that's what I want. I thought the
campaign really started at the debate in New Hampshire. For the first time we really had
a debate that compared and contrasted our records. When Senator Obama was asked, what
is your major accomplishment in the Senate, he said it was passing ethics reform and
getting legislators to be prohibited from having lunch with lobbyists. And then, you know,
Charlie Gibson said, "Well, wait a minute. You can have lunch if you're standing up, not if
you're sitting down." So if that's his main claim for legislative accomplishment, people
deserve to know that. And finally, in New Hampshire, we had an atmosphere where tough
questions were asked and answered. I answered hundreds and hundreds of questions, saw
thousands and thousands of people, and I think that the results really speak to what people
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are hungry for. They want to get beyond, you know, just the coverage of the campaign, to
really understand what motivates us, what we bring to this campaign, and what we will do
as president.
(App., p. 113, Hillary Clinton, 2008-01-13, ll. 232-247)
Deontic possibility may also be expressed by the non-assertive form can’t,
which expresses a prohibition. In the example below, Bush speaks about the danger
of various ideologies that are connected with strange prohibitions and permissions.
The negative form can’t in the utterance below expresses the prohibition to
communicate your opinions freely. Two assertive uses of can in the following
utterances signal the permission, however, in this context, Bush is being ironic since
he wants to emphasize the dangers of ideologies that consider only the official
religious belief as correct.
Example 117
Frei: The Chinese government has been saying - part in response to this that - "America is
[slipping back into] Cold War thinking."
Mr Bush: Yeah. Well, you know, they're... I think that's just a brush back pitch, as we say in
baseball. It's... America is trapped in this notion that we care about human life. We respect
human dignity. And that's not a trap. That's a belief. And that many of [us] in this country
recognise that the human condition matters to our own national security. See, I happen to
believe we're in an ideological struggle. And, those who murder the innocent to achieve
political objectives are evil people. But, they have an ideology. And the only way you can
recruit for that ideology is to find hopeless folks. I mean, who wants to join an ideology say
women don't have rights? You can't express yourself freely. Religious beliefs are... you
know, the only religious belief you can hold is the one we tell you. And, oh, by the way, it's
great. You can be a suicider. Well, hopeless people are the ones who get attracted by that
point of view. And, therefore, it's in the world's interest from a national security
perspective to deal with hopelessness. And it has to be in our moral interest. I repeat to
you... I believe to whom much is given, much is required. It happens to be a religious
notion. But, it should be a universal notion as well. And... I believe America's soul is
enriched, our spirit is enhanced when we help people who suffer.
(App., p. 113, George W. Bush, 2008-02-14, ll. 100-118)
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202
9.10 Gender-Specificity and Modality
As regards gender-specificity and modality, the corpus indicates that female
politicians employ modal forms more frequently than male politicians. Females
produced 1,124 instances of modal expressions, while males utilized 1,079 modal
expressions. Concerning particular types of modality, deontic necessity, epistemic
attitudinal modality, epistemic necessity, and deontic possibility are types occurring
more frequently in female speakers. Conversely, epistemic possibility and
circumstantial possibility are more frequent in male politicians. The exact numbers of
occurrences of all types of modality by male and female speakers may be found in
Section 9.9.
Even if the corpus of political interviews is extensive, my research into
modality reveals that it is very difficult to make generalizations about gender-
specificity in connection with the concept of modality. Interpretation of the data is
difficult since it is necessary to focus not only on the types of modality but also
on the types of linguistic means used to express these types of modality. At
first, modalities produced more frequently by male politicians than by females will be
evaluated, then the focus will be on modalities utilized more frequently by females.
Male politicians produced more instances of epistemic possibility than
females. Modal expressions of this type of modality that are used by males more
frequently than by females are I mean, may, possible, probably, and possibly. By contrast, I
think, I don’t think, might, maybe, perhaps, apparently, and likely are means of epistemic
modality preferred by females (see Section 9.9.1). A typical feature of this type of
modality is subjectivity because the speaker presents his/her opinions from his/her
own personal perspective. Politicians use this feature to stress their views and beliefs
to influence their voters. Subjectivity relates to the pragmatic function of boosting
the illocutionary force. If the linguistic means of epistemic possibility pragmatically
function as hedges, they express speaker‟s uncertainty and assumption about the
proposition.
Table 41 demonstrates pragmatic functions of epistemic possibility
employed by male and female politicians in the corpus. As is evident, boosting
devices are much more frequent than hedging devices in both genders. From this it
follows that both genders aim at emphasizing their opinions and expressing
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their own beliefs and thus they want to influence the audience. Indeterminacy
expressed by hedges does not manifest itself to such a great extent by this type of
modality. The reason is that neither male nor female politicians want to look
uncertain in front of their audience.
Boosters Hedges
Male Politicians 332 213
Female Politicians 323 184
Total 655 397
Table 41: Pragmatic Functions of Epistemic Possibility
Another type of modality that occurs more frequently in males is
circumstantial possibility. However, the difference between male and female
speakers is not significant. It was produced 50 times by males and 48 instances
appeared in females. This modality expresses that an event may happen or may not
happen, depending on particular circumstances. This modality indicates detachment
of the speaker from the proposition and irresponsibility for it.
The type of modality which shows a clear difference between male and
female speakers in the frequency of occurrence in the corpus is deontic necessity. It
is more frequent in females. As shown in Section 9.9.2, females produced 225
instances of the modal forms have to/have got to and must, and only 86 instances of
should or ought to. Males produced 169 instances of have to/have got to and must, and 85
instances of should or ought to. As already mentioned, deontic necessity expressed by
must or have to is stronger than that expressed by should. This may signal that female
politicians by using stronger modal forms want to sound authoritative and
want to assert themselves in the area of politics. They may attempt to show that
they are equal partners to their male counterparts and that they should not be
undervalued.
Epistemic attitudinal modality is another type of modality that occurs
more frequently in females. It is, again, as epistemic possibility, connected with
expressing subjectivity of the speaker to the proposition. Modal means of this
modality, the adverbs really, frankly, and actually, appear in pragmatic functions of
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boosting and hedging. As indicated in Table 42 below, females used more boosting
devices than males, which shows a high degree of subjectivity and involvement
with their propositions. By contrast, males used more hedging devices within this
type of modality, which indicates a higher degree of hesitation of these
speakers.
Boosters Hedges
Male Politicians 114 64
Female Politicians 149 42
Total 263 106
Table 42: Pragmatic Functions of Epistemic Attitudinal Modality
Epistemic necessity is the third modality used more frequently by female
speakers. It is expressed by linguistic means that pragmatically always function as
speaker-oriented boosters. Their function is to express assurance of the speaker
about the proposition expressed. This fact again confirms the claim that
pragmatic and epistemic modal functions express very similar meanings since
these expressions, although primarily used modally, also express assurance of the
speaker. When using these modal expressions, female politicians aim at asserting
themselves in front of their audience and looking as sure and confident speakers.
Deontic possibility appears more frequently in female speakers, however, as
demonstrated in Section 9.9.6 above, and as already explained, it is not so frequent in
the corpus since giving permission is not typical of this genre of spoken discourse.
In sum, this analysis of modality shows that even if some types of modality
signal detachment (circumstantial possibility and deontic necessity) and
indeterminacy (epistemic possibility), it is subjectivity that prevails in both male
and female politicians. This is another proof of speaker‟s involvement in the
genre of political interview. Politicians want to influence the viewers and persuade
them that they are the best people to perform the political positions they hold.
Lexical means of epistemic types of modality function pragmatically as boosting or
hedging devices, depending on the context and this research shows that their modal
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and pragmatic functions are in agreement. From these results it follows that a modal
and a pragmatic function express very similar meanings.
In the last section of the chapter dealing with modality, modal combinations
in the corpus will be examined.
9.11 Modal Combinations
9.11.1 Modally Harmonic and Modally Non-harmonic Combinations
More modal expressions can be combined in one utterance in a variety of
ways. Lyons (1977:807ff) distinguishes between ―modally harmonic‖ and ―modally
non-harmonic‖ combinations. Possibly and may, for instance, when used
epistemically together in one sentence, are harmonic because they express ―the same
degree of modality‖ and strengthen each other. By contrast, ―certainly and may are, in
this sense, modally non-harmonic‖ (1977:807).
Modal harmony has also been mentioned by Huddleston and Pullum
(2002:179-180) who describe three types of modal harmony, namely, strong, medium
and weak:
The meeting must surely be over by now. - strong modal harmony
The meeting should probably be over by now. - medium modal harmony
The meeting may possibly be over by now. - weak modal harmony
As may be seen, a modal verb and an adverb of the same strength combine in
a single sentence and ―express a single feature of modal meaning‖ (2002:180).
Huddleston and Pullum also refer to the non-harmonic modal combination
where the modal components do not have an identical meaning as in It may surely have
been an accident (2002:180).
Halliday (1970:330-331) calls the occurrence of a modal verb and an adverb
in the same sentence ―double modality‖ and adds that ―where there is double
modality one must be expressed non-verbally‖ (1970:330, note 12). The pairs of
modal expressions which are equivalent in meaning, i.e. they are in a harmonic
combination, strengthen each other (as ―concord‖), for example, ―Perhaps he might
have built it‖ (Halliday 1970:331). When the two modal expressions are not equivalent,
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206
as in the sentence ―Certainly he might have built it‖ (1970:331), they ―are thus
cumulative in meaning‖ (1970:331, my emphasis).
In case modally harmonic expressions occur within one clause, ―there is a
kind of concord running through the clause, which results in the double realization
of a single modality‖ (Lyons 1977:808). Nevertheless, in case of the non-harmonic
combination of the modal verb and the adverb, these constituents influence each
other in that one lies within the scope of the other. Lyons (1977:808) gives this
examples:
Certainly he may have forgotten.
He may certainly have forgotten.
The first sentence means ―It is certainly the case that he may have forgotten‖,
thus, may is within the scope of certainly. The meaning of the latter sentence is
ambiguous. It may be interpreted either as ―It is certainly the case that he may have
forgotten‖ or as ―It may be the case that he has certainly forgotten‖. However, what
is clear about the modal expressions in the latter sentence is the fact that, as Lyons
puts it, ―no more than one of the two modal expressions can express subjective
epistemic modality (though they may both express objective epistemic modality) and
it is the one which expresses subjective epistemic modality that has the wider scope‖
(1977:808).
In general, combinations of modal expressions are connected with various
pragmatic functions such as making suggestions, recommendations, offers,
commands or requests (Hoye 1997:84). As regards political interviews, the functions
are slightly different. The always depend on the context in which the particular
utterance is uttered. Therefore, these modal combinations may show indirectness,
hesitation, and uncertainty of the speaker, or, by contrast, they may strengthen
the illocutionary force of the utterance, as shown in the examples below.
Although there also appear non-harmonic modal combinations in the corpus,
their number is much lower than the number of harmonic modal combinations, as
Table 43 shows:
Combination Number of Occurrence
Modally Harmonic 15
Modally Non-Harmonic 6
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Table 43: Modally Harmonic and Non-harmonic Combinations
Example 118 is an instance of a modal harmonic combination since two
modal expressions of the same strength are combined in one utterance:
Example 118
QUESTION: The President of Syria also says that the United States has a large border
with Mexico and we can't prevent a lot of people from coming in. And he also says that
there has to be a relationship before full cooperation can take place.
SECRETARY RICE: Well, a relationship, of course, is going to depend on whether or not
Syria actually carries out the objectives and the responsibilities that it says it needs to carry
out. But this isn't a quid pro quo. This isn't somehow a favor for the United States. I can
assure you that Syria, with extremists transiting through Syria, that the Syrians are going to
find themselves in a situation in which that's destabilizing for Syria.
And it certainly can't be very good for Iraq's neighbors to have a situation in which
extremists are able to move across borders, to kill innocent Iraqis, to create large refugee
flows -- something that the Syrians complain loudly about. So I would hope that Syria
would do this in its own interests, and if there is cooperation to be had on that border,
then, of course, the United States would want to cooperate.
(App., p. 216, Condoleezza Rice, 2007-05-07, ll. 58-71)
By contrast, Example 119 shows a modally non-harmonic combination in
which two modal means, namely, the modal adverb certainly and the modal verb
should, are combined. Should expresses medium modality, certainly expresses strong
modality.
Example 119
QUESTION: We're just about out of time, but I'd like to ask one question about Darfur.
Are you concerned that because of the difficulties we've had in Iraq, it's made it more
difficult to take the kind of forceful action we might need to be taking against what is
a genocide right now in Darfur?
BLAIR: I think that the trouble is that in Darfur, the Africans, other countries don't want
American, U.K., other European troops there. Now, the (inaudible) said it's a United
Nations-African Union force. I don't think that's the issue. I think the issue is getting the
force in there and I think that if, in the next weeks and next couple of months or so, the
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Sudanese government are not prepared to agree to the U.N. plan, then we've got to move
to sanctions and we've got to move to tougher action.
And I think we should certainly consider the option of a no-fly zone to help people in
Darfur, because it's a very, very serious situation and it's now spilling into other countries
next door.
But this is not our military force, certainly, in terms of boots on the ground.
(App., p. 35, Tony Blair, 2006-12-10, ll. 227-241)
9.11.2 Modal Combinations in the Corpus
The traditional approach to modal combinations described in Section 9.11.1
has been to distinguish only combinations of two elements, namely, a modal verb
and a modal adverb. However, at this point, the results of the present study are not
consistent with earlier studies (Halliday 1970; Lyons 1977; Hoye 1997) since the
corpus of political interviews proves that there are more possibilities of these
combinations (see Table 44 below). Therefore, not only combinations of modal
verbs and modal adverbs have been included but also combinations of pragmatic
particles with modal verbs and adverbs are analysed since they are also relevant to
expressing modality.
Modal Combination Number of
Occurrences
modal verb + modal adverb 10
pragmatic particle + modal adverb 5
modal adverb + modal adverb 3
modal verb + periphrastic form 3
Table 44: Modal Combinations in the Corpus
As demonstrated in Table 44 above, not only a modal verb and a modal
adverb may be combined but various combinations of modal means are possible.
These combinations will be described in greater detail in the following sections.
modal verb + modal adverb
The most frequent modal sequence is the combination of a modal verb and a
modal adverb. As Table 44 indicates, it occurs 10 times in the corpus. Modal verbs
which appear in this type of combinations are should, must, could, can’t, and can, and
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periphrastic forms have got to and have to. Modal adverbs occurring with the modals
are actually, really, perhaps, probably, frankly, and certainly.
Debating immigration problems and immigration law, Condoleezza Rice
assures the audience that the defence of the border and financial support of border
security is a very important issue of Bush‘s administration. The adverb really
combined with must emphasises the illocutionary force of her words:
Example 120
BLITZER: The president meets this week with the leaders of Canada and Mexico.
Immigration, illegal immigration in the United States, a big issue. The House passed
legislation which would make it a felony for an illegal immigrant in the United States simply
to be here. Is that something the Bush administration supports?
RICE: The president has very clearly stated the principles on which we would work to try
and get a more humane and effective immigration law, and those principles include that we
really must, of course, defend our border, and we've put a lot of money into border
security. The State Department has enhanced its request for border security. We are
obviously determined that U.S. laws should be enforced.
It's also the case that we have a population here that needs to be treated humanely. No
matter how they came here, I think Americans want to think that people would be treated
humanely, and the president has talked about a temporary worker program that would
allow people to -- who have work that Americans will not do, to find a way to be legally in
the country.
(App., p. 204, Condoleezza Rice, 2006-03-26, ll. 276-290)
In Example 121, Hillary Clinton discusses nominations for American
president and decisions president has to make. She uses the modal combination of
the periphrastic form have got to and the modal adverb actually.
Example 121
Whoever is nominated, and it's likely to be Senator Obama or myself, will get a fresh look
by the people of America, will get an increased amount of, you know, questions about who
we are and where we're from. Because all of a sudden it becomes real. You've covered this
for a long time. You know, when my husband ran in '92, he finally clinched the nomination
in June in California. He was running third behind President Bush and behind Ross Perot.
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210
Others of our candidates on both sides of the aisle start out behind and wage a winning
campaign.
So I think what people who are concerned about electability should be looking at is
number one, who can be the best president, the best president from day one, who is
prepared, who has taken tough positions, because you're going to have to take them. You
know, Senator Obama voted present 130 times in the state Senate. When you're president,
you can't vote present. You have to make a decision. Sometimes it's a split second decision.
You don't have time to, you know, think about it. You've got to actually decide. So I'm
going to take the case to the country as the nominee that I've been tested, I've been
proven. I have the experience we need to make the changes we want and I think that's
a winning case, and, you know, whomever the Republicans nominate.
(App., p. 142, Hillary Clinton, 2008-01-13, ll. 670-686)
In the following example, ex-president Bush should explain the problems
with sharing information because his administration had been criticised because of
that. The interviewer also asks if he changed anything in the past five years. In his
answer, Bush uses the modal combination of the modal adverb probably and the
modal verb could. Probably hedges his statement.
Example 122
COURIC: But – but what's your response to that?
BUSH: My response is, is that we're sharing information much better than prior to
September the 11th. We've got a – a counterterrorism center where people from different
agencies come and meet. And, you know, again, I repeat to you: We – we're working to
improve as best as we possibly can. But this system of ours has improved dramatically since
September the 11th.
COURIC: When you look back on the last five years, President Bush, is there anything that
you wish you had done differently?
BUSH: Yeah. I mean, I wish, for example, Abu Ghraib didn't happen. That was a stain on
our nation's character, and it sent a signal about who we're not to a lot of people around
the world. I probably could have – watched my language a little better, you know?
(App., p. 80, George W. Bush, 2006-09-06, ll. 130-141)
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211
pragmatic particle + modal adverb
The second most frequent modal combination appearing in the corpus is that
of a pragmatic particle and a modal adverb. There occur 5 instances of this
combination in the corpus. The pragmatic particle I think is combined with modal
adverbs actually and really.
In Example 123, the pragmatic particle I think and the modal adverb actually
are combined in one utterance. Here, actually attenuates the illocutionary force of the
utterance since the speaker wants to gain detachment from her statement:
Example 123
JON SOPEL: But a lot of the candidates seem to be moving to the left. I mean I wonder
how you would characterise the race for the Deputy leadership as it is at the moment - the
different camps.
HAZEL BLEARS: Well, what I think we've got as I say is a range of people out there
who've got a lot of expertise and in different areas, and they've also got a lot of experience.
Myself, I was a Home Office Minister for three years, I dealt with policing, counter-
terrorism after 7/7, I've been a Health Minister, you've got a whole range of talents here. I
actually think that rather than having one or two people to choose from, the fact that the
Labour Party is able to throw up half a dozen people at the top of our movement, who are
capable of taking this on, is actually a testament to what we've achieved.
(App., p. 67, Hazel Blears, 2007-02-25, ll. 73-83)
In the next example, the same combination of modal means as in the
previous example is used, however, actually follows the pragmatic particle I think. It
means that it hedges the following part of the utterance.
Example 124
NEIL CAVUTO, HOST: All right. All right, so Barack Obama plans to show up for
Friday`s big debate at Ole Miss. John McCain does not. He is keeping his campaign going.
John McCain is not. He insists he calls -- called John McCain first. John McCain says he
called him first. So, these
two aren`t even remotely in synch on this issue.
Governor Janet Napolitano, Democrat of Arizona, joins me right now. She`s a big Obama
supporter.
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212
Governor, these two are not on the same page.
GOV. JANET NAPOLITANO (D), ARIZONA: Well, I think actually, they are on some
fundamentals. They`re on the same page in terms of what any kind of bailout legislation
needs to look like, that it has to have independent oversight, that it has to protect home
buyers, that it has to repay taxpayers, and it has to ensure that the CEOs and others who
have profited over the last few years don`t make profits out of this bailout.
(App., p. 195, Janet Napolitano, 2008-09-24, ll. 5-17)
Example 125 is similar to the previous exmple as regards the syntactic
structure of modal means. The modal adverb really follows the pragmatic particle I
think so it emphasises the following part of the utterance.
Example 125
DF: Prime Minister, back in November 2001 you said that the Taliban was in a state of
total collapse. What's happened? It seems to have had a comeback, a revival to be a serious
enemy again. What's happened, did we underestimate them or ...?
TB: No but I think really what's happened is that although in many parts of Afghanistan
they've been beaten back, in the south in a sense they have never really left.
Up in Kabul it's been a different picture, but again what it indicates is that they are very
serious about trying to take us on, trying to take on the Afghan people who obviously want
to elect their government as they've been able to do for the first time, and again the answer
is to stick with it and make sure that we, we help those people who want to, to get a better
future where they‘re not prey to the Taliban and al-Qaeda and their country is turned into
a training camp or a narcotics economy or girls aren't allowed to go to school or any of the
rest of the extremism that comes with them.
(App., p. 40, Tony Blair, 2006-12-11, ll. 162-174)
modal adverb + modal adverb
This type of combination belongs to less frequent categories in the corpus.
Three instances of this type appear in the corpus, two of them are coincidentally in
one interview. When determining the pragmatic function of this combination, it is
again necessary to take into account the context of the message.
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213
In the following example, in the first instance, modal adverbs actually and
really accentuate the subjectivity of speaker‘s message, by contrast, in the second
instance, these modal adverbs hedge the utterance:
Example 126
JON SOPEL: Okay, and let me just try and drag you back to where we started because you
say there isn't a contest, well there is.
Peter Hain has announced that he's running, you were sitting next to him when he declared
that he was going to be running for the Deputy Leadership. So has Harriet Harman.
Were they wrong to do that?
HAZEL BLEARS: No, what they've said is that if and when there's a contest they intend
their names to go forward and this is some time in the future.
What I'm actually really interested in is now, today, having a good conference. Also
having some really exciting policies to meet some of the challenges that are coming upon
us. You know, the world is changing very fast indeed.
JON SOPEL: Okay.
HAZEL BLEARS: If you think about migration, security, terrorism, the re-structuring of
industry, particularly manufacturing industry, these are the real pressures on people.
I was at a Party meeting on Saturday morning, when my members actually raised with me
the brand new academy that we've got in the city. They also talked to me about the
maternity services in the hospital and they talked about the Lebanon.
So these were really big, important issues to our party members. But the strongest message
was, for goodness sake, let's get on with that agenda and all this squabbling is actually
really quite disturbing Party members and the public and I think that's a very strong
message to us.
(App., p. 62, Hazel Blears, 2006-09-17, ll. 23-44)
In Example 127, the speaker also uses a modal combination of two modal
adverbs but in this case, they are the same lexical items. Their pragmatic function is
to emphasise the speaker‘s statement and to assure the audience about the
seriousness of the situation.
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214
Example 127
JON SOPEL: And when you talk about the squabbling and you talk about the people in
marginal seats feeling worried, and then you have Clare Short saying, well actually, what
would be the best outcome of, of a General Election would be a hung parliament.
Now what action has been taken, will be taken, where are you on this?
HAZEL BLEARS: Well first of all, I think what Clare Short has said is extremely serious.
Calling for a hung parliament inevitably means that we will have fewer Labour MPs.
The fundamental aim of the Labour Party is to elect Labour people in councils and to
parliament, and therefore I think this is a very serious matter indeed.
The General Secretary has written to Clare Short and the matter will be discussed at the
National Executive Committee on Wednesday, but I think this is a really really serious
matter, I genuinely do.
(App., p. 64, Hazel Blears, 2006-09-17, ll. 107-119)
modal verb + periphrastic verb
As regards this combination of modal means, three instances of a modal
verbs and a periphrastic verb were found in the corpus. The modal verb occurring in
this combination is should combined with have to and be able to.
In Example 128, the combination of should and the periphrastic form have to
express detachment of the speaker from the proposition:
Example 128
QUESTION: Madame Secretary, there was some thinking several years ago that nation-
building was not something appropriate for the United States to do. Has that thinking
changed?
SECRETARY RICE: Yes. (Laughter.)
QUESTION: And how important is it –
SECRETARY RICE: To be fair, yes. Look, I think we always knew nation-building was
important, but I think my view coming in was, look, this isn‘t something the 82nd Airborne
should be doing. As a matter of fact, I think I‘m famous for that quote.
QUESTION: Taking children to school.
SECRETARY RICE: Yes. I still think this is not something that the military should have
to shoulder, which is why getting the civilian capacity is so important. And it‘s why some of
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our biggest supporters in this have been the military and the Defense Department -- Bob
Gates, for instance, because you know, the problem is we now know the real cost of failed
states. We know the cost of Afghanistan as a failed state that became, then, a breeding
ground for terrorism, became terrorism central. I don‘t think anybody wants to let that
happen again. And we know the cost of Somalia as a failed state.
(App., p. 244, Condoleezza Rice, 2008-03-27, ll. 377-393)
Another two instances of this modal combination occur in one interview. It
is a combination of the modal verb should and the periphrastic form to be able to. Both
these forms put more emphasis on the content of the message.
Example 129
JON SOPEL: And has, I´ve seen it reported that you´re going to let councils borrow from
the private sector so that they can build more. Is that right.
YVETTE COOPER: Well councils can already use their borrowing in order to do all sorts
of investment in their area. There are certain difficulties around the way that the housing
revenue account works and the way that technical rules work and we are looking at greater
flexibility for councils. Of course it´s got to be within proper responsible public borrowing
frameworks, but we do want councils to play a stronger role.
JON SOPEL: And in this vision, you say councils play a bigger role, I´m just trying to get
the simple answer to the question, will there be a lot more council housing.
YVETTE COOPER: We do think councils should be able to build council housing, we
also think that they should be able to work with housing associations, with private sector
organisations, in partnership because that´s what you really need. We want greater
flexibility, but we want that partnership development.
(App., p. 147, Yvette Cooper, 2007-07-15, ll. 146-159)
9.12 Conclusion
As the research into modality in political interviews reveals, modal
expressions are very frequent in this type of discourse. Modality is, apart from
boosting and hedging, one of the manifestations of speaker‟s involvement in
political interviews. This study focuses on analysing epistemic and deontic
modalities since dynamic modality does not contribute to the modification of the
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216
illocutionary force of utterances to such a great extent. The types of modality
appearing in the corpus are summarized in Figure 8 below.
Figure 8: Types of Modality
Modal expressions appearing in the corpus are modal verbs, modal
adverbs, modal adjectives, and pragmatic particles. Modal means expressing
epistemic stance fulfil, at the same time, pragmatic functions related to accentuation
and attenuation of the illocutionary force. Thus, it may be stated that the
epistemic modal function and the pragmatic function express very similar
meanings.
Epistemic types of modality, namely, epistemic possibility, epistemic
attitudinal modality and epistemic necessity, are used more frequently than deontic
types of modality (deontic necessity and deontic possibility) for expressing speaker‘s
involvement in the corpus, as demonstrated in Table 45 below. The high number of
occurrences of epistemic types of modality shows a high degree of involvement of
this type of genre since it is epistemic modality that contributes more to
modification of the illocutionary force.
Type of Modality Number of Occurrences
Epistemic 1,517
Deontic 588
Table 45: Epistemic and Deontic Modality - Number of Occurrences
Types of Modality
epistemic possibility
deontic necessity
epistemic attitudinal
circumstantial possibility
epistemic necessity
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217
Apart from epistemic and deontic modality, the category of circumstantial
possibility has been identified in the corpus. This type of modality expresses a
possibility that may happen or may not, depending on circumstances. It is surprising
that although it is quite frequent in the corpus (see Section 9.9.4), it has been
identified only by Huddleston and Pullum (2002), to my knowledge.
More modal expressions may be combined in one utterance and in this
way, they contribute to a higher degree of modification of the illocutionary
force. Modally harmonic combinations functioning pragmatically as hedging
devices result in a higher degree of tentativeness and uncertainty, and, by contrast,
modally harmonic combinations having the pragmatic function of boosting devices
contribute to greater certainty and confidence of the speaker. As shown in Table 43,
modally non-harmonic combinations are less frequent in the corpus.
Regarding gender-specificity and modality, it has already been stated
above (Section 9.10) that females used modal forms more frequently than their male
counterparts. Before drawing general conclusions, it is necessary to focus not only on
the types of modality but also on the linguistic means used to express these types of
modality. The data indicate that both male and female politicians express a
higher extent of subjectivity relating to their propositions than indeterminacy.
Conclusions
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10 Conclusions
This thesis investigates linguistic means that contribute to a higher degree of
speaker‘s involvement in political interviews. Speaker‘s involvement manifests itself
in the modification of the illocutionary force which may be accentuated, attenuated
or modalised. As already mentioned in the introduction of this thesis, some studies
claim (cf. Tannen 1985; Chafe 1982, 1984; Elias 1987; Besnier 1994; Katriel and
Dascal 1989, Gumperz 1992, among others) that formal communication displays a
low degree of involvement, whereas informal interaction is characterised by a high
degree of involvement. It is also thought that female speakers are more
indeterminate and vague and they do not speak matter-of-factly and to the point. By
contrast, it is claimed that male speakers are more direct and precise in their
expression.
Based on the literature dealing with involvement (Tannen 1984, 1985; Chafe
1982, 1984; Gumperz 1992) and with language and gender (Holmes 1995; Coates
1993; Lakoff 2003), the following hypotheses were formulated:
hypothesis I
The genre of political interview is detached and impersonal and it shows
features of a low-involved style as is typical of any other type of formal
interaction.
hypothesis II
Female politicians are more indeterminate and vague in their expression and
they do not speak to the point. The expression of male politicians is matter-
of-fact and they express themselves more precisely than female politicians.
The aim of the present thesis was to confirm or reject the validity of these
hypotheses in the genre of political interview.
This thesis understands political interview as a genre of political discourse
since it has its specific communication goals and conventionalised arrangement with
certain requirements on language use, degree of formality, argumentation, and topics
discussed. The main purpose of a political interview is to inform the public about the
political situation in the country, internal problems, international politics, etc.
Conclusions
219
Another aim politicians want to achieve is to persuade their listeners, to retain and
gain voters. To fulfil this aim, politicians use linguistic means showing involvement
with their propositions.
The corpus of political interviews analysed in this thesis contained 40
interviews (20 interviews with male politicians, 20 interviews with female politicians,
both of the same extent) which were downloaded from the webpages of American
and British TV and radio stations. An analysis of prosodic means was not the subject
of this study, therefore I worked only with the transcripts of the interviews. The
transcripts may contain mistakes since I used them as they were published on the
Internet. These mistakes may have been caused by editing or by the speaker but they
were not corrected by the editor since they belong to a typical feature of spoken
discourse. The topics debated in interviews range from current affairs and internal
issues in the UK, international politics, and presidential campaign to elections in the
USA.
It should be pointed out that only utterances of politicians were analysed.
After the preliminary count of linguistic means of speaker‘s involvement, the number
of these means used by interviewers was very low (only about 200). The reason why
interviewers do not use so many involvement-showing linguistic means is that their
questions are prepared in advance, and they continue to employ very few expressions
of involvement even if they react to politicians‘ replies immediately. Another reason
why interviewers do not use these means too often is that their role in the interview
is different from that of politicians. They lead the interview, ask questions but they
do not aim at persuading voters or asserting themselves in front of their audience.
For these reasons, the language of interviewers was excluded from the analysis.
The concept of involvement is very diverse and linguists approach it from
various angles. Chapter 2 of this thesis discusses the view of interactional
sociolinguistics which emphasises the social organization of involvement.
Involvement has also been studied in discourse analysis that focuses on variation
between spoken and written discourse in connection with involvement (cf. Chafe
1982; Tannen 1985). The present analysis reveals the importance of context
when interpreting pragmatic functions of linguistic means of involvement
since these means may have different pragmatic functions in different
Conclusions
220
contexts. This context-boundness has also been stressed by Tannen‘s
contextualization hypothesis and also by the scholars of the Prague School
(Mathesius 1982 [1942]; Firbas 1992).
When dealing with the differences between spoken and written discourse,
Tannen defines the concepts of high and low involvement. It is often stated that a
high degree of involvement is connected only with informal discourse. One of the
proposed hypotheses in this thesis is that formal interaction belongs to low-involved
styles is also valid in the genre of political interview:
hypothesis I
The genre of political interview is detached and impersonal and it shows
features of a low-involved style as is typical of any other type of formal
interaction.
A typical feature associated with a low-involved style is maintaining social
distance between interactants. Language which is used by participants in political
interviews is depersonalized, detached and less immediate. However, these features
of a low-involved style were not found in the genre of political interview to a great
extent, by contrast, there are linguistic means, namely, boosting devices, hedging
devices and modal expressions, which contribute to a high degree of speaker‘s
involvement.
Politicians use phrases relating to the speaker, such as I think, I don’t think,
I mean, I believe, I know, and I agree, which express subjectivity of the speaker and in
this way, they contribute to a higher degree of speaker‘s involvement. All these
means function pragmatically as speaker-oriented boosters or speaker-oriented
hedges, however, their frequency of occurrence is much higher when used as
boosters, which means that they stress subjectivity and self-confidence of the
speaker, rather than his/her uncertainty and indeterminacy. Subjectivity is not, of
course, the only means showing involvement. These phrases also promote
trustworthiness and confidence of the speaker in front of their audience, which
also strengthens the involvement of the speaker. Apart from performing
pragmatic functions, I think, I don’t think and I mean are also modal means, in
concrete terms, they express epistemic possibility. According to the pragmatic
function of a particular linguistic means, epistemic possibility expresses either
Conclusions
221
subjectivity (when the expression functions as a booster) or indeterminacy (when the
expression functions as a hedge).
Politicians do not produce only speaker-oriented statements that emphasise
or attenuate their subjective views but they also show involvement with the
content of the message. For expressing this type of involvement, speakers use
either discourse-organizing boosters or content-oriented hedges. These devices may
accentuate (discourse-organizing boosters) or attenuate (content-oriented hedges) the
propositions expressed.
When politicians want to show involvement relating to the hearer, they
use either hearer-oriented boosters or hearer-oriented hedges. These expressions
again, depending on the context, accentuate or attenuate the illocutionary force of
speech acts. Politicians do not employ them as frequently as speaker- and content-
oriented expressions, which means that they predominantly focus on themselves and
on the content of their messages and not so much on the hearer.
Boosters in the corpus outnumber hedges. There appear 3,449 boosters in
the whole corpus (see Table 3, page 94) and 1,320 hedges (see Table 14, page 133).
As already pointed out, one linguistic means may function as a booster or as a hedge.
The decisive factor for classifying an expression as a booster or a hedge is the
context of the utterance, otherwise, their pragmatic function cannot be determined
properly because these expressions are context-sensitive.
The frequency of occurrence of boosting devices in the corpus was examined
in categories delimited by their relationship to discourse meaning, which means that
boosters were divided into three groups: speaker-oriented, discourse-organizing and
hearer-oriented (see Table 4, page 95). Speaker-oriented boosters are the most
numerous category (1,968 instances), which indicates that politicians concentrate on
emphasising their attitudes and opinions and try to persuade the public that they are
the right persons they should vote for. Speaker-oriented boosters show a high degree
of speaker‘s involvement. Discourse-organizing boosters emphasise the content
of the message, which may be viewed as helping the listeners to orientate in the
message of the speaker better since they put emphasis on the parts of discourse
which are important. There appear 1,078 occurrences. The least frequent category of
boosters are hearer-oriented boosters, with 403 instances. This means that
Conclusions
222
politicians prefer concentrating on strengthening their position in front of their
audience and on the content of the message.
Boosters were also divided into groups according to their pragmatic
functions. They are summarized in Table 6 (page 101) and Figure 2 (page 102). The
most frequent function in the corpus is content-oriented emphasis with 923
occurrences in total, followed by subjectivity with 823 occurrences. Male politicians
produced more instances of content-oriented emphasis than female politicians.
However, this function is not the most frequent one in females, who produced more
instances of subjectivity. It means that female speakers concentrate more on
presentation of their opinions and thus on influencing the audience, while male
politicians focus on the content of their messages in a greater extent. It is generally
thought that politics is a ―male issue‖ and even if females assert themselves in this
area, it does not usually last for a long time. Therefore, to be perceived by the
audience as competent for the position of a politician, female politicians must show
confidence and certainty. Male politicians do not have to defend their position in
front of their audience to such a great extent, thus they concentrate on accentuation
of content of their utterances, which is significant for the listeners. The third most
frequent pragmatic function of boosters is the emphasis of the degree of a certain
quality, which stresses a positive of negative quality of the following expression. It
occurred 425 times in the corpus. Assurance appeared only 421 times in the corpus,
which indicates that politicians attempt to save their face in front of their viewers.
They do not want to show a high degree of assurance since their claims could be
regarded as untrue and politicians would sound unreliable. Intensification by
repetition, which occurred 378 times in the corpus, contributes to greater emphasis
put on politicians‘ claims. A frequency of occurrence similar to that of intensification
by repetition appears in hearer-oriented emphasis, which was produced in 370
instances. Linguistic means expressing this function turn to the hearer and stress
important parts of the speaker‘s message, which provides the hearer with a better
orientation. These means may also ask indirectly for confirmation of speaker‘s
messages. The least frequent function appearing in the corpus is agreement with
109 occurrences. This function is more typical of informal interaction than of
political interview because interviewers ask questions which they suppose the
politicians will oppose. They want to make the discussion more attractive for the
Conclusions
223
audience, therefore they ask challenging questions which are difficult to answer and
the politicians have to defend their views in front of the public.
As is evident, the high number of occurrence of these pragmatic functions of
boosting devices contributes to a higher degree of speaker‘s involvement in this
genre. This fact contradicts hypothesis I, which says that political interview shows
features of a low-involved style.
If the speaker wants to attenuate the illocutionary force, s/he uses hedging
devices. Even though the number of hedges in the corpus is significantly lower than
that of boosters, they are important linguistic devices that modify the illocutionary
force of utterances. Politicians aim at showing responsibility and confidence, they
want to show themselves in a positive light. When using hedges, they express
assumption and uncertainty, which weakens the illocutionary force of utterances. As
with boosters, the number of occurrences of hedges according to their discourse
meaning was investigated since it is convenient for determining their pragmatic
functions. There are three categories of hedges: speaker-oriented, hearer-oriented
and content-oriented. As shown in Table 15 (page 134), the most frequent is the
category of content-oriented hedges with 857 instances of occurrence. This type of
hedges decrease responsibility of the speaker for his/her assertions since when using
maybe, probably or possibly, the speaker says that something may or may not be the case.
Therefore, they may be used as a face-saving strategy of the speaker. The number of
speaker-oriented hedges is substantially lower than the number of content-
oriented hedges; they were produces in 304 instances. These hedges express
hesitation of the speaker, which is a sign of his/her uncertainty or withholding some
information. However, without sufficient context and background information, it
cannot be specified properly if they indicate uncertainty or withholding information.
Hearer-oriented hedges are the least frequent category of hedges in the corpus.
There are altogether 159 instances. They express uncertainty related to the hearer. As
with hearer-oriented boosters, this category does not appear too often since speakers
concentrate more on the content of their utterances, in this case on hedging this
content.
Hedges occur in nine pragmatic functions in the corpus, all of them are
summarized in Table 17 and Figure 5, page 137. The most numerous function is
Conclusions
224
attenuation of the forthcoming message, which was produced altogether in 735
instances. Politicians weaken the illocutionary force of their utterances not only when
they are hesitant or uncertain but also for the reason that they do not want to sound
too reserved and detached from the audience. They attempt to be closer to their
voters. Politicians also try to soften negative facts they have to convey to their
listeners. Assumption is the second most frequent function of hedges in the corpus,
however, its occurrence is considerably lower than that of attenuation. It appears 243
times in the corpus. Assumption expresses uncertainty of the speaker about the
proposition. In some cases, the speaker does not want to reveal the information to
the public and wants to be evasive, but sometimes, s/he cannot predict the
development of the situation so s/he must be vague and make only assumptions.
Hearer-oriented uncertainty occurs 107 times in the corpus. It is connected with
the uncertainty of the speaker concerning the hearer‘s reaction and attitude towards
the speaker‘s proposition. Unspecified reference belongs with 50 instances of
occurrence to less frequent pragmatic functions of hedges in the corpus. It is
expressed by kind of and sort of therefore it is connected mostly with informal
interaction. The fact that it also appears in formal interaction to a certain extent may
be related to conversationalization of media discourse. In terms of frequency in the
corpus, hesitation is similar to unspecified reference because it appears in 48
instances. However, there is a substantial difference between male and female
speakers as regards the distribution of this function. Females used it to a lower extent
than males, which relates to the effort of female politicians to persuade the voters
that they are the right persons for the political position they exercise. They do not
want to be evasive too much when answering the interviewer‘s questions. Content-
oriented uncertainty with a total of 41 appearances but only 14 appearances in
females confirms the claim that females feel the need to show responsibility for their
claims in order to assert themselves in front of the public, therefore, they avoid using
expressions showing their uncertainty. Negative politeness is connected with
indirectness of speaker‘s expression in the corpus. Politicians do not say directly that
they are opposed to something, instead, they use phrases like I would disagree or I don’t
think to hedge the utterance and save his/her face in front of the audience. This
function occurred 37 times in the corpus. Detachment, another pragmatic function
performed by hedges, appeared in only 32 instances in the corpus. It relates to the
Conclusions
225
fact that expression of speaker‘s involvement is more typical of the genre of political
interview than detachment. Politicians attempt to influence and persuade their
audience, therefore, they cannot be detached. They are very well aware of the fact
that being closer to the audience is better if they want to be successful. Therefore,
their language is not so formal but, by contrast, a certain level of informality is
apparent in the language of politicians. As already stated, they attempt to establish a
closer relationship with their viewers. The least numerous function of hedges is
evasiveness. It appeared in 27 instances in total, out of this number only twice in
female speakers. This is a somewhat surprising fact, since evasiveness is typically
connected with political discourse. It relates to the tendency of speakers to avoid
responsibility for their statements. Mere two appearances in females indicate that
they attempt to control their language and speak to the point. It is again connected
with defending their position in front of the public.
Even if the number of occurrences of hedges is lower than that of boosters,
they also contribute to a higher degree of speaker‟s involvement since they
attenuate the illocutionary force of utterances. This attenuation enables
politicians to show uncertainty, assumption, detachment, or evasiveness. However,
politicians do not want to be too detached or evasive since they would not have
confidence of their voters. In sum, it is another proof that contradicts hypothesis I.
This thesis applies a wider approach to speaker‘s involvement, therefore, the
concept of modality was also included. This study follows the traditional division of
modality into epistemic and deontic types. However, this division could not be
applied to all instances of modality found in the corpus so the category of
circumstantial possibility had to be included. This category has been defined by
Huddleston and Pullum (2002). I have proposed a new class of modality, namely,
epistemic attitudinal modality, since there were instances in the corpus which could
not be included in any other type.
There appear altogether 2,203 modal expressions in the corpus (see Table
27 and Figure 7, page 178). The types of modality and number of their occurrence
are summarized in Table 28, page 179. The most numerous category of modality is
epistemic possibility with 1,061 instances. It is expressed by modal means that,
according to the context, function pragmatically either as boosters or as hedges.
Conclusions
226
When these modal means accentuate the illocutionary force of the propositions, they
express subjectivity of the speaker, which should, again, influence the voters. By
contrast, if the modal means hedge the propositions, politicians express uncertainty,
assumption and doubt. Deontic necessity is the second most numerous modality in
the corpus, however, compared with the frequency of epistemic possibility, it
appeared to a much lesser extent. It was produced 565 times in the corpus. This type
of modality is connected with showing detachment of the speaker. Politicians do not
want to be responsible for their claims, therefore they prefer using the forms have to
or have got to to the modal verb must. Using have to/have got to, the speaker is not
involved in the proposition expressed and s/he is not responsible for it. Detachment
is one of the pragmatic functions of hedging expressions and at the same time, it is
connected with the modal functions of deontic necessity and circumstantial
possibility. Epistemic attitudinal modality occurred in 369 instances in the corpus.
I have proposed this type of modality since the means expressing it, namely, really,
frankly and actually, cannot be included in any other type of epistemic modality. They
express the speaker‘s attitude to the proposition as other types of epistemic modality
but they express neither epistemic necessity, possibility nor assumption. These modal
means contribute to a higher degree of speaker‘s involvement in that they attenuate
or accentuate the illocutionary force, depending on the context. Thus, as with other
epistemic types, this proves that pragmatic and modal functions are interrelated.
Circumstantial possibility was produced 98 times in the corpus. This type of
modality expresses possibility that may be fulfilled under certain circumstances.
Circumstantial possibility has only been mentioned by Huddleston and Pullum
(2002), to my knowledge, while Palmer does not refer to it at all. Epistemic
necessity belongs with 87 occurrences to the least numerous modalities in the
corpus. This relates to the fact that this function expresses assurance of the speaker
and politicians do not want to express confidence about their propositions to a great
extent but rather, they leave some space for modifying their assertions, which may
also be regarded as a face-saving strategy. The function with the lowest number of
occurrence in the corpus is deontic possibility, which appeared only 23 times in the
whole corpus. It expresses permission, therefore this type of modality is not so
frequent in political interviews. It is more typical of informal interaction.
Conclusions
227
As the present analysis shows, pragmatic and epistemic modal
functions correlate. They express both epistemic stance and accentuation or
attenuation of the illocutionary force. Thus, it may be claimed that these
functions express very similar meanings.
From the quantitative analysis it follows that epistemic types of modality are
used more frequently than deontic types to show speaker‘s involvement. Epistemic
modalities also show the modification of the illocutionary force more explicitly, and
thus it is possible to interrelate these types of modality with the pragmatic functions
of boosting and hedging devices.
To sum up, hypothesis I concerning detachment of the genre of
political interview is not valid. Although political interview belongs to formal
types of discourse, there are many features of speaker‘s involvement. Using boosting
and hedging devices and modal expressions, politicians modify the illocutionary force
of their utterances. They attempt to strengthen their position in front of their
audience, they also attenuate the force of their utterances when they are not certain
about their propositions. A formal type of discourse is characterised by more
complex syntax of sentences. This issue was not the subject of the present analysis,
but a tendency to use shorter and loosely structured sentences may be clearly
observed. The language of politicians contains informal vocabulary. The reason is
that they aim at being closer to their audience. If they were detached, the voters
would not trust them too much. This is also connected with a certain amount of
affectiveness, which is apparent in political interviews. Even if matter-of-factness
prevails since this genre focuses mainly on conveying information, showing attitude
and relationship towards the audience is also observable. This feature contributes to
expressing speaker‘s involvement as well.
Thus, it may be concluded: The material under investigation reveals that
the genre of political interview shows a high degree of speaker‟s involvement,
which manifests itself in the frequent use of boosting and hedging devices
and their pragmatic functions and in the use of modal expressions.
Conclusions
228
The second hypothesis was formulated as follows:
Female politicians are more indeterminate and vague in their expression and
they do not speak to the point. The expression of male politicians is matter-
of-fact and they express themselves more precisely than female politicians.
Pragmatic functions of boosters reveal that female speakers focus on
showing subjectivity and confidence and on emphasising the content of their
propositions, rather than on expressing detachment or uncertainty. Indeterminacy
and vagueness do not manifest themselves to a great extent in the corpus. This is
connected with the position of women in politics. The sphere of politics is usually
regarded as an area typical of men, in which women have a difficult position for
asserting themselves. The voters may consider them ―weak‖, they do not believe in
their abilities, therefore, female politicians must persuade them about the opposite
and show them that they are the right persons for the political functions they hold or
want to hold. By contrast, male politicians have an easier position in this sense. They
do not have to defend their position in front of their viewers to such a great extent,
which is why they can afford to be more indeterminate, hesitant or vague. Males are
also more evasive, which means that they try to avoid responsibility for their
statements. Responsibility for their claims is more apparent in female speakers in the
corpus since they produced only two instances of evasiveness and only 14 instances
of content-oriented uncertainty. Epistemic attitudinal modality is also very common
in female politicians, especially the use of frankly is very frequent. My explanation is
that they attempt to show a positive and responsible attitude to their viewers. They
want to be frank, trustworthy and more cooperative, and in this way to gain the
confidence of the voters.
In sum, although a certain degree of indeterminacy may be found in female
politicians, it does not necessarily have to be a manifestation of uncertainty of the
speaker. It may be a sign of female sensitivity towards the propositional content.
Women are well aware of the fact that the explanation of some issues is not so easy
and that things are not always unambiguous. This may be related to the fact that
women do not tend to make ―clear‖ or ―non-hypothetical‖ claims. For these reasons,
when evaluating the quantitative results of modality and making gender distinctions,
Conclusions
229
it is necessary to focus not only on the types of modality but also on the linguistic
means used by males and females respectively to express these types of modality.
Since male politicians produced more hedging devices showing uncertainty,
assumption, and evasiveness, it may be stated that they do not express themselves
more precisely than females. As already pointed out, they do not have to vindicate
their position in front of their audience to such a great extent as female politicians
do. They therefore do not pay attention to the linguistic means they use and express
themselves less precisely. To conclude: the present analysis of political interviews
shows that hypothesis II is not valid in this genre. A certain amount of
indeterminacy may be indicated by female politicians but it relates to their
sensitivity towards the propositional content of their utterances. Male
politicians used more hedging functions expressing uncertainty, assumption
and evasiveness, which shows imprecision and a lower degree of matter-of-
factness.
This thesis has shown that even if political interview belongs to formal types
of discourse, it nevertheless contains many features of speaker‘s involvement. This
analysis focused on the modification of the illocutionary force by the use of boosting
and hedging devices and modal expressions. The research into syntactic and prosodic
devices which also contribute to expressing speaker‘s involvement was beyond the
scope of the present study. It would also be interesting to analyse whether and to
what extent the political position exercised influences the degree of speaker‘s
involvement. This was not the subject of this study, but certain tendencies
supporting this claim may be observed in the corpus. Another topic for further
investigation might be the difference between TV and radio interviews. Speakers on
the radio are aware of the fact that their gestures and facial expressions are
ineffective, whereas these means are significant when the interviews are broadcast on
TV. It would be interesting to analyse whether the speakers on the radio somehow
compensate the absence of visual means linguistically.
List of Tables
230
List of Tables
TABLE 1: THE EXTENT OF THE CORPUS ........................................................................................................ 55
TABLE 2: POLITICIANS AND THEIR POSITIONS ......................................................................................... 57
TABLE 3: FREQUENCY OF BOOSTERS .............................................................................................................. 94
TABLE 4: BOOSTERS CLASSIFIED BY THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO DISCOURSE MEANING ...... 95
TABLE 5: FIVE MOST FREQUENT BOOSTERS IN THE CORPUS ............................................................ 96
TABLE 6: FREQUENCY OF BOOSTERS BY FUNCTION ............................................................................ 101
TABLE 7: CONTENT-ORIENTED EMPHASIS ............................................................................................... 103
TABLE 8: SUBJECTIVITY ...................................................................................................................................... 106
TABLE 9: THE DEGREE OF A CERTAIN QUALITY .................................................................................... 109
TABLE 10: ASSURANCE ........................................................................................................................................ 111
TABLE 11: INTENSIFICATION BY REPETITION ........................................................................................ 113
TABLE 12: HEARER-ORIENTED EMPHASIS ............................................................................................... 116
TABLE 13: AGREEMENT ...................................................................................................................................... 118
TABLE 14: FREQUENCY OF HEDGES ............................................................................................................. 133
TABLE 15: HEDGES CLASSIFIED BY THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO DISCOURSE MEANING ...... 134
TABLE 16: THE MOST FREQUENT HEDGES IN THE CORPUS ............................................................. 135
TABLE 17: FREQUENCY OF HEDGES BY FUNCTION............................................................................... 137
TABLE 18: ATTENUATION OF THE FORTHCOMING MESSAGE ......................................................... 138
TABLE 19: ASSUMPTION ..................................................................................................................................... 140
TABLE 20: HEARER-ORIENTED UNCERTAINTY ...................................................................................... 142
TABLE 21: UNSPECIFIED REFERENCE ......................................................................................................... 145
TABLE 22: HESITATION ...................................................................................................................................... 147
TABLE 23: CONTENT-ORIENTED UNCERTAINTY ................................................................................... 149
TABLE 24: NEGATIVE POLITENESS ............................................................................................................... 152
TABLE 25: DETACHMENT .................................................................................................................................. 154
TABLE 26: EVASIVENESS .................................................................................................................................... 156
TABLE 27: FREQUENCY OF OCCURRENCE OF MODAL EXPRESSIONS .......................................... 178
TABLE 28: TYPES OF MODALITY AND NUMBER OF OCCURRENCES ............................................. 179
TABLE 29: EPISTEMIC POSSIBILITY .............................................................................................................. 180
TABLE 30: MODAL MEANS OF EPISTEMIC POSSIBILITY ..................................................................... 180
List of Tables
231
TABLE 31: DEONTIC NECESSITY ..................................................................................................................... 186
TABLE 32: MODAL MEANS EXPRESSING DEONTIC NECESSITY ....................................................... 186
TABLE 33: EPISTEMIC ATTITUDINAL MODALITY .................................................................................. 190
TABLE 34: MODAL MEANS EXPRESSING EPISTEMIC ATTITUDINAL MODALITY .................... 190
TABLE 35: CIRCUMSTANTIAL POSSIBILITY .............................................................................................. 193
TABLE 36: MODAL MEANS OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL POSSIBILITY ...................................................... 193
TABLE 37: EPISTEMIC NECESSITY ................................................................................................................. 196
TABLE 38: MODAL MEANS OF EPISTEMIC NECESSITY ........................................................................ 196
TABLE 39: DEONTIC POSSIBILITY .................................................................................................................. 199
TABLE 40: MODAL MEANS OF DEONTIC POSSIBILITY ......................................................................... 199
TABLE 41: PRAGMATIC FUNCTIONS OF EPISTEMIC POSSIBILITY ................................................. 203
TABLE 42: PRAGMATIC FUNCTIONS OF EPISTEMIC ATTITUDINAL MODALITY ..................... 204
TABLE 43: MODALLY HARMONIC AND NON-HARMONIC COMBINATIONS ................................ 207
TABLE 44: MODAL COMBINATIONS IN THE CORPUS ........................................................................... 208
TABLE 45: EPISTEMIC AND DEONTIC MODALITY - NUMBER OF OCCURRENCES................... 216
List of Figures
232
List of Figures
FIGURE 1: BOOSTERS CLASSIFIED BY THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO DISCOURSE MEANING .... 95
FIGURE 2: FREQUENCY OF BOOSTERS BY FUNCTION .......................................................................... 102
FIGURE 3: PRAGMATIC FUNCTIONS OF BOOSTERS ............................................................................... 120
FIGURE 4: HEDGES CLASSIFIED BY THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO DISCOURSE MEANING ....... 134
FIGURE 5: FREQUENCY OF HEDGES BY FUNCTION ............................................................................... 137
FIGURE 6: PRAGMATIC FUNCTIONS OF HEDGES .................................................................................... 159
FIGURE 7: TYPES OF MODALITY AND NUMBER OF OCCURRENCES .............................................. 178
FIGURE 8: TYPES OF MODALITY ..................................................................................................................... 216
České resumé
233
České resumé
Předkládaná disertační práce se zabývá pragmaticko-sémantickou analýzou
jazykových prostředků v ţánru politického rozhovoru, pomocí nichţ mluvčí
explicitněji vyjadřuje svůj postoj. Cílem studie bylo objasnit dvě hypotézy vymezené
v jejím úvodu. Podle první hypotézy mluvčí v ţánru politického interview, podobně
jako v ostatních typech formální komunikace, vyjadřují neosobnost a odstup od
svých výpovědí. Podle druhé hypotézy jsou političky ve svém vyjadřování neurčitější
a vágnější neţ politici, kteří jsou zpravidla spojováni s věcností a přesností výrazu.
Jazykové prostředky vyjadřující postoj mluvčího, které byly zkoumány v této
studii, jsou prostředky zdůrazňující ilokuční sílu výpovědi, oslabující ilokuční sílu
výpovědi a prostředky modality, které téţ přispívají k modifikaci výpovědní síly.
Kvantitativní analýzou bylo zjištěno, ţe zdůraznění ilokuční síly výpovědi podstatně
převládá nad jejím oslabení. Důvodem je snaha politiků zesílit pozitivní informaci,
působit sebejistě, zodpovědně a důvěryhodně před posluchači, zdůraznit své názory
a přesvědčit posluchače, ţe jsou správné osoby na správném místě. Politici nechtějí
působit nejistě nebo nepovolaně, proto se v tomto ţánru vyskytuje méně prostředků
oslabujících výpovědní sílu. Tyto prostředky ovšem téţ vyjadřují odstup mluvčího od
jeho tvrzení, coţ sniţuje zodpovědnost mluvčího za toto tvrzení. Politici se uţitím
prostředků oslabujících sílu výpovědi také snaţí zmírnit negativní informace, které
musí sdělit. Právě toto zdůraznění nebo zeslabení výpovědní síly a pouţití prostředků
modality je důkazem vyjádření postoje mluvčího a tudíţ vyvracejí první hypotézu o
tom, ţe pro politické interview je typické vyjádření neosobnosti a odstupu mluvčího
od tvrzení.
Prostředky, jejichţ funkcí je zesílit a oslabit ilokuční sílu výpovědi, mají
v ţánru politického rozhovoru různé pragmatické funkce, které byly téţ kvantitativně
analyzovány a interpretovány v závislosti na kontextu. Výzkum ukázal, ţe bez
kontextu nelze pragmatické funkce jednotlivých lingvistických prostředků bezpečně
identifikovat, je tedy pro určení těchto funkcí rozhodující. Jeden a tentýţ lingvistický
prostředek tak můţe, v závislosti na kontextu, jak zesilovat, tak oslabovat ilokuční
sílu výpovědi.
České resumé
234
Pokud jde o druhou hypotézu a rozdíl ve vyjadřování politiků a političek,
pragmatické funkce boosterů (prostředků zesilujících výpovědní sílu) ukazují, ţe se
političky zaměřují na vyjádření subjektivity a jistoty a na zdůraznění obsahu svých
výpovědí. Přitom se snaţí omezit neosobnost projevu a nejistotu ve vyjadřování.
Tato skutečnost se vztahuje k postavení ţeny v oblasti politiky, která je většinou
spojována s muţi. Ţeny mají obvykle těţší pozici, pokud jde o prosazení se v této
oblasti. Někteří posluchači jim nevěří v tak velké míře jako muţům politikům, proto
je musí ţeny o svých kvalitách přesvědčit a ukázat, ţe jsou na správném místě.
V tomto smyslu mají politici situaci jednodušší, protoţe nemusí svá stanoviska
obhajovat před voliči tak jako ţeny a mohou si dovolit být ve svém vyjadřování
neurčitější, váhavější a vyhýbavější. Politici se také snaţí se vyhnout zodpovědnosti za
svá tvrzení, která je naopak více patrná u političek, jak dokazuje analýza
pragmatických funkcí zesilujících, oslabujících a modálních prostředků. Političky se
snaţí brát ohled na své posluchače tím, ţe jsou otevřenější, snaţí se ukázat pozitivní
postoj ke svým voličům a získat si tak jejich důvěru. I kdyţ se ve výpovědích
političek ukazuje jistý stupeň neurčitosti, nemusí to nutně být výraz nejistoty, ale
znamení toho, ţe si jsou vědomy, ţe vysvětlení některých skutečností nejsou
jednoduchá a není vţdy moţné dělat jasné závěry. Z toho vyplývá, ţe při evaluaci
výsledků a určování rozdílů ve způsobu vyjadřování politiků a političek, je vţdy
nutné brát v úvahu nejen určitou pragmatickou funkci nebo typ modality, ale také
prostředky, jimiţ je vyjádřena. Výsledky analýzy tedy ukazují, ţe ani druhá hypotéza
se v ţánru politického interview nepotvrdila.
Dalším významným projevem vyjadřování postoje mluvčího v politických
rozhovorech je modalita. Tato studie zkoumá dva druhy modality, epistemickou a
deontickou. Epistemická modalita přispívá k modifikaci ilokuční síly výpovědi ve
větší míře a ve zkoumaném materiálu se vyskytuje mnohem častěji. Modální
prostředky vyskytující se v analyzovaných politických interview jsou modální slovesa,
modální adjektiva a adverbia a pragmatické částice. Tyto prostředky epistemické
modality současně plní pragmatické funkce zesilujících a oslabujících výrazů. Modální
prostředky lze téţ kombinovat v jedné výpovědi, ovšem jejich výskyt není
v analyzovaných interview příliš častý.
References
235
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Cameron, D. (2008) David Cameron Interview. 16 March, 2008. BBC NEWS. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/programmes/politics_show/7286279.stm.
Clinton, H. (2006) Hillary Clinton Talks with Nightline's Cynthia McFadden. 7 September, 2006. ABC NEWS. http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/ story?id=2403942.
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List of Boosters
I
List of Boosters
BDO
- a different kind of Middle East
- A downturn
- a lot
- a lot of
- a small working group
- A success means
- about an Iraq that
- accurately
- act that way
- actually
- after all
- All that would happen is
- all they have to do is
- All they're focused on is
- although I totally understand what Senator McCain is saying
- an awful lot
- And – and I made it clear that
- And – and so the first objective– Katie, is
- And – and the reason why is the army has stayed intact
- and again the answer is
- And– and – look, the key thing for the American people to understand is
- And as far as what's happening at the moment with the international situation
- And as I keep saying to people
- and as we were saying earlier
- And I'm comfortable with
- And in that
- And in the end the answer to it is
- And in those circumstances
- And incidentally, that's an interesting point
- And just
- And let me address the point
- And let me just add here
- And much of what I've gone through in my entire life is
- And my job is
- And on the other side
- And one of the interesting questions, Bob, about this whole debate is
- And one of the interesting things I think people will find in this speech is
- And one of the objectives of that national minimum wage topped up by the tax credit was
- And one of the reasons that an agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority would be very good is
- And one of the subjects that we would, of
course, talk with the Iranians about if Zal Khalilzad meets with his counterpart would be
- And one of the things I look for is
- and one of the things that Colin Powell was talking about yesterday was
- And one thing we want during this war on terror is
- And our job is
- And so one of our high priorities is
- And so really what we are doing is
- And so the question I'm now faced with is
- And so what I care really about is
- And so what I'm asking Congress to do is to – is
- And so what we've done now is
- And that is precisely why
- and that is to make it clear to people that
- and that is why our strategy is
- And that trend is
- And that‘s what
- And the amazing thing about the United Kingdom
- And the answer is
- And the best way to achieve success is
List of Boosters
II
- and the best way to do that is
- And the best way to succeed at this point in time is
- And the decision I had to make was
- And the difference is
- And the fact is
- and the choices that people have made on Thursday is
- and the interesting thing is this
- And the message that we are working to send to the Iranian regime and the Iranian people is
- and the most important thing to realise is
- And the objective with Iran is
- And the only way you can recruit for that ideology is
- And the question is
- and the reality is
- And the reason for that is
- And the reason I brought up the mistakes is
- and the reason that he stands against amnesty is
- And the reason they can't go and elect a President is because, I believe
- And the reason why this is important is
- And the reason why we're moving them there is
- And the thing about brown field land is
- And the way to do that is
- And the whole idea is
- And the whole point about what I was saying both in respect of Syria and Iran is
- And then the final option is
- And then, finally
- And there this is essential
- And therefore
- and this is really what is being debated at the moment
- and this is what terrorism does
- and this is what we're going on to address is
- and this is why it's so important for us to send a message to the region
- and what Colin Powell was talking about at the UN yesterday
- and what counts is
- And what I have felt from these Palestinians and these Israelis is
- And what is interesting now is
- And what Palestinians and Israelis are now going to have to do is
- and what people did was
- And what we've been doing over these past few years is
- And what we've got to do is
- And what's different is
- And what's going to change this time is
- And yes
- and yes, as he said last week
- And, I've said this before
- And, so, what people gotta understand is
- Another thing is
- As a matter of fact
- as a result of
- As a result of that
- as far as we know
- as I also said
- As I mentioned in my speech
- As I mentioned in my speech that you kindly listened to
- As I talked about in my speech
- as the Ministry of Defence has said
- At some point
- At the same time
- basically
- because at the moment what's happening is
- Because he
- Because our most important job is
- Because the question is
- Because what actually happened was
- because what he is doing is
- because what's fatal in politics
- because you know, the problem is
List of Boosters
III
- benchmarks
- Beyond that
- but actually
- But actually what has happened in Afghanistan is
- but again what it indicates is
- But anyway
- But as far as I'm concerned, the important thing to do is
- But as of January 20, 2009
- But essentially
- but here's the other thing and this is
- But I said to my colleagues the very first day
- but in the end what we have got to understand
- but let's be clear
- But let's be frank
- But let's just be clear
- but more importantly
- But one thing that we wanted to do was
- But one thing that we've had to do is
- But one thing we do know is
- but surely the most important thing for a government is
- but that's what I want
- but the bottom line is
- But the clear understanding was
- but the fact is
- But the greater purpose is
- but the important thing is
- But the key thing is
- But the one thing I hope we can all agree on is
- But the other thing is
- but the point is
- But the problem is
- But the purpose of the terrorism and the destruction and the chaos is
- But the question is
- But the strongest message was
- But the thing about being Secretary of State is
- But the thing to be most worried about, I would say, yes,
- but the truth is
- But the view of government is
- But this is a decision the Iraqis have got to take
- But this is why
- But we were finding
- but what can't be debated is the fact that
- But what I would like understood as a black American is
- but what is interesting for example is
- But what is needed is
- But what it does call for, rightly, which is what, in an event, we're working on is
- but what our forces are doing there
- but what we are doing is
- But what we can do is
- But what we can say to families is first of all
- but what we do do is
- But what we owe them is
- But what we really are having to train differently is
- But what we share with France is
- But what we were finding
- but what we're seeking to do is
- But what we've got to do going forward is
- But what's deafening is
- but what's more important and in fact actually this isn't about competition between schools
- But, and this is the challenge for the future
- But, by no means
- But, let's be clear
- But, Wolf, let me be very clear
- by far
- by the way
- come to that in a minute
- compared to
- critically
- entirely
- essentially
- Failure in Iraq
- finally
- firmly
List of Boosters
IV
- first
- first and foremost
- first of all
- Firstly
- For instance
- Fourth
- frankly
- genuinely
- good for
- hard for us to
- hard to overcome years of
- he misled
- He's always been dangerous
- He's going to talk about
- his whole point is
- honestly
- However, what is absolutely clear, and this is what we have said all the way through, is
- hugely
- I mean the reason I won't give the absolute undertaking that Jeremy was asking me to give
- I praised
- I say that the reason for the Annapolis conference is
- I want to be very clear
- I will tell you
- I, let me make one thing absolutely clear
- If there is anything that I really resent
- in a sense
- in a way
- In actual fact of course, what we've succeeded in doing in London is
- in all due respect
- In fact
- In other words
- in part
- in particular
- In respect of other stuff however
- In the end
- Incidentally
- increasingly
- indeed
- is what he said
- it came in to place at a time I understand it
- It can't be ignored
- It happens
- It is absurd
- it is important
- It is likely
- It means
- It must be viewed in context of how
- It seemed really remote
- it seemed remote
- It was not just an intelligence problem with
- it wasn't me saying that, it was the scientists who said that
- It would need
- it‘s also important
- It‘s important
- It's a decision
- it's about people
- it's difficult
- it's difficult because
- it's fair to say
- it's going to be filled by
- it's going to filled by
- It's not difficult because
- it's very difficult
- Judgment
- just
- let's accept that the most important thing is
- let's be clear
- long-held
- looked at
- many, many, many
- means
- Message is
- must be viewed in a context
- need to know
- need to see that
- needs to see that
- No one is saying
- nobody likes to go to war
- Nobody wants to go to war
- not going to comment on it
- Now just literally within the past few days
- Now the problem that we pointed out in our response to the obesity review that was conducted by the scientists, is
- Now the reason why Israel-Palestine is important and the situation in Lebanon is important, is
- Now to be fair
List of Boosters
V
- Now what's actually happening at the moment
- Now, the question is
- Now, what the president said yesterday is
- Number three
- Oh, that is so
- On that basis
- On the contrary
- On the one hand
- On the other hand
- On the other hand though
- on the recommendations of
- One
- One advantage that we have on that one is
- one of his first press conferences, he said the problem is
- one of the amazing things about our country is
- one of the hardest parts of my job is
- One of the interesting lessons from the Vietnam era was
- One of the interesting things is
- one of the problems in managing a big organization is
- one of the problems is
- One of the things I understand that they do in their report is
- one of the things that has helped us to improve standards
- one of the things that I'm keen, very keen on
- One of the things that is very important in discussing Iran is
- one of the things we have done is
- One option was
- One thing most have said to me is
- only
- Our – our most important job is to – is
- part of the reason that the Iraqis are doing anything is
- Part of what we're doing here is
- particularly
- Passionate about
- people don't believe
- philosophy
- plenty
- principally
- quite
- Second
- secondly
- significantly
- simply
- So
- so actually
- So my first reaction on this report from the battlefield is
- So one of the arguments for votes at 16 is
- So something that the Commission have looked at very specifically
- So the question is
- So the really key thing is
- So the thing that I have, have been urging for many months and urge again is
- So what the president did was
- So what they want to know from us is in greater detail
- So what we've got to do
- some people read it
- Specifically what I said about saying no rather than yes is
- Stability
- still
- Success means
- Surely the important thing is
- Surely the single biggest question in a democracy is
- Surely, the first question to ask is
- that ended up finally with
- that ended up with
- That is the thing I believe would have
- That is what
- That is why
- That means
- That meant that they
- that what you need is
- That's not what
- That's one of the reasons
- That's what
- That's what is clear
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- that's what they're trying to do
- that's what we're trying to do
- that's what we've tried to do
- That's why at the heart of White Paper is
- That's why he
- that's why it's important for us to
- That's why we say
- The answer is that it is actually important
- The best way to defeat the man in a team is
- The common ground is
- the cost of an Iraq that
- The danger is
- The fact is
- The fact is however
- The fact is that
- The first is
- the first thing Cameron will do is
- the first thing I‘ll do
- The first thing is
- the first thing that I would describe myself as is
- The fundamental aim of the Labour Party is
- The goal is
- The good news for the American people is
- The great thing about all elections is
- The important thing about the Crewe by-election is
- The issue is
- The key here over the last several months has been
- The message to the Iranian people is
- the more difficult transformation for the Department has been
- The most obvious one is
- The only issue between us really is
- The only issue is, at the moment
- The only reason that people are pressing them to get it done more quickly is
- The only way a radical can recruit is
- The other piece that we've had to work really hard on is
- The other thing is
- the patriotic thing to do was
- The point about setting a target is
- The point of the surge was
- the point that I was responding to from Senator Obama himself in a number of speeches he was making
- The point that I'm making is this
- The point, Wolf, is
- The problem is
- the problem the report identifies, which is that
- the question is
- The question therefore is
- The question with imminence is
- The real problem, frankly is
- The real question is
- The reason I have to do that is
- The reason they can do that in America is
- the reason this whole struggle came about was
- the reason we're dealing with these now is
- The reason we've been able to get so much money going into the health service and schools now, why we have forward investment plans for schools, hospitals, crime, transport is
- The reason why is
- The reason why Scotland has been able to engage in the refurbishment and now over the future years, the continuing refurbishment of every school in Scotland, why it's been able to build new hospitals, invest in new primary care facilities in Scotland, is
- The reason why the strategies we have in relation to Iraq is
- the reason your taxes are so high is
- The ROSE QUESTION was
- The trouble with the fund-holder system was
- The truth is
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- The two most important things parents want to do is
- The whole point is
- the whole purpose was
- The world will see
- the wrong message to
- there are difficult issues about
- there is no reason
- there is this breakdown
- there was no
- There's a lot of skepticism
- There's a reason
- There's just no point
- There's no point
- there's no reason
- There's skepticism
- The--the other thing that's interesting about the elections, though, that I found fascinating is
- they didn't have
- they don't believe
- they're operating in
- they've seen
- third
- thirdly
- This is – what I'm describing to the American people is
- This is about saying
- this is what we've got to address
- To a huge extent
- To be fair to France and Germany
- to be frank
- to the best of my recollection
- two
- ultimately
- unfortunately
- We should engage them
- we want
- we want people
- We were looking at
- Well
- Well – the first thing I would tell people that
- we'll turn
- Well what it means is
- Well, first of all
- Well, the fact is
- Well, there again
- Well, well
- Well, what came out of that conference was
- well-governed states
- we're feeling
- We're going to leave an Iraq
- We're not going to
- We've done it before
- we've got
- what a fantastic thing that would be
- what British forces are doing in Iraq, in Afghanistan is
- What business can do and what we're saying is
- what caused September 11 was
- what Colin Powell was doing yesterday
- What Gordon Brown was asked was
- what Hans Blix has said is
- what happened is
- What happens is
- what he said was
- What he was talking about
- What I am offering the health insurance industry
- what I'm happy with
- what is being referred there -- to there
- What is clear is
- what is interesting about the report is
- what is interesting is
- what is interesting is that actually
- What is supposed to happen is
- What is wrong with
- what it opened up here
- what it's saying is
- what I've learnt about this subject is
- what made my determination that we needed to change policy was
- What people are talking to me about
- what people want is
- what really matters is
- what she is referring to is
- What the American people need to understand is
- What the question is
- What the sanctions were supposed to do was
List of Boosters
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- what the scientists say is
- What they can't do is
- What they said was
- What they'd do is
- what they're saying is
- what they've said is
- what was put on the agenda was
- What wasn't noticed was
- What we can see today as around the world
- what we face in the region is
- What we have got now
- What we need to do is
- what we're saying very clearly, Ruth Kelly said it very clearly is
- what were we looking at
- what we've done is
- what we've got to do as I say in every single area, but particularly in the Middle East, is
- What we've got to do is
- what will be really important for us, is
- what you are really seeing is
- What you want is within every block, within every development, along every street
- what you're doing is
- What you've got to do as Deputy Leader and I've said this very clearly, is
- What you've got with Gordon is
- what you've now got is
- What's different is
- what's going to matter is
- what's important is
- what's interesting actually is
- What's interesting is that
- what's quite interesting is
- What's wrong with
- when he talks about
- Where this conversation has got to go is
- work
- worried about
- yes the answer is
- You know, what you should be doing as a government
BHO
- A first step, and it's a very important first step which was introduced in January as you rightly say, is
- All that I know, Charlie, is
- all you can do is
- And as you quite rightly point out
- and do you know what
- and I just simply say to you
- And I want to remind your viewers, Bob,
- And I will tell you
- And I'm telling you that
- And let me just give you one fact
- and my point to you is
- And one of the points that I made, Wolf
- and one of the reasons why I appreciate talking to you is
- And so what you are seeing
- and the best you can think of is
- And the interesting is, Scott
- and what I'm saying to you is
- and you know
- And you know what
- as I said to you before
- As I told you
- As you know
- as you rightly have just implied internationally
- as you rightly imply
- as you said
- as you say
- as you well know
- as you‘ve kindly said
- But all I'm saying to you really is this
- but I also would say to you
- But I just want to point this out to you
- But I simply do say to you
- But I want to just make one thing very clear to you
- But I will tell you that
- But I'll tell you
- but I'll tell you this
- but let me just say this to you
List of Boosters
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- But my first consideration - and listen
- But the one point that I'm simply making to you is
- But Tim, as I understand it
- but you know
- don't be under any doubt at all
- I can tell you
- I've got to tell you
- let me emphasise to you
- let me just broaden it to say the following
- let me just deal with the oil thing
- let me repeat to you
- Let me say one thing
- Let me try and explain
- Let's not forget the essential thing
- Listen
- Look
- Look at
- Look at the fact we've got
- OK you know
- See
- So all I'm saying to you is
- So my point to you is this
- So you know
- So, you know
- that´s what you really need
- the - the purpose of the strategy, Jim
- The only thing I can tell you is
- We would like you to
- Well – listen
- Well hang on
- Well, you know, Juan
- what I am saying to you is
- What I‘m asserting to you is
- what we're trying to do is
- what you actually end up doing is in fact
- What you are not asking me about, which would be a more fruitful line of endeavour, is
- What you are referring to
- What you can do is
- what you don't do is
- what you were asking about I thought was
- what you will get is
- what you'll get is
- What you're really arguing for is
- With a lottery all you're basically trying to do is
- You have to learn how to
- you know
- you know, again, I repeat to you
- You know, one of the things we've done is
- you look at
- You see
- You're going to tell
- you're good
BSO
- Absolutely
- abundantly
- Actually, my experience is
- Actually, what I said was
- all I can do is
- and as I've been saying recently
- And I – my answer is
- And I do think
- and I don't think
- And I just want to say
- And I needed them not just in
- and I really do really look forward now
- And I said
- and I think
- And I think a – an important job is
- and I think this is the key point
- And I think we should certainly consider
- And I think what the American people want to know is
- And I'm quite certain that
- and I'm sure as the Navy has already said
- And in my judgment
- And it's true
- And my answer to that is actually
- and my attitude is
- and my dilemma and my problem is
- And my only call to Congress is
List of Boosters
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- And my point, as I said, with President Bush, is
- And one of the things that I am proud of is
- And so from my point of view
- And so I think
- and so my first answer is on Iraq
- And so the first thing I did was
- And so to my mind
- And so, as I said in my speech
- and that's what I proposed
- and that's what I've been trying to articulate is
- And that's why I think
- and that's why I'm saying to people
- And the best way, in my judgment, to do it
- And the point I make is
- and the reason why I wanted to go through the United Nations is
- and then I agree with you
- And there is no doubt that
- And what I was saying is
- And what I'm also convinced of is
- and, you know, from my perspective
- as far as I'm concerned
- as I put it
- As I said
- as I say
- as I've said
- at least I hope
- at least to my knowledge
- because as I say
- Because my concern is
- Because my goal is
- because my view is
- because one thing I think we should look over our shoulder at Cameron at, is
- But I also believe
- But I do believe
- but I do think
- But I have a pretty (D. of qual.) good idea how difficult it is
- But I have a view
- But I mean I, the basic thing is
- But I said
- but I think
- But I think it is fair to point out
- but I think really what's happened is
- But I think that the important thing to do is
- but I think the thing that does make a real difference today is
- But I think what is important is not just for Israel and Palestine but also in respect of relationships between Israel and Lebanon, is
- but it's my honest belief
- But on the other hand I think
- but one thing is for certain
- But there isn't really much doubt about
- But what I am saying is
- but what I've said is this
- but, I mean, you couldn't actually, frankly,
- certainly
- certainly I do
- clearly
- completely
- definitely
- exactly
- extremely
- Fine
- fully
- fundamentally
- greatly
- grossly
- I absolutely think
- I actually think
- I agree
- I also know
- I also remember
- I also think
- I am absolutely certain
- I believe
- I believe that -- the thing I was most concerned about, frankly, is
- I can absolutely assure you
- I can assure you
- I can assure you from my experience
- I certainly believe
- I certainly hope
- I do believe
- I do believe that
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- I do not think
- I do really believe
- I do think
- I do want to assure
- I don't believe
- I don't doubt
- I don't think
- I expect
- I fully agree
- I genuinely do
- I guess
- I have no doubt at all
- I have spoken about it
- I have spoken with
- I honestly believe
- I hope
- I just think
- I know
- I know how challenging it is
- I listen
- I listen to
- I mean
- I mean I really believe
- I mean I think what is important is
- I mean one of the things that strikes me as odd about the Labour Party under Gordon Brown is
- I mean the one thing you can't say is
- I mean the truth is
- I mean this is what our intelligence services are telling us
- I really believe
- I really do
- I really do think
- I remember
- I said
- I said at the time
- I say
- I say right now
- I sincerely hope
- I still think
- I strongly believe
- I sure hope
- I take the view
- I think
- I think it's really important
- I think that one of the key problems with lotteries is
- I think that the answer to that is
- I think that the fact is
- I think that the simple answer to that is
- I think that the trouble is
- I think that what happened to us on September 11th was
- I think that what was happening was
- I think that's what they mean
- I think the issue is
- I think the issue is for them
- I think the one thing that has changed my thinking about these issues, in relation to the 11th of September, is that
- I think the piece that we do have to be very careful about is
- I think the problem is
- I think the reason we should look at it seriously is
- I think the thing you should be most worried about in terms of security
- I think the very first point that Jeremy was making to me
- I think this is the key thing
- I think what Fred was saying there was
- I think what is being described
- I think what is important is
- I think what we didn't know was
- I think what Wendy Alexander was exposing
- I think what's important
- I think what's interesting about it is
- I think, in principle, I think it's absolutely right
- I totally agree with you
- I truly believe
- I understand
- I understand that it came in to place at a time
- I want to
- I would say
- I, I, I'm absolutely certain
- I, therefore, think
- I'm not going to comment on it
- I'm sure
List of Boosters
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- in my judgment
- in my opinion
- in my view
- In other words, one of the things that I expect to see is
- incredible
- incredibly
- it is our objective
- It must be viewed in the context of
- I've spoken about it
- I've spoken with
- Mm-hmm
- My attitude is
- My belief was
- My experience of it actually is that
- my hope is
- my own judgement having visited both Scotland and Wales this last week, is
- My own view is
- My point then is
- My principal objective is
- My purpose really is to -
- My response is
- my view is
- my view of the task for us is
- Myself
- Now in fact I think in this particular instance
- Now, I think what's interesting about the current period in politics is
- obviously
- obviously then
- of course
- Okay
- One of the things I think we need to do is
- One of the things I've learned is
- one thing I think everybody should've learned after New Hampshire is
- our view has been
- perfectly
- pretty
- profoundly
- really
- really really
- Right
- So I do hope
- So I do think
- So I– my point was is
- So I think
- So I think it's important
- So I think what people who are concerned about electability should be looking at
- So, I think
- So, my point is
- So, of course
- so, yes
- strongly
- Sure
- that we saw on
- that we've seen on
- that's all I'm saying
- that's my view
- That's right
- that's true
- That's what I believe
- that's what I intend to do
- The thing I did think was
- The way I choose to answer it is
- there is absolutely no doubt at all
- there is no doubt
- There is no doubt about that
- there's no doubt
- there's no doubt that
- To me, the key thing is not
- to my mind
- totally
- truly
- very
- very very
- we also think
- We are concerned about proliferation
- we are feeling
- We believe in
- we can outline
- We do believe
- we do know
- we do make
- we do think
- We expect
- We got
- we have
- we know
- We need
- we need more
- We need to
- We need to stop
- we respect
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- We share
- We think
- We understand
- we want to
- We will begin
- We will ensure
- we will make gains
- we will turn
- we'd have
- Well I can assure you
- well I do think
- Well I think it's important
- Well I think the issue then is
- we'll make gains
- Well we agree
- Well you're absolutely right in saying
- Well, I hope so
- Well, I think it's really important
- Well, I think one of things we'd do
- Well, my view of this is
- Well, that's what we have said
- Well, Tim, I think all of us should
- We're all in common
- We're at the stage
- We're doing it because we think it's the right thing to do
- We're going to
- We're going to ask you to
- we're going to continue to
- we're going to have to
- We're willing to
- we've been concerned about proliferation
- We've got one the highest
- We've imposed
- we've lifted
- What are we going to do
- what I am is
- What I am saying is
- What I am saying is the most important thing is
- what I am trying to say is
- what I believe is
- What I can assure the American people of is
- What I can't do is
- What I do think is
- What I do want to do is
- What I don't want us to do is
- what I have answered is
- what I keep saying to people about the United Kingdom is
- what I object to and what David Cameron objects to
- What I really care about is
- what I said was
- what I say to people is
- what I strongly believe
- what I think that's necessary
- what I think we've got as I say is
- What I want to do is
- What I was talking about was
- what I was trying to say in the exchange I was having is
- What I'm actually really interested in
- what I'm not going to do is
- What I'm saying is
- what I'm saying is this
- What I'm talking about is
- what I've seen in my ten years as prime minister is
- what we argue is
- what we have to do is
- what we said very, very clearly is
- What we said was
- what we were saying was
- What we're being very clear about
- what we're clear about is
- What we're doing is
- what we're interested in
- What we're really talking about
- which I'm sure we'll want to discuss
- Yeah
- Yes
- Yes I do
- Yes I do. I agree with that
- yes of course we do
- Yes, he does
- Yes, I think we will
- yes, it's true
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HCO
- a bit
- a bit of
- a little
- a little bit
- actually
- almost
- and just
- And the inno – and – and – and
- apparently
- basically
- but actually
- But all in all
- but I--it--it—it
- But it would not be correct to say
- But let's look at the--let's look at the ...
- could
- first of all
- frankly
- in a sense
- in fact
- in some sense
- It is not acceptable for poor people not to be given the chances they need in life
- it seems
- It would--it--it--it--I--I am going to
- it--it—it
- It's not just that I won't talk about the investigation. I just won't talk about it full stop, cos anyway, in the weeks to come it will
finish as an enquiry and why don't we just wait for that time
- It's, it's, I know you'll be getting fed up with me for saying that is another question I'm not going to answer
- just
- kind of
- kinda
- Let‘s let the historians work it out
- like
- Like the weapons of mass destruction
- may
- may not
- maybe
- might
- Mm-hmm
- Mmm
- more or less
- nearly
- Oh well I haven't got a figure I can take out of the top of my head but I'm saying that we
- Oh, well
- On what issue
- particularly
- possibly
- probably
- quite
- really
- relatively
- see
- seem to be saying
- seem to say
- seems to suggest
- simply
- somewhat
- sort of
- supposedly
- that – that we're in– we're in a – a– a major struggle
- The person who earns Ł34 million, if they're paying the top rate of tax, will pay far more tax on the Ł34 million than the person on Ł34,000
- The, the government is not looking at that
- There seems to be
- These are, these are all matters for er, the proper authorities and, and
- this whole - there will be lots of stuff that will ricochet around the media. The thing is to let the thing take its course and then wait for the outcome. Let's do that
- Well
- Well, er
- Well, er, Labour MPs often came in to the Labour Party as I did, because they are passionate about education. Passionate about the chances that that gives to children, particularly those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds.
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- Well, for example – there's a – we – we uncovered a – a potential anthrax attack
- Well, no, I mean I don't do that sort of thing and I just don't think, I mean I don't know who it was or why they said it
- what has happened is that
- what there was, was evidence
- wholly
- would
- wouldn't
- yeah
- Yeah but it
- Yeah but you know, I think most people would accept that at least you know, there's got to be some process of transition, if you're saying, cos the whole context in which I was saying that was...
- Yeah, well
- Yeah, well the question was as very specific and not one that we can possibly answer
- Yes, but that is of importance then in asking how do you deal with someone - okay let's accept
- Yes, I know what your question is. I am choosing to answer it in my way rather than yours
HHO
- And my point to you earlier was - and the point I made to
Congress is - is that failure is - shouldn't be an option
- and--it--you--you--you
- as you know
- He's, you know, he, he's ready
- In some that may be
- just, you know
- look
- No I sorry Jeremy, I'm not allowing you away with that
- not very many people read the whole thing
- So this is about you know
- So you know
- Well I mean I've been in, I mean I totally understand the point you're making
- Well Jon, that's exactly the sort of thing that you and other commentators enjoy talking about
- Well, I'll tell you at another time
- Well, you know, I
- Well, you know, I'm not
- Well, you know, where does it stop
- you know
- You know, Scott
- you might as well just, you know, let's er
- you say, oh, well
- You see
- Your – your – we're talking right before I go – about to go
HSO
- And maybe it was, you know, I think maybe it was a mistake to say that you can. You just ... the point is ...
- I mean I suppose we're both trying to, you know, kind of overturn the government and win
- And – I – I am a – I am – I am convinced
- and I don't think
- And I think
- And I would very much hate to see
- and I've said, I mean I believe that that allowance we should take that housing allowance out - that's my personal view, take that housing allowance out. I think we should …
- But I don't, I suppose, I, I don't think anyone erm, really predicted accurately
- but I think
- But I think it´s, you know, it´s not on really for councils to simply turn their backs
- But what I don't think anybody is calling for is
- I actually think
- I also think
- I am afraid
- I am answering actually in the way that I want to answer it
- I am not reshuffling on any basis, Jeremy. The election has not happened
List of Hedges
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- I assume
- I assumed
- I don't know, you'd have to ask him. I don't, I don't sense one at the moment
- I don't personally think
- I don't really think
- I don't think
- I gather
- I genuinely think
- I guess
- I hope
- I just don't think
- I just think
- I mean
- I mean he is, you know, in a sense I can totally understand
- I mean I think the interesting thing is that
- I mean I, I think that - who knows in the time to come
- I say
- I sense
- I suppose
- I think
- I think we should just let the thing take its course cos what can I say and in any event we'll know the answer to all these questions when you
- I think we should look at things
- I think we should look at those things
- I think, you know,
- I would disagree
- I would hate
- I would hope
- I would say
- I would think
- I wouldn't say
- I'm afraid
- I'm just ... thinkin'
- I'm not exactly sure
- I'm quite certain
- I'm sorry
- it seems like to me
- No. No. No, I mean it's not - why do you ask that
- Perhaps
- so I think
- So I would hope
- so, I think
- very
- we believe it's almost certainly an accident
- Well I do actually believe this intelligence
- well I mean
- Well, I - look, I mean (E. poss.), I think (E. poss.) that's a
- Well, I think that that's, this is what, what should happen is that we should, as Britain, we should take this issue to the Security Council
- Yeah. I, I'll tell you
- You either - I'm not getting in to all this business