"And I Think That Is a Very Straightforward Way of Dealing With It'': The Communicative Function of Cognitive Verbs in Political Discourse

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

This contribution examines the distribution and communicative function of cognitive verbs in political discourse, giving particular attention to their impact on the expression of commitment. From a semantic viewpoint, cognitive verbs are seen as a means of subjectification expressing the speaker's attitude towards proposition and force whereas, from a discursive perspective, they are assigned the status of multifunctional devices expressing different types and different degrees of commitment. Part I analyzes the semantics and pragmatics of cognitive verbs, in particular those of think. Part II examines their particularized form and function in political discourse, accommodating both quantitative and qualitative perspectives. It shows that cognitive verbs tend to co-occur with other linguistic devices expressing commitment, thus illustrating their fine-grained interplay in the presentation of the political agent. The particularized use of cognitive verbs is assigned the status of a contextualization device, inviting the addressees to adopt the speaker's perspective and interpret a communicative contribution accordingly. © 2008 Sage Publications.
Original languageEnglish
JournalJournal of Language and Social Psychology
Volume27
Issue number4
Pages (from-to)384-396
Number of pages13
ISSN0261-927X
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 01.12.2008

    Research areas

  • English - Cognitive verbs, Commitment, Intersubjectivity, Political interview, Political speech, Strategic interaction

DOI

Recently viewed

Publications

  1. Control and Freedom: Power and Paranoia in the Age of Fiber Optics
  2. Visualizations of projected rainfall change in the United Kingdom
  3. Accounting for work conditions from modern slavery to decent work
  4. Not Ready to Make Nice. Macht und Bedrohung in der populären Musik
  5. Is Peru prepared for large-scale sustainable rural electrification?
  6. Unterrichtsqualität und Lehrerkooperation an Gemeinschaftsschulen
  7. Editorial: Innovation und Forschung in der Arbeits(zeit)organisation.
  8. Expectations of Health Tourists in Germany - Illusions and Reality.
  9. Sustainable Development and Quality Assurance in Higher Education
  10. NEW CONCEPTS IN INNOVATION OUTPUT MEASUREMENT - KLEINKNECHT,A, BAIN,D
  11. Transformer with Tree-order Encoding for Neural Program Generation
  12. Der Strommarkt in Europa zwischen Liberalisierung und Klimaschutz
  13. Die Öffentlichkeitsbeteiligung nach der EG-Wasserrahmenrichtlinie
  14. Gefahren und Gefährdungen aus Sicht des Kinder- und Jugendschutzes
  15. Investigation and prediction of grain texture evolution in AA6082
  16. Eine bildungswissenschaftliche Kritik am unternehmerischen Habitus
  17. Patients' and Physicians' Perceptions of Medical Services in Germany
  18. IBaLL - Inklusive Basiskompetenzen in den Fachdidaktiken entwickeln
  19. Measuring and Managing Sustainability Performance of Supply Chains
  20. Die Eigenständigkeit der Bundeswehrverwaltung als Verfassungsgebot
  21. Understanding Sustainability Performance in Business Organizations
  22. Offener Brief zur Ersatzfreiheitsstrafe an die Justizminister*innen
  23. Predicting online user behavior based on Real-Time Advertising Data