af.iii)Pragmatic Functions of Hedges

af.iii)Pragmatic Functions of Hedges

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

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:

af.iii.1Attenuation 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

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)

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

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.

Example

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)

af.iii.2Assumption

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.

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

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

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 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

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)

af.iii.3Hearer-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, 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

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)

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

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 40^th 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

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)

af.iii.4Unspecified 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.

Example

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

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)

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

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)

af.iii.5Hesitation

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.

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

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

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 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

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)

af.iii.6Content-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 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

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

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)

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

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)

af.iii.7Negative 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

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)

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

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

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. 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)

af.iii.8Detachment

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.

Example

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

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.

(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

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)

af.iii.9Evasiveness

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.

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

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

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.

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

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)