h.iii)Speaker's Involvement in this Thesis

i.Political Interview as a Discourse Genre

i.i)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.

i.ii)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).

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 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.

Download 1.35 Mb.

Share with your friends: