"Well, I answer it by simply inviting you to look at the evidence": the strategic use of pronouns in political interviews
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"Well, I answer it by simply inviting you to look at the evidence" : the strategic use of pronouns in political interviews. / Fetzer, Anita; Bull, Peter.
In: Journal of Language and Politics, Vol. 7, No. 2, 07.11.2008, p. 271-289.Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research
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TY - JOUR
T1 - "Well, I answer it by simply inviting you to look at the evidence"
T2 - the strategic use of pronouns in political interviews
AU - Fetzer, Anita
AU - Bull, Peter
PY - 2008/11/7
Y1 - 2008/11/7
N2 - In the discourse of political interviews, references to participants can be expressed explicitly by proper nouns and forms of address, and they can be expressed implicitly by personal pronouns and other indexical expressions. The meaning of personal pronouns is context-dependent and retrievable only by inference, and therefore is less determinate. Furthermore, it can shift according to the status of the participants in interaction. This may occur both in terms of social roles and in terms of roles in talk and footing. In this context, an analysis was conducted of televised political interviews broadcast during the 1997 and 2001 British general elections and just before the war with Iraq in 2003. Question-response sequences were identified in which politicians made use of pronominal shifts as a form of equivocation. These sequences were analyzed in the context of Bavelas et al.'s (1990) theory of equivocation and Goffman's (1981) concept of footing. The polyvalent function of pronominal shifts, their potential perlocutionary effects and strategic advantages are discussed.
AB - In the discourse of political interviews, references to participants can be expressed explicitly by proper nouns and forms of address, and they can be expressed implicitly by personal pronouns and other indexical expressions. The meaning of personal pronouns is context-dependent and retrievable only by inference, and therefore is less determinate. Furthermore, it can shift according to the status of the participants in interaction. This may occur both in terms of social roles and in terms of roles in talk and footing. In this context, an analysis was conducted of televised political interviews broadcast during the 1997 and 2001 British general elections and just before the war with Iraq in 2003. Question-response sequences were identified in which politicians made use of pronominal shifts as a form of equivocation. These sequences were analyzed in the context of Bavelas et al.'s (1990) theory of equivocation and Goffman's (1981) concept of footing. The polyvalent function of pronominal shifts, their potential perlocutionary effects and strategic advantages are discussed.
KW - English
KW - political interview
KW - equivocation
KW - personal pronouns
KW - questions
KW - strategic communication
KW - footing
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=69849118040&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/d759fe6a-fcaf-3bab-8b33-7396fb131054/
U2 - 10.1075/jlp.7.2.05fet
DO - 10.1075/jlp.7.2.05fet
M3 - Journal articles
VL - 7
SP - 271
EP - 289
JO - Journal of Language and Politics
JF - Journal of Language and Politics
SN - 1569-2159
IS - 2
ER -