Školitelka: PhDr. Naděžda Kudrnáčová, CSc.
Brno 2010 Mgr. Jana Kozubíková Šandová
I hereby declare that I worked on this thesis independently using only the sources listed in references.
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I am also very grateful to doc. PhDr. Ludmila Urbanová, CSc., without whose motivation, help and kind support I would never have started my Ph.D. studies. Her extensive knowledge and experience have been of great value to me.
My special thanks belong to PhDr. Vladislav Smolka, Ph.D. for his comments and recommendations.
a.Introduction 7
b.The Delimitation of Involvement as a Linguistic Category 11
b.i)Introduction 11
b.ii)Involvement in Interactional Sociolinguistics 11
b.iii)Involvement in Discourse Analysis 15
b.iii.1Basic Hypotheses of Discourse Analysis 18
c.Language always occurs in a context. 18
d.Language is context sensitive. 18
e.Language is always communicative. 18
f.Language is designed for communication. (Schiffrin 1987:3) 18
f.i)Tannen’s “Relative Focus on Involvement” 19
f.i.1Contextualization Hypothesis 19
f.i.2Cohesion Hypothesis 22
f.ii)High Involvement vs. Low Involvement 24
f.iii)Relationships and Differences between Spoken and Written Discourse 27
f.iv)Chafe’s Approach to the Notion of Involvement 32
f.v)Involvement in the Prague School 34
g.the actual use of this knowledge in the communicative processes of text production and text reception 36
h.the whole range of our mental faculties and processes. (Daneš 1994:253) 36
h.i)Linguistic Strategies of Involvement 37
h.ii)Conceptual Problems Associated with Involvement 41
h.iii)Speaker's Involvement in this Thesis 45
i.Political Interview as a Discourse Genre 47
i.i)Introduction 47
i.ii)Pragmatic Approach to the Language of Politics 47
i.iii)Defining “Genre” and “Political Discourse” 49
i.iv)Political Interview and Its Features 51
i.v)Conversationalization of Media Discourse 53
i.vi)Conclusion 54
j.Illocutionary Force and Speech Act Theory 56
j.i)Introduction 56
j.ii)Illocutionary Force 56
k.I predict that you will go home. 57
l.Go home! 57
m.Are you going to go home? 57
n.I advise you to go home. 57
a.John Smith is unmarried. 57
o.John Smith is not married. 57
p.John Smith is a bachelor. 57
q.illocutionary point 59
r.degree of strength of the illocutionary point 59
s.mode of achievement 59
t.propositional content conditions 59
u.preparatory conditions 59
v.sincerity conditions 59
w.degree of strength of the sincerity conditions 59
w.i)Speech Act Theory 62
w.ii)Conclusion 65
x.Corpus Description 67
x.i)Introduction 67
x.ii)Extent of the Corpus 67
x.iii)Sources of the Data for the Analysis 67
x.iv)Politicians Appearing in the Corpus and their Positions 68
x.v)Topics Discussed, Setting and Function of the Interviews 69
x.vi)Subject of the Analysis 70
x.vii)Conclusion 76
y.Boosting and Hedging 77
y.i)Introduction 77
y.ii)Boosting 77
y.iii)Hedging 82
y.iv)Conclusion 88
z.Intensification of the Illocutionary Force 89
z.i)Introduction 89
z.ii)Classifications of Boosters 89
z.ii.1Quirk et al.’s Classification of Boosters 89
z.ii.2Classification of Boosters by their Relationship to Discourse Meaning 91
z.ii.2.1Hearer-oriented Boosters 93
z.ii.2.2Speaker-oriented Boosters 96
aa.agreement/understanding-showing boosters 96
ab.attitudinal boosters 96
ab.i)attitudinal boosters expressing the degree of certain quality 97
ab.ii)attitudinal boosters expressing beliefs 97
ab.ii.1.1Discourse-organizing Boosters 106
ab.iii)Frequency of Boosters in the Corpus of Political Interviews 109
ab.iii.1Frequency of Boosters Classified by their Contribution to Discourse Meaning 110
ab.iii.2Occurrence of the Most Frequent Boosters 112
ab.iii.2.1Approaches to “Discourse Markers” 114
ab.iv)Pragmatic Functions of Boosters 117
ab.iv.1Content-oriented Emphasis 119
ab.iv.2Subjectivity 122
ab.iv.3The Degree of a Certain Quality 125
ab.iv.4Assurance 128
ab.iv.5Intensification by Repetition 130
ab.iv.6Hearer-oriented Emphasis 132
ab.iv.7Agreement 135
ab.v)Conclusion 137
ac.Attenuation of the Illocutionary Force 139
ac.i)Introduction 139
ac.ii)Classifications of Hedges 139
ac.ii.1Quirk et al.’s Classification of Hedges 139
ac.ii.2Brown and Levinson’s Classification of Hedges 140
ad.hedges addressed to Grice’s Maxims 141
ad.i)quality hedges 141
ad.ii)quantity hedges 141
ad.iii)relevance hedges 141
ad.iv)manner hedges 141
ae.hedges addressed to politeness strategies 141
af.prosodic and kinesic hedges 141
af.i.1Classification of Hedges by their Relationship to Discourse Meaning 143
af.i.1.1Speaker-oriented Hedges 144
af.i.1.2Hearer-oriented Hedges 146
af.i.1.3Content-oriented Hedges 148
af.ii)Frequency of Hedges in the Corpus 150
af.ii.1Frequency of Hedges Classified by their Contribution to Discourse Meaning 151
af.ii.2Occurrence of the Most Frequent Hedges 152
af.iii)Pragmatic Functions of Hedges 153
af.iii.1Attenuation of the Forthcoming Message 154
af.iii.2Assumption 157
af.iii.3Hearer-oriented Uncertainty 159
af.iii.4Unspecified Reference 162
af.iii.5Hesitation 165
af.iii.6Content-oriented Uncertainty 167
af.iii.7Negative Politeness 169
af.iii.8Detachment 172
af.iii.9Evasiveness 174
af.iv)Conclusion 177
ag.Modality 179
ag.i)Introduction 179
ag.ii)Mood and Modality 180
ag.iii)Evidentiality 182
ag.iv)Subjectivity vs. Objectivity 184
ag.v)Types of Modality 185
ag.v.1Epistemic Modality 186
ag.v.2Deontic Modality 188
ag.v.3Dynamic Modality 189
ag.vi)Other Classifications of Modality 190
ag.vii)Classification of Modality in this Study 193
ag.viii)Expressions of Modality 196
ag.ix)Frequency of Occurrence of Modal Expressions and Types of Modality 197
ag.ix.1Epistemic Possibility 199
ag.ix.2Deontic Necessity 204
ag.ix.3Epistemic Attitudinal Modality 210
ag.ix.4Circumstantial Possibility 213
ag.ix.5Epistemic Necessity 216
ag.ix.6Deontic Possibility 219
ag.x)Gender-Specificity and Modality 222
ag.xi)Modal Combinations 226
ag.xi.1Modally Harmonic and Modally Non-harmonic Combinations 226
ag.xi.2Modal Combinations in the Corpus 229
ag.xii)Conclusion 237
ah.Conclusions 240
