Masarykova univerzita

z.Intensification of the Illocutionary Force

z.i)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).

z.ii)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.

z.ii.1Quirk 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)

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.

z.ii.2Classification 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):

Example

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

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 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)

z.ii.2.1Hearer-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

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)

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

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

[...]

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 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

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)

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.

z.ii.2.2Speaker-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:

1. 
   assurances
   

aa.agreement/understanding-showing boosters

ab.attitudinal boosters

ab.i)attitudinal boosters expressing the degree of certain quality

ab.ii)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

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.

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

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

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?

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

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.

(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

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:

Example

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

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)

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

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 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

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 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

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

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 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

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.

(App., p. 33, Tony Blair, 2006-12-10, ll. 104-121)

ab.ii.1.1Discourse-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

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.

(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

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

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.

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 following section will examine the frequency of hearer-oriented, speaker-oriented and discourse-organizing boosters in the corpus.

Download 1.35 Mb.

Share with your friends: