the speaker's involvement in political discourse

MASARYKOVA UNIVERZITA

Filozofická fakulta

Katedra anglistiky a amerikanistiky

SPEAKER’S INVOLVEMENT

IN POLITICAL INTERVIEWS

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.

...........................................................

Acknowledgements

First and foremost, I owe my deep and sincere gratitude to my supervisor,

PhDr. Naděţda Kudrnáčová, CSc. I appreciate her constant encouragement,

invaluable advice, generous supervision and support. Without her help, personal

example and faith in the quality of this work, this dissertation could never have been

completed. I would also like to thank her for patient guidance throughout the course

of my study.

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.

Finally, I would like to express my special thanks to my parents, who have

always encouraged me and believed in me, and to my husband Lumír, whose

patience and support I appreciated especially during the final stages of this thesis.

Last but not least, I want to thank my husband for his help with technical issues and

graphical layout.

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Contents

1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................... 1

2 THE DELIMITATION OF INVOLVEMENT AS A LINGUISTIC CATEGORY ........................... 4

2.1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................ 4

2.2 INVOLVEMENT IN INTERACTIONAL SOCIOLINGUISTICS ............................................................................ 4

2.3 INVOLVEMENT IN DISCOURSE ANALYSIS ..................................................................................................... 7

2.3.1 Basic Hypotheses of Discourse Analysis ................................................................................... 10

2.4 TANNEN’S “RELATIVE FOCUS ON INVOLVEMENT” .................................................................................. 11

2.4.1 Contextualization Hypothesis ...................................................................................................... 12

2.4.2 Cohesion Hypothesis ......................................................................................................................... 14

2.5 HIGH INVOLVEMENT VS. LOW INVOLVEMENT .......................................................................................... 16

2.6 RELATIONSHIPS AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SPOKEN AND WRITTEN DISCOURSE ........................ 18

2.7 CHAFE’S APPROACH TO THE NOTION OF INVOLVEMENT ....................................................................... 23

2.8 INVOLVEMENT IN THE PRAGUE SCHOOL ................................................................................................... 26

2.9 LINGUISTIC STRATEGIES OF INVOLVEMENT ............................................................................................. 28

2.10 CONCEPTUAL PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED WITH INVOLVEMENT ................................................................ 32

2.11 SPEAKER'S INVOLVEMENT IN THIS THESIS ............................................................................................... 35

3 POLITICAL INTERVIEW AS A DISCOURSE GENRE ............................................................... 37

3.1 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................................. 37

3.2 PRAGMATIC APPROACH TO THE LANGUAGE OF POLITICS ...................................................................... 37

3.3 DEFINING “GENRE” AND “POLITICAL DISCOURSE” ................................................................................. 39

3.4 POLITICAL INTERVIEW AND ITS FEATURES .............................................................................................. 40

3.5 CONVERSATIONALIZATION OF MEDIA DISCOURSE .................................................................................. 42

3.6 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................................................. 44

4 ILLOCUTIONARY FORCE AND SPEECH ACT THEORY ........................................................ 45

4.1 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................................. 45

4.2 ILLOCUTIONARY FORCE ................................................................................................................................ 45

4.3 SPEECH ACT THEORY ................................................................................................................................... 50

4.4 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................................................. 53

5 CORPUS DESCRIPTION ................................................................................................................ 55

5.1 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................................. 55

5.2 EXTENT OF THE CORPUS .............................................................................................................................. 55

5.3 SOURCES OF THE DATA FOR THE ANALYSIS .............................................................................................. 55

5.4 POLITICIANS APPEARING IN THE CORPUS AND THEIR POSITIONS ........................................................ 56

5.5 TOPICS DISCUSSED, SETTING AND FUNCTION OF THE INTERVIEWS ..................................................... 57

5.6 SUBJECT OF THE ANALYSIS .......................................................................................................................... 58

5.7 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................................................. 63

6 BOOSTING AND HEDGING .......................................................................................................... 64

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6.1 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................................. 64

6.2 BOOSTING ....................................................................................................................................................... 64

6.3 HEDGING ......................................................................................................................................................... 68

6.4 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................................................. 74

7 INTENSIFICATION OF THE ILLOCUTIONARY FORCE ......................................................... 75

7.1 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................................. 75

7.2 CLASSIFICATIONS OF BOOSTERS ................................................................................................................. 75

7.2.1 Quirk et al.’s Classification of Boosters .................................................................................... 75

7.2.2 Classification of Boosters by their Relationship to Discourse Meaning .................... 77

7.2.2.1 Hearer-oriented Boosters ............................................................................................................. 79 7.2.2.2 Speaker-oriented Boosters .......................................................................................................... 82 7.2.2.3 Discourse-organizing Boosters .................................................................................................. 91

7.3 FREQUENCY OF BOOSTERS IN THE CORPUS OF POLITICAL INTERVIEWS ............................................. 94

7.3.1 Frequency of Boosters Classified by their Contribution to Discourse Meaning ..... 95

7.3.2 Occurrence of the Most Frequent Boosters ............................................................................ 96

7.3.2.1 Approaches to “Discourse Markers” ........................................................................................ 98 7.4 PRAGMATIC FUNCTIONS OF BOOSTERS .................................................................................................. 101

7.4.1 Content-oriented Emphasis ........................................................................................................ 103

7.4.2 Subjectivity ........................................................................................................................................ 106

7.4.3 The Degree of a Certain Quality ............................................................................................... 109

7.4.4 Assurance ........................................................................................................................................... 111

7.4.5 Intensification by Repetition ..................................................................................................... 113

7.4.6 Hearer-oriented Emphasis ......................................................................................................... 116

7.4.7 Agreement .......................................................................................................................................... 118

7.5 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................................... 120

8 ATTENUATION OF THE ILLOCUTIONARY FORCE ............................................................. 122

8.1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................... 122

8.2 CLASSIFICATIONS OF HEDGES .................................................................................................................. 122

8.2.1 Quirk et al.’s Classification of Hedges .................................................................................... 122

8.2.2 Brown and Levinson’s Classification of Hedges ................................................................ 123

8.2.3 Classification of Hedges by their Relationship to Discourse Meaning .................... 126

8.2.3.1 Speaker-oriented Hedges........................................................................................................... 127 8.2.3.2 Hearer-oriented Hedges ............................................................................................................. 128 8.2.3.3 Content-oriented Hedges ........................................................................................................... 130

8.3 FREQUENCY OF HEDGES IN THE CORPUS ............................................................................................... 133

8.3.1 Frequency of Hedges Classified by their Contribution to Discourse Meaning ..... 133

8.3.2 Occurrence of the Most Frequent Hedges ............................................................................ 135

8.4 PRAGMATIC FUNCTIONS OF HEDGES ...................................................................................................... 136

8.4.1 Attenuation of the Forthcoming Message ........................................................................... 138

8.4.2 Assumption ........................................................................................................................................ 140

8.4.3 Hearer-oriented Uncertainty ..................................................................................................... 142

8.4.4 Unspecified Reference ................................................................................................................... 145

8.4.5 Hesitation ........................................................................................................................................... 147

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8.4.6 Content-oriented Uncertainty ................................................................................................... 149

8.4.7 Negative Politeness ........................................................................................................................ 152

8.4.8 Detachment ....................................................................................................................................... 154

8.4.9 Evasiveness ........................................................................................................................................ 156

8.5 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................................... 158

9 MODALITY .................................................................................................................................... 161

9.1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................... 161

9.2 MOOD AND MODALITY .............................................................................................................................. 161

9.3 EVIDENTIALITY ........................................................................................................................................... 163

9.4 SUBJECTIVITY VS. OBJECTIVITY ................................................................................................................ 165

9.5 TYPES OF MODALITY ................................................................................................................................. 166

9.5.1 Epistemic Modality ......................................................................................................................... 167

9.5.2 Deontic Modality ............................................................................................................................. 169

9.5.3 Dynamic Modality .......................................................................................................................... 170

9.6 OTHER CLASSIFICATIONS OF MODALITY ................................................................................................ 171

9.7 CLASSIFICATION OF MODALITY IN THIS STUDY .................................................................................... 174

9.8 EXPRESSIONS OF MODALITY .................................................................................................................... 177

9.9 FREQUENCY OF OCCURRENCE OF MODAL EXPRESSIONS AND TYPES OF MODALITY ...................... 178

9.9.1 Epistemic Possibility ...................................................................................................................... 180

9.9.2 Deontic Necessity ............................................................................................................................ 185

9.9.3 Epistemic Attitudinal Modality ................................................................................................ 190

9.9.4 Circumstantial Possibility ........................................................................................................... 193

9.9.5 Epistemic Necessity ........................................................................................................................ 195

9.9.6 Deontic Possibility .......................................................................................................................... 199

9.10 GENDER-SPECIFICITY AND MODALITY ................................................................................................... 202

9.11 MODAL COMBINATIONS ............................................................................................................................ 205

9.11.1 Modally Harmonic and Modally Non-harmonic Combinations ........................... 205

9.11.2 Modal Combinations in the Corpus ................................................................................... 208

9.12 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................................... 215

10 CONCLUSIONS .............................................................................................................................. 218

LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................................................. 230

LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................................ 232

ČESKÉ RESUMÉ ................................................................................................................................... 233

REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................................ 235

MATERIAL ANALYSED ...................................................................................................................... 241

Introduction

1

1 Introduction

This study presents a pragma-semantic analysis of linguistic means expressing

the speaker‘s involvement in the genre of political interviews. It is often claimed that

formal interaction represents a low-involved style, while informal conversation

typically displays a higher degree of involvement (cf. Tannen 1985; Chafe 1982, 1984;

Elias 1987; Besnier 1994; Katriel and Dascal 1989, Gumperz 1992, among others).

Political interview belongs to a genre of public discourse which should be

characterised by a low degree of involvement. Additionally, it is generally thought

that the language of female speakers is more indeterminate and vague, that females

speak more than male speakers and do not speak to the point. And, by contrast, it is

usually maintained that males express themselves more directly and matter-of-factly.

Based on the literature dealing with involvement (Tannen 1984, 1985; Chafe

1982, 1984; Gumperz 1992) and with language and gender (Holmes 1995; Coates

1993; Lakoff 2003), the following hypotheses can be formulated:

hypothesis I

The genre of political interview is detached and impersonal and it shows

features of a low-involved style as is typical of any other type of formal

interaction.

hypothesis II

Female politicians are more indeterminate and vague in their expression and

they do not speak to the point. The expression of male politicians is matter-

of-fact and they express themselves more precisely than female politicians.

The aim of the present thesis is to confirm or reject these hypotheses.

The research is based on an analysis of a corpus of 40 interviews with British

and American politicians. The illocutionary force of utterances in the genre of

political interview is modified by linguistic means expressing involvement. Means

that accentuate this force are commonly called boosting devices, and linguistic

means of attenuation of illocutionary force are commonly called hedging devices.

Apart from boosters and hedges, modal expressions may also modify the

illocutionary force of speech acts. All these means are quantitatively and qualitatively

Introduction

2

analysed in this thesis. Since the majority of linguistic means of speaker‘s

involvement are context-sensitive, the methods of analysis of these means are

pragmatic and semantic.

The thesis consists of ten chapters. After the introduction, Chapter 2: The

Delimitation of Involvement as a Linguistic Category provides the theoretical

background for the investigation of speaker‘s involvement in political interviews. It

describes the approach to involvement within the framework of interactional

sociolinguistics and discourse analysis. Involvement has also been studied by scholars

of the Prague School, which is also included in this chapter.

Chapter 3: Political Interview as a Discourse Genre explains why this

thesis understands political interview as a genre and gives its basic characteristics.

The research of authentic data has shown that there is a growing tendency towards

conversationalization of political interview, which is also dealt with in this chapter.

Chapter 4: Illocutionary Force and Speech Act Theory offers a brief

introduction to the concept of illocutionary force and its components and an

explanation of the speech act theory, which was proposed by Austin (1962) and

further developed by Searle (1969). Since this thesis focuses on the modification of

the illocutionary force of speech acts, the explication of these concepts is

appropriate.

Chapter 5: Corpus Description provides details about the extent of the

corpus, the subject of the analysis, sources of the data for the analysis, as well as

information about the speakers and topics discussed.

Chapter 6: Boosting and Hedging may be regarded as an introduction to

the research presented in this thesis. It acquaints the reader with the basic distinction

between boosting and hedging and explains why it is important to take into account

the context in which the given utterance occurred.

Chapter 7: Intensification of the Illocutionary Force provides

classifications of boosters, quantitative and qualitative analyses of boosting devices. It

also identifies pragmatic functions of boosters that appear in the corpus.

Chapter 8: Attenuation of the Illocutionary Force is very similar in

structure to Chapter 7. It introduces several classifications of hedges, namely Quirk‘s

Introduction

3

classification, Brown and Levinson‘s classification, and also classification of hedges

by their relationship to discourse meaning. It looks into the frequency of occurrence

of hedges in the corpus and, as with boosters in Chapter 7, pragmatic functions of

hedges are discussed.

Chapter 9: Modality discusses another means of modification of the

illocutionary force of speech acts in the corpus that also shows the speaker‘s

involvement. This study offers a wider insight into the concept of speaker‘s

involvement. Therefore, it also analyses modal means that contribute to a higher

degree of involvement. It will be shown that pragmatic functions of boosting and

hedging devices are interrelated with modal expressions very closely. In the

introductory sections of Chapter 9, the difference between mood and modality, and

between evidentiality and modality is explained. Further, particular types of modality

are described. This chapter also comprises quantitative and qualitative analyses are

not missing even in this chapter. An interesting issue that is discussed in connection

with modality is gender-specificity. It is shown that an interpretation of quantitative

results should take into account not only the types of modality but also the separate

means that express particular types of modality. Concluding sections of this chapter

are devoted to modal combinations occurring in the corpus.

Finally, Chapter 10: Conclusions summarizes the outcomes of the research

present in this thesis into the means of expressing speaker‘s involvement in the

corpus of political interviews, and compares them with the proposed hypotheses.

The Delimitation of Involvement as a Linguistic Category

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2 The Delimitation of Involvement as a Linguistic Category

2.1 Introduction

This chapter provides the theoretical background for the present analysis of

involvement in political interviews. Involvement in two areas of linguistics, namely,

in interactional sociolinguistics and in discourse analysis, will be described in Sections

2.2 and 2.3. Influential studies of involvement have been presented by Tannen (1985)

and by Chafe (1982, 1984). These analyses are dealt with in greater detail in Sections

2.4 and 2.7. The concept of involvement has also been discussed in the Prague

School, which is referred to in Section 2.8. Linguistic strategies of involvement in

general and conceptual problems associated with this phenomenon are presented in

Subchapters 2.9 and 2.10.

The concept of involvement is very broad in scope and although it has been

described in the relevant literature, there have been few attempts to give its precise

definition and delimitation (cf. Tannen 1985; Besnier 1994; Chafe 1982). Besnier

(1994:279) points out that it was originally mentioned as a category in interactional

sociolinguistics and in discourse analysis. The following parts of the thesis will

explain the approach of these linguistic disciplines to this phenomenon.

2.2 Involvement in Interactional Sociolinguistics

Sociolinguistics is a branch of linguistics which studies all features of the

relationship between language and society. As Crystal points out, this term overlaps

to some extent with ethnolinguistics and anthropological linguistics because it covers

partly the interests of the disciplines such as sociology, ethnology and anthropology.

When the stress is laid on the language of face-to-face communication, ―the

approach is known as interactional sociolinguistics‖ (Crystal 2003a:422, my

emphasis). It studies the conventions and strategies of everyday interaction, and ―is

characterized by detailed transcriptions of taped interactions, with particular

reference to [...] prosody, facial expression, silence and rhythmical patterns of

behaviour between the participants‖ (2003a:238).


5

Involvement in interactional sociolinguistics focuses on ―conversationalists‘

willingness and ability to initiate and sustain verbal interaction. Involvement is seen

as a prerequisite to the success of any conversational encounter, and is rendered

possible by the presence of a shared body of linguistic and socio-cultural knowledge

among conversationalists‖ (Besnier 1994:279).

The main representative of interactional sociolinguistics is the linguistic

anthropologist John Gumperz (1982, 1992, 2001), who merged the findings of

linguistics, anthropology, pragmatics, and conversation analysis. He describes

interactional sociolinguistics as ―an approach to discourse that has its origin in the

search for replicable methods of qualitative analysis that account for our ability to

interpret what participants intend to convey in everyday communicative practice‖

(Gumperz 2001:215).

His work on discourse strategies claims that ―once involved in a

conversation, both speaker and hearer must actively respond to what transpires by

signalling involvement, either directly through words or indirectly through gestures

or similar nonverbal signals. The response, moreover, should relate to what we think

the speaker intends, rather than to the literal meanings of the words used.‖

(Gumperz 1982:1).

Furthermore, Gumperz states that ―understanding presupposes

conversational involvement‖ (1982:2). If conversational involvement is to be

preserved, linguistic and sociocultural knowledge among interlocutors must be

shared. This kind of knowledge is internal to interaction, it constitutes an integral

part of interaction itself. Additionally, Gumperz shows that involvement in a

conversational exchange is not only a matter of passive understanding. Participants in

a conversation should be able not only to decode the meaning of an utterance but

also to anticipate its development (1982:2-3). He also points out that ―almost all

conversational data derive from verbal interaction in socially and linguistically

homogenous groups. There is a tendency to take for granted that conversational

involvement exists, that interlocutors are cooperating, and that interpretive

conventions are shared‖ (1982:4). However, Gumperz emphasizes the importance of

employing cross-cultural communication as the basis of research into interactional

practices because it tends to be neglected although it may reveal surprising facts.


6

When communicating, interlocutors accompany their utterances by verbal

and non-verbal signals to connect what is said with ―knowledge acquired through

past experience, in order to retrieve the presuppositions they must rely on to

maintain conversational involvement and assess what is intended‖ (Gumperz

1992:230). Gumperz labels this as ―contextualization‖. Contextualization relies on

―contextualization cues‖ that include prosody, paralinguistic signs, choice of lexical

forms, and code choice.

Contextualization cues are employed and perceived by speakers habitually

and automatically rather than consciously and serve to foreground certain lexical

forms or phonological strings. They are not talked about directly, and for that reason

they must be examined in context rather than on a theoretical level (Gumperz

1982:131).

In this connection, Tannen (1984:xvi) states that whereas speakers aim at

conveying the meaning and attaining their interactional goals during a conversational

exchange, they are judged by their conversational partners on the basis of the use of

contextualization cues. ―When expectations regarding the use of contextualization

cues are relatively similar, utterances are likely to be interpreted more or less as

intended. But when such expectations are relatively different, speakers‘ intentions

and abilities are likely to be misevaluated‖ (Tannen 1984:xvi-xvii).

Interactional sociolinguistics deals not only with the way how meaning is

conveyed and negotiated, and with methods of achieving interactional goals in

communication. It also focuses on ―the inherent linguistic and cultural diversity of

today‘s communicative environments‖ (Gumperz 2001:218).

Additionally, Gumperz claims that interactional sociolinguistics attempts to

find the way how to link two differing theoretical approaches: one sees the nature of

diversity in the ―macrosocietal conditions, political and economic forces, and

relationships of power in which they were acquired‖ (Gumperz 2001:218), the other

is a constructivist approach asserting that since our social worlds are formed in

interaction, first of all it is necessary to inquire into the way how interactive processes

work, and then we can deal with diversity. Owing to the fact that these two

approaches differ in what to consider as relevant data and in the methods of analysis,

the results of their research are incomparable. Thus, interactional sociolinguistics


7

tries to join these approaches by concentrating on ―communicative practice as the

everyday-world site where societal and interactive forces merge‖ (Gumperz

2001:218).

Goffman was another researcher who made a contribution to the

development of involvement within the framework of interactional sociolinguistics.

Since he is a sociolinguist, his primary attention is devoted to social interaction and

interactive processes rather than to language as such. His concept of involvement is,

therefore, based on the social organization of this phenomenon. As he puts it: ―To

be engaged in an occasioned activity means to sustain some kind of cognitive and

affective engrossment in it, some mobilization of one‘s psychological resources, in

short, it means to be involved in it‖ (1963:36).

In his study devoted to the description and analysis of behaviour in public

places (1963), Goffman examines various social events and their effect on creating

and displaying involvement. He points out that when analyzing ―situational

properties‖ it is essential to examine ―the social regulations that determine the

individual‘s conceptions and allocations of involvement‖ (1963:36). Goffman

understands involvement as ―the capacity of an individual to give, or withhold from

giving, his concerted attention to some activity at hand - a solitary task, a

conversation, a collaborative work effort. It implies a certain admitted closeness

between the individual and the object of involvement, a certain overt engrossment

on the part of the one who is involved‖ (1963:43).

This section describes involvement as it has been viewed by interactional

sociolinguistics. The following section will deal with the concept of involvement as

described and understood within the framework of discourse analysis.

2.3 Involvement in Discourse Analysis

The term "discourse analysis" has been employed to describe a variety of

meanings and to outline discoveries of linguistic disciplines such as sociolinguistics,

psycholinguistics, philosophical linguistics, and computational linguistics. Scientists

who undertake in-depth research in these disciplines have a tendency to focus on

different aspects of discourse, as Brown and Yule (1983:viii) point out. Sociolinguists

are concerned with the structure of social interaction reflected in conversation,


8

emphasising features of social context. Psycholinguists examine issues related to

language comprehension. Philosophical linguists investigate ―semantic relationships

between constructed pairs of sentences and with their syntactic realisations‖ (Brown

and Yule 1983: viii). Finally, computational linguists are interested in ―producing

models of discourse processing and are constrained [...] to working with short texts

constructed in highly limited contexts‖ (1983: viii).

The claim that discourse analysis is acknowledged as one of the most

extensive areas in linguistics has been confirmed by Schiffrin (1994). One of the

reasons for this is, as Schiffrin claims (1994:5), that contemporary comprehension of

discourse is based on the knowledge and findings of a variety of disciplines which

may differ from one another to a great extent. The disciplines that are included in

this broad field of linguistic study are not only those ―in which models for

understanding, and methods for analyzing discourse first developed‖, such as

linguistics, anthropology, sociology, and philosophy, but also disciplines ―that have

applied (and thus often extended) such models and methods to problems within their

own particular academic domains‖, i.e. communication, social psychology, and

artificial intelligence (Schiffrin 1994:5).

Brown and Yule (1983) define discourse analysis as ―the analysis of language

in use. As such, it cannot be restricted to the description of linguistic forms

independent of the purposes or functions which those forms are designed to serve in

human affairs‖ (1983:1). In addition, they claim that some linguists focus on the

investigation of formal properties of a language, i.e. formalist approach, while

discourse analysts focus on the study of language in use, i.e. their approach can be

referred to as functional.

Stubbs (1983) uses the term discourse analysis to ―refer mainly to the

linguistic analysis of naturally occurring connected spoken or written discourse. [...] It

refers to attempts to study the organization of language above the sentence or above

the clause, and therefore to study larger linguistic units, such as conversational

exchanges or written texts‖ (1983:1). From that it follows that ―discourse analysis is

also concerned with language in use in social contexts, and in particular with

interaction or dialogue between speakers‖ (1983:1).


9

In discourse analysis, involvement refers to ―linguistic variation across

spoken and written modes of communication‖ (Besnier 1994:279-280). Spoken

language differs from written language not only structurally and stylistically but also

with regard to involvement, as Besnier (1994:280) correctly points out. The structure

of spoken language indicates considerable attention that participants pay to the act of

communication itself and to the conversational partners and their needs, whereas in

written discourse authors concentrate on ―producing something that will be

consistent and defensible when read by different people at different times in

different places‖ (Chafe 1982:45), and thus they are not much concerned with the

interactional aspects of communication (Besnier 1994:280). Chafe‘s finding has been

confirmed by Tannen (1985:131) as well, see Section 2.4.

With reference to this, Chafe states that writing is ―a lonely activity‖ in

contrast to speaking, which takes place in ―an environment of social interaction‖.

This results in the written language having ―a detached quality‖ whereas involvement

of the speaker is typical of spoken language (Chafe 1985:105). Chafe‘s approach to

the notion of involvement will be discussed in Chapter 2.7 in a more detailed way.

If one realizes that discourse analysis has its origins not only in linguistics but

also in social sciences and philosophy, it will not be so surprising that it is such a vast

field of study (Schiffrin 1987:2). Early efforts at discourse analysis may be seen in the

work of Harris (1951, 1952), who is known for his work on structural linguistics.

He attempts to introduce a method based on the premise that it is not necessary to

know the particular meaning or function of a morpheme to be able to discover and

analyze the structure in writing or connected speech (1951:25). On the basis of his

research, Harris points out that if distributional methods of analysis are adopted to a

whole text, ―structural features which extend over longer stretches of each connected

piece of writing or talking‖ may be discovered (1951:6). Harris‘s work suggests a

tendency to an analysis of structures that go beyond the boundaries of a sentence.

In the area of social sciences, anthropology has inquired into naturally

occurring discourse as a ―culturally relative realization of ways of acting and being‖

(Schiffrin 1987:2). In addition, it was the anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski who

introduced the term ―phatic communion‖. It is ―a type of speech in which ties of

union are created by a mere exchange of words‖ (2006 [1926]:297). The main aim of


10

words in phatic communion is to fulfil a social function, ―language does not function

here as a means of transmission of thought‖ (2006 [1926]:297).

At the beginning of the 1970‘s there appeared a movement within American

sociology which also contributed to the development of discourse analysis. This

approach is known as ethnomethodology and it aimed at replacing deductive and

quantitative methods used in sociological research by the study of the methods

which people employ when engaged in social interaction (Crystal 2003a:167). What is

also important is the attention to the experience of individuals, i.e. how they

understand and report their interactions.

As regards the origins of discourse analysis in philosophy, Austin‘s (1962)

and Searle‘s (1969) work on the theory of speech acts and Grice‘s conversational

maxims defined within the framework of the Cooperative Principle (1989) must be

mentioned, since they focused attention to discourse and language use.

2.3.1 Basic Hypotheses of Discourse Analysis

In her work on discourse markers, Schiffrin (1987:3-6) mentions the principal

suppositions about language that she finds essential in contemporary research of

discourse analysts:

1. Language always occurs in a context.

2. Language is context sensitive.

3. Language is always communicative.

4. Language is designed for communication. (Schiffrin 1987:3)

The first assumption (―language always occurs in a context‖) has been

confirmed by disciplines such as sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics which is

carried out in specific contexts. These contexts include cultural contexts of shared

world views, social contexts which shape the image of self, and cognitive contexts of

―past experience and knowledge. Understanding how language is used and how it is

structured depends on consideration of how it is embedded in all of these contexts‖

(Schiffrin 1987:3).

The importance of analyzing the context in which language is produced has

been emphasized not only in discourse analysis but also in pragmatics. Mey (2001:39)

defines the notion of context as a ―dynamic, not a static concept: it is to be


11

understood as the continually changing surroundings [...] that enable the participants

in the communication process to interact, and in which the linguistic expressions of

their interaction become intelligible.‖ Further, Mey adds that context specifies the

meaning of our utterances and gives them ―their true pragmatic meaning‖ (2001:41).

The second assumption which stresses the context sensitivity of language

relates to the first claim (―language always occurs in a context‖) because it is not only

the language itself that occurs in a context but it is also true about all its levels. What

is more, Schiffrin points out that language reflects all contexts in which it occurs

because ―it helps to constitute them‖ (1987:5).

The two remaining suppositions about language concern communication.

Schiffrin states that language is always communicative because in any case it is

directed at an addressee, be it an actual or intended recipient (1987:5). In this

connection, Lyons (1977:638) claims that many features which are connected with

the structure of languages ―can only be explained on the assumption that they have

developed for communication in face-to-face interaction‖, which conforms to

Schiffrin‘s assupmtion that ―language is designed for communication‖ (1987:6).

I find all these assumptions valid and logical. They are based on the nature of

language as such and are intrinsically related to the pragmatic aspects of involvement.

Face-to-face conversation, be it formal or informal, is very interactional in its nature

and thus it shows a high degree of involvement. This research of linguistic means

expressing involvement in political interviews confirms that context plays a crucial

role when defining functions of these linguistic means, as the analysis presented in

this thesis will show.

2.4 Tannen’s “Relative Focus on Involvement”

In her discussions concerning spoken and written discourse, Tannen

(1985:127) identifies the significance of ―relative focus on interpersonal

involvement―. Within this concept, she introduces two hypotheses that explain

differences between spoken and written discourse, referred to as the

―contextualization hypothesis‖ and the ―cohesion hypothesis‖, respectively.


12

2.4.1 Contextualization Hypothesis

According to the contextualization hypothesis, spoken discourse is context-

bound, whereas written discourse seems to be less so. One of the features of

context-boundness is that while communicating, the speaker can refer to the context

of immediate situation which is known to both speaker and hearer who are

―copresent in time and place‖ (Tannen 1985:128). Another feature is connected with

the fact that there is no need to be maximally explicit on the part of the speaker. If

the hearer is confused, s/he asks for explanation immediately during the interaction.

Finally, speakers share common social background in most cases, which makes their

mutual conversational exchange easier (Tannen 1985:128).

Tannen continues with explaining her contextualization hypothesis by

focusing on written discourse. Contrary to spoken discourse, writers and readers are

separated in time and place, thus the common context of immediate situation is

missing. Consequently, requesting the explanation in case of the reader‘s confusion is

impossible, and that is why the writer should predict potential confusion of the

readers and provide them with the background information needed. As for the

common social background, the writer and the reader will probably not share it to

the same extent as the speaker and the hearer. Tannen suggests that the writer can

―make fewer assumptions about shared attitudes and beliefs‖ (1985:128).

Tannen also discusses the claim of some scholars that written discourse is

―decontextualized‖. She contradicts this assumption by stating that ―no piece of

discourse can be understood without prior knowledge of many kinds of contexts‖

(1985:128). As already briefly mentioned in Section 2.3.1, this study of involvement

in political interviews proves that any analysis is insufficient without taking into

account the context since particular linguistic means may have different functions in

different contexts. Studies that do not pay sufficient attention to the context are

rather superficial and partial, and may produce misleading interpretation of the

results. Some scholars (cf. Cameron et al. 1988; Crosby and Nyquist 1977) take over

Lakoff‘s findings about hedges (Lakoff 1972) uncritically, without noticing that, for

instance, I think may function as a booster in some contexts as well. This analysis

distinguishes the different pragmatic functions of I think and reveals that its use as a


13

booster prevails over the pragmatic function of a hedge in the corpus of political

interviews (see Chapter 7.3.2).

When explaining her contextualization hypothesis and comparing spoken and

written discourse, Tannen asserts that in the genre of face-to-face conversation the

act of speaking itself is more important than the message conveyed. However, this

claim is not new. As already mentioned above (see Chapter 2.3), Malinowski (2006

[1926]) defined the term ―phatic communion‖, which does not have the function of

communicating ideas but, rather, it ―serves to establish bonds of personal union

between people brought together by the mere need of companionship‖ (2006

[1926]:298). It should be pointed out here that maintaining social contact belongs to

typical aspects of interactional involvement. This thesis will show that political

discourse is a high-involved discourse since politicians concentrate not only on

passing on information but also on establishing contact with their audience. Their

language also contains features of informal language since they want to use a

language similar to that used by their audience and thus to create the impression of

being closer to them. If politicians were detached and reserved in their attitude to

their listeners, they would not be trusted by them and could not persuade anyone

about their trustworthiness.

Tannen emphasizes that it would be false to think that the utterances in

informal face-to-face conversation are not important. By contrast, they convey

―metamessages‖, which are ―statements about the relationship between interactants‖

that are an important base of any interaction (Tannen 1985:128); among the typical

examples of metamessages are utterances such as ―I am [or am not] well disposed

toward you‖, ―I‘m teasing you‖, etc. (1985:128). Additionally, Tannen adds that if we

have a close and personal relationship with our conversational partner, it is difficult

to concentrate solely on conveying information because the conversationalists

cannot ignore the significance of their relationship (1985:129). The present analysis

shows that this importance of expressing mutuality rather than matter-of-factness is

not typical of the genre of political interview, owing to the very nature of this genre.

It is a formal interaction where the distribution of roles is asymmetrical and the

relationship between participants is not personal. Moreover, the purpose of a

political interview differs significantly from that of an informal conversation.

Primarily, it should convey information about various current affairs to the public. A


14

more detailed description of the genre of political interview will be offered be found

in Chapter 3.

In the genre of face-to-face conversation there is another interesting

phenomenon which Tannen refers to (1985:129). It is connected with the

technological advancement of the present-day society. A technologically advanced

society is in the constant need of communication that should be quick and efficient.

Any degree of interpersonal involvement would slow down the communicative act,

and that is why it is conventionally ignored, typically among strangers. For this

reason, this type of involvement cannot be found in political discourse. Politicians

show a different type of involvement which is connected with the expression of their

attitude to the proposition, and in this way they want to influence the opinion of

their potential voters. As Tannen puts it, such conventional ignoring of interpersonal

involvement may, however, be perceived as distinctively Western. Then it can be the

cause of misunderstandings and confusion when American businessmen get right

down to business without establishing personal relationships with their, for instance,

Japanese or Arab counterparts.

It cannot be explicitly said that written discourse is focused exclusively on

conveying information and spoken discourse concentrates on conveying attitudes

and feelings, and thus spoken discourse shows a high degree of involvement and

written discourse the contrary. As Tannen emphasizes ―it is common to have written

communication in which it hardly matters what the content is; the fact of

communication is paramount - for example, in some personal letters‖ (1985:129).

Correspondingly, it is possible to have ―communication that is message-focused in

an oral mode, as in lectures and radio or television broadcasts‖ (1985:129-130).

Tannen concludes her observations on the contextualization hypothesis by

stating that an essential aspect distinguishing discourse types is ―whether it is one-

way or two-way communication‖ (1985:130) and this aspect is connected with

relative focus on involvement and with relative focus on information.

2.4.2 Cohesion Hypothesis

The other hypothesis that Tannen introduces when explaining differences

between spoken and written discourse is called the ―cohesion hypothesis‖. It is


15

connected with the fact that everything that is uttered is expressed in some way. The

speaker‘s degree of involvement in an interaction is indicated by a variety of verbal

means such as the choice of lexical items and syntactic structures, paralinguistic

features such as the tone of voice, speed, pitch, intonation and volume, and by

nonverbal means like facial expressions, gestures, bodily posture, eye contact etc.

―All these nonverbal and paralinguistic features reveal the speaker‘s attitude toward

the message [...] and establish cohesion, that is, show relationships among ideas,

highlight relative importance, foreground or background certain information, and so

on. [...] one cannot speak without showing one‘s attitude toward the message and the

speech activity‖ (Tannen 1985:130-131). Verbal means of speaker‘s involvement in

political interviews will be analysed in Chapters 7, 8 and 9 in greater detail.

Paralinguistic and nonverbal means will not be investigated since they are beyond the

scope of this study.

In contrast to speaking, in written discourse the authors cannot rely on

nonverbal and paralinguistic cues. Instead, they make use of devices such as italics,

underlining, the use of bold and capital letters, Tannen (1985:131) claims.

Consequently, the writer‘s attitude towards ideas expressed and relationships

between them must be ―lexicalized‖. This is usually achieved in a variety of ways: by

using explicit statement, such as in a humorous way... or I don’t mean this literally

(1985:131), by careful selection of words with the right connotations, or by using

―complex syntactic constructions and transitional phrases‖ (1985:131).

Tannen summarizes her findings by stating that the type of discourse where

―meaning and attitudes are expressed paralinguistically, nonverbally, or indirectly‖

(1985:131), i.e. one characteristically using strategies of face-to-face conversation

which build on interpersonal involvement, is spoken discourse. In turn, ―discourse

that relies on lexicalization of meaning and relationships between propositions either

is written or uses strategies that are frequently found in written discourse‖ (Tannen

1985:131). It is possible, however, that the writer may aim at creating the effect of

face-to-face interaction, thus, he incorporates such comments as ―She said with a

wink‖ (Tannen 1985:131).


16

2.5 High Involvement vs. Low Involvement

The concept of speaker‘s involvement is crucial to the understanding of the

speaker‘s contribution to interaction. Katriel and Dascal define involvement by

stating that it ―relates to the speaker‘s mode of participation in the exchange. This

can range from very casual to very intense engagement, either in the topic of the

exchange or in the relationship between the participants in it‖ (Katriel and Dascal

1989:276). The speaker‘s mode of participation in the genre of political interview

depends on the role which the particular interactant has.

The analysis presented in this thesis reveals that interviewers show a

significantly lower degree of involvement than politicians. Their questions are pre-

prepared and even if they have to react to politicians‘ answers immediately, they are

less involved. This fact relates to their role in political interviews, which is to lead an

interview with politicians and to find out information concerning current affairs,

opinions and attitudes of politicians that are interesting for listeners. Politicians, on

the contrary, aim at asserting themselves in front of their audience and at influencing

their potential voters. In this connection, Tannen (1984) distinguishes a style of

―high involvement‖ and a style of ―low involvement‖. Thus, it may be stated that

the style of politicians is high-involved and that of interviewers is low-involved.

Means of the high-involved style of politicians, which are analysed in this thesis, are

connected with the modification of the illocutionary force of speech acts (see

Chapter 4). The illocutionary force is modified by the use of boosting and hedging

devices (see Chapters 6, 7 and 8), and also by the use of modal expressions (modal

verbs, modal adjectives, modal adverbs, and pragmatic particles). The concept of

modality is discussed in greater detail in Chapter 9.

The features of high involvement style that Tannen defines and further

explores in the genre of face-to-face conversation are: topic, pacing, narrative

strategies, and expressive paralinguistics; and within this framework she identifies a

group of specific involvement aspects (Tannen 1984:40-41).

As regards the topic, the conversationalists in a casual face-to-face

conversation prefer debating personal topics. Besides, they tend to alter topics of talk

abruptly (Tannen 1984:40). This is a typical feature of the genre of informal

conversation. The speakers are more spontaneous and relaxed during their talk and


17

there are no strict rules which they have to follow. The topics discussed develop

according to the interest of those involved in the conversation, according to the

relationship between conversational partners and what they have in common.

As the present analysis shows, the genre of political interview, in contrast

with the informal face-to-face conversation, is not characterised by similar abrupt

and frequent change of topic. This is caused by the fact that there is an interviewer

who leads the debate of the participants in political discussion, and also by the fact

that the topics to be discussed are to a great extent settled in advance. If a politician

diverts from the topic, the role of the interviewer is to interfere and force him to

speak to the point.

Another aspect of interactional involvement classified by Tannen is the

introduction of topics without hesitation, which is, as the present analysis shows,

connected with the spontaneity and relaxed atmosphere of informal conversation.

The speakers are free from tension and strain, they do not hesitate to introduce a

new topic. If necessary, the topic is reintroduced repeatedly (1984:40).

With respect to pacing, Tannen has found that it is predominantly related to

faster rate of speech and turn taking. As for turn taking in the genre of political

interview, my research has shown that it is regular but not so fast as in informal

settings. This results from the nature of this kind of discourse. The contributions of

the interviewer are shorter than those of the interviewee, who is a dominant speaker

and explains the things in a detailed way.

Tannen‘s research into informal conversation has shown that the speakers

avoid interturn pauses because silence may show ―lack of rapport‖ (1984:40), which

means that the speaker is not involved enough and that he lacks mutual

understanding. Additionally, it has revealed frequent overlap of speakers and

―participatory listenership‖ (1984:41), which is the sign of cooperation between

speakers, and thus involvement. Overlap between speakers in political interviews is

not the sign of involvement, as I see it, but rather the attempt to grab the floor, or

the right to speak.

Another feature of interactional involvement, which Tannen mentions in

connection with her research, is the use of narrative strategies. It means that the

speakers tell more stories during the conversation, tell stories in rounds, and ―prefer


18

internal evaluation‖, which means that ―the point of a story is dramatized rather than

lexicalized‖ (1984:41). Again, the genre of political interview is different in character

from that of informal conversation and thus it does not allow to use this kind of

narrative strategies too frequently. There is only one interview in the whole corpus in

which a narrative strategy is used, namely, an interview with Condoleezza Rice (App.,

p. 251, Condoleezza Rice, 2008-03-27, ll. 713-728). In the very final part of this

interview, she tells a short story about her grandfather and the problems he had

receiving college education.

The last aspect of involvement indicated by Tannen is the use of expressive

paralinguistics. ―Expressive phonology, marked pitch and amplitude shifts, marked

voice quality, and strategic within-turn pauses‖ (1984:41) appear in the corpus of

informal conversation. I suggest that these attributes belong to the strategies of

creating involvement in political discourse as well. However, the thesis will not take

them into consideration. When analysing the corpus of political interviews, I worked

only with their transcripts and did not have their audio versions at my disposal. An

analysis of paralinguistic means is beyond the scope of the present thesis since it is a

very broad topic and it would have to be the subject matter of a different study.

To sum up, I agree with Tannen‘s claim that ―though no two speakers use all

the same devices in the same way, there are patterns by which these devices co-occur

in the speech of certain participants. The combination of particular devices makes up

the style of each speaker‖ (1984:41). All the above-described aspects express

involvement. Thus, Tannen describes the style of the speakers who employ them as

―high-involvement style‖ and the style of those who showed the need not to impose

as ―high-considerateness style‖ (1984:41-42).

2.6 Relationships and Differences between Spoken and Written Discourse

Differences between spoken and written discourse from the point of view

of contextualization and cohesion hypotheses were described in Chapter 2.4.

Tannen, who introduced these two hypotheses, explains that spoken discourse

depends on the context of immediate situation more than written discourse and for

that reason, it is more context-bound. Spoken discourse also relies on paralinguistic


19

cues, which is, of course, not possible in written discourse. Therefore, writers have to

select the words and syntactic structures carefully. They may also use italics, bold

letters or underlining to emphasize important parts of the text.

Since many authors have devoted attention to the notion of involvement in

connection with spoken and written language, at this point, it is appropriate to

summarize the basic relationships and differences between these two types of

discourse. As we have seen in previous chapters, most of them concentrate on the

interactive nature of spoken language where involvement has striking pragmatic

implications. However, involvement in written discourse should not be undervalued

either. The subject of this thesis is an analysis of political interviews, i.e. of spoken

language. Its distinctive features may be shown more clearly when contrasted with

written language. Many studies have dealt with relationships and differences between

these two types of discourse (cf. Vachek 1976; Urbanová 2003; Brown and Yule

1983; Chafe 1985; Crystal 2003b, among others). The following part will look at

them in detail.

The main differences between spoken and written discourse relate to

language use, as Crystal confirms: ―These differences are chiefly to do with language

use, arising out of the fact that speakers and writers are operating in fundamentally

different communicative situations. But there are also several differences in language

structure: the grammar and vocabulary of speech is by no means the same as that of

writing [...]‖ (Crystal 2003b:291).

Sometimes it is thought that writing is only ―speech written down‖ but these

two genres, though historically related, function as independent methods of

communication (Crystal 2003b:291). In accordance with Crystal, Urbanová, drawing

on Vachek (1976), claims that ―spoken language and written language constitute two

different norms, which are not interchangeable‖ (Urbanová 2003:13). She continues

that ―spoken utterances are primarily characterized by contracted forms, ellipsis,

constant repetitions and restructuring, indistinct text boundaries, frequent pragmatic

markers etc. Written language utilizes a set of devices such as text division, explicit

cohesion, a higher level of sophistication represented by more elaborate grammatical

structures, abstract vocabulary etc.‖ (2003:13).


20

Vachek (1976) describes written language as a ―system of signs which can be

manifested graphically and whose function is to respond to a given stimulus [...] in a

static way [...]. Spoken language is a system of signs that can be manifested

acoustically and whose function is to respond to a given stimulus [...] in a dynamic

way [...]‖ (Vachek 1976:121). Another feature which Vachek mentions in connection

with the description of written language is its ―preservability‖ and ―surveyability‖,

as opposed to ―readiness‖ and ―immediateness‖ of spoken language (1976:412-

413).

Brown and Yule (1983:4) explain that spoken and written language impose

different requirements on language-producers. These are connected with the fact

that speakers may employ various ―voice quality effects‖ and other paralinguistic

cues such as facial expressions, gestures, and bodily postures. These features may

refine the meaning of the words uttered. Needless to say, writers cannot rely on

paralinguistic features. They employ different means such as structuring,

punctuation, further comments etc. for emphasis or mitigation of the effect of the

words.

In this connection, Chafe (1985:105) states that writing is a ―slow, deliberate,

editable process‖ as opposed to speaking which is done ―on the fly‖. This factor has

resulted in Chafe‘s distinction that he called ―the integrated quality of written

language‖ in contrast with ―the fragmented quality of spoken [language].‖ In

addition, he claims that speaking takes place in a setting typical of social interaction

and thus it is characterised by a certain degree of involvement, whereas writing is a

lonely activity and displays a detached quality (1985:105).

Brown and Yule (1983:4-5) also emphasise that speakers, in comparison with

writers, have a more difficult position as far as the monitoring of ―the production of

communicative systems‖ is concerned. What is more, the speaker is processing that

production under significantly more difficult conditions than the writer. As Brown

and Yule put it: ―The speaker must monitor what it is that he has just said, and

determine whether it matches his intentions, [...]‖ (1983:4-5). At the same time he

must formulate his upcoming utterances and place them into the general pattern of

what he intends to convey. Besides, he must observe ―not only his own performance

but its reception by his hearer‖ (1983:5). In this respect, the writer is not under


21

constant pressure to keep the talk going as the speaker. The writer may check his

writing over, reword it if necessary, look up the precise expression he needs in a

dictionary, and even ―change his mind about what he wants to say‖ (1983:5).

A similar observation has been made by Chafe (1985:106-107), who claims

that writing is a much slower process than speaking because we have a lot of time to

think about how to formulate our ideas into appropriate wording of our sentences.

―Writing is in fact free of the constraints imposed by the limited temporal and

informational capacity of focal consciousness; we have time to let our attention roam

over a large amount of information and devote itself to a more deliberate

organization of linguistic resources‖ (1985:107).

There are, as might be expected, certain assets for the speaker as well. Since

he is in immediate contact with his interlocutor, he may observe him and if it is

requisite, he can adapt his utterances in order to be more approachable and

comprehensible to his conversational partner. The writer has no such advantage of

immediate feedback. (Brown and Yule1983:5).

As regards further relationships between speech and writing, Brown and Yule

(1983) claim that ―whereas in daily life in a literate culture, we use speech largely for

the establishment and maintenance of human relationships (primarily interactional

use), we use written language largely for the working out of and transference of

information (primarily transactional use)‖ (Brown and Yule 1983:13). On the other

hand, they are well conscious of the fact that there are situations in which speech is

employed to convey factual pieces of information rather than maintaining personal

relationships. These situations comprise, for example, writing down a lecture,

telephone numbers and addresses, or occasions when a doctor writes down the

patient‘s symptoms, a businessman writes down the requirements of his clients etc.

Brown and Yule (1983:14-19) summarise differences in form between spoken

and written language in several points which are based on the descriptive work of

other scholars. The features that are counted as being characteristic of spoken

language are:

much less structured syntax than that of written language - frequent use of

incomplete sentences, little subordination, the usage of active declarative forms

the speaker is less explicit than the writer


22

in spoken language the paratactically organised segments are related by and, but,

then, and occasionally by if

In written language, contrariwise, a broad set of metalingual indicators can be

found to mark relationships between clauses, e.g. when, while, besides, moreover, in spite of,

etc.

They also mention that ―heavily premodified noun phrases‖ are frequent in

written language whereas it is scarce to find more than two premodifying adjectives

in spoken language and ―there is a strong tendency to structure the short chunks of

speech so that only one predicate is attached to a given referent at a time‖ (Brown

and Yule 1983:16). In addition, what is typical of speech is rare usage of the passive

voice, which commonly occurs in writing, enabling non-attribution of agency. In

respect to vocabulary, a rather generalised type of lexis prevails, for example thing,

stuff, things like that, nice, do, get, etc. Fillers such as well, you know, I think, if you see what I

mean, etc. are employed (1983:17).

As regards the language of political interviews, it displays features of spoken

language described by the above-mentioned scholars. The language of politicians is

characterised by frequent use of repetitions, pragmatic markers and incomplete

sentences. The syntax of sentences is not structured very much and it is less complex

than that of writing. Vague expressions such as and stuff like that, something like that, or

so, do you know what I mean are used. The use of informal lexis is a sign of the tendency

of political language to conversationalization of this type of discourse. This issue will

be discussed more thoroughly in Chapter 3.5.

As already mentioned, spoken and written language interrelate. For instance,

there can be a written discourse that is intended for speaking such as prepared

speeches or television and radio newsreading. Conversely, there is a form of ―written

dialogue‖, such as questionnaires and registration forms that are dialogic in form.

They represent a rather unusual kind of dialogue because there is only one

participant who asks all the questions (Crystal 2003b:294).

To conclude, both types of communication have their advantages and one

cannot say that writing is more important or more perfect than speaking. Urbanová

(2002:12) mentions that nowadays there are so-called hybrid forms of

communication which contain a symbiosis of spoken and written discourse. They


23

are frequent because of the great influence of media language, such as the language

of newspapers, the language of broadcast media, and the language of advertising.

Hybrid forms of communication can also be regarded as a consequence of new

forms of communication, such as the Internet and mobile phone.

The following subsection will return to the concept of involvement and

examine another approach to this notion as it was described by Chafe.

2.7 Chafe’s Approach to the Notion of Involvement

The notion of involvement is significant in the research of Chafe (cf. Chafe

1982, 1984, 1985) as well. By examining and comparing spoken and written discourse

he observes that ―the slowness, editability and permanence‖ are significant for

writing, in contrast with ―the speed and evanescence‖ of spoken interaction (Chafe

1985:116). In addition, he states that what is different between these two discourse

genres is the fact that speakers usually interact face-to-face with their conversational

partners, while writers are isolated both spatially and temporally from their listeners.

That is why Chafe states that involvement is a typical characteristic of spoken

language, whereas detachment dominates written language (1985:116). He defines

three types of involvement in conversation:

involvement of the speaker with himself (ego involvement)

involvement of the speaker with the hearer (or interpersonal involvement;

concern for the dynamics of interaction with another person)

involvement of the speaker with the subject matter (an ongoing personal

commitment to what is being talked about) (Chafe 1985:116).

Ego involvement of the speaker is evident in the use of verbal phrases with

the first-person pronouns such as I mean, I suppose, I think, I don’t think, and as I say.

This type of involvement is typical of the genre of political interview as well. Apart

from linguistic means mentioned above, my corpus contains verbal phrases I know, I

believe, I guess, I gather, and I agree. When using these forms, politicians express

subjectivity and try to sound persuasive in front of their audience. They also want to

promote truthfulness of their message and sound confident. Verbal forms of ego

involvement in the corpus outnumber the other two types of involvement defined by


24

Chafe. A detailed description of these means and their occurrence in the corpus can

be found in Chapters 7 and 8.

Interpersonal involvement is apparent in the use of second-person

pronouns, addressing the hearer by name, asking the hearer a question, replying to a

hearer‘s question, or using hearer-oriented phrases and expression like you know or you

see. Political interview is governed by certain rules, so it is different from informal

conversation in some respects. There is an interviewer who asks the questions and

leads the discussion, and there is a politician who answers them. In informal

conversation, there are no such rules, the participants ask and answer questions quite

freely without any restrictions. As for hearer-oriented expressions, they occur to a

lesser extent than the means of ego involvement in the corpus. This means that

politicians concentrate more on themselves and on strengthening their position,

rather than on their listeners. Hearer-oriented phrases that appear in the corpus are

you know and you see. Chapters 7 and 8 provide detailed information about these

expressions and their occurrence.

Involvement of the speaker with the subject matter is shown by

exaggerating, vagueness, hedging, fuzziness, using expressive vocabulary, using

historical present, and using emphatic particles like just and really (Chafe 1985:117).

This type of involvement is predominantly shown by the use of hedging and

boosting devices in the corpus. The group of expressions with this function is called

―content-oriented‖ in the case of hedging devices (see Section 8.2.3.3) and

―discourse-organizing‖ in the case of boosting devices (see Section 7.2.2.3), and their

main function is to attenuate or accentuate the message that politicians want to

convey to their listeners. Vague and fuzzy expressions can also be found in the

corpus but their analysis is beyond the scope of this thesis. Expressive vocabulary

and historical present are not used in the genre of political interviews. Rather, they

are found in a spontaneous face-to-face conversation because they are connected

with using narrative strategies. These strategies, as already mentioned above (see

Chapter 2.9), relate to telling stories, which is not typical of the genre of political

interview.

As regards written discourse, it is correspondingly more detached than

spoken discourse. ―A writer is typically less concerned with ego expression, less


25

concerned with any direct interaction with the audience, and less immediately

involved with the subject matter‖ (Chafe 1985:117). Means of detachment employed

in written language are the passive voice and the use of abstract subjects. With

reference to this, Besnier points out that ―the detached quality of writing is reflected

in the fact that relatively few involvement strategies are used in writing, and in the

preponderance in written texts of certain linguistic features which give it a detached

quality: passive constructions, indirect quotes, impersonal expressions, etc.‖ (Besnier

1994:283).

As Daneš (1994) notes, Chafe‘s theory is ―evidently narrow and one-sided‖

because the characteristic features he proposes are ―more or less incidental and

heterogeneous (due to his rather limited material basis)‖ (Daneš 1994:255).

Furthermore, he suggests that detachment features as described by Chafe may be

treated as devices of a condensed style.

To summarize, Chafe‘s account of involvement seems to be closer to that of

Tannen‘s rather than to Gumperz‘s because it designates a psychological, internal

state which manifests itself in linguistic phenomena (Tannen 2007:27). Further, she

states that her conception of involvement emphasizes that it is ―an internal, even

emotional connection individuals feel which binds them to other people as well as to

places, things, activities, ideas, memories, and words‖ (2007:27). Tannen‘s concept

also points out ―the interactive nature of conversational interaction‖ (2007:27), which

also encompasses Gumprez‘s view because he understands involvement

predominantly as an active engagement in conversation. ―In Gumperz‘s framework

conversational involvement is achieved in intracultural communication but

compromised in cross-cultural communication (Tannen 2007:26). Tannen does not

agree with Gumperz‘s notion of ―cultural homogeneity‖ because she perceives it as

an ―idealization that is never completely realized‖ (2007:26). As she points out,

individuals who are brought up in the ―same culture‖ are different as for their

gender, class, age, ethnic origin, etc. In this connection she mentions her own

investigation (Tannen 1984) into conversation of five Americans that proves the

existence of differences in their conversational styles and also misunderstandings that

result from these differences.


26

2.8 Involvement in the Prague School

The concept of involvement was also examined by the scholars of the Prague

School (cf. Mathesius 1971; Trnka 1966 [1948]; Daneš 1994). The term ―language

experience‖ (actual living through language) (Trnka 1966) was their equivalent to

―involvement with language‖ (Daneš 1994). As Daneš (1994) states, language

constitutes ―an integral part of our private and social life. We are ‗immersed‘ in it; it

represents the environment and space in which we live and move; it belongs, so to

speak, to our very being. Language is not alien or indifferent for us, but we are

attached to it, though in a different way from our attachment to most things external

to our beings‖ (Daneš 1994:251, my emphasis).

The same approach to language is apparent in the work of the founder of the

Prague Linguistic Circle Vilém Mathesius (1971, 1975, 1982). Mathesius states that

the functionalist approach in linguistics regards language as something living, as

something behind which the speaker or writer can be clearly recognized.

Additionally, this new functionalist approach takes into consideration the fact that

these words are directed at a hearer or reader (1982:30).

Bohumil Trnka (1966 [1948]), another member of the Prague School,

advanced the concept of ―language experience‖ (1966 [1948]:162). The factor of

language experience must be viewed as a mutually related counterpart to the system

of language since ―language lacking experience would be no more than an

unchanging system of relations with no possibilities of development‖ (1966

[1948]:163-164). In this connection, Trnka refers to the work of C. Bally, who also

examined affective aspects of language. However, Trnka‘s concept of language

experience has a wider meaning because ―it includes the experiencing not only of

affective but also of intellectual elements of language‖ (1966 [1948]:163). Moreover,

Trnka mentions that some scholars pay attention only to the system of language and

―lay particular stress on the postulate of absolute regularity of language phenomena‖,

whereas others (Bally, Mathesius) ―prefer to observe language of experience and

speak only of trends and tendencies‖ (1966 [1948]:164).

Language experience is significant for the explanation of particular linguistic

phenomena. As Trnka points out: ―differences in experiencing language are

responsible, for instance, for the different developments of the dialect and standard


27

language [...]. Without considering language experience, one could not imagine how a

certain language system could, to different degrees, influence other systems, or why

that system could not only take over some items of some other language [...]‖ (Trnka

1966 [1948]:163).

Daneš (1994) regards ―language experience‖ as ―involvement with

language‖. According to him, involvement is an ―absolutely fundamental aspect of

our linguistic awareness and conduct‖ (1994:253), which has three aspects:

1. knowledge of the language system and of communicative abilities

2. the actual use of this knowledge in the communicative processes of text

production and text reception

3. the whole range of our mental faculties and processes. (Daneš 1994:253)

All these aspects of involvement are relevant, yet the most important for the

present analysis is the second one. It concentrates on the actual use of concrete

linguistic devices connected with involvement and on the perception of these devices

by language users in concrete situations. These devices modify the illocutionary force

of particular speech acts and in this way they accentuate or attenuate the meaning of

utterances, depending on the meaning of these devices and on the context of

situation. Classifications and pragmatic functions of boosters in political interviews

will be analysed in Chapter 7. Classifications and pragmatic functions of hedging

devices will be examined in Chapter 8. There is another concept, namely modality,

whose means also contribute to modification of the meaning of speech acts. This

concept will be dealt with in greater detail in Chapter 9.

Daneš also speaks about the different ―attitudes‖ speakers have towards the

language. By ―attitude‖ he understands ―the system of mental biases and dispositions

of a person [...] to feel, think, and behave in a certain manner, which programs their

responses to certain kinds of objects or types of situations‖ (1994:253). He

distinguishes two opposite types of attitudes, that of indifference and that of

concern. It may be claimed that only the attitude of concern relates to the concept of

involvement. However, Daneš explains that these two types of attitudes ―may be

viewed as constituting a simple system of opposition‖ and for that reason,

indifference ―or (detachment) as an extreme pole of concern (i.e., a lack of it) may be

treated as a kind of involvement as well‖ (1994:253). If these two types of attitudes


28

are understood as opposites within one system, then detachment may be regarded as

its direct antipode and thus a kind of involvement.

2.9 Linguistic Strategies of Involvement

Tannen (2007:25) asserts that there are linguistic and non-linguistic strategies

that establish and preserve involvement. Linguistic strategies such as repetition of

words and phrases, dialogue, and the usage of imagery that are developed in literary

discourse are ―spontaneous and pervasive in conversation because they reflect and

create interpersonal involvement‖ (Tannen 2007:25).

The strategies that are based on sound comprise:

rhythm

patterns based on repetition and variation of phonemes, morphemes, words,

collocations of words, and longer sequences of discourse; and,

style figures of speech

The strategies that work primarily on meaning include:

indirectness

ellipsis

tropes

dialogue

imagery and detail; and,

narrative

(Tannen 2007:32)

Tannen claims that repetition of particular linguistic units makes the

discourse more rhythmical, which causes the participants in the interaction to pay

more attention to the subject matter of the discourse. This assertion confirms the

finding of Harvey Sacks (1971), who pointed out systematicity of the use of

repetition of sounds and words in spontaneous conversation. Longer discourse

sequences have been the area of interest of the ethnomethodological branch of

conversation analysis. The research into cross-cultural discourse has proven the

occurrence of repetition of discourse sequences across time. Repetition as a means of

creating interpersonal involvement, as Tannen (2007:61) explains, ―accomplishes a


29

conversation, shows one‘s response to another‘s utterance, shows acceptance of

others‘ utterances, their participation, and them, and gives evidence of one‘s own

participation. It provides a resource to keep talk going, where talk itself is a show of

involvement, of willingness to interact, to serve positive face.‖

Interlocutors frequently report in their conversational exchanges the

statements of others as dialogue (―direct speech‖) rather than third-person report

(―indirect speech‖) as Tannen (2007:39) claims. She believes that dialogue is ―more

vivid‖ and what is more, conveying ideas through quoting the speech of others is a

significant means of expressing emotions in discourse (2007:39). As regards my

corpus of political interviews, means of expressing emotions may be found in this

type of discourse as well. A common way of showing emotionality is the use of

hedging or boosting devices in a quick succession. A systematic analysis of

emotionality Is not the subject matter of this study but it seems that emotionality in

political interviews is either an attempt by politicians to show power and justify their

arguments in front of their audience or it may be a sign of uncertainty and hesitation

of the speaker.

Constructed dialogue (or reported speech) requires active participation of all

conversationalists in the process of creating linguistic and interactional meaning and

this active contribution to the inferring of meaning creates involvement. Every

dialogue is unique and this uniqueness allows the listeners to form their own

understanding on the basis of their knowledge and experience (Tannen 2007:132).

Another sensemaking strategy that is important in the process of creating

involvement in discourse is the use of details and images. Tannen (2007:134)

emphasizes that it is a mutual participation both on the part of the speaker and the

hearer because it is the speaker who describes an image in words, and the hearer who

creates an image derived from this description. The use of imagery and detail in

everyday language arouses emotional response and affection on the part of the

hearer. ―Images, like dialogue, evoke scenes, and understanding is derived from

scenes because they are composed of people in relation to each other, doing things

that are culturally and personally recognizable and meaningful‖ (2007:134).

Involvement strategies are important not because they add something to the

conversational exchange, but more precisely, they constitute communication through


30

the construction of a shared world of images (2007:134). The strategy of the use of

images is typical of informal conversation rather than of a formal type of discourse

because it requires a mutual participation of the speakers on the personal level. In

case politicians are emotional, it is not a feature of mutuality but rather a

manifestation of either power or uncertainty, as mentioned above.

Another linguistic strategy important in creating involvement is indirectness

(or conveying unstated meaning, as Tannen puts it (2007:37). It happens very

frequently in interaction that conversational partners do not explicitly say what they

mean. In general, indirectness is employed for two main reasons: ―to save face if a

conversational contribution is not well received, and to achieve the sense of rapport

that comes from being understood without saying what one means‖ (2007:37).

Further, appropriate interpreting of unstated meaning imposes certain requirements

on the listener, which in turn contributes to mutual participation in creating

involvement.

The corpus shows that indirectness also occurs in political discourse. It can

be regarded as a face-saving strategy and, as Tannen states, it is also connected with

creating involvement. Several types of modality, namely, epistemic possibility,

deontic necessity, epistemic attitudinal modality, circumstantial possibility, and

epistemic necessity, are frequent means of expressing indirectness as a face-saving

strategy in the corpus. Modality and its types are analysed in detail in Chapter 9.

Politicians frequently say much less than they actually mean and in this way they are

indirect. This phenomenon is connected with non-observance of the maxims of the

Cooperative Principle defined by Grice (1989). Non-observance of conversational

maxims was the subject of a different study (Kozubíková Šandová 2010).

Chafe (1982) has also listed several involvement strategies. Apart from sound

repetitions, repetitions of words and phrases, rhythm of conversation, he has

mentioned these strategies:

concreteness and imageability (use of details)

personal quality (use of first and second person pronouns)

importance of people and their relationships

emphasis on actions and agents rather than on states and objects

reference to feelings and thoughts


31

use of hedged and aggravated signals

use of feedback signals

In relation to linguistic strategies of involvement, Besnier (1994) adds:

emphasizers and hedges

(for a more detailed analysis of these devices see Chapters 7 and 8)

ideophones

Ideophones are ―a verbalized imitation of extralinguistic events or situations‖

(Kilian-Hatz 2001:155). They are words typical of spoken and informal speech.

Words like boing, miau and ding-dong belong to this kind of expressions

(2001:155). Since they are restricted to colloquial speech, ideophones do not

occur in political interviews.

code-switching

Speakers may switch code within a domain in certain situations. A person may

switch to a different language ―as a signal of group membership and shared

ethnicity with an addressee. Even speakers who are not very proficient in a

second language may use brief phrases and words for this purpose‖ (Holmes

1992:41). This phenomenon is not present in the corpus, although it may appear

in formal contexts as well. Wardhaugh (2010) states that ―certain social

situations may require that one code be used rather than another, even though

that second code is known to all participants but the first only to some‖

(2010:106). He points out that in some situations, a head of state must use the

official language of that state when speaking to another head of state. He gives

an interesting example that ―on many public occasions in Canada it is obligatory

for officials to say a few words in the official language that they are not using‖

(2010:106).

back-channelling

Back-channel cues are verbal (vocalized sounds mhm, short phrases Really? Wow!)

or non-verbal (e.g. nodding) responses of the listener to the speaker

(Wardhaugh 2010:321). They appear both in informal and in formal language

and their main function is to give feedback to the speaker that the listener pays

attention to his words. Back-channelling signals appear also in political

interviews. Verbal back-channels are used by politicians when the interviewer

asks them a longer question or explains something to them and politicians

confirm that they are listening carefully or that they are signalling agreement.

Non-verbal back-channelling cues must have been employed in the interviews as

well but I worked only with the transcripts in which non-verbal back-


32

channelling cues are not signed, and, as stated above, paralinguistic features are

not the subject of this study.

overlapping

Overlapped speech occurs also very frequently both in informal conversation

and IN political interviews. It means that the interactants speak one over

another. When politicians butt in the interviewer‘s part, it may be a sign of

emotiveness, impatience or an attempt to assert themselves in communication.

These linguistic strategies ―when used with systematic frequency in

interaction, contribute to the heightening of interpersonal involvement‖ (Besnier

1994:280-281).

As already mentioned above, involvement in conversation is also associated

with non-linguistic means. From this it follows that not only the form of discourse

but also the interplay of linguistic and non-linguistic means is central to creating

involvement.

2.10 Conceptual Problems Associated with Involvement

In the previous section, the focus was on the description and explanation of

linguistic strategies defined by Tannen (2007), Chafe (1982), and Besnier (1994).

Nevertheless, when investigating involvement, scholars have encountered various

difficulties. They are connected with the fact that it is not easy to define this concept

and to explain what the opposite of involvement is. In what follows, several

problems related to the notion of involvement will be addressed.

Besnier (1994:282) raises the question of what involvement should be

contrasted with. To put it another way, if a part of discourse contains a high amount

of involvement, how can one characterize a part of discourse where there are no or

very few such phenomena?

Involvement can be contrasted with ―detachment‖ which is a term that

Chafe (1982) introduces when comparing spoken and written discourse. As has been

mentioned above, he claims that involvement is typical of spoken discourse, whereas

detachment is a characteristic feature of written discourse. Involvement strategies

defined by Chafe (1982) have been mentioned above (see Chapter 2.9).


33

As for the features of detachment, Chafe (1982) points out that complex

syntactic structures may be found in texts which do not focus on interaction. He

speaks about these types of complex structures: relative clauses, complement clauses,

sequences of prepositional clauses, and nominalizations; in addition, he includes

attributtive adjectives, passive voice, subordinate conjunctions, and finally, complex

morphosyntax into this category.

The same terms, involvement and detachment, have been used by Urbanová

(2003) who states that ―the distinction on which involvement vs. detachment operate

is the dichotomy foreground versus background information. In cases of

involvement, the interactional process comes to the fore, whereas via detachment it

is substantially subdued‖ (Urbanová 2003:50).

Within the context of spoken and written discourse, she emphasizes that

―detachment, reservation, and depersonalization are elements which appear also in

face-to-face conversation‖ (2003:50), in spite of the fact that these features are more

characteristic of written discourse. Urbanová explains her findings ―by the need for

mitigation when the speaker does not want to make ―outright assertions‖ and show

his/her commitment in public‖ (2003:50). This opinion is in agreement with that of

Chafe who claims that ―there are other styles of speaking which are more in the

direction of writing, and other styles of writing which are more like speech‖ (Chafe

1982:48), which has been discussed above (see Section 2.7).

From the relevant literature on involvement and detachment (cf. Tannen

1985; Chafe 1984; Urbanová 2003) it follows that in regard to these notions in

various conversational genres, particular types are high-involved, such as

spontaneous face-to-face conversation, whose typical feature is sharing personal

attitudes and feelings. However, another type of spoken discourse, an interview, is

more detached than a face-to-face conversation because the interlocutors

concentrate predominantly on gaining facts rather than on personal views and

feelings. This is determined by the fact that the roles of the speakers are

asymmetrical, i.e. there is an interviewer and an interviewee, and the typical scheme is

question-answer. Thus, one can characterize an interview as information-seeking. But

again, as with face-to-face conversation where reservation, depersonalization and

other features of detachment can be found, emotionality and involvement can be


34

found in interviews as well. Their occurrence usually depends on the topic of the

particular interview. The present analysis shows that many features of involvement

may be found in this genre. Politicians use hedging and boosting devices and modal

expressions to modify the illocutionary force of their utterances, and in this way, they

show subjectivity, assurance, agreement, and emotiveness, which contribute to a

high-involved style of politicians.

Lakoff (1990) compares involvement with ―considerateness‖, stating that it

―uses the opposite strategy‖ from involvement such as ―long waits before taking a

turn; relatively steady and unremarkable articulation, conventional expression; no

touching or addressing by name; few back channels, little overlap or interruption‖

(Lakoff 1990:50).

However, Besnier (1994) correctly argues that it is not certain if the proposed

term ―considerateness‖ can be considered an improvement over the term

―detachment‖ because ―involved styles can easily be placed in contexts where they

will be perceived as considerate, if one interprets the meaning of ―considerateness‖

in its everyday sense of paying attention to the feelings and needs of co-

conversationalists‖ (Besnier 1994:283).

Tannen (1985) prefers the designation ―focus on content‖ to ―detachment‖

and gives a concise explanation of her preference: if a discourse participant is not

directly involved in the interactional context, then one‘s attention is directed to the

content of the interaction. Moreover, Tannen has examined that ―some written

genres - for example, literary prose - combined features of spoken with features of

written discourse‖ (Tannen 1985:127) so, for example, lack of involvement is not

significant to many genres of written discourse. Tannen describes such texts as

―mixed genres‖ because they combine the conversational involvement with the

conventions of writing.

Additionally, what is important to consider is the fact that many written

genres require certain degree of detachment and the involvement strategies are not

appropriate there. These are, for instance, scientific texts which are detached,

impersonal and emotionally neutral. From that it follows that it is important to make

a distinction between involvement and detachment understood as two general

principles which are established as conventional in a particular scientific tradition,


35

and, from a different point of view, involvement and detachment as analytic

conceptions in the description and understanding of a particular linguistic behaviour

(Besnier 1994:284).

Katriel and Dascal (1989) propose to distinguish between two types of

involvement that both relate to the speaker‘s attentional orientation. The first type is

called ―topical involvement‖ and the second type ―interactional involvement‖.

Topical involvement relates to ―the speaker‘s cognitive orientation to a shared

discourse topic‖ (Katriel and Dascal 1989:285). Interactional involvement refers to

―the speaker‘s orientation to the speech situation and the participants in it‖

(1989:285). Both these types of involvement are relevant to the present analysis of

political interviews. When it comes to the topic of the Iraq War, politicians who

discuss this issue (Blair, Bush and Rice) are more hesitant, uncertain and indirect. As

for interactional involvement, politicians use content-oriented boosters to emphasise

the content, or hearer-oriented boosters to show that they take into account their

listeners. Katriel and Dascal emphasize that conversations are ―social, not only

cognitive events‖ and so they entail that the speaker adjusts both to the interactional

partners and to the topic of the conversation in such a way that s/he shows a certain

degree of involvement.

To sum up, what is evident is a difference in the degree of involvement

between spoken and written discourse and, in addition, differences across certain

genres within these domains. Thus, the language of news broadcasting on the radio

or TV is characterized by a detached, ―low-involvement‖ style, whereas a personal

letter, though representing a variety of written language that is typically detached, is

usually high-involved and emotional (Tannen 1985:130). Similarly, with a change to a

higher degree of interpersonal involvement, speakers may decide not to use titles. As

Tannen (1984), Silverstein (1979), and Kochman (1981) suggest, the degree of

speaker‘s involvement in interaction is culturally constrained and a particular level of

involvement or detachment may vary depending on the situation.

2.11 Speaker's Involvement in this Thesis

As Chapter 2 shows, approaches to the concept of involvement are very

diverse and are researched from various points of view. Involvement has been


36

examined in interactional sociolinguistics and discourse analysis. Interactional

sociolinguistics focuses more on the social organization of involvement

(predominantly in the work of Goffman 1963) than on language use. Discourse

analysis concentrates on linguistic differences between spoken and written discourse

when referring to involvement (cf. Chafe 1982). In this connection, Tannen proposes

contextualization and cohesion hypotheses as they may explain the variations

between spoken and written communication (Section 2.4). She goes further to define

the concepts of high and low involvement. Informal conversation is often regarded

as a high-involved style but the present analysis shows that the genre of political

interview also has features of high involvement as will be shown later.

The following chapters of this thesis will concentrate on various

manifestations of speaker‘s involvement in political interviews. Modifying the

illocutionary force by boosting and hedging devices will be analysed (for

intensification of the illocutionary force see Chapter 7, for attenuation of the

illocutionary force see Chapter 8). Speaker‘s involvement in political interviews is

also expressed by modal means. Modality, as another means of showing speaker‘s

involvement, is described in Chapter 9. First, political interview will be examined as a

discourse genre along with its characteristic features.

Political Interview as a Discourse Genre

37

3 Political Interview as a Discourse Genre

3.1 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.

3.2 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).


38

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


39

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.

3.3 Defining “Genre” and “Political Discourse”

Fairclough explains the term ―genre‖ as a ―socially ratified way of using

language in connection with a particular type of social activity (e.g. interview,

narrative, exposition)‖ (1995:14). Crystal states that depending on the type of genre

there are several impositions on language use in relation to ―subject-matter, purpose,

[...], textual structure, form of argumentation and level of formality‖ (2003a:201).

Bhatia points out that ―each genre is an instance of a successful achievement

of a specific communication purpose using conventionalised knowledge of linguistic

and discourse resources. Since each genre, in certain important respects, structures

the narrow world of experience or reality in a particular way, the implication is that

the same experience or reality will require a different way of structuring, if one were


40

to operate in a different genre‖ (1993:16). Since political interview has specific

communication goals, which are, first and foremost, to persuade and influence the

audience, and it uses conventionalised ways of achieving them, this thesis

understands political interview as a genre of political discourse. A similar view is

taken by Johansson, who states: ―The political interview is a genre in which the

construction of meaning occurs at the intersection of two institutional discourses,

both of which are culturally produced: the discourse of the media and that of

politics‖ (2007:141).

Van Dijk (2001) draws attention to the fact that political discourse is

sometimes incorrectly regarded as a genre, however, ―it is not a genre, but a class of

genres defined by a social domain, namely that of politics. [...] Thus, government

deliberations, parliamentary debates, party programs, and speeches by politicians, are

among the many genres that belong to the domain of politics‖ (2001:5).

When delimiting political discourse, it is important to stress that it takes the

form of ―institutional discourse‖ (Van Dijk 2001:6). This means that ―only those

discourses of politicians are considered that are produced in institutional settings,

such as governments, parliaments or political parties. [...] The discourse must be

produced by the speaker in her professional role of a politician and in an institutional

setting‖ (2001:6). In addition, ―discourse is political when it accomplishes a political

act in a political institution, such as governing, legislation, electoral campaigning, and

so on‖ (2001:6).

3.4 Political Interview and Its Features

Corner states that ―interview is one of the most widely used and extensively

developed formats for public communication in the world‖ (1999:37, emphasis

added). There are various types of interviews, such as political news interview or

survey research interviews, whose main function is to gain information, and celebrity

talk show interviews, which focus on entertaining the audience apart from gaining

information (Schiffrin 1994; Lauerbach 2007). Regardless of the differences, all types

of interviews share common features. ―Firstly, all incorporate the discourse practice

of questioning and answering which, on a structural level, yields question-answer

sequences, with or without expansions. Secondly, all are characterised by the same


41

role distribution, all having an interviewer as a representative of a media organization

and an interviewee‖ (Lauerbach 2007:1393).

Political interviews take place in institutional settings, i.e. a TV or radio

station. The interviewer is a professional journalist, the interviewee is a politician

who represents his/her party. The role of interviewer is to control the dialogue, ask

questions that are challenging and try to reveal negative details of political affairs. In

addition, they ―strive to deliver an up-to-date and interesting perspective on events

and on their main protagonists‖ (Lauerbach 2007:1393). The interviewer should also

focus on questions which the audience would like to be answered. ―The result is a

more or less adversarial interview which in one-on-one interviews is characterized by

an argumentative structure where politicians defend their standpoints against the

interviewers who take the perspective of a critical audience‖ (Lauerbach 2007:1394).

Politicians express their opinions and standpoints and present their

arguments in order to influence and convince potential voters. They try to sound

persuasive and look positive in front of their audience. As Wilson points out,

―politicians use words and sentences in an emotive manner; it is part of their aim to

create a feeling of solidarity, to arouse emotions such as fear, hate or joy‖ (1990:18-

19). They use various linguistic means to modify the illocutionary force of their

utterances so that they show involvement with their statements or detachment from

them. In my corpus, linguistic means showing involvement of the speaker prevail

over those of detachment, which will be shown in detail in the following sections of

this thesis.

The skill of good argumentation is also important in political discourse.

Argumentation is considered ―as an interactionally organized activity and as social

practice [...] Argumentation is both the process and product of an exchange of

opposing positions by opposing co-participants whose goal is to find out whether

arguments are acceptable, appropriate, true and sincere and to convince the other(s)

of the validity of their argument‖ (Fetzer 2007:1345). Additionally, Fetzer states that

in the genre of political interview ―argumentation is neither employed primarily as a

source of gaining knowledge, nor as a means of finding or proving the validity of an

argument, but rather as a means of persuading a potential electorate represented by


42

the second-frame audience to support a political position or to cast their votes for a

political party‖ (2007:1350).

Lauerbach (2007) regards argumentation as an ―essentially dialogic discourse

practice‖ since ―claim and challenge, claim and counterclaim are prototypically

realised in dialogic form. In addition, challenges are prototypically realised as

questions that expect satisfaction of the challenge in the answer‖ (2007:1390).

The relationship between the interviewer and the interviewee is

asymmetrical as ―the institutional power to organize the talk is held by the

interviewer [...]. While the starting-point is based on questions, and the interviewee

(IE) has a genre-specific constraint to answer them, s/he may have a certain freedom

in answering and developing the topic - or s/he may seize it‖ (Johansson 2007:140).

The topics discussed in political interviews are associated with current news events.

As regards the audience, it may or may not be present in the studio. It depends on

the kind of interview if the viewers are allowed to participate or not.

3.5 Conversationalization of Media Discourse

When describing political discourse, it should be focused on its strong

inclination to generic hybridity. It may be observed in my corpus that politicians

tend to use informal, conversational language in an effort to be closer to their

listeners and to be able to influence them more easily. Politicians pretend to belong

among ―ordinary people‖. This is connected with a change in political discourse

which has been noticed by several researchers (Fetzer and Weizman 2006; Fairclough

1998; Clayman and Heritage 2002; among others).

Fetzer and Weizman (2006) claim that ―politics has undergone dramatic

changes and has become a media endeavor. [...] The primarily monologue-oriented

mode of discourse, which prevailed in the fifties, sixties, seventies and eighties, is no

longer considered to be appropriate in the western and Anglo-American contexts‖

(Fetzer and Weizman 2006:146).

This aspect has been confirmed by Fairclough, who states that ―the genres of

broadcasting often have a complex hybrid or heterogeneous character‖ (Fairclough

1998:150). He also points out that ―political interviews typically mix their genres and


43

their discourses. In complex ways, politicians characteristically shift into

conversational genre, and draw upon lifeworld discourses, in finding ways to address

mass audiences who are listening or watching in mainly domestic environments‖

(Fairclough 1998:151). This generic hybridity results in ―conversationalization‖

(Clayman and Heritage 2002:339) of political discourse, or of the mass media in

general.

The term ―conversationalization‖ suggests that lexical means which occur

typically in informal discourse penetrate into institutional discourse and influence it.

As a result, this institutional discourse becomes more informal. ―The interaction no

longer takes place between roles or statuses [...] but because of sharply divided

conversation control and the reduction of asymmetries, it becomes more informal

and democratic. According to Fairclough, ‗conversationalization‘ is the discursive

component of social and cultural change‖ (Titscher et al. 2000:154).

However, when describing these new tendencies in the development of

institutional discourse, Fairclough sounds rather critical. He sees

conversationalization as an ―apparent democratisation of discourse which

involves the reduction of overt markers of power asymmetry between people of

unequal institutional power‖ (1995:79, my emphasis). Democratisation of discourse

is connected with ―synthetic personalisation‖, which Fairclough describes as the

―simulation of private, face-to-face, person-to-person discourse in public mass-

audience discourse - print, radio, television‖ (1995:80).

By contrast, Scannell considers changes related to broadcasting as something

positive and inevitable, which goes hand in hand with the development of

broadcasting itself and which contributes positively to its communicative character.

―The liveness of radio and television indicates in all its ways the phenomenal now of

being in the world. It is this that shows in all its practices. Through its being-there

(its da-sein), broadcasting creates new ways of being in the world – of being in two

places at once, two times at once‖ (1998:264).

Conversationalization relates to the fact that media discourse and the manner

of broadcasting have gradually conformed to the norms of ordinary, informal

conversation because the voices of radio and television are heard in the context of


44

household activities, where the communicative style of interaction between people

prevails (Scannel 1991).

3.6 Conclusion

To conclude, political discourse consists of many genres, one of them being

political interview. Political interview may be regarded as a specific genre because it

structures reality in a specific way, i.e. it takes place in an institutional setting, there is

an interviewer, who directs the interview and asks the questions, and an interviewee,

who is a politician and answers the questions of the interviewer. Since the politician

is aware of his/her responsibility and status, his answers are sometimes evasive and

vague. The reason for this is that s/he does not want to be accused of lying. The role

of the interviewer is very important at this point because a good journalist should

insist on the politician answering the questions and s/he should know how to force

the politician to do so. At this moment, it is also more interesting for the viewers.

When analysing political interviews, it is important to apply pragmatic

approach, which is also adopted in this thesis. Linguistic means employed by

politicians have various pragmatic functions. These functions may be interpreted

properly only when the context in which the utterances were expressed is taken into

account.

After defining the genre of political interview and characterising its typical

features, we can now proceed to the explanation of the concept of illocutionary force

and its components, and the speech act theory.

Illocutionary Force and Speech Act Theory

45

4 Illocutionary Force and Speech Act Theory

4.1 Introduction

As already anticipated above, there are certain linguistic devices that may

accentuate or attenuate the illocutionary force of the particular speech acts. This

accentuation (or boosting) and attenuation (or hedging) are designated as

―modification― of the illocutionary force. This modification contributes to a higher

degree of the speaker‘s involvement in interaction. First, a brief introduction to the

concept of illocutionary force and its components (Section 4.2) and the theory of

speech acts (Section 4.3) will be given. Then, various means of accentuation and

attenuation of the illocutionary force will be described.

4.2 Illocutionary Force

Illocutionary force and its modification has been described in various

studies, some of which have also been focused on the theory of speech acts (cf.

Vanderveken 1985; Searle and Vanderveken 1985; Huddleston and Pullum 2002;

Holmes 1984; Levinson 1983; Mey 2001; Urbanová 2003).

Vanderveken states that ―in uttering sentences within a conversation or

dialogue, speakers perform speech acts of a type called illocutionary acts‖ (1985:181).

In Searle‘s and Vanderveken‘s recent accounts of speech act theory, illocutionary

acts have been defined as ―minimal units of human communication. Some examples

of these are statements, questions, commands, promises, and apologies. Whenever a

speaker utters a sentence in an appropriate context with certain intentions, he

performs one or more illocutionary acts.‖ (1985:1). An illocutionary act can be

analyzed in terms of its illocutionary force and its propositional content. As

Levinson states (1983:245), ―the illocutionary force and the propositional content of

utterances are detachable elements of meaning. Thus the following sentences, when

uttered felicitously, would all share the same propositional content, namely, the

proposition that the addressee will go home:

a. I predict that you will go home.

b. Go home!


46

c. Are you going to go home?

d. I advise you to go home.

But they would normally be used with different illocutionary forces, i.e. perform

different speech acts‖ (Levinson 1983:245).

Before explaining the term ―propositional content‖, Cruse (2004) makes a

difference between the ―truth value‖ and ―truth conditions‖ of a sentence. If a

sentence has a truth value, it can be assessed as true or false. In case it does not have

a truth value, it ―cannot be evaluated as true or false‖ (2004:20). Truth conditions of

a sentence are conditions under which a sentence is true. Thus, Cruse explains the

propositional content as follows: ―Those aspects of the meaning of a sentence which

determine its truth conditions are collectively known as the propositional content of

the sentence‖ (2004:21). Two sentences with the same propositional content ―will

yield statements with the same truth values on all occasions of use‖ (2004:21). This

has been confirmed by Lyons who states that if (and only if) the sentences have ―the

same truth-conditions, we will say that they have the same propositional content‖

(1995:147). Nevertheless, Lyons tries to prove that the situation is not always so

clear-cut. He considers these examples:

a. John Smith is unmarried.

b. John Smith is not married.

c. John Smith is a bachelor.

It may seem that the truth-conditions of all these statements are identical but

statement c differs. C is problematic because, according to Lyons, ―not every

unmarried individual is a bachelor‖ (1995:147). He points out that it is usually

thought that ―John Smith‖ is a man but it may also be a women, a child, a yacht, ―or

indeed any entity whatsoever that is not only not married, but also not marriageable,

and can be appropriately referred to with the name ‗John Smith‘‖ (1995:147), and for

that reason, this entity will fulfil the truth-conditions of statement b but not of c.

Turning back to the illocutionary force, Huddleston and Pullum (2002)

observe that ―statement, directive, and question are very general categories of

illocutionary force, but there are in addition innumerable more specific illocutionary

categories. Some of these can be regarded as simply special cases of the more general

categories‖ (2002:858). They illustrate this with the sentence Bring the water to the boil,


47

which may be uttered as a command, a request, advice or an instruction. However,

all of these categories can be included in the category of directive, ―for they all count

as attempts to get you to do something‖ (2002:859).

As Searle and Vanderveken state, the realization of illocutionary forces in the

syntax of natural languages is very diverse, for example mood, punctuation, word

order, intonation, and stress. They term any linguistic component that indicates or

determines the illocutionary force an ―illocutionary force indicating device‖.

Word order and mood may be regarded as examples of this device (1985:2).

The illocutionary force has been defined in terms of seven interrelated

components in the illocutionary logic, the logical theory of illocutionary acts, whose

aim is to ―formalize the logical properties of illocutionary forces‖ (Searle and

Vanderveken 1985:1) (cf. Searle and Vanderveken 1985; Vanderveken 1985). These

components, as Searle and Vanderveken state, are sufficient to delimit the set of all

potential illocutionary forces and clarify the determination of conditions that are

necessary for successful performance of illocutionary acts.

The seven constituents that define the illocutionary force are the following:

a) illocutionary point

b) degree of strength of the illocutionary point

c) mode of achievement

d) propositional content conditions

e) preparatory conditions

f) sincerity conditions

g) degree of strength of the sincerity conditions

(Searle and Vanderveken 1985:12-20)

Ad a) illocutionary point

The illocutionary point is the point or purpose internal to each type of

illocutionary act. This means that the point of a statement is to convey the

speaker‘s belief about the truth of a proposition, or, the point of a promise is to

commit the speaker by a promise to do something, Searle and Vanderveken point

out. For a performance of a particular act to be successful, it must achieve its


48

purpose. In other words, in making a command, the speaker attempts to get the

other person to do something. In case this person fulfils the order, the performance

of this act was successful. However, Searle and Vanderveken state that ―in real life a

person may have all sorts of other purposes and aims; e.g. in making a promise, he

may want to reassure his hearer, keep the conversation going, or try to appear to be

clever, and none of these is part of the essence of promising. But when he makes a

promise he necessarily commits himself to doing something. Other aims are up to

him [...]‖ (1985:14). The illocutionary force has more elements, not only the

illocutionary point. It has ―further specifications and modifications of the

illocutionary point, but the basic component of illocutionary force is illocutionary

point‖ (1985:14).

Ad b) degree of strength of the illocutionary point

Searle and Vanderveken explain that although different illocutions may reach

the same illocutionary point, they may differ in their strength. For instance, if the

speaker requests somebody to do something, it has the same illocutionary point as

insisting that somebody do it, but with a different degree of strength - the first is

less strong than the latter (Searle and Vanderveken 1985:15).

Ad c) mode of achievement

There are some illocutionary acts that demand special conditions ―under

which their illocutionary point has to be achieved in the performance of the speech

act‖ (Searle and Vanderveken 1985:15). A speaker who is in a position of authority

and issues a command does more than a person who makes a request. The

illocutionary point of both utterances is the same but the command reaches the point

by using the authority of the speaker (Searle and Vanderveken 1985:15).

Ad d) propositional content conditions

Most illocutions ―impose certain conditions on what can be in the

propositional content‖ (1985:16). For instance, the speaker can only promise

something that is possible to accomplish and set in the future. S/he cannot make

promises to have achieved something in the past (Searle and Vanderveken 1985:16).


49

Ad e) preparatory conditions

These conditions are ―necessary for the successful and nondefective

performance of an illocutionary act [...]. In the performance of a speech act the

speaker presupposes the satisfaction of all the preparatory conditions‖ (Searle and

Vanderveken 1985:17, italics in original). For example, if a promise is successfully

made and thus its illocutionary point is achieved, it may be still defective because

what the speaker promised was not in the interest of the hearer. In other words, ―in

making a promise the speaker presupposes that he can do the promised act and that

it is in the hearer‘s interest to do it‖ (1985:17).

Ad f) sincerity conditions

Searle and Vanderveken state that many illocutionary acts with a

propositional content include the expression of a psychological state. For example,

when making a statement one expresses a belief, when issuing a command one

expresses a desire. When the propositional content of an illocution is the same as

that of the expressed psychological state, one can say that the speech act is sincere

(1985:18). Searle and Vanderveken explain that there are also insincere speech acts

―in which the speaker performs a speech act and thereby expresses a psychological

state even though he does not have that state‖ (1985:18).

Ad g) degree of strength of the sincerity conditions

As may be seen above, the same illocutionary point can have different

degrees of strength. The same psychological state can also be achieved with

different dimensions of strength. ―The speaker who makes a request expresses the

desire that the hearer do the act requested; but if he begs, beseeches, or implores, he

expresses a stronger desire than if he merely requests‖ (Searle and Vanderveken

1985:18, italics in original).

Before the actual description of the ways of modification of the illocutionary

force in political interviews, the theory of speech acts and its development will be

described in a more detailed way. It is significant since the speech act theory has

relevance to discourse analysis, as confirmed by Schiffrin (1994:49).

As regards the relationship between the illocutionary force and speech acts,

Thomas (1995) explains that initially, Austin used the term ―speech act‖ ―to refer to


50

an utterance and the total situation in which the utterance is issued‖ (Austin

1962:52). Today the term ―speech act‖ is used to mean the same as ―illocutionary

act‖ (Thomas 1995:51). The following subchapter will focus on the speech act theory

proposed by Austin and its further development by Searle.

4.3 Speech Act Theory

The term ―speech acts‖ is related to the theory which was originally

proposed by J. L. Austin within the framework of ordinary language philosophy.

Austin‘s course of lectures How to Do Things with Words (1962), which is ―widely

acknowledged as the first presentation of what has come to be called speech act

theory‖ (Schiffrin 1994:50), attacks the opinion that the key function of sentences is

to state facts. On the contrary, he claims that sentences such as: "I bet you six pence it

will rain tomorrow, I apologize, and I give my word are not used just to say things, i.e.

describe states of affairs, but rather actively to do things‖ (Levinson 1983:228,

emphasis added). That is why Austin called these utterances ―performatives‖: ―the

name [...] indicates that the issuing of the utterance is the performing of an action - it

is not normally thought of as just saying something‖ (Austin 1962:6-7). He also

contrasted performatives to ―statements, assertions and utterances like them, which

he called constatives‖ (Levinson 1983:229). As Levinson explains, Austin defined a

set of conditions which ―performatives must meet if they are to succeed‖ (1983:229).

They are called ―felicity conditions‖ (Austin 1962:14-15). If these conditions are

not met, which can happen under certain circumstances, performatives are

―infelicitous‖, or ―unhappy‖ then. Constatives, on the other hand, are ―declarative

statements whose truth or falsity can be judged‖ (Schiffrin 1994:50).

Searle and Vanderveken (1985) go further and distinguish these three

possibilities of successful or unsuccessful performance of speech acts: ―a speech act

may be unsuccessful, it may be successful but defective, and it may be successful and

nondefective‖ (1985:12). If a speech act is successful but defective, it means that a

speaker has made a statement but he has insufficient amount of evidence for it.

Despite the fact that there is lack of evidence, the speaker may succeed in making a

statement, nevertheless, it would be defective by reason of this deficient amount of

evidence. As Searle and Vanderveken observe, ideally, a speech act is both successful


51

and nondefective. Austin's differentiation between "felicitous" and "infelicitous"

speech acts does not reflect the ―successful but defective‖ distinction.

Levinson stresses, quite correctly, the unsystematic nature of Austin‘s work

(1983:231). Moreover, there are two important modifications during the course of

the book. At first, Austin takes the view that performatives are ―a special class of

sentences with peculiar syntactic and pragmatic properties‖ (1983:231), later, he

defines a general category of performative utterances involving ―explicit‖ and

―implicit‖ performatives (Austin 1962:67ff). Further, instead of using the dichotomy

performative/constative, Austin proposes ―a general theory of illocutionary acts of

which the various performatives and constatives are just special sub-class‖

(1983:231).

Thus, Austin defines three kinds of acts in which ―saying something is doing

something‖ (Levinson 1983:236): locutionary act, illocutionary act, and,

perlocutionary act. It is the second category, the illocutionary act, which is the most

important in Austin‘s investigation. It has later been termed the ―speech act‖ and

used in linguistics to ―refer to a theory which analyses the role of utterances in

relation to the behaviour of speaker and hearer in interpersonal communication‖

(Crystal 2003a:427).

Austin defined a locutionary act as ―uttering a certain sentence with a

certain sense and reference‖ (1962:109). Illocutionary acts are utterances with a

―certain (conventional) force‖, e.g. informing, ordering, warning, etc. And finally,

perlocutionary acts are performed: ―what we bring about or achieve by saying

something, such as convincing, persuading, deterring, [...]‖ (1962:109, emphasis

added).

Austin‘s work was systematized and further developed by J. R. Searle (1969),

an American philosopher, who, in relation to speech acts, claims that ―all linguistic

communication involves linguistic acts. The unit of linguistic communication is not,

as has generally been supposed, the symbol, word or sentence, [...] but rather the

production of the symbol or word or sentence in the performance of the speech

acts‖ (Searle 1969:16). Additionally, as Mey puts it, speech acts are produced in

―actual situations of language use, by people having something ‗in mind‘‖ and not in

the constructed examples of grammarians and philosophers (Mey 2001:93-94).


52

Further, what belongs among the typical features of speech acts is their intentionality

(Searle 1969:16).

Searle finds Austin‘s classification of speech acts inconsistent and incomplete,

and that is why he identifies (cf. Searle 1969, 1976) five basic categories of speech

acts:

representatives, which commit the speaker to the truth of the expressed

proposition (e.g. asserting, concluding)

directives, which are attempts by the speaker to get the addressee to do

something (e.g. requesting, questioning)

commissives, which commit the speaker to some future action (e.g. promising,

offering)

expressives, which express a psychological state (e.g. thanking, welcoming)

declarations, which effect immediate changes in the institutional state of affairs

and which tend to rely on elaborate extra-linguistic institutions (e.g.

excommunicating, firing from work)

(Levinson 1983:240)

Levinson observes that this classification is somewhat problematic because it

is not built ―in any systematic way on felicity conditions‖ and it cannot be taken as

―definitive or exhaustive‖ (1983:240).

Mey compares Austin‘s and Searle‘s theories of speech acts and states that

Searle‘s criticism of Austin is legitimate owing to the insufficiency of his classification

and the incompleteness of his theory. ―The categories that Austin establishes are not

mutually exclusive, as their criteria often overlap‖ (Mey 2001:124). He also mentions

a terminological confusion and insufficient distinction between the terms ―speech

act‖ and ―speech act verb‖. Last but not least, Austin‘s definitions of speech acts are

too broad. (2001:124). In spite of these problems, Austin‘s important discovery that

―language is an instrument of action, not just speaking, has not diminished in time‖

(Mey 2001:124).

As regards Searle‘s classification, Mey correctly points out that it resembles

Austin‘s typology. Like Austin, Searle distinguishes five categories of speech acts,

however, the reason why his classification is assessed higher is its orientation toward

the real world. ―Since all acts of speaking perform something in the world, they have


53

an illocutionary character; therefore, the interest of linguists and philosophers should

center on those illocutionary aspects of language use, rather than on the somewhat

dubious distinction between locutionary and illocutionary acts‖ (Mey 2001:125).

When comparing and indicating insufficiencies in Austin‘s and Searle‘s work, one

should not overlook the fact that both of them were philosophers and so certain

intentions in their language description may not always seem relevant for linguistic

purposes, as Mey rightly emphasises (2001:125).

An important topic which is further discussed by Searle is the multiple

functions of an utterance. He states that speakers usually express more functions

than only one in the same utterance (1976:23-24). ―We tell people how the things are,

we try to get them to do things, we commit ourselves to doing things, we express our

feelings and attitudes and we bring about changes through our utterances‖ (1976:23).

4.4 Conclusion

Chapter 4 gave an outline of the concept of the illocutionary force and its

components defined by Vanderveken and Searle (1985) and the speech act theory as

it was proposed by Austin (1962) and further developed by Searle (1969, 1976).

Mey‘s useful comparison (2001) of these two theories is made at the end of this

section. As already anticipated, the illocutionary force of particular speech acts may

be modified by various means. This modification of the illocutionary force is closely

connected with the degree of speaker‘s involvement in interaction, which is why a

substantial part of this thesis is devoted to the concept of involvement and its

expression in the genre of political interview. As already mentioned, the focus of the

present analysis is on the following means of modification of the illocutionary force:

boosting devices

hedging devices

lexical means of expressing modality

An explication of what ―boosting‖ and ―hedging‖ actually are will be offered

in Chapter 6. This description is accompanied by authentic examples from the

corpus. Before this theoretical explication, the corpus of political interviews will be

described in greater detail in Chapter 5. Further, Chapter 7 deals with a quantitative

and qualitative analysis of lexical devices that boost the illocutionary force in political


54

interviews. A similar type of analysis can be found in Chapter 8, where hedging

devices will be examined. Modality as a further means of modifying the illocutionary

force will be analyzed in Chapter 9.

As already mentioned, Chapter 5 will deal with the description of the material

under analysis since it is important for the discussion of practical research, which will

follow afterwards.

Corpus Description

55

5 Corpus Description

5.1 Introduction

As already mentioned, this thesis focuses on a pragma-semantic analysis of

linguistic means of speaker‘s involvement in a corpus of political interviews. In this

chapter, the material under investigation will be described in a more detailed way.

The subsections will focus on the extent of the corpus (5.2), sources of the analysed

material (5.3), politicians and their positions (5.4), topics discussed (5.5), and the

subject of the analysis (5.6).

5.2 Extent of the Corpus

The corpus consists of 40 political interviews with British and American

politicians, which were released between 2003 and 2008. 20 interviews were carried

out with male politicians, 20 interviews with female politicians. The extent of male

and female interviews is identical. To better illustrate the extent of the whole corpus,

all words and characters were counted. Their numbers are summarized in Table 1

below:

interviews 40

words 114,532

characters 644,006

Table 1: The Extent of the Corpus

5.3 Sources of the Data for the Analysis

The interviews were downloaded from the webpages of various American

and British TV and radio stations. As already stated, I worked only with the

transcripts of these interviews. Prosodic means and paralinguistic features are not the

subject of this research because it is a very wide topic, which could be investigated in

a different study. All transcripts were used as they were found on the Internet. For

this reason they may contain grammatical mistakes. It is difficult to say whether these

mistakes were made by editing the transcripts or whether they were made by the

speakers and the editor did not correct them.

Corpus Description

56

What follows is the list of all sources of the material under investigation:

CBS News (an American TV network)

PBS (an American TV network)

NPR (an American radio network)

BBC News (a British TV news channel)

CNN (an American TV network)

NBC (an American TV network)

ABC News (an American TV network)

Al Jazeera English (English version of the Arabic network)

MSNBC (an American cable news channel)

FOX News (an American news channel)

5.4 Politicians Appearing in the Corpus and their Positions

A total of 19 politicians were chosen for this analysis, 13 politicians are

British, six politicians are American. Since the subject of this research was not the

examination of differences between British and American politicians, the difference

in number of politicians does not play a significant role in this study. All names of

politicians including their functions they held when the interviews were carried out

are listed in the table below:

Name Political position

Tony Blair Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Hazel Blears Chair of the Labour Party, UK

George W. Bush President of the United States

David Cameron Leader of the Conservative Party, UK

Hillary Clinton US Senator for New York

Yvette Cooper Minister of State for Housing and Planning, UK

Alan Duncan Member of Parliament, Conservative Party politician, UK

Michael Gove Member of Parliament, Conservative Party politician, UK

Corpus Description

57

William Hague Member of Parliament, Shadow Foreign Secretary, UK

Harriet Harman Minister for Women and Equality, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, UK

Alan Johnson Secretary of State for Health, UK

Ruth Kelly Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, UK

Theresa May Shadow Leader of the House of Commons, UK

John McCain US Senator for Arizona

David Miliband Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, UK

Janet Napolitano Governor of Arizona

Sarah Palin Governor of Alaska

Condoleezza Rice US Secretary of State

Jacqui Smith Minister of State for Schools, UK

Table 2: Politicians and their Positions

5.5 Topics Discussed, Setting and Function of the Interviews

The format of each interview is the same, there are two participants: an

interviewer, who is a professional journalist, and an interviewee, who is a British or

an American politician, the audience may or may not be present. There is one

interview in the corpus in which the viewers are allowed to participate (App., pp. 3-

19, Tony Blair, 2003-02-06). As stated above, political interviews take place in

institutional settings, which means that all these interviews were conducted in a

TV or radio studio. The topics discussed largely depend on the political function of

the particular politician. They can be divided into these main areas:

current affairs and internal issues in the UK - elections (Cameron, Blair,

Harman, May, Blears), education (Smith, Gove), healthcare (Johnson), energy

industry (Duncan), economic issues, taxes (Cameron, Harman), housing

problems (Cooper), communities in the UK and integration problems (Kelly)

international politics – the Iraq War (Blair, Bush, Clinton, Rice, Miliband), the

Middle East (Blair, Bush, Clinton, Rice, Miliband, Hague), Saddam Hussein‘s

execution (Bush, Rice, Blair)

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presidential campaign and elections in the USA (Clinton, McCain, Palin,

Napolitano)

The topics discussed are also connected with the international position of

both countries, especially the role of the USA. Both countries are actively engaged in

the Middle East conflicts and in the Iraq War, which raises many problems, fears,

and uncertainty, and that is why these issues are debated so frequently.

From that it follows that the main function of these interviews is to

inform the public about the issues in question - about internal problems of the

country, the political situation before elections, about the attitude of the country to

international politics. The politicians present their arguments and apart from

informing the audience, they also attempt to gain more voters for their parties. This

aim to persuade and obtain voters is achieved by the use of various linguistic means

which show a high degree of speaker‘s involvement. These means are analysed in the

present thesis.

5.6 Subject of the Analysis

It should be emphasized that the subject of this analysis is only the

language of politicians, not that of interviewers. The reason for the decision to

investigate only the answers of politicians is that the utterances of interviewers show

a very low degree of involvement. One reason is that their questions are pre-

prepared and even though they have to react to the answers of the politicians

spontaneously, they use only a limited number of means showing involvement.

Another explanation is that their primary role is to lead the discussion and ask

challenging and tough questions which the audience wants to be answered. They do

not aim at asserting themselves in front of the listeners, and, unlike the politicians,

they do not want to influence the audience. If one still wanted to do an analysis of

linguistic means expressing involvement used by interviewers, it should be taken into

account that the functions of these means differ from those of politicians. As already

mentioned above, the reason is that interviewers play a different role in this type of

interaction.

The following examples were taken from three interviews. For a better

orientation, the utterances of interviewers are in italics. Linguistic means of speaker‘s

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involvement are highlighted both by interviewers and by politicians. As is apparent,

interviewers‘ parts show a very low degree of involvement:

Example 1

Frei: Your administration has given $15bn to treat Aids in Africa?

Mr Bush: Yeah.

Frei: Which is an unprecedented amount of money, and you want to double that amount yet again?

Mr Bush: Yeah.

Frei: This is a huge commitment. And, yet, the administration and you, personally, don't seem to be

getting a lot of credit for it.

Mr Bush: Yeah - you know, this is kind of tied to your first question about polls. Polls are

nothing more than just, like, a puff of air. What matters is results. And, ultimately, people

will be able to make, you know, an objective judgment of a president and his

administration and, in this case, a country's commitment. And so what I care really about

is the results of the programmes. I hope by now people have learned that I'm not one of

these guys that - really gives a darn about elite opinion. What I really care about is, are

we saving lives? And in this case, we are. As I mentioned in my speech that you kindly

listened to - when I first went to Sub-Saharan Africa, 50,000 were receiving antiretrovirals.

Today, 1.3 million. And that's a lot in a very quick period of time. But, there's so much

more suffering. And that's why I've called for a doubling of aid. The good news is, it's not

just America. As I mentioned in my speech, the G8 nations also are supporting this very

important initiative. And, you know, it's... like an effort of mercy.

Frei: But, it has made a huge difference, hasn't it? So...

Mr Bush: Yeah.

Frei: Why not take some credit for it?

Mr Bush: Because it's just not my nature, you know? You just gotta understand about me,

I'm more interested in seeing results and sharing the credit with the American people.

I mean, this is not a George Bush effort. I just happened to be the leader of a nation that's

willing to fund this kind of money. And so, I praised Congress in my speech. I praised

the American [people] in my speech. After all, they're the ones who funded the effort.

Frei: You were very tough in your speech about Darfur. And, yet again, you called what's happening

there genocide?

Mr Bush: Yeah.

Frei: Is enough being done by your administration to stop that?

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Mr Bush: I think we are. You know, I had to make a seminal decision. And that is

whether or not I would commit US troops into Darfur. And I was pretty well backed off

of it by - you know, a lot of folks - here in America that care deeply about the issue. And

so, once you make that decision, then you have to rely upon an international organisation

like the United Nations to provide the oomph - necessary manpower... You know, I read -

did call it (SOUND GLITCH) genocide, and I think we're the only nation that has done

so. Secondly, I did remind people that we're sanctioning leaders. That we have targeted

[Sudanese] companies and individuals, including a rebel leader, who have yet to be

constructive in the peace process. We [are] beginning to get a sense of these things as

they're affecting behaviour. We're trying to ask others, by the way, to do the same thing.

Some of who are reluctant; some who aren't. And then, finally, I pledged that we'll help

move troops in. And yeah, and as I also said, you might remind your listeners, that I'm

frustrated by the pace.

Frei: I'll get on to that in a minute. But, I mean, genocide is just a loaded - it's such an

important word. And you have committed troops - American troops around the world in other cases

throughout... Afghanistan. Why not in this case?

Mr Bush: Well, that's a good question. I mean, we're committing equipment, you know?

Training, help, movement. I think a lot of the folks who are concerned about America into

another Muslim country. Some of the relief groups here just didn't think the strategy

would be as effective as it was. I mean, actually, believe it or not, listen to people's

opinions. And chose to make this decision. It's a decision that I'm now living with. And

it's a decision that requires us to continue to rally the conscience of the world and get

people to focus on the issue. You know, you're right. I mean, we sent marines into

Liberia, for example, to help stabilise the country there. And Liberia's on my itinerary

where I'll meet with the first woman, you know, elected president in Africa - history. And -

but, I just made the decision I made.

(App., pp. 111-112, George W. Bush, 2008-02-14, ll. 25-86)

Example 2

BLITZER: Let's get on to some other issues. The president says this week he will veto legislation passed

by the House and Senate that would issue some timelines for a U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq, pull

funding for the troops in Iraq. What happens after the president vetoes? Is there a compromise in the works

that the White House and the Democrats and some Republicans in Congress can finesse?

RICE: Well, clearly the president is going to veto this because he does not want to set

timelines and timetables for a withdrawal of our forces, which would send the wrong

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message to the Iraqis, the wrong message to the neighborhood and the wrong

message to Iraq's enemies.

But the president has said that after that veto, he plans to have people down to the White

House to find a way to move forward together. We do need to move forward together.

And the benchmarks that are anticipated here, of course, benchmarks that the Iraqis

themselves have adopted, they are benchmarks that they need to meet.

We are telling them all of the time that their national reconciliation is moving too slowly,

needs to move more quickly. But the problem is that we shouldn't tie our own hands,

shouldn't tie the hands of General Petraeus, tie the hands of Ambassador Crocker in how

we use the tools that we have to get the right result in Iraq.

And that's what benchmarks tied to withdrawal or benchmarks tied to withholding

economic assistance would do.

BLITZER: Because there's a lot of concern right now that the Iraqis themselves aren't taking all of these

benchmarks, all of these requirements that seriously. Supposedly, they're about to go on vacation, the

Iraqi parliament, for two months, July and August, in the midst of their failure so far to disarm, disband

the militias, deal with the oil resources, the revenue from that, deal with some other critical issues that you

want them to deal with.

RICE: Well, certainly they need to keep working. And we've made that very clear to them.

I think that they will make some progress on the oil law. They have made a lot of progress

on it. They need to close that and finish it. They need to get the provincial elections set up.

And we're continuing to tell them that our patience isn't limitless, but neither is the

patience of the Iraqi people limitless on this issue -- these reconciliation issues. But again, it

doesn't help us to help them if our hands are tied in the way that we can use our own tools

to try to bring about the right effects.

BLITZER: You're heading off to Sharm el-Sheikh for a conference, a regional conference to deal with Iraq

this week in the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. The Iranians today announced their foreign minister will be

there as well, together with other regional leaders. Will you meet with the Iranian foreign minister when you

are at Sharm el-Sheikh?

RICE: I don't rule out that we'll encounter each other. But this isn't a U.S.-Iranian issue.

This isn't an opportunity to talk about U.S.-Iran issues. This is really an opportunity for all

of Iraq's neighbors to talk about how to stabilize Iraq.

And I look forward to this because everyone has said that they believe a stable Iraq is in

their interests. Not everyone is acting as if a stable Iraq is in their interests, and I think we

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want to talk about how we can all take actions and Iraq's neighbors can take actions to help

the Iraqis secure themselves.

(App., pp. 212-213, Condoleezza Rice, 2007-04-29, ll. 201-244)

Example 3

QUESTION: President Bush, the White House has said the president's going to announce the strategy

sometime before Christmas. Are you convinced the proper pieces are in place?

BLAIR: I'm convinced the elements are there, yes. And what I'm also convinced of

is that the tough challenge is doing it, making it happen. Identifying what needs to happen

is -- I don't say it's easy, but I think it is relatively straightforward. Getting it done requires

immense focus and attention.

QUESTION: President Bush also said that history will judge the United States and aim it harshly if

these choices aren't made. When his new secretary of defense was asked just the other day if going to Iraq

was the right decision, he said, "Only time will tell." Are you still convinced that the history is going to bear

out that decision?

BLAIR: I do believe that, but, you know, I don't make the judgment of history. Other

people will make that.

But I think that if Saddam was still running around with his sons, I think you'd just have

a different range of…

QUESTION: But that wasn't the choice in March of 2003, was it? The inspectors were there. He was

contained. He was in a box. Your own former ambassador said that you personally didn't use enough

leverage with President Bush to make sure that the right plans were in place for the post-war and perhaps to

extend the timeline, put off the invasion while the inspectors were there.

BLAIR: You know, I think the inspectors could have stayed there a very long time and it

wouldn't have made the difference.

Saddam was not going to…

QUESTION: Wouldn't it be better than what we have right now?

BLAIR: Well, you see, you can ask why is it that we have the problem now and we have

the problem now because people are giving us this problem. People are deliberately

creating a situation of destabilization in Iraq.

And my point, as I said, with President Bush, is why should people in Iraq be given

a choice between a brutal secular dictator and a sectarian government that is also

dictatorial? Why should they be given that choice? Why can't they have the choice of

deciding who their government is and participating in free elections?

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63

QUESTION: But if he could have been isolated with the inspectors there, if he could have been

surrounded by 250,000 troops, the entire world, he wouldn't have been able to hold on forever.

BLAIR: Yes, but you couldn't have kept -- we can go over this again and again, but,

I mean, you couldn't actually, frankly, have kept quarter of a million troops down there.

It's very long.

At some point, you had to come to a situation where he had a chance of heart or there

was a change of regime, and I think what is interesting is that actually removing

Saddam took two or three months.

(App., pp. 34-35, Tony Blair, 2006-12-10, ll. 170-208)

As one can see, the interviewers‘ parts are much shorter and the means of

involvement are very scarce compared to the number of these means used by

politicians. I have found out that the total number of boosting and hedging devices is

5,043 and out of this number, only 274 expressions were uttered by the interviewers,

which is an insignificant number compared to the extent of the corpus. Because of

this fact and because of the reasons mentioned above, I decided not to include

interviewers in the analysis.

5.7 Conclusion

This chapter provided a description of the corpus of political interviews in

this thesis. Its extent makes it possible to draw general conclusions about the

concepts investigated. In case of modality, however, it was difficult since one has to

take into account not only particular types of modality when making generalizations

but also the actual linguistic means conveying these types of modality (this issue will

be described in greater detail in Chapter 9). As regards the interpretation of

pragmatic functions of boosting and hedging devices, it is important to focus on the

context in which the message is conveyed since the meaning of these devices may

differ in different contexts (see Chapter 6).

The next chapter may be regarded as a general introduction to intensification

and attenuation of the illocutionary force before a comprehensive practical analysis is

carried out in the subsequent sections.

Boosting and Hedging

64

6 Boosting and Hedging

6.1 Introduction

As indicated above, this chapter will explain the basic distinction between

boosting and hedging. It has already been mentioned that the degree of speaker‘s

involvement relates to modifying the illocutionary force of speech acts. In this

connection Urbanová (2003) states that ―the interpretative character of meaning

[…] is reflected in the modification of the illocutionary force […]. Meaning in

conversation is dynamic in the sense that new shades of meaning constantly come

into existence through contextual clues and speaker-hearer interaction,

simultaneously reflecting idiosyncrasies and predilections on the part of the

speaker‖ (2003:66, emphasis added). The illocutionary force of utterances is modified

due to the incidence of two ―counteracting, yet co-existing tendencies influencing the

relative weight of the message, namely attenuation and accentuation‖ (Urbanová

2003:66, my emphasis).

6.2 Boosting

In her article on modification of the illocutionary force, Holmes (1984)

describes two communicative strategies for modifying the strength of the speech

acts: attenuation (sometimes called ―hedging‖, ―mitigation‖ or ―weakening‖) and

boosting (―accentuation‖, ―strengthening‖ or ―intensification‖). These two concepts

have been dealt with in various studies, among others e.g. by Brown and Levinson

(1987), Lakoff (1972), Fraser (1980), Coates (1987), and Urbanová (2003).

Boosting and hedging are regarded as complementary, not contrasting,

notions which, in opposition to Vanderveken‘s concept (described in Chapter 4.2),

are external modifiers of illocutionary force and not its constituents. The

differentiation between attenuation and intensification should be understood as

―illocutionary force gradation‖ (Urbanová 2003:67), thus, she continues, slight

meaning distinctions may arise and reflect various degrees of the speaker's

involvement to the proposition (2003:67). Holmes suggests reasons why a speaker

may want to modify the force of a speech act: ―firstly, to convey modal meaning or


65

the speaker‘s attitude to the content of the proposition, and, secondly, to express

affective meaning or the speaker‘s attitude to the addressee in the context of

utterance‖ (Holmes 1984:348, my emphasis).

In the present analysis, the means of strengthening the illocutionary force will

be termed ―boosters‖, however, there appear many more designations for them with

identical or almost identical meaning in the relevant literature, namely, ―intensifiers‖

(Quirk et al. 1985), ―up-graders‖ (House and Kasper 1981) ―accentuation markers‖

(Urbanová 2003), and ―strengtheners‖ (Brown and Levinson 1987). If the speaker

wants to persuade the listener about the validity of the proposition expressed, s/he

makes use of means which ―boost the illocutionary force of the speech act asserting

the proposition, expressing great certainty or conviction concerning its validity‖

(Holmes 1984:348).

The expression of affective meaning, another reason for modifying the

illocutionary force mentioned by Holmes (1984), includes the speaker‘s attitude to

the recipient. ―Modifying the illocutionary force of a speech act may serve to express

a variety of attitudes to the hearer, ranging from very positive to very negative

attitudes‖ (Holmes 1984:349). In other words, both hedging and boosting can be

used to modify positively and negatively affective speech acts from any of the

categories defined by Searle (such as directives, declaratives, commisives, etc., see

Chapter 4.3). Moreover, Holmes states that one possibility of analysing the affective

meaning of attenuation and boosting is to ―examine the contribution of these

strategies to the speaker-hearer relationship‖ (Holmes 1984:349). In this connection,

Holmes (1984:346-347) gives several examples which demonstrate a variety of

linguistic devices used to attenuate or boost the illocutionary force of a speech act:

Really you are amazingly pretty. - boosting of a positively affective speech act

My god you are such a fool. - boosting of a negatively affective speech act

You are kind of pretty in a way. - attenuating of a positively affective speech act

You are a bit of a fool you know. - attenuating of a negatively affective speech act

From that it follows that boosting of a positively affective speech act can

increase solidarity and the feeling of friendliness between the speaker and the

hearer. On the contrary, boosting the force of a negatively affective speech act

may decrease friendliness and increase social distance between the speaker and


66

the hearer. Similarly, attenuation of a positively affective speech act may

increase social distance and reduce the effects of a positive speech act. Finally,

attenuation of a negatively affective speech act, for example mitigation, can

contribute to the maintenance of the speaker-hearer relationship (Holmes

1995:77). Since political discourse is predominantly oriented towards conveying facts

and information, it means that it has a ―referential‖ function rather than ―affective‖

function (Holmes 1995:3), which is used to ―convey feelings and reflect social

relationships‖ (Holmes 1995:3). Although matter-of-factness is typical of political

interviews, a certain amount of affectiveness may also be found in this genre. It

manifests itself in the use of linguistic means contributing to the modification of the

illocutionary force, thus showing involvement. Politicians must show a positive

relationship to their viewers and be frank and unreserved, otherwise they may have

difficulties with persuading their voters.

The corpus contains a large number of devices which accentuate the force of

the proposition. They range from one expression to a part of a sentence, as shown in

Example 4 and Example 5:

Example 4

JON SOPEL: But here you are, sitting with us and we're delighted to have you here on the

Politics Show, talking about your campaign for the Deputy Leadership at the same time as

you're the Labour Party Chair. Now, you're going to be doing both simultaneously aren't

you.

HAZEL BLEARS: No, I said very clearly yesterday that my focus for the next couple of

months will be on winning those elections for Labour. I want to see Labour

representatives, particularly in local councils and in Scotland and in Wales because as I

said to you before, if you're not in power and you don't have the ability to do the things

the public wants us to carrying on doing, and that is absolutely what I will be getting on

with in the next couple of months.

(App., p. 69, Hazel Blears, 2007-02-25, ll. 175-183)

Example 5

JON SOPEL: You keep using the word bad practice, but it would be permissible to have

selection by interview.


67

JACQUI SMITH: No, let's be clear, the admissions system is governed by a code of

practice that we introduced with recourse to a statutory adjudicator who can rule

admissions practices out of order, and frequently does.

That's the current basis that we introduced, that's the basis on which we'll be going forward

but what's more important and in fact actually this isn't about competition between

schools, this is about what we are passionate about in the Labour Party and that is how we

can make sure that every child in every school is making the sort of progress that we want

to see them making.

That's why at the heart of White Paper is how we personalise education, how we get

parents engaged, how we build on the successes in our schools (overlaps) ...

(App., p. 252, Jacqui Smith, 2005-11-27, ll. 28-39)

Several boosters may be combined in one utterance in a sequence, as can be

seen in the first highlighted utterance of Tony Blair in Example 6. These linguistic

means function as boosters also because when used at the beginning of an utterance,

they anticipate and stress the information that will follow. There are more boosting

devices in this extract which are not highlighted now since they will be commented

on later.

Example 6

JON SOPEL: But isn't part of that is that because there's a frustration that you never seem

to criticise President Bush, you know, that you get the Iraq Study Group Report coming

out, which says that there ought to be a sort of gradual withdrawal of troops and there

ought to be an engagement of Syria and Iran, George Bush goes in seemingly the opposite

direction with this surge of additional troops, and it seems that Britain stands right by that.

TONY BLAIR: Yeah. But I think that - I mean look, first of all, when people say we

never disagree with the administration, climate change is a disagreement. Of course we do.

But we're fighting as allies in Iraq and in Afghanistan. I happen to support what we're

doing there.

And in relation to the Baker Hamilton Study Group, actually, if you look at it, what it's

saying is you have to build up the, the Iraqi capability and whether you increase the

numbers or troops or not, is actually left as an open question.

Now I think for President Bush, cos the situation for example in Basra is completely

different from the situation in Baghdad. I think the issue is for them, how do they make

sure that when they erm revitalise the Baghdad security plan this time it works.


68


Expressions sure and really written in bold in Example 7 below, function

pragmatically as boosting devices. This means, they are used to demonstrate the

degree of the speaker‘s commitment to the validity of a proposition. From the

semantic point of view, they are termed as devices expressing ―epistemic modality‖

(Lyons 1977:793). Modality as another characteristic feature signalling speaker's

involvement to the proposition will be discussed in Chapter 9.

Example 7

JON SOPEL: Made more difficult by all the people going in to the buy to let market in

Bristol. I mean one could even say the Prime Minister, buying flats in Bristol.

TONY BLAIR: I'm sure you can but in respect of those young couples, we need things

like shared equity schemes which we're introducing. We need to be releasing land quicker

for development but here's the other thing and this is the test for the future, we also need

I'm afraid, to build more houses in the south.

Now we say we have to do that, the Conservatives say they don't want any more built in

the south. In which case, her problems are going to get worse. But all I'm saying to you

really is this. When you come in 1997, you have certain groups of problems that you have

to deal with.

Ten years on, the problems have shifted, partly cos as a result of what's happened in the

ten years. So, for example, you know, if you go back and...

(App., p. 58, Tony Blair, 2007-04-15, ll. 281-292)

More examples of boosting devices together with the identification of their

pragmatic functions may be found in Chapter 7.

6.3 Hedging

As with boosting, hedging is another phenomenon frequently found in the

genre of political interview. It is also present in other discourse genres, which is why

it has attracted the attention of many scholars (Brown and Levinson 1987; Holmes

1984, 1990, 1995; Lakoff 1972; Quirk et al. 1985; Urbanová 2003). Linguistic items

which are used to weaken the strength of utterances are generally labelled ―hedges‖

(Holmes 1995; Brown and Levinson 1987; Lakoff 1972) and I will also use this


69

denotation in my work. Yet it is possible to find in literature other terms for these

devices, such as ―downtoners‖ (Quirk et al. 1985, Holmes 1984), ―softeners‖ (Crystal

and Davy 1975), ―weakeners‖ (Brown and Levinson 1987), ―attenuation markers‖

(Urbanová 2003), and ―down-graders‖ (House and Kasper 1981).

Hedging is a linguistic strategy employed by conversationalists to weaken

the illocutionary force of utterances, to reduce the intensity of utterances and also

their directness. It is utilized ―in situations which would otherwise lead to a loss of

face (either for the speaker or for the listener) and which would thus make

communication untenable mainly due to the infringing of the Politeness Principle‖

(Urbanová 2003:58).

Similar inferences are stated by Brown and Levinson who assert that

―ordinary communicative intentions are often potential threats to cooperative

interaction‖ (1987:145). Thus, if you ask someone to do something, you assume that

they are willing to do it, ―to promise to do something is to admit that one hasn‘t

already done it, to assume that the addressee wants it done and would prefer you to

do it - and so on [...]. Consequently, to hedge these assumptions [...] is a primary and

fundamental method of disarming routine interactional threats [...]. Conversational

principles are the source of strong background assumptions about cooperation,

informativeness, truthfulness, relevance, and clarity, which on many occasions need

to be softened for reasons of face‖ (Brown and Levinson 1987:146).

To weaken the force of their utterances, interlocutors make use of particular

linguistic means. As already mentioned, many of them are context-sensitive,

therefore the same linguistic item may be interpreted as a boosting device in one

context, whereas in another it hedges the illocutionary force of a speech act. Typical

examples of such device are phrases I think, I mean or you know, which require a

broader context in order to be determined as an intensifying or attenuating device.

Hedging devices function as softeners of the illocutionary force of utterances

and that is why they are associated with expressing negative politeness. ―Negative

politeness is redressive action addressed to the addressee‘s negative face: his want to

have his freedom of action unhindered and his attention unimpeded‖ (Brown and

Levinson 1987:129). Holmes (1995:11-14) states that negative politeness relates to

social distance and solidarity. Participants in a conversational exchange usually


70

express negative politeness to people who they want to keep at a distance, which

means that negative politeness stresses the social distance. By contrast, positive

politeness puts emphasis on what people share and so it diminishes the distance

between them. From this it follows that negative politeness strategies become

apparent in formal contexts, whereas positive politeness occurs in informal and

intimate situations (Holmes 1995:14).

It is widely accepted that politeness (either positive or negative) is a culture-

specific phenomenon (Brown and Levinson 1987; Holmes 1995; Urbanová 2003;

Leech 1983, etc.). In this connection, Urbanová (2003:60) mentions that there are

―negative politeness cultures‖ or ―standoffish cultures‖ which are ―reserved and

distant, an example of which is the British culture.‖

As Holmes (1984:348) explains, modal meaning of an utterance includes the

degree of certainty which the speaker expresses as to the validity of the proposition

of the utterance. The speaker may be hesitant about the validity of the information

included in the proposition. Thus, if s/he attenuates the force of this utterance, s/he

expresses uncertainty or irresponsibility for its validity. In Example 8, Duncan used

modal adverbs maybe and perhaps to show his uncertainty about the facts expressed

in his proposition, which means that, pragmatically, these linguistic means function

as hedges:

Example 8

JON SOPEL: Do you not think though, there were areas for concern and if so what are

they.

ALAN DUNCAN: I mean. It's early days - you know what we're trying to do is to broaden

the appeal of the, of the party, remove a lot of the negatives, try and appeal to people who

are women, younger and maybe up in the north and living in urban areas.

Now just taking Bromley, it wasn't perhaps the easiest and most fertile ground in which to

draw the best results from that kind of early strategic activity.

(App., p. 150, Alan Duncan, 2006-07-02, ll. 118-125)

Hedging devices are also used to show detachment from the proposition, as

may be seen in Example 9 below. Using the modal adverb probably, Bush expresses

his detachment because he does not want to be made responsible for his statement

about Hillary Clinton‘s assertion.


71

Example 9

SCHIEFFER: Well, let me ask you: If they continue to insist that they're going to do it in

their country, Senator Clinton, for example, who seems closer to your policy on Iraq than

to some in her own party, is already saying sanctions now. Do you think sanctions would

work against Iran?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, first of all, we have already sanctioned Iran. The United States

Government has got sanctions in place on Iran. I think probably what she is referring to is

whether or not we should refer Iran to the United Nations Security Council. I have said

that is certainly a very--a real possibility, and that once we are in the Security Council, of

course, that's one of the options, but we are going to work with our friends and allies to

make sure that when we get in the Security Council, we will have an effective response.

(App., p. 71, George W. Bush, 2006-01-27, ll. 67-78)

In the following example, Bush uses the hedging phrase I’m not exactly sure. Its

function is to express content-oriented uncertainty:

Example 10

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.


In this context, it is also possible to interpret the hedging phrase, used in

Example 10 above, the other way round. Bush actually says that he wants to be very

precise but he cannot because the interviewer does not give an exact definition of an

―act of war‖. Bush‘s reply reveals that the interviewer is uncertain and Bush wants to

show responsibility in this way. From this it follows that the context is crucial

when interpreting functions of particular utterances. This finding has been


72

stressed by the scholars of the Prague School. Mathesius states that every utterance

carries its own meaning in a particular context and reflects the attitude of the speaker

to reality. The meaning conveyed in an utterence is, in most cases, oriented to the

hearer (1982 [1942]:93).

Firbas (1992) considers the ―contextual factor‖ as the strongest of the three

factors of functional sentence perspective (the other two factors are the ―linear

modification factor‖ and the ―semantic factor‖). He introduces the ―immediately

relevant context‖, which is further divided into ―verbal‖ and ―situational‖. The

immediately relevant context is defined as a very narrow part of context that ―is

embedded in a sphere formed by the entire preceeding verbal context and the entire

situational and experiential context accompanying it. In its turn, this sphere is

embedded within a still larger one constituted by all the knowledge and experience

shared by the interlocutors, which then forms part of the general context of human

knowledge and experience‖ (Firbas 1992:22-23).

The above-mentioned utterance I’m not exactly sure may therefore be

interpreted in two ways: either as content-oriented uncertainty or as the speaker‘s

responsibility for the claim. For this reason, Holmes‘s observations may be more

specified by the following conclusion, which is drawn from my research: When

analysing pragmatic functions of various linguistic means, it is necessary to take into

account the context in which the utterance is pronounced. Linguistic devices which

seemingly serve as boosting devices may act as hedging devices in different contexts

and vice versa, and for that reason, their pragmatic function changes as well.

In Example 11 below, Tony Blair justifies sending British forces to Iraq and

Afghanistan. The interviewer asks about an accident, which is not further specified in

the interview, that happened in Iraq. The utterance in bold, in which hedging (almost)

and boosting (certainly) devices are combined, may be interpreted as content-oriented

uncertainty - he may not know if it was an accident or not. Or, it may be interpreted

as an assurance that it was an accident but Blair does not want to commit himself to

it.

Example 11

JON SOPEL: And just what can you tell us about this incident today?

TONY BLAIR: I mean I can tell you no more than has just been on the news really.


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JON SOPEL: But what do we know about what's happened?

TONY BLAIR: Well, we simply know, as the Ministry of Defence has said, that we believe

it's almost certainly an accident, that it happened north of Baghdad as has just been

described.

JON SOPEL: And what about what you're hearing from the Conservative leader, David

Cameron, that there ought to be a board of inquiry in to all the events sounding - the

taking of the sailors in Iran.

TONY BLAIR: Well there will be an inquiry, the Navy always do conduct an inquiry if

their people are taken captive in that way and I'm sure as the Navy has already said, that

they will look in to it very carefully, see what lessons can be learnt. Let's not forget the

essential thing, is that fifteen of our personnel were taken capture and they were returned

safe and unharmed and let me emphasise to you there was no deal made, there was no

trade, there was no offer from us.

(App., p. 59-60, Tony Blair, 2007-04-15, ll. 338-354)

The next example is similar. Condoleezza Rice speaks about problems in the

Balkans and about her hope of solving them. I certainly hope is an assurance to the

viewers that it will really be solved. It may also be interpreted as content-oriented

uncertainty since she is not sure about the chances of solving the problem but she

does not want to admit it. Another interpretation could be that Rice wants to show

responsibility and regard for the viewers - she does not want to distress them.

Example 12

QUESTION: This is perhaps a side issue, but from what I‘ve been reading, it could

threaten to be a very big issue: Macedonia and Greece.

SECRETARY RICE: Yes.

QUESTION: Yes.

SECRETARY RICE: We have a number of people working with Matt Nimetz to try to

solve this issue. I certainly hope it gets solved, because I think it would be a pity if

something that has to do with antiquity were to get in the way of what I think is a very

important step for Macedonia and important to NATO. I think that the entry of Albania

and Croatia and Macedonia into NATO would be a stabilizing factor in the Balkans at

a time that that is needed. I think that Macedonia and Albania and Croatia have proven

their worth in being associated with a number of important security initiatives. And


74

I would very much hate to see this get in the way, and so I‘m hoping that both sides will be

flexible and accept Ambassador Nimetz‘s proposal when he makes it.

(App., pp. 246, Condoleezza Rice, 2008-03-27, ll. 474-487)

More examples of hedges and their pragmatic functions may be found in

Chapter 8, which discusses attenuation of the illocutionary force in greater detail.

6.4 Conclusion

This chapter described the distinction between boosting and hedging devices

in general. Several examples of boosting and hedging devices were added to illustrate

the relevant categories. At this point of the discussion, an important conclusion can

be made: the present analysis shows very clearly that linguistic means cannot

be separated from the context in which they occur. Their pragmatic function

can be specified only with respect to the context, not in isolation. That is why

some linguistic devices may be treated as boosters in one context, and the

same means may function as hedges in another.

Intensification of the Illocutionary Force

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7 Intensification of the Illocutionary Force

7.1 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).

7.2 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.

7.2.1 Quirk 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)


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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.


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7.2.2 Classification 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):


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Example 13

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.


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 14

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


79

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.


7.2.2.1 Hearer-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 15

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)


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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 16

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.


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 17

[...]

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


81

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 18

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)


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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.

7.2.2.2 Speaker-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:

a) assurances

b) agreement/understanding-showing boosters

c) attitudinal boosters

ci) attitudinal boosters expressing the degree of certain quality

cii) 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 19

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.


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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.


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 20

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 21

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?


84

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 -


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 22

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.


85


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 23

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:


86

Example 24

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.


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 25

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


87

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 26

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.



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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 27

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


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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 28

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 29

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


90

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.


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 30

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.


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7.2.2.3 Discourse-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 31

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.


92


In the next example, Harriet Harman uses a syntactic construction in the

initial position to emphasize the following part of the utterance:

Example 32

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 33

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 40th 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?


93

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.


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


94

following section will examine the frequency of hearer-oriented, speaker-oriented

and discourse-organizing boosters in the corpus.

7.3 Frequency of Boosters in the Corpus of Political Interviews

As mentioned in Chapter 5.2, boosters as intensifying devices were analysed

in the corpus of 40 political interviews conducted with British and American

politicians, out of this number 20 interviews were done with male politicians and 20

interviews were carried out with female politicians.

The total number of boosters used by politicians is 3,449, as demonstrated

in Table 3. This means that boosters significantly outnumber hedges, with only 1,320

occurrences in the corpus. (The frequency of hedges and their functions will be

described in detail in Chapter 8.) As already stated in Section 5.6, interviewers were

not included in the analysis since the number of boosting and hedging devices as

linguistic means of showing speaker‘s involvement is only about 4%, which is a very

low proportion when considering the extent of the whole corpus.

Male politicians Female politicians Total

1,872 1,577 3,449

Table 3: Frequency of Boosters

Focusing on the difference between males and females, male politicians

used 1,872 boosters and female politicians made use of 1,577 boosters.

According to this result, these devices as means of strengthening the illocutionary

force of speech acts and showing speaker‘s involvement are utilized by both sexes in

almost the same extent since the size of male and female interviews is identical.

In the following sections, the frequency of boosters classified by their

contribution to discourse meaning and occurrence of the most frequent boosters in

the corpus will be discussed.


95

7.3.1 Frequency of Boosters Classified by their Contribution to Discourse Meaning

A closer analysis of particular classes of boosters reveals that the most

frequent type used in the interviews analysed is the group of speaker-oriented

boosters. They are followed by discourse-organizing boosters, and finally, the

least frequent group of boosters according to their contribution to discourse

meaning are hearer-oriented boosters. The exact numbers can be found in Table 4

and Figure 1 below.

Booster Male politicians Female politicians Total

speaker-oriented 1,017 951 1,968

discourse-organizing 613 465 1,078

hearer-oriented 242 161 403

Total 1,872 1,577 3,449

Table 4: Boosters Classified by their Contribution to Discourse Meaning

Figure 1: Boosters Classified by their Contribution to Discourse Meaning

These results indicate that politicians want to affect opinions and attitudes

of the audience by attempting to show positive attitudes to the listeners,

subjectivity of the opinion, understanding, and agreement. They aim at

persuading the audience that they are the right persons for the function they

exercise. Expressions such as I think, I mean, I know, and I’m sure indicate a high


96

degree of involvement of the speaker in the interactional process. Moreover, the

speakers show that they know what is important and that is why they emphasize this

issue and thus may strengthen their position in front of the audience. The number of

both discourse-organizing and hearer-oriented boosters is considerably lower than

the group of speaker-oriented boosters. It can be explained by the fact that

politicians concentrate predominantly on strengthening their position in front of

their audience.

7.3.2 Occurrence of the Most Frequent Boosters

In this section, five boosters with the highest frequency in the corpus will be

discussed, regardless of their contribution to discourse meaning. The frequency of

other boosters is considerably lower, and that is why they were not included in the

discussion. The occurrence of the most frequent boosters is summarized in Table 5

below.

Booster Male politicians Female

politicians Total

I think 259 318 577

very 111 163 274

you know 131 105 236

really 76 106 182

I mean 108 26 134

Table 5: Five Most Frequent Boosters in the Corpus

As is obvious from the results, the first position is occupied by the speaker-

oriented booster I think by both sexes. The present analysis reveals (see Chapter 6)

that I think may function either as a booster or as a hedge in different utterances,

depending on the context. Holmes confirms this observation: ―The function of I

think as a booster has rarely been discussed, yet there are instances where, from the

point of view of a pragmatic analysis, it cannot be interpreted in any other way.

Though, semantically, forms such as I think are regarded as weakening the

propositions they modify, it is clear that in context they may function quite differently‖

(Holmes 1995:93).


97

It is important to take into account not only its function in context but also

the discourse genre. Chafe (1986) and Aijmer (1997) consider I think a typical

feature of informal conversation, while Jucker (1986) considers it a characteristic of

political discourse but no agreement concerning this issue has been reached so far.

Simon-Vandenbergen‘s study has revealed that the frequent occurrence of I think in

casual conversations and in political interviews ―has to do with the nature of the

discourse, in which participants are primarily engaged in the expression of opinions‖

(2000:46).

Lexical items very and you know also belong to the most frequent boosters in

the corpus, although their frequency of occurrence is much lower compared to that

of I think. The intensifying adverb very used as a speaker-oriented booster takes up

the second position in my data as regards the frequency of distribution. It is an

attitudinal booster with the function of ―expressing the degree of a certain quality [...]

reinforcing the positive or negative quality, thus reflecting the attitude of the speaker

towards the message‖ (Urbanová 2003:69).

As with I think, you know may also function as a booster or a hedge,

depending on the context. ―Its primary function may be to signal that the speaker

attributes understanding to the listener, it may appeal to the listener‘s sympathy, or it

may function as a booster to emphasize the mutual knowledge of the participants.

[...] Alternatively, you know may be more referentially oriented: it may function

primarily as a lexical hedge to signal linguistic imprecision or mark a qualification, or

it may express uncertainty about the propositional content of an utterance‖ (Holmes

1995:87-88).

Although you know has been described as a lexical item appearing to a great

extent in informal interaction rather than in formal contexts (Holmes 1995), my data

have revealed that it is very frequent in the genre of political interview, which

belongs to the public variety of spoken language. The reason is that you know is often

used to express mutuality and solidarity among speakers, which is important in

political interviews since politicians aim at influencing their audience. You know and

other hearer-oriented boosters contribute to a better orientation of the listeners in

interaction because these boosters lay emphasis on those parts of utterance which are

significant and relevant for the hearer. This interactional function of you know has


98

also been confirmed by Schiffrin (1987:295) because, according to her research, it

helps the hearer filter the story and choose the most important facts.

Really was produced 182 times in the whole corpus. It also belongs to the

group of expressions that, according to the context, may be used as a booster or a

hedge. This context-sensitivity has also been proved in this research in spite of the

fact that the use of this expression as a booster is considerably more frequent.

Finally, I mean appears 134 times in the corpus. As Table 5 shows, it belongs

to one of the most common intensifying devices used by male politicians (108

instances) whereas it is used only 26 times by female politicians in the whole corpus

of interviews. According to these results, female politicians seem to prefer I think to I

mean. Schiffrin (1987) mentions several discourse functions of I mean, in political

interviews it functions as a ―marker of salient information, i.e. as an indicator of

information which is highly relevant for interpretation of the speaker‘s overall

message‖ (Schiffrin 1987:309). Thus again, it serves as a means of emphasizing the

subjective nature of speaker‘s attitudes and his/her involvement.

7.3.2.1 Approaches to “Discourse Markers”

From the pragmatic point of view, I think, I mean and you know have been

labelled as ―discourse markers‖ (Schiffrin 1987; Blakemore 2004), ―pragmatic

particles‖ (Aijmer 1997, 2002; Holmes 1995), ―discourse signals‖ (Stenström

1989), and ―commentary pragmatic markers‖ (Fraser 1996). As Blakemore (2004)

explains, the term ―discourse marker‖ is used to ―refer to a syntactically

heterogeneous class of expressions which are distinguished by their function in

discourse and the kind of meaning they encode‖ (2004:221). Blakemore further

points out that it is not possible to give a conclusive list of all discourse markers in a

language because the research into these linguistic devices has not been completed

yet.

The term ―discourse‖ is proposed to emphasize the fact that ―these

expressions must be described at a level of discourse rather than a sentence, while

the term ―marker‖ is intended to reflect the fact that their meanings must be

analyzed in terms of what they indicate or mark rather than what they describe‖

(Blakemore 2004:221, emphasis added). What delimits discourse markers from other

discourse indicators is their ability to mark relationships between the distinct


99

parts of discourse. In other words, their function is to create connectivity in

discourse (Blakemore 2004:221-222).

Stenström‘s account of pragmatic markers attempts to examine different

levels of interactional process and make a connection between grammar and

discourse by determining when devices traditionally described in grammatical terms

have a primarily interactive function and vice versa. Stenström (1989:561-562)

suggests three types of pragmatic particles:

purely interactional - particles such as oh, mhm, yeah, etc. which do not function

as clause elements

mainly interactional - items whose primary function is that of pragmatic

devices but at the same time they may be used as clause elements in some

contexts (I see, I mean, you know, well, OK, etc.)

also interactional - diverse classes of adverbials which are used as interactional

or strategic devices (anyway, in fact, of course, maybe, really, certainly, etc.)

Stenström‘s classification as an interesting attempt to link grammar with

discourse, however, the categories she has proposed are too broad and vaguely

delimited to be used in my research. The boundary between ―mainly interactional‖

and ―also interactional‖ types of pragmatic particles is vague as it is difficult to

determine the reason why a particular particle was used - if it was a strategic device

or if it was a clause element without a specific discourse function.

Another approach to discourse markers has been proposed by Fraser (1990,

1996) who has determined four subclasses of pragmatic markers. Fraser (1996)

declares that sentence meaning may be divided into two separate parts. On the one

hand, there is the propositional content of the sentence, which ―represents a state

of the world which the speaker wishes to bring to the addressee‘s attention‖

(1996:167), on the other hand, there is the non-propositional part of the sentence,

which can be analyzed into pragmatic markers. These are defined by Fraser as the

―linguistically encoded clues which signal the speaker‘s potential communicative

intentions‖ (1996:168). Pragmatic markers may have the form of a single word, a

phrase, a clause or a particle.

Fraser‘s definition of a pragmatic marker is adequate for this research since it

implies that the speaker may have various communicative aims which s/he


100

demonstrates by the use of various linguistic means. Utilizing various pragmatic

markers, the speaker may show his/her degree of involvement in interaction. As

Fraser quite correctly emphasises, pragmatic markers are not restricted only to one-

word expressions, but also whole clauses may function as pragmatic markers. This

broader approach to pragmatic markers, which is missing from Stenström‘s

classification, is also taken in this thesis.

The four different subclasses of pragmatic markers defined by Fraser are as

follows:

basic markers indicate the force of the basic message (forms such as I regret or

admittedly belong to this group)

commentary markers ―provide a comment on the basic message‖ (1996:168)

(e.g. frankly, stupidly)

parallel markers ―signal an entire message separate from the basic and any

commentary messages‖ (1996:168) (e.g. damn)

discourse markers show the relationship of the basic message to the previous

part of discourse (e.g. but, so, incidentally, etc.)

Each of these four subclasses may be further divided into more specific

groups of markers (see Fraser 1996). These specific groups of markers do not have

any relevance for my research because they do not appear in political interviews

under investigation. These markers are restricted to different types of discourse, for

example, performative expressions occur in institutional types of discourse, message

idioms can be found in informal language, etc.

Blakemore (2004:223) correctly objects to this classification by pointing out

that it is based on the ―unexplained distinction between content or descriptive

meaning and meaning which is signaled or indicated: an expression which functions

as an indicator (or marker) or does so simply on the grounds that it does not

contribute to ‗content‘.‖ Further, she adds that a reference to Grice‘s conventional

implicature (1989) would be appropriate because it can be regarded as the first

attempt to define non-truth-conditional meaning more precisely.

After a description of the frequency of occurrence of boosters in the corpus,

pragmatic functions of boosters in the corpus will now be discussed in greater detail.


101

7.4 Pragmatic Functions of Boosters

As mentioned in the previous sections of this study, boosters may serve

various pragmatic functions in political interviews. In general, it can be stated that

these functions are connected with the genre of political interview as such. Thus, the

pragmatic functions of boosters in informal conversations may be different from

those in political interviews.

Urbanová (2003:72-73) distinguishes these functions of boosters:

empathizers/emphasizers

assurances

markers of agreement/understanding

markers of the degree of a certain quality

subjectivity of judgment and opinion

markers of topicalization

Seven functions of boosters were identified in the corpus, which are

summarized in Table 6 and Figure 2 below, together with the frequency of their

occurrence. As can be seen, the functions of assurance, agreement, subjectivity, and

the degree of a certain quality were taken over from Urbanová, while content-

oriented emphasis, hearer-oriented emphasis and intensification by repetition were

newly introduced.

Function Male Politicians Female Politicians Total

content-oriented emphasis

540 383 923

subjectivity 436 387 823

degree of quality 197 228 425

assurance 219 202 421

intensification by repetition

187 191 378

hearer-oriented emphasis

222 148 370

agreement 71 38 109

Table 6: Frequency of Boosters by Function


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Figure 2: Frequency of Boosters by Function

As indicated in Table 6 above, the most frequent function of boosters is

content-oriented emphasis with 923 occurrences, the second most frequent

function is subjectivity with 823 instances, and the third most frequent function is

expressing the degree of a certain quality which appears 425 times. Assurance is

almost as frequent as the degree of a certain quality (421 occurrences).

Intensification by repetition and hearer-oriented emphasis have nearly the same

frequency of occurrence, there is only an insignificant difference of 8 instances.

Agreement is with 109 appearances the least frequent function in the corpus.

In the following sections, a qualitative analysis of all functions of boosters in

the corpus will be given. Since the functions of boosters may be expressed by many

various means, it is not possible to give a complete list below, therefore, only several

expressions on the basis of their frequency were chosen. The list of all boosters

appearing in the corpus may be found on pages I-XIII. All boosters are emphasised

by double underline in the appendix of this thesis, with their categories and

abbreviations of functions written in brackets (the list of all abbreviations and

symbols used in the appendix can be found in the appendix of this thesis).

For example:

I think (BSO, Subj.) = I think is a speaker-oriented booster, its function is subjectivity

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

C.-o. emphasis

subjectivity degree of quality

assurance intens. by repetition

H.-o. emphasis

agreement

Male Politicians

Female Politicians


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7.4.1 Content-oriented Emphasis

Male Politicians Female Politicians Total

540 383 923

Table 7: Content-oriented Emphasis

The quantitative analysis of boosters reveals that their most frequent function

in the corpus is content-oriented emphasis. The highest frequency of occurrence of

this function may be interpreted as an effort of politicians to make specific parts

of their utterances more prominent than the others, which makes the message

more comprehensible and accessible to the listeners. When using enumerators

firstly, secondly, thirdly, the reply is more clearly structured and this arrangement tells the

listeners what to concentrate on.

Male politicians have used more means expressing this function than females.

It is also interesting that the most frequent function used by female politicians is not

content-oriented emphasis but subjectivity, even if the difference between these two

functions is very slight. From this it may be concluded that male politicians

concentrate more on the content of their messages than their female counterparts,

who prefer presentation of their own standpoints.

I have coined the term ―content-oriented emphasis‖ because linguistic means

used to express this function relate more to the content of the message rather than to

the participants of the interviews. It is expressed by dicourse-oriented boosters first of

all, first(ly), second(ly), third(ly), in other words, by the way, frankly, particularly, on the one hand

... on the other hand, the question is, the other thing is, what’s interesting is that, the answer is, the

problem is, to be frank, in part, after all, etc. Content-oriented emphasis is illustrated

below by several examples from the corpus.

Example 34

SCHIEFFER: Let's talk about energy independence. We remain, any way you cut it,

dependent on foreign oil. I know you want to open up the Arctic wildlife preserve for

drilling, but aren't we going to have to do more than that? And I just want to bring up one

thing. Tom Friedman, the columnist in the New York Times, had a column today, and he

said putting on a huge gas tax is the only way to really get Detroit's attention and get them


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to making other kinds of cars, and he said the only way to cause people to change their

ways. He says you have to change the culture. What's your reaction to that?

PRESIDENT BUSH: First of all, I'm against a huge gas tax. Secondly, I agree with Mr.

Friedman that we have got to become independent from foreign sources of oil. In other

words, we have got to wean ourselves off hydrocarbons, oil. And the best way, in my

judgment, to do it is to promote and actively advance new technologies so that we can

drive--have different driving habits. For example, there is--I'm a little hesitant because

I don't want to tell you what's in the State of the Union, let me put it to you that way.


In Example 34 above, George W. Bush wants to make his statements and

opinions more prominent, that is why he uses these enumerators to stress them.

When using these expressions, the speaker may order his thoughts better and also

provides better orientation for the listeners. The same applies to Example 35 below:

Example 35

MR. RUSSERT: Viewers can read the transcript from November 11 when I did talk to

Senator Obama about this. He also added that from his vantage point, the administration

had not made the case, but let people read it and make up their own minds.

I want to stay with your vote because that same day, Senator Levin offered an amendment,

the Levin amendment, and this is how the New York Times reported it. "The [Levin]

amendment called ... for the U.N. to pass a new resolution explicitly approving the use of

force against Iraq. It also required the president to return to Congress if his U.N. efforts

failed." ... Senator Levin said, "Allow Congress to vote only after exhausting all options

with the United States." You did not participate in that vote. You voted against Carl Levin,

who was saying give diplomacy a chance and yet you said no. You voted to authorize war.

The resolution you voted for, Robert Byrd said was a blank check for George Bush. Ted

Kennedy says it was a vote for war. James Carville and Paul Begala said anyone who says

that vote wasn't a vote for war is bunk.

SEN. CLINTON: Well, Tim, if I had a lot of paper in front of me, I could quote people

who say something very differently, so I know you're very good at this and I respect it, but

let's look at the context here. Number one, the Levin amendment, in my view, gave the

Security Council of the United Nations a veto over American presidential power. I don't

believe that is an appropriate policy for the United States, no matter who is our president.


105

Number two, I have the greatest respect for Senator Levin. He is my chairman on the

Senate Armed Services Committee. And I--immediately after we did have the vote on the

authorization, went to work with him to try to make sure that every piece of intelligence we

had was given to the U.N. inspectors. And Senator Levin and I sent a letter to Secretary

Powell, we pushed that position very hard because we both had the same view that we

were going to put inspectors back in and we needed to let the inspectors do the job that

they were asked to do.

Number three, I actually joined with Senator Byrd on an amendment that would limit the

president's authorization to one year. I was very strongly in favor of limiting what President

Bush could do. Unfortunately, that amendment did not pass.

Fourth, it is absolutely unfair to say that the vote as Chuck Hagel, who was one of the

architects of the resolution, has said, was a vote for war. It was a vote to use the threat of

force against Saddam Hussein, who never did anything without being made to do so.

(App., pp. 136-137, Hillary Clinton, 2008-01-13, ll. 384-416)

In Example 36, the speaker wants to gain distance from her statement and

does not want to be responsible for it, therefore, she uses an emphasizing phrase and

also the name of another politician. The adverb frankly is also a sign of detachment

from the proposition.

Example 36

JON SOPEL: Yes but at the moment you're not saying that the code for admissions

should be statutory. Will you introduce a statutory code of practice for admissions?

JACQUI SMITH: No, what we're saying very clearly, Ruth Kelly said it very clearly

is, that this, there is nothing in here that is about re-introducing selection by the back door,

the front door or any other door and frankly, that's a, that is a side issue.

I know that my colleagues are concerned about admissions, that's because they share my

passion to make sure that every child gets the chance to make progress, that we push all

schools to be as good as they can do and that's why we spell out in the White Paper how

we support you know ...

(App., pp. 252-253, Jacqui Smith, 2005-11-27, ll. 40-48)


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7.4.2 Subjectivity


436 387 823

Table 8: Subjectivity

Subjectivity is the second most frequent function of boosters in the

interviews. Concerning this function, the difference between male and female

politicians is not substantial. As already stated in the previous section, this function is

the most frequently used by female politicians. The high degree of subjectivity in the

analysed interviews shows that politicians concentrate on presenting their own

opinions and attitudes as correct and positive ones, they try to influence their

audience by emphasizing these views. They aim at sounding trustworthy and

honest in front of their audience and in this way they want to influence their

opinions. By employing these means, they also aim at justifying their position in

front of the audience.

Subjectivity of the speaker‘s opinion is expressed by the pragmatic particles I

think, I mean, I guess, I hope, I believe, and further by phrases in my view, in my opinion, my

point is, in my judgment, as far as I’m concerned, my attitude is, my view of this is. All these

means belong to the category of speaker-oriented boosters, whose complete list may

be found on pages IX-XIII.

Subjectivity may also be expressed by longer emphasizing phrases, as shown

in Example 37 (the phrase I believe that -- the thing I was most concerned about, frankly) and

in Example 38 (One of the things I think we need to do is) below. In both examples, there

are more boosters expressing subjectivity than the phrases mentioned so they are

also highlighted in bold.

Example 37

QUESTION: Well, I think the suggestion in the story is not that you‘re at fault, but maybe

the victim. I mean, do you feel that you‘re been a little bit victimized either on the price, or

do you have any concerns about security?

SECRETARY RICE: I believe that -- the thing I was most concerned about, frankly,

is the security side. And on that, the people who I rely on to make certain that the security


107

measures are taken tell me that they are comfortable with the security measures that we

take. In terms of price, you know, we‘ll just have to look into that. But I hope the GPO is

giving us the best deal that they can.


Example 38

Steve Richards

So how the heck can a government ensure such a target is reached? I mean, the private

sector decides how much so and so earns if they work in the private sector. How would

that target be met?

Harriet Harman

Well I think it has to be looked at by ministers across government. One of the things I

think we need to do is to have a legal requirement for a gender pay audit in the private

sector as well as the public sector. You can‘t tackle entrenched discrimination in pay if it‘s

hidden. The other thing is to look at how the public sector contributes to unequal pay. One

of the effects of contracting out catering and cleaning from the NHS and contracting out

homecare services from local authority social services, one of the effects has been to

actually see pay fall amongst mostly women workers. So I think we should take a look at

that. I think there‘s a lot we can do about it. The point about setting a target is you say

‗Right, this has been going on long enough. This matters. We care about it. We‘re going to

set a target and sort it out.‘

(App., p. 162, Harriet Harman, 2007-06-15, ll. 84-99)

In the following example, boosters in bold express the subjective attitude of

the speaker, which again is a sign of involvement. She tries to influence the listeners

and present her views as correct ones.

Example 39

MR. RUSSERT: Let me, let me ask you this way. Doris Kearns Goodwin, presidential

historian, I talked to her and she's been on MEET THE PRESS, talked about the qualities

in a president. And she said one of the most important is that you learn from mistakes.

Looking back on your vote in October of 2002, what can you learn from that mistake, the

way you'll make decisions in the future?

SEN. CLINTON: Well, I have said that obviously, I would never do again what George

Bush did with that vote. He misused and abused the authority that was given to him, in my


108

opinion. And we can't turn the clock back. I've taken responsibility for it. It was a sincere

vote at the time, based on my assessment of, number one, what the potential, you know,

risks might be if left unchecked, given the problems that we were facing in the world with

global terrorism, and the hope that we would get inspectors back in to figure out what had

been going on since '98. We hadn't had inspectors since '98. I, I would not have given

President Bush the authority if I knew he would deliberately misuse and abuse it. And as

I said, I was told by the White House personally that the point of the authority was to

send a very clear message to Saddam Hussein that he was going to have to be held

accountable finally, that we would know once and for all what he had there that could be

used as he had used it in the past.


In Example 40, there are a lot of means of subjectivity and again, not only

pragmatic particles I think, I mean or I hope but also emphasizing phrases. There are

more examples of I think, not only those in bold. Instances which are not highlighted

in bold are hedges, which will be dealt with later (see Chapter 8).

Example 40

JEREMY PAXMAN: Yes, an unreasonable veto, as you put it. But if that happened, would

you be prepared to go to war despite the fact that apparently the majority of people in this

country would not be with you?

TONY BLAIR: Well you can only go, obviously, with the support of parliament but

I think that if you do get to a situation where the inspectors say, look we can't do, you

know, Saddam's not cooperating with us, we can't do this through inspections and there

wasn't just the United States and Britain but other countries too were supporting us in that

view, so you had a majority of countries in the UN Security Council, I think that would be,

I think that would make a difference to people.

And I also think that as, as more emerges about the nature of this regime, as well, I think

people, at least I hope they can realise why it is not safe to allow a regime such as this the

freedom to develop these weapons.

I understand it is not an easy task because I think the very first point that Jeremy was

making to me is the point that is most difficult for people, what is, you know, why now

are we suddenly doing this?

And my answer to that is actually this does have a long history to it and I think the one

thing that has changed my thinking about these issues, in relation to the 11th of


109

September, is that, you know, I keep having this mental picture in my mind of August

2001 and coming along to people and saying there's this terrorist organisation in

Afghanistan, they are evil people who will try and mount major terrorist attacks on our

country, we've got to go into Afghanistan and deal with them.

I think people would have said to me, you know you must be crackers what on earth are

you on about. I mean people wouldn't have even have heard of who al-Qaeda was but

a month later it happened.


7.4.3 The Degree of a Certain Quality


197 228 425

Table 9: The Degree of a Certain Quality

The degree of a certain quality, the next function expressed by boosting

devices, is close to the function of assurance with respect to the frequency of

occurrence (assurance occurs 421 times). It appears 425 times in the whole corpus.

Its distribution is slightly higher in female speakers. Adverbs very, really, pretty,

completely, absolutely, extremely, fundamentally, incredibly, profoundly, strongly, fully, totally, and

perfectly are used to fulfil this function in the corpus. These boosters belong to the

category of speaker-oriented, which means that they foreground a positive or

negative quality of the following expression and in this way, they show the

attitude of the speaker to the proposition expressed. Several examples of this

function may be found below:

Example 41

KING: Why is he wrong?

MCCAIN: Well, conventional thinking, obviously, was that we faced a threat that -- of

weapons of mass destruction. The intelligence was wrong. But the majority of Americans

supported that decision.

It was very badly mishandled by Rumsfeld and others, and we paid a very heavy price for

that. I complained bitterly about that failed strategy and I fought for the strategy that is


110

now succeeding. And we've got a good general and we've got a good strategy and we are

succeeding..


In Example 41 above, the speaker uses very to emphasize negative qualities of

issues mentioned in the following parts of utterances. This use reflects his opposing

attitude to the Iraq War and foreign policy. By contrast, Example 42 demonstrates

highlighting a positive quality of the following adjective. David Miliband describes

and stresses positive qualities of Gordon Brown, ex-Prime Minister of the UK,

which he thinks is important for the listeners.

Example 42

JON SOPEL: Okay, let people draw their own conclusions about that. But another piece

of honest communications now. John Prescott says that Gordon Brown is "frustrating,

annoying, bewildering and prickly and could go off like a bloody volcano". Is that the

Gordon you know.

DAVID MILIBAND: No. I mean I don't do book reviews I'm afraid Jon, and so I haven't

read John Prescott's book. I work with Gordon Brown most days of the week. He's

someone who's absolutely passionate about the values that he believes in. He's clear about

the goals that we're pursuing and yes, as he said last week, he does get in to the detail but

that's important.

You need a Prime Minister who is able to have command of the detail, as well as the bigger

picture and so I don't recognize the portrait that John Prescott has set out and that's why

I think the government has to get on with the job, because what's fatal in politics, is if you

forget what you're actually meant to be doing, which is working on behalf of the people

who've elected you.

(App., pp. 193-194, David Miliband, 2008-05-11, ll. 142-154)

Hazel Blears uses speaker-oriented boosters really and pretty to accentuate

both positive and negative qualities of the adjectives to follow. A really good record

and pretty successful is an emphasis of positive qualities, really dangerous and a pretty

dim view is an emphasis of negative qualities. Again, the use of these boosters reflects

her attitude to the issues expressed.


111

Example 43

JON SOPEL: I don't want to get hung up on the titles, but there was a time when a

Labour person would have been thrilled to be described as Blairite, because it - you know

they were being associated with the winning team. I just wonder whether it is seen a bit

more maybe as a handicap now?

HAZEL BLEARS: Well I, I think it's really dangerous erm if we actually distance

ourselves from what we've been doing over the last ten years.

If you think about it, in America, Al Gore kind of tried to put a bit of distance between

himself and Clinton and what people did was they voted for George Bush. What I don't

want us to do is to distance ourselves from all the good things that we've done over the last

ten years, because I do think we've got a really good record.

Because my concern is that people then might, you know, see David Cameron and his

Tories, as a bit more interesting. If people think that we're saying, well, we didn't get it all

right, then I think they'll take a pretty dim view of us. I mean we, we haven't got

everything right, but I think overall the record on health, on education, on tackling crime,

all of that is pretty successful.


7.4.4 Assurance


219 202 421

Table 10: Assurance

Boosters expressing assurance appear in the corpus quite frequently but their

occurrence is about half that of content-oriented emphasis or subjectivity. As already

stated in Section 7.3.1, the frequency of occurrence is almost the same as that of the

degree of a certain quality. 421 instances of this function were produced in the whole

corpus. As shown in Table 10, male politicians used the function of assurance a little

more frequently than women.

Intensifying devices utilized by speakers to express assurance are these

expressions: I’m sure, it’s my honest belief, I am absolutely certain, I can assure you, really, of

course, obviously, absolutely, I (truly) believe, but one thing is for certain, I strongly believe, definitely,


112

and clearly. All expressions are speaker-oriented boosters because the speaker wants

to show certainty and confidence about his/her claims. As already stated, the

occurrence of this function is about half that of content-oriented emphasis or

subjectivity. My explanation is that politicians do not show much assurance because

they want to save face in front of their audience in case their claims later prove to

be untrue. They do not want to be accused of lying. Examples from the corpus to

exemplify this category follow.

In Example 44, George W. Bush assures the audience of cooperation with

allies of the USA in the Iraq War. He presents his personal views and certainty about

his assertions, and that is why speaker-oriented boosters certainly and of course are used.

Example 44

SCHIEFFER: Well, let me ask you: If they continue to insist that they're going to do it in

their country, Senator Clinton, for example, who seems closer to your policy on Iraq than

to some in her own party, is already saying sanctions now. Do you think sanctions would

work against Iran?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, first of all, we have already sanctioned Iran. The United States

Government has got sanctions in place on Iran. I think probably what she is referring to is

whether or not we should refer Iran to the United Nations Security Council. I have said

that is certainly a very--a real possibility, and that once we are in the Security Council, of

course, that's one of the options, but we are going to work with our friends and allies to

make sure that when we get in the Security Council, we will have an effective response.


Similarly in Example 45, Blair wants to persuade his viewers about his

confidence in the British Navy in Iraq. He wants to assure them that he knows that

the situation is difficult.

Example 45





their people are taken captive in that way and I'm sure as the Navy has already said,

that they will look in to it very carefully, see what lessons can be learnt. Let's not forget the


113




We got them back without any deal at all and we got them back safe and that was the

priority we had throughout. And it's obviously a very difficult time for the Navy, a very

traumatic time for the people concerned, but the important thing is that we did get them

back.


In the following extract, David Cameron assures the viewers of his attitude to

the family and marriage by using the phrase that’s what I believe which stresses his

certainty about this proposition:

Example 46

JON SOPEL: Okay, but your family policies ... this is poll-driven isn't it because you found

out that the people when they've started a family, tend to move away from the

Conservative Party. We've heard about all this polling data you've got and suddenly we get

a speech on the family.

DAVID CAMERON: No, not at all. If you look at what I said you know since running for

Leader of the Party, I put the family absolutely front and centre. In fact some of the things

I've said like Bac... are unpopular with some people, they say, oh you're going to put a lot

of people off. In the end, you've got to say what you believe. I happen to believe marriage

is really important and I think we should back it and if people don't agree with me, when

I'm sorry, that's my view.

That's what I believe. So this is not about polling ... it's about what I would bring to

politics, my vision of what a good society is and how we try and build it and in the end ...

I think in politics all you can do is put yourself forward, say what you believe. Tell people

what you're passionate about and then they'll make their minds up.

(App., p. 120, David Cameron, 2008-03-16, ll. 216-230)

7.4.5 Intensification by Repetition


187 191 378

Table 11: Intensification by Repetition


114

This function appears 378 times in the corpus. As with the previous function

of assurance, there is an insignificant difference in the occurrence of this function

between the male and female speakers. Repetition of linguistic forms contributes to

stronger emphasis of the claims made by the speaker. Discourse-oriented

boosters are the most frequent category of boosters having the function of

intensification by repetition, in concrete terms, they appear in 229 cases. This

function is also expressed by speaker-oriented boosters (132 times) and by hearer-

oriented boosters (17 occurrences). For a better illustration, these examples form the

corpus were chosen:

Example 47

BLITZER: Even as we speak right now, there are reports he might be released. He might

be declared insane, not capable of withstanding a trial. What's the latest information you

have from the government of Afghanistan?

RICE: Well, I've seen reports, Wolf, but I'm really working from largely press reports, too,

that they may dismiss the case for reasons having to do with the judicial nature of the case.

We have to understand -- and we do want a favorable resolution of this. Mr. Rahman

should not face these charges. There should be a resolution of this case. But this is also

a young democracy, and we have to recognize that, unlike the Taliban, it actually has

a constitution to which one can appeal about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

We as Americans know that in democracy, as it evolves, there are difficult issues about

state and church, or in this case, state and mosque. But there are difficult issues about

the rights of the individual.

And so we expect that, given our own history, that we would know that Afghans are going

to have to go through this evolution. But we're going to stand firm for the principle that

religious freedom and freedom of religious conscience need to be upheld, and we are

hoping for a favorable resolution in this case very soon.


In Example 48, discourse-oriented booster good for is repeated to emphasise

the problems with democracy, the stress is put on the content of the message.


115

Example 48

JON SOPEL: What happens if Prime Minister Cameron, two years in to office, finds that

the chocolate bars are still at the front of the supermarket at the check out. Will you

legislate then.

DAVID CAMERON: Well let's take a good example where you know, parents are very

worried by advertising on television to children. You know, what you should be doing as

a government is trying to get business to face up to its responsibilities and behave

responsibly and if that doesn't work then there is always the threat of regulation and

legislation at the end of it. But I think it's much stronger if you try to get business to accept

their responsibilities, which they're not doing. Take climate change... actually, you know,

Marks & Spencer... (interjection)

BOTH TOGETHER

DAVID CAMERON: ... it's a very short point. Marks & Spencer and Tesco and others are

doing more than the government is asking them to because they think it's actually good for

them and good for their business, good for their customers and the rest of it. So don't

think that business is just out to make money and doesn't care about its responsibilities, it

does. And we really are beginning to see that.


Repeating the speaker-oriented booster I think we will make gains, the speaker

emphasises his attitude towards the message, so the focus is predominantly on the

speaker, not on the content of the message as such:

Example 49

JON SOPEL: Okay, so you talked about that change then, give it ' you heard what we were

saying with John Sergeant a moment ago, how many gains are you going to make.

WILLIAM HAGUE: That's not a game I'm going to get in to of how many gains are we

going to make and it's a complex set of elections, as John Sergeant was quite rightly

pointing out. I think we will make gains and I think we'll make gains in many parts of

the North of England as well as in the South. In parts of the South of course, there are no

Labour seats left to gain, which further complicates interpreting the election results. But,

no I, we are optimistic about Thursday night, we're getting very good canvassing returns

and in particular, as I say, we're getting them here in many parts of the North of England

and I think that it will be a very important advance.

(App., p. 159, William Hague, 2008-04-27, ll. 49-59)


116

7.4.6 Hearer-oriented Emphasis


222 148 370

Table 12: Hearer-oriented Emphasis

The function which I termed ―hearer-oriented emphasis‖ belongs to the least

frequent functions in the corpus, although there is an insignificant difference of only

8 expressions when compared to intensification by repetition. It appears 370 times in

the corpus; male politicians used linguistic means that express this function more

frequently than females. It is represented by hearer-oriented boosters you know, you

see, look, listen, as you said, let me emphasise to you, let me repeat to you, and as you know. As

the designation of the function suggests, these forms direct attention to the hearer

and emphasise relevant parts of the message, which allows the hearer to

concentrate on the speaker‘s utterances. ―They can also question the validity of the

given utterance, asking indirectly for its confirmation‖ (Urbanová 2003:69).

Turning the attention to the hearer and stressing the important parts of the

message is demonstrated in Example 50 below. Theresa May uses hearer-oriented

booster look because she wants to emphasise her message and at the same time she

wants to have the attention of her listeners:

Example 50

JON SOPEL: You suggested to the Speaker that you shouldn't be there because you

shouldn't be deciding these issues yourself.

THERESA MAY: But look. The position is that the House of Commons has to decide

ultimately, what the procedure is going to be for deciding the allowance. I think it's right

that we look at this issue at the moment but that we take in outside expertise and certainly

as the Speaker has recently - he made an announcement to MPs about how this was

progressing, it will include for example talking to people on the committee on standards in

public life, understanding their views as to what parliament should be doing.

(App., p. 184, Theresa May, 2008-03-09, ll. 132-140)

In the following excerpt, Hillary Clinton asks indirectly for confirmation of

her utterance, using hearer-oriented booster as you well know, you know. She puts more


117

emphasis on her message because she is not certain about her listeners‘ knowledge.

You know occurring in the first utterance is not highlighted since it is a hedge with a

different function.

Example 51

MR. RUSSERT: If you don't think Senator Obama is ready to be president, then he

wouldn't be ready for vice president.

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.


In Example 52, when making use of the hearer-oriented phrase let me

emphasise to you, Tony Blair stresses his point very strongly and turns to the hearer

very explicitly. After this phrase, repetition of a part of the utterance follows (there was

no ...), which is another means of showing emphasis.

Example 52





their people are taken captive in that way and I'm sure as the Navy has already said, that

they will look in to it very carefully, see what lessons can be learnt. Let's not forget the




We got them back without any deal at all and we got them back safe and that was the

priority we had throughout. And it's obviously a very difficult time for the Navy, a very


118

traumatic time for the people concerned, but the important thing is that we did get them

back.


7.4.7 Agreement


71 38 109

Table 13: Agreement

The least frequent function in the corpus is agreement. It appears only 109

times in the whole corpus, with a low frequency of occurrence especially in female

politicians. It is indicated by the use of speaker-oriented boosters right, rightly,

absolutely, as you rightly say/imply, I (totally) agree (with you), exactly, it’s true, that’s right, yes,

and yeah. They are used more recurrently in informal conversation. The reason is that

in the genre of political interview, the interviewer usually asks challenging and

controversial questions which s/he assumes the interviewee may not like. The

politician will have to explain and vindicate his points of view, which may be

attractive for the audience. This challenging style of communication explains the rare

use of agreement in political interviews.

In Example 53, William Hague shows his agreement with the policy of

Gordon Brown and David Miliband concerning the situation in Zimbabwe. This

agreement is further stressed by the booster fully.

Example 53

JON SOPEL: To a much more serious subject if you don't mind me describing it in that

way. The situation in Zimbabwe. The government at the start, the British government seem

to have a rather softly softly approach, it then became slightly more belligerent. Do you

think that the British government has been sending mixed messages over the elections in

Zimbabwe.

WILLIAM HAGUE: They did have a softly softly approach to begin with but I fully

agree with what Gordon Brown and David Miliband have said over the last couple of

weeks. I think it's very important that Britain helps to focus international attention on the

outrages that are taking place now in Zimbabwe, so I don't want to get in to criticizing the


119

government on this. I think there are one or two additional things they could do that would

send an even clearer message.

For instance I think more can be done now to prepare for the day after Mugabe, to get

ready and to show the people of Zimbabwe that the world is ready to welcome them, to

help them when they are set on a path to democracy and to respecting the rights of all the

people of Zimbabwe. So I think we could do more on that side. But I don't think they're

sending mixed messages, I think they've been saying the right things over the last two

weeks.


In the following extract, Michael Gove reacts to the interviewer‘s question

specifying the date of raising the tax on fuel and confirms this by agreement:

Example 54

JON SOPEL: Okay. What about the 2p addition on fuel duty. Should the government go

ahead with that now, given the position of families.

MICHAEL GOVE: Well every tax question has to be looked at through the prism of the

fact that the government are re-writing their budget. It would be completely inappropriate

for us now to say that we are definitely going to do this or that in terms of tax.

(interjection) We're at the stage ...

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 ...


As with the extract above, in Example 55, Yvette Cooper confirms the

interviewer‘s assertion using the speaker-oriented booster that’s right:


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Example 55

JON SOPEL: But you've had a review on this, the Barker Review, that looked at what the

availability would be of brown field sites, came up with a figure of just under being able to

create a million new homes, your estimate is that you need three and a half million new

homes.

YVETTE COOPER: That's right. And the thing about brown field land is that it comes,

it becomes available all the time because you have you know, maybe a factory that closes or

maybe use that changes in a particular area, so brown field land does develop and change.

But ultimately, it is for local councils to decide what is the best location in their area, and

they have to look at all the areas you know, around the town, the town centre, in their

communities, because they'll know best where these homes should best be built to meet

their local needs.

(App., p. 144, Yvette Cooper, 2007-07-15, ll. 17-27)

7.5 Conclusion

It is evident from the research presented in this chapter that boosting devices

perform various pragmatic functions in the genre of political interview (see Figure 3

below). All these pragmatic functions contribute to a higher degree of speaker‟s

involvement of this discourse genre. With reference to the differences between male

and female speakers, as regards the functions of boosting devices in general, there are

no substantial distinctions, which is attributable to the fact that female politicians

have used fewer boosters overall than their male counterparts, so the absolute

numbers are lower.

Figure 3: Pragmatic Functions of Boosters

Pragmatic Functions of Boosters

C.-o. emphasis

subjectivity

degree of quality

assurance

intens. by repetition

H.-o. emphasis

agreement


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The most frequent function of boosters performed by females is subjectivity,

which means that female politicians focus on presenting their own values and

attitudes as true and in this way attempt to influence the audience. Female

politicians used more boosting devices which express the degree of a certain quality.

This result confirms the feature that has already been observed, namely, that women

have a more difficult position for asserting themselves in the field of politics,

thus, their language must show certainty and confidence for them to be perceived as

competent for the position of a politician. Since males do not have to justify their

position in front of the public to such a great extent as women do, they, in addition,

focus on foregrounding those parts of utterances which are significant for the

hearer. That is why the linguistic means whose function is to express hearer-oriented

emphasis appears more frequently by males. Males also pay a greater attention to

the content of the message, so the most frequent function occurring by male

politicians is content-oriented emphasis.

To sum up, the use of boosting devices in the genre of political interview is,

as is evident from the research, very common and recurrent, which contributes to a

higher degree of involvement. Therefore, it cannot be claimed that this type of

discourse belongs to low-involved genres. In addition, the choice of particular

devices depends to some extent on the speaker‘s decision and his/her personal

preferences.

As mentioned in the previous sections, accentuation is not the only linguistic

means used to modify the illocutionary force. Chapter 8 will describe another

concept, namely, attenuation of the illocutionary force.

Attenuation of the Illocutionary Force

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8 Attenuation of the Illocutionary Force

8.1 Introduction

As in the previous chapter dealing with boosting devices, this section will be

structured in a similar way. First, it will introduce classifications of hedging devices

(Subchapter 8.2), the next section will deal with the frequency of hedges in the

corpus (Section 8.3) and finally, in Section 8.4 quantitative and qualitative analyses of

pragmatic functions of hedges will be given.

8.2 Classifications of Hedges

As the present analysis shows, boosting and hedging devices belong to

important linguistic means reflecting speaker‘s involvement in interaction. Chapter 7

dealt with boosting devices, their classifications and pragmatic functions in the

corpus of political interviews. Just like boosters, hedges may be classified into

categories according to their contribution to discourse meaning. This classification of

both boosting and hedging devices is appropriate for the present research as it

reflects the attitude of the participants to the content of the message. For this reason

it was used in this thesis. This categorization will be described in Section 8.2.3. There

are other classifications of hedges, one suggested by Quirk et al. (1985), and another

proposed by Brown and Levinson (1987), which will be outlined in Sections 8.2.1

and 8.2.2.

8.2.1 Quirk et al.’s Classification of Hedges

Quirk at al. (1985) define downtoners as items which ―have a generally

lowering effect on the force of the verb or predication and many of them apply a

scale to gradable verbs‖ (1985:597). They belong to the group of intensifiers but as

Quirk at al. emphasize, this term does not relate only to devices which are used to

strengthen the illocutionary force. ―Rather, an intensifying subjunct indicates a point

on an abstractly conceived intensity scale; and the point indicated may be relatively

low or relatively high‖ (1985:589).


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Quirk at al. (1985: 597) suggest the following classification of downtoners:

approximators indicate ―an approximation to the force of the verb‖ and at the

same time they imply that ―the verb concerned expresses more than is relevant‖

(e.g. nearly, almost, practically)

compromisers decrease the force of the verb only moderately and similar to

approximators they indicate that the item related expresses more than it is

suitable (e.g. kind of, sort of, quite, rather, more or less)

diminishers ―scale downwards‖ and their rough meaning is ―to a small extent‖.

They are further divided into the ‗expression diminishers‘ which indicate ―only

part of the potential force of the item concerned‖ (e.g. partly, partially, slightly,

somewhat, to some extent, a bit, a little, etc.), and into ‗attitude diminishers‘ which

imply that ―the force of the item concerned is limited‖ (e.g. only, merely, just,

simply etc.) (1985:598)

minimizers are ―negative maximizers‖, meaning ‗(not) to any extent‘. There are

two groups of minimizers - negatives such as hardly, little, scarcely; and

nonassertives in the least, at all, a bit, etc.

This categorization proposed by Quirk et al. rests on semantic differences

among downtoners. All types of these hedging devices serve the function of reducing

the illocutionary force, however, approximators and compromisers combine this

function with questioning the appropriateness of the item concerned, diminishers

and minimizers grade the intensity of the related item (Quirk et al. 1985:597). This

classification is purely semantic, therefore, the classification of hedges according to

discourse meaning, which express the attitude of the speakers towards the message,

is preferred in this thesis.

8.2.2 Brown and Levinson’s Classification of Hedges

In this section, Brown and Levinson‘s classification of hedges will be

introduced. These scholars have proposed a categorization of hedges within the

framework of negative politeness. They introduce these basic groups of hedges:

a) hedges on illocutionary force

b) hedges addressed to Grice’s Maxims

bi) quality hedges

bii) quantity hedges

biii) relevance hedges


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biv) manner hedges

c) hedges addressed to politeness strategies

d) prosodic and kinesic hedges

(Brown and Levinson 1987:146ff.)

Ad a) hedges on illocutionary force

A significant subgroup of hedges on illocutionary force are performative

hedges because they are ―the most important linguistic means of satisfying the

speaker‘s want [...]. Such hedges may be analysed as adverbs on (often deleted)

performative verbs that represent the illocutionary force of the sentence‖ (1987:146).

In English, there are expressions, for example in fact, in a way, in a sense, it seems to me,

etc. with this function, which are called ‗adverbial-clause hedges‘ (1987:162). Hedges

on illocutionary force include also particles (really, certainly, sincerely, etc.) as means of

hedging the propositional content (Brown and Levinson 1987:147).

Ad b) hedges addressed to Grice’s Maxims

This category of hedges highlight the fact that ―the cooperative condition is

met, or serve notice that it may not have been met, or question whether it has been

met‖ (Brown and Levinson 1987:164). There are four types of hedges relating to

Grice‟s Maxims of the Cooperative Principle:

Ad bi) quality hedges

Quality hedges indicate that ―the speaker is not taking full responsibility for

the truth of his utterance‖, for example: I think, I assume, there is some evidence that, etc.

Alternatively, they emphasize the speaker‘s commitment to the truth of the

proposition: I absolutely promise/believe that..., or finally, they indicate the speaker‘s

irresponsibility to inform the hearer: as you know, as it is well known, etc. (1987:164-

165).

Ad bii) quantity hedges

Quantity hedges point out to the fact that the information provided by the

speaker will not be as accurate as expected. Thus, these expressions are used to signal

the imprecision: roughly, more or less, approximately, or so, to some extent, etc. (1987:166).


125

Ad biii) relevance hedges

Relevance hedges are associated with the topic change. As Brown and

Levinson put it, ―because of the sensitivity of topic changes as impositions on

hearer‘s face, such changes are often done off record‖ (1987:168-169). Attenuating

devices that indicate this change may be these: this may not be relevant/appropriate/timely,

but..., now is probably the time to say..., by the way..., anyway..., etc. (1987:169).

Ad biv) manner hedges

Manner hedges are used to ―redress all kinds of FTAs [face threatening acts] -

for example, insults‖ (1987:171). These include: ... if you see what I mean/I’m driving at,

in a nutshell, you see, to put it more simply, what I meant was..., etc.

Ad c) hedges addressed to politeness strategies

Brown and Levinson add that all these Maxim hedges, mentioned above, are

used very frequently in everyday interaction. In addition to these hedges, there is

another type of devices which ―function directly as notices of violations of face

wants‖ (1987:171). These hedges are called ―hedges addressed to politeness

strategies‖. Brown and Levinson give these examples of this category of hedges:

frankly, to be honest, honestly, I must say (1987:171-172).

Ad d) prosodic and kinesic hedges

This kind of hedging devices, the last type mentioned by Brown and

Levinson, accompanies verbal hedges in that they may emphasize them and so

indicate a higher degree of tentativeness. ―The raised eyebrow, the earnest frown, the

umms and ahhs and hesitations that indicate the speaker‘s attitude toward what he is

saying, are often the most salient clue to the presence of an FTA, even cross-

culturally‖ (1987:172).

Brown and Levinson‘s classification is relevant and useful and it is possible to

use it for an analysis dealing with negative politeness. However, this thesis focuses on

boosting and hedging devices from the point of view of their contribution to

discourse meaning. When applying the classification relating to discourse meaning,

speaker‘s attitude to the proposition is manifested better. In addition, the last

category in Brown and Levison‘s classification, prosodic and kinesic hedges, are


126

actually extralinguistic means whose investigation is beyond the scope of the present

analysis, as mentioned in Section 2.9.

8.2.3 Classification of Hedges by their Relationship to Discourse Meaning

As explained in the previous sections, the most relevant classification for this

thesis is the classification relating to discourse meaning. According to the

relationship to discourse meaning, hedges may be divided into groups which roughly

correspond to that of boosters. The following categorization has been proposed by

Holmes (1984:359ff.):

speaker-oriented

hearer-oriented

content or other-oriented hedges

In this analysis, speaker- and hearer-oriented categories of hedges are used in

the same way as they have been described by Holmes. The last category, content or

other-oriented hedges, was narrowed to ―content-oriented‖ hedges which attenuate

the force of the proposition as a whole. The reason is that other-oriented hedges as

Holmes defines them is a too broad category of various types of expressions, so

called ―deresponsibilizing devices‖, that focus on a ―semantic distinction between

appearance and reality as the basis of the attenuation‖ (Holmes 1984:361).

Expressions which she includes in this category are on the face of it, superficially,

ostensibly, nominally, theoretically, etc. These linguistic means do not appear in the corpus

at all that is why the focus is only on content-oriented hedges.

Since hedges and their functions may be expressed by various linguistic

means, it is not possible to list all of them in the chapters below. Therefore, only

several selected expressions are shown there; all hedges occurring in the corpus may

be found on pages XIV-XVI. All hedges are underlined in the appendix of this thesis

and their types and functions are abbreviated in brackets, for example:

you know (HHO, H.-o. uncert.) = you know is a hearer-oriented hedge, the function is

hearer-oriented uncertainty


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8.2.3.1 Speaker-oriented Hedges

This type of hedges includes linguistic devices that are used to express

speaker‟s doubts and uncertainty in relation to the validity of the particular

proposition (Holmes 1984:359). This category of hedges comprises verb phrases

having the form the first-person singular pronoun I + a verb of cognition - I suppose,

I guess, I would hope, I think, I don’t think, I mean, and I assume, and the adverb perhaps.

Hedges, as well as boosters, may be expressed not only by one- or two-word

expressions but also, and very often they are, expressed by a whole clause or a

sentence or a part of clause or sentence. This is shown in Examples 56 and 57:

Example 56

JON SOPEL: Well, let's talk about why this has all come about most recently and the rows

there have been over MPs pay and MPs allowances and particularly Derek Conway. We've

had Nick Clegg talking about getting rid of the MP as a Derek Conway clause. An MP is

able to claim four hundred pounds a month for food on their second home without any

receipts. Why.

THERESA MAY: Well that's - the system has grown up because frankly, on that particular

allowance, and I've said, I mean I believe that that allowance we should take that

housing allowance out - that's my personal view, take that housing allowance out.

I think we should ...


Example 57

JON SOPEL: Do you see any similarities between yourself and Barack Obama.

DAVID CAMERON: Not really no because I think American politics and British politics

are quite different. He's a Democrat, I'm a Conservative. I mean I suppose we're both

trying to, you know, kind of overturn the government and win. I enjoy watching him

and he's a great speaker.

But I'm also a big John McCain fan. I think the plain speaking of this man who just, you

know, he goes to Michigan and says look, I know we've lost a lot of jobs here but I've got

to tell you they're not coming back. You know, it's so frank and refreshing to see

somebody who really tells it how it is.



128

In the following extract, the participants discuss the US - French relationship.

Rice assures the listeners of a good relationship with this country but she is not

certain about the future development and admits a possible occurrence of problems

by hedging the last utterance by the use of perhaps:

Example 58

QUESTION: Tell me, the French have elected a new president. What impact might this

have on the bilateral relationship between the United States and France?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I've had an opportunity to meet Mr. Sarkozy on a couple of

occasions and he's a ball of energy, and I think he will -- obviously he's run on a platform

of reform and it'll be very interesting to see. But of course, we've had good relations with

France, and particularly on some issues like Lebanon and the Middle East, and I really do

really look forward now to intensifying those efforts because we need a strong and vibrant

France as a part of the transatlantic relationship that can help to deal with these very

difficult problems.

We've had our differences in the past with France, but really the relationship has been

going in the right direction for some time now and I expect that it's going to continue and

perhaps accelerate some.


8.2.3.2 Hearer-oriented Hedges

This group of hedges expresses uncertainty or hesitation relating to the

hearer. As the present research confirms, and as has already been mentioned in the

previous chapter dealing with boosters, one and the same expression may, in some

contexts, function as a booster or a hedge, respectively. This is also true about the

hearer-oriented hedge you know. Holmes (1990:189) correctly emphasizes that you

know is a ―complex and sophisticated pragmatic particle [...]. It may act as a turn-

yielding device, as a linguistic imprecision signal, as an appeal to the listener for

reassuring feedback, or as a signal that the speaker attributes understanding to the

listener.‖

Linguistic means appearing in the corpus that belong to the category of

hearer-oriented hedges are not as diverse as those of other categories. The reason is

that it is the least frequent category not only of hedging but also of boosting devices.

It is mostly expressed by the discourse marker you know in the corpus.


129

In Example 59, Hazel Blears expresses her uncertainty about the elections in

the UK and turns to the hearer by using you know:

Example 59





HAZEL BLEARS: Well I, I think it's really dangerous erm if we actually distance ourselves

from what we've been doing over the last ten years.





Because my concern is that people then might, you know, see David Cameron and his

Tories, as a bit more interesting. If people think that we're saying, well, we didn't get it all

right, then I think they'll take a pretty dim view of us. I mean we, we haven't got everything

right, but I think overall the record on health, on education, on tackling crime, all of that is

pretty successful.


In Example 60, Cameron rejects any similarities between himself and Barack

Obama and explains why. He also talks about John McCain, another candidate for

US president. Cameron has to formulate his ideas very quickly, and that is why he

uses not only the hedge you know but also just, which, however, belongs to the

category of content-oriented hedges.

Example 60

JON SOPEL: Do you see any similarities between yourself and Barack Obama.

DAVID CAMERON: Not really no because I think American politics and British politics

are quite different. He's a Democrat, I'm a Conservative. I mean I suppose we're both

trying to, you know, kind of overturn the government and win. I enjoy watching him and

he's a great speaker.

But I'm also a big John McCain fan. I think the plain speaking of this man who just, you

know, he goes to Michigan and says look, I know we've lost a lot of jobs here but I've got


130

to tell you they're not coming back. You know, it's so frank and refreshing to see

somebody who really tells it how it is.


In the following extract, the speaker is not certain about what to say next, she

needs some time to think of the right words, so at first she uses the hearer-oriented

hedge you know and then she continues her talk:

Example 61

JON SOPEL: But you've had a review on this, the Barker Review, that looked at what the

availability would be of brown field sites, came up with a figure of just under being able to

create a million new homes, your estimate is that you need three and a half million new

homes.

YVETTE COOPER: That's right. And the thing about brown field land is that it comes, it

becomes available all the time because you have you know, maybe a factory that closes or

maybe use that changes in a particular area, so brown field land does develop and change.

But ultimately, it is for local councils to decide what is the best location in their area, and

they have to look at all the areas you know, around the town, the town centre, in their

communities, because they'll know best where these homes should best be built to meet

their local needs.


8.2.3.3 Content-oriented Hedges

As the name suggests, this category of hedges relates to the content of the

message. When using a content-oriented hedging device, the force of the speech act

is attenuated and thus it indicates uncertainty and evasiveness of the speaker.

Holmes includes also ―other-oriented‖ hedges in this category. As already explained

above (see Section 8.2), this viewpoint is too broad for this research and in addition,

expressions belonging to the group of other-oriented hedges do not appear in the

corpus.

Linguistic means which contribute to attenuation of the content of the

message and refer more to this content rather than to the participants of the

interactional exchange are more varied than hearer-oriented hedges. That is why their

complete list may be found on pages XIV-XV and here, the discussion was restricted


131

to only some expressions. Content-oriented hedges found in the corpus are:

epistemic adverbs probably, possibly, and maybe, modal verbs may, might, could, and other

expressions such as well, sort of, kind of, more or less, in fact, quite, simply, relatively, just,

actually, etc.

In the following extract from the corpus, the speaker uses several content-

oriented hedges. Well in the initial position in the first utterance is a sign for the

hearer that the speaker will start speaking. Modal verbs may and might and the modal

adverb maybe indicate uncertainty and assumption of the speaker, quite attenuates the

quality of the adjective strong.

Example 62

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)

In Example 63, David Cameron is not sure about the exact number of GDP

(= gross domestic product), so he hedges his utterance by basically, which is an

indication that the number to follow is vague. Another interpretation could be that

Cameron knows the exact number of GDP and uses basically as a means expressing

approximation. Another hedge in this excerpt is the adverb actually, which expresses

the speaker‘s uncertainty about the following proposition:


132

Example 63

JON SOPEL: So is the American example wrong, where there are tax cuts being

introduced to help kickstart the American economy (interjection)

BOTH TOGETHER

DAVID CAMERON: No. Listen. Let me try and explain. The reason they can do that in

America is they have not got as big a budget deficit, as a share of national income as we've

got. Because our deficit is basically 3% of GDP, there's nothing left in the locker. If the

government had announced some big tax cut on budget day, I think actually the markets

would have taken fright.


In Example 64 below, well is used to opening of Cooper‘s reply. The hedge

sort of is a typical sign of informal conversation, however, it also frequently appears in

political interviews, which is an indication of conversationalization of this type of

discourse, as explained in Chapter 3.5. Sort of is a vague expression relating to

implicitness. As Urbanová points out ―it is not always necessary or possible to

make explicit references to the extralinguistic reality and specify details‖ (2003:61).

Therefore, speakers use expressions such as sort of or kind of which mean anything

(Urbanová 2003:62).

Example 64

JON SOPEL: A lot more council housing.

YVETTE COOPER: Well, this is not about a return to the old sort of 50s council estates.

I don't think that's the right approach and I don't think anybody would support that, where

you have, you know, the council estate on one side of town, the executive estate on the

other. This is about developing mixed communities and that means a lot more working in

partnership, you know, with other organisations, be they housing associations or

developers or others.

JON SOPEL: You say that's not what people want. That's exactly what a lot of local

Labour councillors would love to see. The ability to build...

YVETTE COOPER: No, I don't think that's right. What they want to see is mixed

communities.



133

8.3 Frequency of Hedges in the Corpus

In the following parts of this thesis, the frequency of hedges in the corpus

will be dealt with and the results of quantitative and qualitative analysis will be

described and interpreted. As discussed in Chapter 5.2, the extent of the corpus is 40

political interviews with British and American politicians.


754 566 1,320

Table 14: Frequency of Hedges

The total number of hedges in the corpus is 1,320, as demonstrated in

Table 14. In comparison to the number of boosters (3,449 in the whole corpus), this

figure is considerably lower. The reason is that politicians aim at emphasizing certain

facts which are important for their listeners, they try to be confident and sound

persuasive. They also stress their own attitudes and opinions. Politicians do not want

to show uncertainty, evasiveness or hesitation in front of the audience, at least not to

a great extent. Additionally, boosters are used to emphasise positive information and

hedges are used to attenuate negative facts, which, however, seems to be a general

principle of their use. Male politicians used more hedging devices than females,

in concrete terms 754 hedges, females used 566 attenuating devices.

8.3.1 Frequency of Hedges Classified by their Contribution to Discourse Meaning

The present analysis is based on the classification proposed by Holmes

(1984), which is explained in Section 8.2. As mentioned above, three types of hedges

relating to discourse meaning are distinguished in this thesis: speaker-, hearer-, and

content-oriented. Their frequency is summarized in Figure 4 and Table 15 below:


134

Figure 4: Hedges Classified by their Contribution to Discourse Meaning

Hedge Male Politicians Female

Politicians Total

content-oriented 470 387 857

speaker-oriented 180 124 304

hearer-oriented 104 55 159

Total 754 566 1,320

Table 15: Hedges Classified by their Contribution to Discourse Meaning

Table 15 demonstrates that the most frequent category of hedges in the

corpus are content-oriented hedges. They occur in 857 instances in total. They are

followed by speaker-oriented hedges, however, their frequency of occurrence is

significantly lower, 304 instances. Finally, hearer-oriented hedges are the least

frequent kind of hedges, appearing 159 times in the whole corpus.

Generally, politicians concentrate on asserting themselves in front of their

audience and they do not want to show uncertainty, therefore, the number of

boosters in the corpus prevails over the number of hedges. Content-oriented hedges

function as devices which reduce responsibility of politicians for their claims. If

a politician uses adverbials such as possibly, maybe or probably, the likelihood of a

potential accusation of lying is decreased. Speaker-oriented hedges express

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

content-oriented speaker-oriented hearer-oriented

470

180104

387

124

55

Female

Male


135

assumption and hesitation of the speaker, which may be a signal that the

politician is uncertain or that s/he withholds some information. However, it is

very difficult to determine if the politician really does not know the information or if

s/he deliberately withholds it. Sometimes s/he must do it because some information

is confidential and cannot be disclosed to the public. Hearer-oriented hedges express

uncertainty that is addressed towards the hearer. This type of hedges is not so

frequent since politicians concentrate more on hedging the content of their messages

and not on the hearer so much.

8.3.2 Occurrence of the Most Frequent Hedges

In this section, the hedges with the highest overall frequency of occurrence in

the corpus will be described. As with boosters, this concerns all hedges in the corpus

regardless of their contribution to discourse meaning. The following table

demonstrates the most frequent hedges in the corpus used by male and female

politicians:

Hedge Male Politicians Female

Politicians Total Number of

Occurrences

well 126 148 274

just 105 78 183

you know 99 54 153

I think 69 40 109

actually 44 40 84

Table 16: The Most Frequent Hedges in the Corpus

As is evident from the table above, all these expressions also function as

boosters, even though some of them, such as well, actually and just, predominantly

function as hedges. The most frequent hedge in the whole corpus is the discourse

marker well, followed by just and you know. Concerning the differences between male

and female politicians, there is a slightly higher distribution of well in females. By

contrast, males produced just, you know, I think and actually more frequently.


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8.4 Pragmatic Functions of Hedges

The present thesis provides not only a quantitative analysis of hedges

appearing in the corpus but also their qualitative analysis, which will be dealt with in

this section.

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

(Urbanová 2003:60)

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:


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Figure 5: Frequency of Hedges by Function

Function Male Politicians Female

Politicians Total

attenuation of the forthcoming message

414 321 735

assumption 135 108 243

hearer-oriented uncertainty

67 40 107

unspecified reference 22 28 50

hesitation 30 18 48

content-oriented uncertainty

27 14 41

negative politeness 19 18 37

detachment 15 17 32

evasiveness 25 2 27

Table 17: Frequency of Hedges by Function

Attenuation of the forthcoming message together with assumption are

two most frequent functions, although the frequency of occurrence of assumption is

substantially lower. Other functions occur even less frequently, which relates to the

overall lower distribution of hedges as such, as has already been mentioned above.

The following sections offer a description of these pragmatic functions in detail.

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

450Male Politicians

Female Politicians


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8.4.1 Attenuation of the Forthcoming Message


414 321 735

Table 18: Attenuation 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 65

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


139

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.


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 66

JON SOPEL: Okay, stay with us cos I want to ask you a couple of other issues that are

obviously really important at the moment politically, I just wanted to say that if you want to

find out more on this issue about nuclear generation and some of the issues surrounding it,

you can go to our web site now, their the addresses are there for you just now. But let me

just say Alan Duncan, recent events - the Bromley by-election. What are the lessons from

it. I mean you just scraped home. Was that because the appeal of David Cameron isn't that

great or because your candidate and your campaign wasn't Cameronite enough.

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.


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.


140

Example 67

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.


8.4.2 Assumption


135 108 243

Table 19: Assumption

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.


141

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 68

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.


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 69

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


142

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.


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 70

JON SOPEL: And I just want to digest something else you just said there in the course of

that answer. So you believe at the moment, MPs are under paid.

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.


8.4.3 Hearer-oriented Uncertainty


67 40 107

Table 20: Hearer-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,


143

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 71

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 (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.



144

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 72

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 40th 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.


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 73

JON SOPEL: Because one of the things we saw in that film there, in Germany was that

people that person saying, look, you can't just worry about fossilizing the countryside and


145

keeping that beautiful and then just cramming everybody tight in to cities and towns.

They've got to have quality of life too.

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)

8.4.4 Unspecified Reference


22 28 50

Table 21: Unspecified 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.


146

Example 74

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.


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 75

MR. RUSSERT: In New Hampshire, now, the famous scene in Portsmouth where you

showed some emotion, was that exhaustion, frustration? What was it?

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?



147

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 76

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.


8.4.5 Hesitation


30 18 48

Table 22: Hesitation

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.


148

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 77

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.


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 78

COURIC: a major shift in your philosophy of the world.

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


149

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.


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 79

MR. RUSSERT: If you don't think Senator Obama is ready to be president, then he

wouldn't be ready for vice president.

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)

8.4.6 Content-oriented Uncertainty


27 14 41

Table 23: Content-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


150

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 80

MR. LEHRER: General Casey said yesterday that the commander said that it may be

spring or even summer before we have any signs of success from the new program -

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.


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 81

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)


151

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 ...


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 82

JON SOPEL: You keep stressing that it's up to local authorities, local councils to decide

what is the best thing to do. What do you do with the local council who say, well frankly,

we don't think we want to build that much.

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.



152

8.4.7 Negative Politeness


19 18 37

Table 24: Negative 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 83

JON SOPEL: Okay, well let's talk about another area of your legacy. I mean you came to

prominence in sort of the early '90s when you, after the Jeremy Bulger killing, and you said

you've got to be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime. And here you are, ten

years as Prime Minister, we see kids going around knifing each other in London, shooting

carried out by children. Isn't that an area of failure?

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.



153

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 84

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.


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 85

JON SOPEL: You say that's not what people want. That's exactly what a lot of local

Labour councillors would love to see. The ability to build...

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.


154

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.


8.4.8 Detachment


15 17 32

Table 25: Detachment

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.


155

Example 86

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 87

JEREMY PAXMAN: Prime Minister, there aren't enough doctors or nurses. There aren't

enough teachers. There are more cars on the road than when you came to power. The train

service doesn't work. Violent crime is rising. Is that what you meant by the new Britain?

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.


156


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 88

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) .


8.4.9 Evasiveness


25 2 27

Table 26: Evasiveness

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.


157

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 89

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 90

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.


158

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.


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 91

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.


8.5 Conclusion

In the corpus of political interviews there appear diverse lexical items the

function of which is to attenuate the illocutionary force of utterances. Although

hedging devices occur less frequently than boosting devices in the corpus, they

belong to important linguistic means of showing speaker‟s involvement in

political interviews as well. It is due to the fact that, on the one hand, politicians


159

want to show power and assert themselves in front of their audience and do not

want to look uncertain or hesitant. On the other hand, they aim at being closer to

their voters, and as a result they show a high degree of involvement in their

language. They want to use a similar language as their voters, therefore, there are

signs of informality in their language.

Figure 6: Pragmatic Functions of Hedges

As shown in Figure 6, hedging devices were divided into nine pragmatic

functions, the most frequent of them being attenuation of the forthcoming

message. Politicians do not want to sound too authoritative and reserved so they

use hedging devices I think, I would say, I would think, etc. to soften their propositions.

A very low frequency of occurrence of functions of detachment and evasiveness

confirms a high degree of speaker‘s involvement in the genre of political interview. It

relates to what has already been pointed out: by being detached and evasive,

politicians would not have confidence of their voters. By contrast, they want to be in

touch with public.

As regards the difference between male and female politicians, the present

analysis reveals that in case of hedging devices, these difference are not significant.

Females used more hedging devices expressing unspecified reference and

detachment but the difference is insignificant (the difference between females and

males considering unspecified reference is six instances and mere two instances in

Pragmatic Functions of Hedges

attenuation

assumption

h.-o. uncertainty

unspecified reference

hesitation

c.-o. uncertainty

negative politeness

detachment

evasiveness


160

the case of detachment). What is interesting is the frequency of occurrence of

evasiveness. Males produced 25 instances, while females used it only twice. As

already explained in Section 8.4.9, female politicians feel the need to vindicate their

position in the area of politics since this sphere is usually connected with men. Some

voters may not believe in the abilities of females in top politics, female politicians are

aware of this and try to counterbalance this by using a language similar to their male

counterparts.

Speaker‘s involvement in political interviews manifests itself not only by

using boosting and hedging devices but also by using modal expressions. The next

chapter will discuss the concept of modality in political interviews in greater detail.

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9 Modality

9.1 Introduction

As anticipated in the previous section, this chapter will deal with modality in

the corpus of political interviews. Needless to say, it is a distinct linguistic category

which has been described from various viewpoints. It has also been contrasted with

the related notions of mood and evidentiality (cf. Frawley 1992; Hoye 1997; Palmer

2001; Huddleston and Pullum 2002; among others). A comparison of these concepts

with modality will be provided in Sections 9.1 and 9.2. Modality is classified into

several types, which will be described in Section 9.5. Apart from classifying modality

into epistemic and deontic types, there have been other classifications, they are

mentioned in Section 9.6. As with boosting and hedging, the frequency of

occurrence of modal expressions in the corpus was investigated. A quantitative and

qualitative analysis of these expressions and types of modality is offered in Section

9.9. Section 9.10 deals with gender-specificity and modality and Section 9.11

describes an interesting topic of modal combinations.

As already mentioned, the expression of speaker‘s attitude towards the

proposition is also connected, apart from the intensification or attenuation of the

illocutionary force, with the concept of modality, which equally functions as a means

of modifying the illocutionary force of utterances. The main reason for this is the

fact that speakers or writers communicate not only bare facts but also their own

stance toward the proposition. ―Speakers often qualify their statements with

respect to believability, reliability, and general compatibility with accepted fact‖

(Frawley 1992:384). In this connection, Urbanová (2003:27) correctly points out that

it is not possible to separate the ―matter-of-fact content [of the message] from the

attitudinal aspects‖.

9.2 Mood and Modality

This section will explain the differences between mood and modality and it

will introduce approaches of several scholars to this issue (Bybee and Fleischman

1995; Huddleston 1984; Lyons 1977; Huddleston and Pullum 2002; Frawley 1992;

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Hoye 1997; Palmer 2001). The relationship between these two concepts is often

discussed in literature owing to the frequent confusion over the use of these two

terms. ―[...] mood refers to a formally grammaticalized category of the verb which

has a modal function. Moods are expressed inflectionally, generally in distinct sets of

verbal paradigms, [...], which vary from one language to another in respect to number

as well as to the semantic distinctions they mark‖ (Bybee and Fleischman 1995:2, my

emphasis).

―[...] mood is a category of grammar, modality a category of meaning.

Mood is the grammaticalisation of modality within the verbal system. The term

‗mood‘ is usually applied to inflectional systems of the verb, as in the contrast

between indicative, subjunctive, and imperative in such languages as Latin, French,

and German.‖ (Huddleston and Pullum 2002:172, emphasis added). In addition,

Lyons (1977:848) states that ―mood is a grammatical category that is found in some,

but not all languages.‖

Huddleston (1984:164) proposes a distinction between ―an analytic mood

system‖ and ―a synthetic mood system‖ in different languages. An analytic mood

system manifests itself in languages in which modal auxiliaries are markers used to

express ―the contrast between factual assertion and various kinds of non-factuality

and/or non-assertion‖ (1984:164). English is such a type of language because there is

no inflectional system of mood, but there is a difference between ―He is downstairs, He

may be downstairs, He must be downstairs, and so on‖ (1984:164, italics in original), which

clearly falls within the semantic area. ―Where mood is expressed through verbal

inflection, it can be described as synthetic‖ (Hoye 1997:39).

As mentioned above, mood is a grammatical category in contrast with

modality which is a semantic phenomenon. Huddleston and Pullum (2002:173)

assert that ―modality is centrally concerned with the speaker‘s attitude towards the

factuality or actualization of the situation expressed by the rest of the clause‖. A

similar description has been provided by Palmer (2001:1): ―Modality is concerned

with the status of the proposition that describes the event.‖ He continues by stating

that it is different form tense and aspect in that ―it does not refer directly to any

characteristic of the event, but simply to the status of the proposition‖ (Palmer

2001:1).

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163

Further, what is important to take into consideration is the fact that has been

proposed by Frawley: ―The notional content of modality highlights its association

with entire statements. Modality concerns the factual status of information; it signals

the relative actuality, validity, or believability of the content of an expression. Modality

affects the overall assertability of an expression and thus takes the entire proposition

within its scope‖ (Frawley 1992:385, italics in original). Bybee and Fleischman (1995)

add that modality is expressed ―in a variety of ways: morphological, lexical, syntactic,

or via intonation. These are not mutually exclusive‖ (1995:2).

Halliday (1970) proposes a different approach towards mood and modality

from the above-mentioned ones and draws a distinction between the three concepts

of modulation, modality and mood. He states that these concepts are different but

at the same time they are ―in some sense semantically alike‖ (1970:342). Since

Halliday considers these concepts from the viewpoint of the functions of language,

he claims that modality is ―derived from the „interpersonal‟ function of language‖

(1970:342, my emphasis), expressing ―the speaker‘s assessment of probability and

predictability. It is external to the content, being part of the attitude taken up by the

speaker‖ (1970:349, my emphasis). Because of the expression of the speaker‘s

attitude towards the factual content of the utterance, modality is, at the same time,

oriented towards the ideational function of language (1970:349, my emphasis).

The concept of modulation is different because ―it is ideational in function,

and expresses factual conditions on the process expressed in the clause‖ (1970:343).

It presents the relationship of the participant to the process (1970:349).

Finally, mood is often regarded as an interrelation of two functions. On the

one hand, it is connected with the textual function of language which regards the way

how sentences are organized to form a text, on the other hand, it relates to the

interpersonal function which is concerned with the ―speaker‘s choice of role in the

communicative situation (1970:325, note 9).

9.3 Evidentiality

The concept of evidentiality is related to the speaker‘s attitude to the

proposition, therefore it is mentioned here. However, it is beyond the scope of this

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thesis to examine evidentiality more thoroughly since it focuses predominantly on

the source of knowledge of the information.

Evidentiality is a semantic category ―which allows a speaker to

communicate her attitude to the source of her information‖ (Saeed 1997:131). In

other words, it means that the speaker denotes the source of the information

expressed. The hearer learns ―whether the statement relies on personal first-hand

knowledge, or was acquired from another source; and if the latter, perhaps to say

something of the source‖ (Saeed 1997:132). Palmer (2001) considers evidentiality a

type of epistemic modality. By contrast, Aikhenvald points out that ―evidentiality is a

category in its own right, and not a category of epistemic or some other modality, or

of tense-aspect‖ (2003:1). The reason why evidentiality should not be regarded as a

part of epistemic modality is that ―evidential markers may indicate a speaker‘s

attitude towards the validity of certain information but do not have to‖ (2003:13).

Every language has its own evidential devices but ―not every language has

grammatical evidentiality‖ (Aikhenvald 2003:1). This has also been confirmed by

Chafe (1986) who states that English ―expresses evidentiality with modal auxiliaries,

adverbs, and miscellaneous idiomatic phrases, although not, for example, with a

coherent set of verb suffixes [...]‖ (Chafe 1986:261).

Chafe (1986) applies a broader approach to evidentiality involving attitudes

towards knowledge. He defines so called ―modes of knowing‖, i.e. ―various ways in

which knowledge is acquired‖ (1986:263). These modes include:

belief

In this mode, ―concern for evidence is downgraded‖ (1986:266). One believes in

things because somebody else who they have confidence in believe in them too.

These expressions of belief are typical of English: I think, I guess, and I suppose

(1986:266). Chafe gives this example of belief: I think that a lot of the time I’ve been

misjudging her.

induction

Induction is a mode of knowing, in which evidence is very important. English

usually does not indicate ―what the nature of the evidence was. The most common

marker which serves this function is must, which signals an inference with a high

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degree of reliability‖ (Chafe 1986:266, italics in original), for example : It must have

been a kid.

hearsay evidence

One learns of many things because other people tell us about them. Some

languages make use of affixes or particles ―to qualify knowledge as having been

acquired through language rather than direct experience‖ (Chafe 1986:268). English

does not have these devices so it uses various phrases to fulfil this function, e.g.

people say, they say, I’ve been told (1986:268). To illustrate this mode of knowing, Chafe

provides this example: They were using more verbs than English speaking kids have been

said to learn.

deduction

The last mode of knowing defined by Chafe, deduction, relates to a ―hypothesis

from which conclusions about evidence can be deduced. Typical markers of

deduction are should and presumably‖ (Chafe 1986:269, italics in original), e.g. Adults

presumably are capable of purely logical thought (1986:269).

To conclude, the concept of evidentiality is not investigated more thoroughly

here since this thesis focuses on the speaker‘s attitude towards the assertion and on

the degree of certainty the speaker has about his/her proposition, not on the source

of knowledge of the information.

9.4 Subjectivity vs. Objectivity

One feature that is intrinsically related to modality is the difference between

subjectivity and objectivity. Palmer (1986) claims that ―modality in language [...]

seems to be essentially subjective. [...] It could even be further argued that

subjectivity is an essential criterion for modality. Modality could [...] be defined as the

grammaticalization of speakers‘ (subjective) attitudes and opinions‖ (Palmer

1986:16).

Subjectivity is usually related to epistemic modality but some scholars

associate it also with deontic modality, as, for example, Lyons who understands it as

speaker‟s involvement: ―Subjectivity is a matter of speaker‘s, or more generally, of

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the locutionary agent‘s involvement of himself in the utterance. In the case of

epistemic modality what is involved is his knowledge (or beliefs). In the case of

deontic modality it is his will and authority that is involved. But in both cases it is the

locutionary agent who is the source of the modality‖ (Lyons 1983:111).

Hoye points out, however, that when analysing deontic modality from the

point of view of subjectivity, problems may appear because there are different

degrees of speaker‟s involvement (1997:43-44). According to him, the sentence

Can I just try come more cake? undoubtedly involves the speaker ―but the source of

permission or obligation may be external where there is no degree of speaker

involvement whatsoever unless the speaker is identified as a member of the society

or institution instigating the action‖, as in Will lecturers kindly refrain from missing classes?

(Hoye 1997:43).

The majority of authors who deal with subjective and objective modality do

not provide any formal definitions. Lyons explains that objective modalized

statements express speaker‘s distance from the proposition. These statements may

be considered true or false without much difficulty. By contrast, ―subjectively

modalized statements [...] are statements of opinion, or hearsay, or tentative

inference, rather than statements of fact‖ (Lyons 1977:799, my emphasis), which

means that these statements include a subjective point of view that is presented as

true. However, the distinction between subjective and objective modality is not so

obvious in everyday language use, as Lyons (1977:797) points out.

The next section will look into types of modality in greater detail.

9.5 Types of Modality

Since modality is broad in its scope and different disciplines have approached

this concept from different angles, no agreement has been reached as far as the

number and type of modalities are concerned. An early attempt to define types of

modality is Jespersen‟s classification (1992 [1924]) containing twenty subcategories

of modality which express ―certain attitudes of the mind of the speaker towards the

content of the sentence‖ (1992 [1924]:313). Jespersen himself concedes that ―the

categories frequently overlap, and some of the terms are not quite unobjectionable‖

(1992 [1924]:320). Nevertheless, his classification is important since it distinguishes

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two principal types of modality, ―containing an element of will‖ and ―containing

no element of will‖ (Jespersen 1992 [1924]:319-320), which corresponds to the core

distinction between deontic and epistemic modality.

Rescher (1968:24ff), an American philosopher, also deals with modality and

puts forward its in-depth classification. In spite of the fact that his categories rest on

philosophical rather than linguistic grounds, there are two, out of eight basic types

of modality which are significant for natural languages: epistemic and deontic

modality. This has also been confirmed by Hoye: ―In terms of natural language,

there seems to be a consensus among interested parties that at least two modalities

are primitive: namely, deontic and epistemic‖ (1997:42). This terminology is also

used by Palmer (2001), Lyons (1977), Frawley (1992), among others.

There is another type of modality, namely, dynamic modality which denotes

the subject‘s ability or willingness to do something (de Haan 2006:29).

9.5.1 Epistemic Modality

Epistemic modality ―is concerned with matters of knowledge or belief on

which basis speakers express their judgements about states of affairs, events or

actions‖ (Hoye 1997:42). In other words, ―it concerns the speaker‘s attitude to the

factuality of past or present time situations [...]‖ (Huddleston and Pullum 2002:178).

Thus, in the modalised proposition She may/might/must/could be ill, the speaker

communicates his or her subjective attitude to the proposition and so s/he

modifies the illocutionary force of the utterance.

Frawley defines epistemic modality in the following way: ―The structural and

semantic resources available to a speaker to express judgment of the factual status

and likelihood of a state of affairs‖ (1992:407), and he continues by stating that

―epistemic modality is a handy cover term for the way that language denotes and

encodes the following concepts, among others: possibility, necessity, inference,

belief, report, hearsay, conclusion, deduction, opinion, commitment, speculation,

quotation, doubt, evidence, and certainty‖ (1992:407, italics in original).

Coates (1983) states that epistemic modality ―is concerned with the speaker‘s

assumptions or assessment of possibilities and, in most cases, it indicates the

speaker‘s confidence (or lack of confidence) in the truth of the proposition

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expressed‖ (Coates 1983:18). In this connection, Frawley emphasizes that epistemic

modality relates to the expression of truth, but it is ―truth relativized to a speaker‖

(1992:407).

Epistemic modality in Palmer‘s classification (2001:8ff) is subsumed, together

with evidential modality, under the category of propositional modality. The main

reason for this is that they both relate to the ―speaker‘s attitude to the truth-value or

factual status of the proposition‖ (Palmer 2001:8). However, there is a difference

between these two types: ―With epistemic modality speakers express their judgments

about the factual status of the proposition, whereas with evidential modality, they

indicate the evidence they have for its factual status‖ (2001:8). Palmer divides

epistemic modality into three types:

speculative

deductive

assumptive

As Palmer (2001:25) points out, not all three types of epistemic modality are

always present in all languages, but in English all these kinds can be found.

Epistemic speculative modality is expressed by the modal verb may that

conveys ―a possible conclusion‖ (Palmer 2001:25), as for example in the sentence

―John may be in his office” (2001:25). It implies that the speaker is not sure whether John

is in his office or not. It is possible that he is there but it is not certain. The modal

verb must is employed for the expression of epistemic deductive modality and it

conveys ―the only possible conclusion‖, as in ―John must be in his office”. The speaker is

certain that John is in his office and makes ―a firm judgment, on the basis of

evidence‖ (2001:25).

Huddleston and Pullum (2002:178ff) describe epistemic modality in a similar

way but use a different terminology. They have divided epistemic modality into two

types: epistemic necessity, or strong modality and epistemic possibility, or

weak modality. Strong modality is what Palmer calls deductive type of epistemic

modality and weak modality corresponds to his speculative modality.

The last type of epistemic modality defined by Palmer is assumptive

modality. It is expressed by the modal verb will which indicates ―a reasonable

conclusion‖, as in the case of, ―John will be in his office”, for example. The assertion

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stems from the facts that are generally known about John; for example, he always

starts his work at a particular time, he is a workaholic, etc. (Palmer 2001:25).

Huddleston and Pullum (2002:188) state that will is similar to other modal verbs

semantically, pragmatically and syntactically, but it expresses ―a lower degree of

modal meaning‖, thus, they treat it separately. They consider three uses of will that

fall within epistemic modality: central-epistemic, futurity and conditional

consequence. The category of central-epistemic corresponds to epistemic

assumptive modality defined by Palmer.

Palmer also draws attention to the fact that there are two ―not entirely

compatible contrasts‖ within the English modal system (2001:25). The first concerns

the strength of the conclusion, manifested as the choice between epistemic

possibility and epistemic necessity. In other words, there is a difference between

what is epistemically possible (may) and what is epistemically necessary (must). The

second makes a difference between ―an inference from observation and an inference

from experience or general knowledge, i.e. between deductive (must) and assumptive

(will)‖ (Palmer 2001:25) (my italics).

9.5.2 Deontic Modality

This type of modality is generally defined with regard to obligation,

prohibition or permission (see Palmer 2001, Huddleston and Pullum 2002, Kratzer

1978). ―‗Deontic‘ is derived from the Greek for ―binding‖, so that here it is a matter

of imposing an obligation or prohibition, granting permission, and the like. [...] The

person, authority, convention, or whatever from whom the obligation, etc., is

understood to emanate we refer to as the deontic source‖ (Huddleston and Pullum

2002:178, emphasis in original). In other words, this modality expresses ―the

imposition of a state of affairs on individuals, or, with the modality as deixis, the

imposition of an expressed world on a reference world‖ (Frawley 1992:420). To give

an example, in All passengers must show their passports (my example), the modal verb must

is used in the deontic sense with the meaning ―they are obliged to show their

passports‖. In You may use my mobile phone (my example), the person is giving

permission to another person by utilizing the modal verb may.

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Huddleston and Pullum distinguish between two types of deontic modality.

As with epistemic modality, they designate them strong and weak. Strong deontic

modality is also called ―deontic necessity‖ or ―strong obligation‖ and is

expressed by the modal verb must. Weak deontic modality is also called ―deontic

possibility‖ and is expressed by may (Huddleston and Pullum 2002:182).

Obligation and permission, two categories of deontic modality, have also

been identified by Frawley (1992:421ff). However, he adds another essential

characteristic of deontic modality, which is futurity, or ―the directionality of the

events‖ (1992:424). By this he means that ―deontics always point to some upcoming

state of affairs from the reference world‖ (1992:424).

Palmer (2001) states that ―deontic and dynamic modality refer to events that

are not actualized. These are events that have not taken place, but that are merely

potential, and may, therefore, be described as ‗event modality‘‖ (Palmer 2001:70).

The difference between deontic and dynamic modality is that ―with dynamic

modality the conditioning factors are external to the person indicated as the subject

[...], whereas with deontic modality they are internal [...]‖ (2001:70). Palmer (2001)

divides deontic modality into three types:

obligative

permissive

commissive

Deontic obligative modality corresponds to Huddleston and Pullum‘s

deontic necessity and deontic permissive modality is denoted as deontic

possibility in Huddleston and Pullum‘s terminology. Palmer also includes the

―commissive type‖ under deontic modality which he defines as a situation ―where

the speaker guarantees that the action will take place‖ and is signalled by the modal

verb shall (2001:70).

9.5.3 Dynamic Modality

Dynamic modality has been defined by Perkins (1983) as a type of modality

that refers to ―the relationship which exists between circumstances and unactualized

events in accordance with natural laws‖ (1983:11). Huddleston and Pullum add that

―the clearest cases of dynamic modality are concerned with properties and

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dispositions of persons, etc., referred to in the clause, especially by the subject NP‖

(2002:178).

As already mentioned, dynamic modality together with deontic modality are

two types of event modality, which were identified by Palmer. Further, he defines

two types of dynamic modality, the one expressing ability, which he calls ―abilitive

dynamic modality‖, and the other conveying willingness, which is called ―volitive

dynamic modality‖ (Palmer 2001:76ff.). Abilitive dynamic modality is expressed in

English by can, volitive modality by will. Thus, in the sentence ―He can run a mile in

under four minutes” (Palmer 2001:77), can expresses an ability of the subject to manage

something. Will in ―She loves him and she won’t leave him‖ (2001:78) expresses willingness

of somebody to do or not to do something (2001:78).

Huddleston and Pullum (2002:179) emphasize that the borderline between

deontic and dynamic modality is not always clear. For example, the sentence The most

we can expect is a slight cut in the sales-tax cannot be clearly classified as either dynamic or

deontic modality. Eventually, they categorize it as dynamic modality because ―no

person or institution is identifiable as a deontic source - they might be glossed with

―permissible‖, but not with ―permission‖ (2002:179).

It should be pointed out here that these modal verbs are also used for

expressing other types of modality. Can is used to express deontic modality and also

epistemic modality but only in its negative form. Will expresses not only willingness

but it is also used as an assumptive.

9.6 Other Classifications of Modality

Some authors (Bybee at al. 1994; Coates 1983; among others) who deal with

modality have suggested different classifications of this concept. Nuyts (2006:6)

states that there are two main reasons for it. First, they want to highlight different

semantic relationships among categories, second, they focus on providing a new

approach to modality, such as a concentration on ―properties of the linguistic forms

expressing modal categories‖ (Nuyts 2006:6).

An influential categorization has been proposed by Bybee, Perkins and

Pagliuca (1994:177ff), who have defined four types of modality:

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agent-oriented

speaker-oriented

epistemic

subordinating moods

Agent-oriented modality includes ―the existence of internal and external

conditions on an agent with respect to the completion of the action expressed in the

main predicate‖ (Bybee et al (1994:177). However, Bybee et al. emphasize that this

modality is a ―part of the propositional content of the clause and thus would not be

considered a modality in most frameworks‖ (1994:177). The main reason why they

have included it in their study is that ―these modal senses are the diachronic sources

of most senses that DO qualify as modality in other studies‖ (1994:177, emphasis in

original). Types of modality that fall within this category are obligation, necessity,

ability, and desire. A significant type of agent-oriented modality is root possibility,

which relates not only to the internal condition of ability, but also to external factors,

which include social and physical conditions (Bybee et al. 1994:178). Coates

(1983:114) gives this example of root possibility:

I actually couldn‟t finish reading it because the chap whose shoulder I was reading the

book over got out at Leicester Square.

Speaker-oriented modality covers directives, such as imperatives,

prohibitives, optatives, hortatives, admonitives (warnings), and permissives. These

directives ―represent speech acts through which a speaker attempts to move an

addressee to action‖ (Bybee and Fleischman 1995:6). In other words, ―speaker-

oriented modalities do not report the existence of conditions on the agent, but rather

allow the speaker to impose such conditions on the addressee‖ (Bybee et al.

1994:179). Within this framework, agent-oriented and speaker-oriented modality are

close to deontic/dynamic distinction of modality. What is yet important in Bybee et

al.‘s classification is the so called ―enabling factor‖. If this factor is the speaker

himself, then it is an instance of speaker-oriented modality; otherwise we are dealing

with the agent-oriented modality (de Haan 2006:31).

Epistemic modality ―indicates the extent to which the speaker is committed

to the truth of the proposition‖ (Bybee et al. 1994:179). Apart from possibility and

probability, it includes inferred certainty, which implies that the speaker is convinced

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of the truthfulness of the proposition, as in the sentence There must be some way to get

from New York to San Francisco for less than $600, for example (Bybee et al. 1994:180).

Finally, subordinating moods relate to the modality employed in subordinate

clauses, such as complement clauses, concessives and purpose clauses.

When studying modality, one can encounter the term ―root modality‖,

especially in the Anglo-American literature. As de Haan (2006:29) points out, the first

significant study to make use of this term and define the notion of root modality

seems to be Coates‘ corpus research (1983) into the English modals.

In actual fact, Coates (1983) uses the term ―root modality‖ as a cover term

for both dynamic and deontic modality. However, she finds the term ―deontic‖

inappropriate since ―it refers to the logic of obligation and permission‖ (1983:20-21)

that is why she prefers the term ―root modality‖ for all other types, including

dynamic modality. She explains this by appealing to the fact that common root

modals express a variety of meanings, obligation and permission being only the core.

Moreover, according to Coates, the division of modality into deontic and dynamic

overlooks the fact that all non-epistemic uses of must, for example, are

interconnected and gradual, i.e. they lie on a continuum ranging from a strong

obligation to a weak obligation (1983:20-21). ―By subdividing this category, Palmer is

forced to choose arbitrary cut-off points, and to obscure the essential unity of the

Root modals‖ (Coates 1983:21). However, she is well aware of the fact that a deontic

explication is more appropriate in contexts where ―the authority structure is well-

defined‖ than in less clearly defined contexts (1983:21).

To conclude, it can be stated that although there is a difference between

the terms “deontic” and “root” modality, this difference is very fine and

sometimes these two terms are not distinguished properly and are used as

interchangeable. When using the term ―root‖, the authors probably want to

indicate that ―there are aspects of modality that lie outside the traditional domain of

modality in logic [...]. The use of a term such as root modality highlights this aspect

of modality‖ (de Haan 2006:30).

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9.7 Classification of Modality in this Study

The classification of modality proposed in this study follows the traditional

division of modality into two primary semantic categories: epistemic and deontic, and

their subtypes. The research will not concentrate on dynamic modality since it does

not express the modification of illocutionary force to such a great extent as epistemic

and deontic modalities. The terminology used rests partly on Palmer‘s division of

modality, partly on Huddleston and Pullum‘s types of modality. However, Palmer‘s

categorization of modality is problematic and simplistic in some respects and it is not

possible to follow it in all of its points. When analysing the corpus of political

interviews, there were many sentences with the modal verb can which could not be

determined according to Palmer‘s classification. Consider the use of could in

Examples 92 and 93 below. They fall neither into the category of deontic possibility

nor into dynamic abilitive modality. That is why I have employed the category of

―circumstantial possibility‖, which is mentioned by Huddleston and Pullum

(2002:197) as it seems to be appropriate in these cases. Circumstantial possibility

expresses a possibility which can happen under certain circumstances.

Example 92

QUESTION: Let me tell you about a current poll. Iraqis were asked about their lives

today, Madame Secretary. Listen to these results: Nearly nine in ten people said that they

live in fear that the violence that is ravaging their country will strike them or the people

they live with. That's startling. Ninety percent fear that they'll fall victim to the violence in

that country right now. Don't you have to wonder what that percentage would have been

under Saddam?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, under Saddam, I guess, the fear would have been that he could

have come into your village with his secret police, lined up the women and men and shot

them and put them in the mass graves as he did in villages in the south and in Kurdish

territory or used chemical weapons against your neighborhood. I don't doubt that the Iraqi

people have a lot of fears. It's a very violent circumstance, particularly in and around

Baghdad. It's a circumstance that the Iraqi Government understands that it has to get

under control. That's why this opportunity that is afforded by the Baghdad security plan

thus far going relatively well, though I would be the first to say that there will be good days

and bad days. This gives them an opportunity now to deliver security for their people and

to delivery it as a democratic government for all Iraqis.

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When justifying British intervention in the Iraq War, Tony Blair explains the

situation there and asks a rhetorical question about the possibilities of Iraqi people.

Using can’t in that question, he expresses that the situation of Iraqi people could

change under certain circumstances:

Example 93

DF: In terms of Iraq, prime minister, in the light of the latest figures from the Iraqi health

ministry, that the number of Iraqis who have died is between 100,000 and 150,000 and so

on, with those scale of figures, if you had known that that was the scale of bloodshed,

would you have still gone to war?

TB: Well the alternative was leaving Saddam in charge of Iraq, where hundreds of

thousands of people died, there were a million casualties in the Iran/Iraq war, Kuwait was

invaded and four million people went into exile.

So the idea that Iraqis should be faced with the situation where they either have a brutal

dictator in Saddam or alternatively a sectarian religious conflict, why can't they have in Iraq

what their people want? Which is a non-sectarian government, a government that is elected

by the people and the same opportunities and the same rights that we enjoy in countries

such as this.


More examples of circumstantial possibility may be found in Section 9.9.4.

Additionally, I have identified a new category of modality which I label

―epistemic attitudinal modality‖. This category comprises modal adverbs actually,

frankly and really. All instances of uses of these adverbs are epistemic in that they

express speaker‟s stance to the proposition and in this way they modify its

illocutionary force. It was not possible to place these adverbs within the subtypes of

epistemic modality as they express neither possibility, necessity nor assumption that

is why a new type of modality was determined. To illustrate this category, there are

two examples from the corpus, more examples may be found in Section 9.9.3.

These three instances of really and actually used in the example below are,

pragmatically speaking, boosters, which means that their pragmatic function is to

accentuate the force of the utterance. They express the attitude of the speaker

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towards the proposition, which means that they are epistemic in their nature, that is

why they fall under the category of epistemic attitudinal modality:

Example 94





HAZEL BLEARS: Well I, I think it's really dangerous erm if we actually distance

ourselves from what we've been doing over the last ten years.






As with really and actually in Example 94 above, in Example 95 the adverb

frankly boosts the force of the forthcoming message and expresses the attitude of the

speaker towards it. So again, it may be identified as an instance of epistemic

attitudinal modality.

Example 95

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.

(App., p. 253, Jacqui Smith, 2005-11-27, ll. 84-93)

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9.8 Expressions of Modality

On account of the extensive content of modality, one can anticipate the

existence of various kinds of linguistic means indicating this phenomenon. However,

some studies on modality have focused their attention only on the modal auxiliaries,

cf. Perkins 1983: ―Discussion of modality in linguistics has [...] been concerned

almost exclusively with the syntactic class of modal auxiliary verbs [...]. Besides the

modal auxiliaries, however, there is a wide range of linguistic devices in English

which are equally deserving of the semantic label ‗modal‘, but in linguistic treatments

these are invariably mentioned only in so far as they may serve as paraphrases to

illuminate the meaning of the modal auxiliaries‖ (Perkins 1983:19). As Hermerén

(1978:11) rightly observes, modal expressions do not appear individually but they can

occur in various combinations in the same sentence, which can also be proven by the

results from the corpus. The possible combinations of modal expressions will be

discussed in Section 9.11.

Linguistic expressions of modality differ across languages, which is

determined by the type of a particular language. Below are all lexical means that are

used to express modality in English as they occur in the corpus:

modal auxiliary verbs - must, have to, may, might, can, could, should, ought to

modal adjectives - possible, probable, likely, certain, sure

modal adverbs - perhaps, possibly, probably, maybe, really, surely, certainly, actually,

frankly

pragmatic particles - I think, I mean, I guess

Modal adjectives and adverbs, modal auxiliary verbs in an epistemic modal

function, and pragmatic particles (Aijmer 2002; Holmes 1995) are, apart from

expressing modality, also used to express various pragmatic functions which

depend on their use either as a boosting device or as a hedging device (see Chapters

7 and 8). From this research it follows that both these functions, the pragmatic

function and the modal function, of these linguistic means are interrelated in

that sense that they express very similar meanings. This claim is in contrast to

the previous research of Coates (2003:331ff) who separates these two functions. It

must be stressed here that this finding applies only to epistemic types of modality, it

does not apply to deontic types and to circumstantial possibility since lexical means

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of these types of modalities do not modify the illocutionary force of propositions to

the same extent as epistemic means do.

9.9 Frequency of Occurrence of Modal Expressions and Types of Modality

This section will provide quantitative and qualitative analyses of modal

expressions appearing in the corpus. The total number of all modal expressions,

i.e. modal verbs, modal adverbs and adjectives, and pragmatic particles is 2,203, as

demonstrated in Table 27 and Figure 7 below. Male politicians used 1,079 modal

expressions and females used 1,123 modal expressions, which means that there is no

substantial difference between both genders as for the frequency of occurrence of

these linguistic means.


1,079 1,124 2,203

Table 27: Frequency of Occurrence of Modal Expressions

Table 28 and Figure 7 below summarize all types of modality examined and

the number of occurrences produced by males, females and by both genders

together. The most frequent type of modality is epistemic possibility with 1,061

occurrences followed by deontic necessity (565 occurrences) and epistemic

attitudinal modality (369 occurrences). The least frequent type of modality is

deontic possibility with mere 23 appearances in the whole corpus.

Figure 7: Types of Modality and Number of Occurrences

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

epistemic possibility

deontic necessity

epistemic attitudinal

circumstantial possibility

epistemic necessity

deontic possibility

male politicians

female politicians

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Type of modality Male Politicians Female

Politicians Total

epistemic possibility 551 510 1,061

deontic necessity 254 311 565

epistemic attitudinal 178 191 369

circumstantial possibility 50 48 98

epistemic necessity 36 51 87

deontic possibility 10 13 23

Table 28: Types of Modality and Number of Occurrences

In the following sections, particular types of modality will be analysed from

the point of view of the frequency of their occurrence. All categories of modality will

be illustrated with examples from the corpus. As with boosting and hedging devices,

all modal expressions are highlighted in the attachment to this thesis. Depending on

the type of modality, they have a particular background colour. Epistemic types of

modality have a yellow background, deontic modalities have a red background and

circumstantial possibility is highlighted with turquoise colour. The type of modality is

abbreviated in brackets and is also coloured, for example:

could (E. poss.) = the modal verb could belongs to epistemic possibility, therefore, it

has a yellow background

must (D. nec.) = must has a red background colour because it expresses deontic

necessity

can (C. poss.) = in this case, the modal verb can expresses circumstantial possibility

that is why it is in turquoise colour

As already stated above, an expression may function as a booster or as a

hedge and at the same time, it may express modality. Therefore, some expressions

are underlined and have the abbreviation of a type of booster or hedge and its

pragmatic function in brackets and they also have a coloured background according

to the corresponding type of modality:

certainly (BSO, Assur.) (E. nec.) = certainly functions as a speaker-oriented booster

expressing assurance; that is why it is double underlined and it is also a modal

expression of epistemic necessity, therefore it has a yellow background

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I don't think (HSO, Neg. pol.) (E. poss.) = I don’t think is a speaker-oriented hedge

expressing negative politeness and also a modal expression of epistemic possibility

9.9.1 Epistemic Possibility


551 510 1,061

Table 29: Epistemic Possibility

This kind of modality is the category with the highest frequency of

occurrence in the corpus, both in male and female politicians, as demonstrated in

Table 29. The reason is that the phrase I think is the most frequently used linguistic

means coming under this category. Epistemic possibility is expressed, apart from I

think, by the pragmatic particles I don’t think and I mean, by the modal auxiliary may, its

preterite form might, by the lexical modals possible, perhaps, possibly, probably, maybe,

apparently and likely in the corpus.

The frequency of occurrence of these lexical means is summarized in Table 28

below:

Type of modality Male Politicians Female

Politicians Total

I think 328 358 686

I mean 108 26 134

I don’t think 35 45 80

may 28 21 49

might 18 27 45

probably 14 6 20

maybe 7 12 19

perhaps 5 9 14

possible 6 3 9

possibly 2 1 3

likely 0 1 1

apparently 0 1 1

Table 30: Modal Means of Epistemic Possibility

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Out of all these means, the most frequent expression is the phrase I think

(686 occurrences in total) followed by I mean (134 occurrences) and I don’t think

(appeared 80 times). As regards epistemic possibility conveyed by the modal verbs

may or might, the number of occurrences is much lower when compared to the

pragmatic particles. Finally, lexical modals show an even lower number of occurrence

than modal verbs.

In case that linguistic means of epistemic possibility hedge the illocutionary

force of utterances, they express uncertainty, assumption, lack of commitment

to the proposition and doubt of the speaker. Politicians may also take their

listeners into consideration and offer them a prediction or hope for the future. Their

use may also be interpreted as a face-saving strategy of the speaker. If the

expressions of epistemic possibility boost the illocutionary force of speech acts, they

emphasise their views and express subjectivity. They try to influence their

voters.

In Example 96, there is a discussion about the Middle East peace between

Tony Blair and David Frost, a reporter of Al Jazeera English (English version of the

Arabic news channel). Blair is not sure about the development in Palestine, which is

singalled by the use of the phrase I think expressing his uncertainty and assumption.

The first use of I think in this extract indicates the uncertainty about the possibility of

reaching agreement in this conflict. The second use of I think expresses Blair‘s

assumption about the future cooperation among the EU and the USA in the Middle

East:

Example 96

DF: But whatever the EU can do with the Palestinians and so on, and they obviously can

do something, is it in fact progress and this target you have for Middle East peace, while

you're in office if possible it all depends on the United States putting wholehearted

pressure on Israel?

TB: Well you're absolutely right in saying the role of the US is crucial but you see I think

that both the United States and Israel will want to make progress provided we can get

a national unity government on the Palestinian side.

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182

That is in line with the principles laid out by the United Nations so that there‘s mutual

recognition of an Israeli state and a Palestinian state, and then we‘ve got to clear all the

obstacles out of the way and get on with it.

I think the Europeans can play a great part as you rightly imply in helping the Palestinian

Authority and then it's for the Americans and ourselves and others obviously to work with

Israel in trying to make progress.


In the following extract, William Hague expresses lack of commitment to his

proposition about returning an amount of money to people which they paid for a

tax. He uses the phrase I don’t think which express detachment from that assertion.

Using might he indicates a possibility of getting that money but he doubts it and does

not believe it too much.

Example 97

JON SOPEL: Okay, Labour have committed a U-turn this week but does it really matter if

the government ends up in the right place and having to rid of the worse bits of the policy

that were causing that anger.

WILLIAM HAGUE: Well it's not clear how complete this U-turn has been. Of course,

they're now very unclear about whether everybody who is losing out as a result of the

abolition of the doubling of the 10p tax band, is going to be compensated and when they

are going to be compensated.

There will be a further debate about this in the House of Commons tomorrow and I don't

think people are going to be impressed with the idea that they might get some of the

money back in a year and a half's time or something like that and they know that Gordon

Brown has only given in on this because he had to; not because he actually was persuaded

that lower paid people were being hit by his measures, but because he was forced by the

Conservatives and his own backbenchers, in to a change of tack, so I don't think he's

going to get a lot of credit for that.


In Example 98, Theresa May discusses a breakdown of trust between people

and politicians. Using I think, she expresses her opinions and assumptions about this

problem, about what could be done in the future and how to solve it. Perhaps also

indicates these assumptions.

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Example 98

JON SOPEL: I just wonder, whether you feel that you are trusted, whether you are seen by

the public as an honourable member.

THERESA MAY: I think there is a break down of trust generally, between people and

politicians. I think that's come about for a whole variety of reasons. This issue we've just

been talking about, the question of allowances and budgets and expenses, is one aspect of

it.

I think there's also another aspect of break down of trust which is about broken promises

and we saw a very good example of that in the House of Commons last week with the

issue of the European Referendum. Three parties campaigned to have a referendum, only

one party was willing to stand up and be counted on that, when the time came in the

House of Commons.

So there is a break down of trust. There's much more we can be doing in parliament, we

could be giving more power back to people at local government level, through local

referendums. We could be giving more power to people to initiate debates and perhaps

Bills in the House of Commons. I think we need to open up how we do things, to restore

that break down of trust.


Below, the phrase I think expresses subjectivity of Alan Johnson about things

concerning children‘s obesity and the restriction of junk food advertising. I think

functions as a booster pragmatically and strengthens the illocutionary force of the

utterance.

Example 99

JON SOPEL: Okay, let's talk about obesity in children because I think 16% of our children

are now considered to be obese and the government has taken action. There's a ban on

advertising of junk foods on specific children's programming, but of course we all know

that children watch a lot of other programmes like, I don't know, Coronation Street, the X

Factor, Saturday Night Takeaway, whatever it happens and there, you're getting a lot of

adverts for junk foods, now why not just say, actually, no junk food advertising before the

nine o clock watershed.

ALAN JOHNSON: Because I think that would be too drastic as a first step. a first step,

and it's a very important first step which was introduced in January as you rightly say, is we

ban food advertising from children's programmes, we look at the effect of that, which is

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184

what we've agreed to do, and the advertising industry have brought forward that review to

the summer, which was initially going to be at the end of the year and then we look at the

effects of that, we have an evidence base, before we move on to the next step.

(App., p. 174, Alan Johnson, 2008-04-13, ll. 75-87)

As mentioned above, one aspect that is closely connected with epistemic

modality is subjectivity, which has already been mentioned in Section 9.4. This

applies not only to the phrases I think and I mean, but also to the modal auxiliaries

may and might. This can be explained by the fact that the speaker is not certain about

the truth value of the proposition so s/he presents it as a mere possibility, which is

also shown in Example 99 above. This assumption has been confirmed by Hoye

(1997:43-45), who asserts that ―subjectivity can certainly be regarded as an essential

feature of epistemic modality since the speaker is expressing judgements in

accordance with his own (subjective) set of beliefs‖ (1997:43).

Huddleston and Pullum (2002) also mention the subjective use of may and

add that this modal auxiliary can also be used to express objectivity. This relates to

cases ―where it is a matter of public knowledge [...], rather than the speaker‘s

knowledge‖ (2002:181). As for lexical modals expressing epistemic possibility,

―possible and possibly are objective perhaps and maybe are usually subjective‖

(Huddleston and Pullum 2002:208). Perhaps in Example 98 above shows subjectivity

of the speaker since she explains her personal attitude to the problem. By contrast,

the use of possible in Example 100 expresses objectivity and impartiality of the

speaker:

Example 100

BLITZER: Do you want someone other than Ibrahim al-Jaafari to be the prime minister?

RICE: This is something that the Iraqis have got to determine. They have got to determine

whether or not it is possible to achieve a government of national unity with that particular

candidate.

The Shia do not have enough votes to govern on their own. And so they have to bring into

coalition others from -- who won in the electoral process. That is what they're doing, and

I think they're doing a remarkable job.


Modality

185

9.9.2 Deontic Necessity

This type of modality is expressed by the modal auxiliaries must, should, ought to

and the verb forms have to and have got to in the corpus. While the modals should and

ought to are interchangeable, the difference between must and have to is the question of

subjectivity. ―Prototypical deontic modality is subjective, with the speaker as the

deontic source, the one who imposes the obligation or grants permission. But it can

also be objective, most obviously in reports of rules and regulations‖ (Huddleston

and Pullum 2002:183). To illustrate this distinction, Huddleston and Pullum give

these examples:

You must clean up this mess at once. - subjective

We must make an appointment if we want to see the Dean. - objective

(Huddleston and Pullum 2002:183)

Palmer speaks about have to, an alternative to must, ―which generally indicates

that the speaker takes no responsibility for the obligation‖ (2001:75). Thus, there is a

difference between:

You must come and see me tomorrow.

You have to come and see me tomorrow.

(Palmer 2001:75)

The first sentence expresses a suggestion or an invitation; the second implies

that ―there is some compelling reason independent of the speaker. If there is not a

reason, then the addressee might take offence, regarding it as presumptuous of the

speaker to say what he or she has to do‖ (Palmer 2001:75). In short, ―with MUST,

the speaker has authority, while with HAVE TO the authority comes from no

particular source‖ (Coates 1983:55, emphasis in original).

Deontic necessity, or sometimes called strong obligation (Huddleston and

Pullum 2002:182), is the second most frequent type of modality in the corpus,

although its occurrence is considerably lower than that of epistemic possibility. As

may be seen in Table 31 below, it appears 565 times, with a higher frequency of

occurrence in females.

Modality

186


254 311 565

Table 31: Deontic Necessity

The number of occurrence of linguistic means expressing deontic necessity in

the corpus may be found in Table 32 below:

Modal means Male Politicians Female

Politicians Total

have to 75 173 248

should 77 77 154

have got to 79 44 123

must 15 8 23

ought to 8 9 17

Table 32: Modal Means Expressing Deontic Necessity

As shown in Table 32 above, there is a considerable difference in the

frequency of occurrence of the modals must and have to or have got to in the corpus.

This is connected, on the one hand, with expressing subjectivity of the speaker

who, by using must, imposes the obligation, or on the other hand, if the speaker does

not want to be responsible for the obligation, s/he uses the form have to or have got

to. This contrast between must and have to explains a much higher occurrence of the

latter form in political interviews. It may be interpreted as an attempt of the

speaker to gain detachment from the proposition expressed. Politicians do not

want to take responsibility for the obligation imposed, which can be regarded as a

face-saving strategy. In case the form have to is used, it means that the speaker is

not involved or does not want to be involved in the utterance expressed and

rather, s/he wants to shift the responsibility on somebody else. This fact applies

especially to female politicians who used the forms have to or have got to 217 times,

compared to only 154 occurrences of these forms by males.

Consider the subjectivity expressed by the modal must in the example below.

Condoleezza Rice expresses the obligation of the USA to defend their borders. The

obligation is imposed on the State Department, which should enforce border

security.

Modality

187

Example 101

BLITZER: The president meets this week with the leaders of Canada and Mexico.

Immigration, illegal immigration in the United States, a big issue. The House passed

legislation which would make it a felony for an illegal immigrant in the United States simply

to be here. Is that something the Bush administration supports?

RICE: The president has very clearly stated the principles on which we would work to try

and get a more humane and effective immigration law, and those principles include that we

really must, of course, defend our border, and we've put a lot of money into border

security. The State Department has enhanced its request for border security. We are

obviously determined that U.S. laws should be enforced.


As mentioned above, must does not express only subjective deontic modality

but it may also be objective when expressing obligation imposed by an authority as a

regulation or rule. The use of have to in this extract is also objective, the speaker does

not want to have responsibility for it and he wants to gain detachment:

Example 102

JEREMY PAXMAN: You've just said the decision was taken by the inspectors to leave the

country. They were therefore not thrown out.

TONY BLAIR: They were effectively thrown out for the reason that I will give you. Prior

to them leaving Iraq they had come back to the Security Council, again and again, and said

we are not being given access to sites. For example, things were being designated as

presidential palaces, they weren't being allowed to go in there.

As a result of that, they came back to the United Nations and said we can't carry out the

work as inspectors; therefore we said you must leave because we will have to try and

enforce this action a different way. So when you say the inspectors, when you imply the

inspectors were in there doing their work, that is simply not the case.


In the extract below, Janet Napolitano discusses agreements and

disagreements of Obama‘s and McCain‘s policy. She explains what the legislation is

obliged to do. She expresses her detachment from it:

Modality

188

Example 103

NEIL CAVUTO, HOST: All right. All right, so Barack Obama plans to show up for

Friday`s big debate at Ole Miss. John McCain does not. He is keeping his campaign going.

John McCain is not. He insists he calls -- called John McCain first. John McCain says he

called him first. So, these

two aren`t even remotely in synch on this issue.

Governor Janet Napolitano, Democrat of Arizona, joins me right now. She`s a big Obama

supporter.

Governor, these two are not on the same page.

GOV. JANET NAPOLITANO (D), ARIZONA: Well, I think actually, they are on some

fundamentals. They`re on the same page in terms of what any kind of bailout legislation

needs to look like, that it has to have independent oversight, that it has to protect home

buyers, that it has to repay taxpayers, and it has to ensure that the CEOs and others who

have profited over the last few years don`t make profits out of this bailout.

(App., p. 195, Janet Napolitano, 2008-09-24, ll. 5-17)

As already mentioned, deontic necessity may be expressed not only by must or

have to, but also by the modal auxiliary should. The deontics must and should are both

used to impose an obligation. The difference is that obligation laid by must is stronger

than that laid by should. As regards the form ought to, most sources agree on its

interchangeability with should (cf. Huddleston and Pullum 2002:186; Palmer 1979:100;

Hoye 1997:109), however, in spoken discourse should is used more frequently than

ought to, which is also indicated in the present analysis. Should was used 154 times in

the corpus, while ought to only 17 times by both genders, as Table 32 demonstrates.

Should and ought to occur 171 times in total compared to 371 occurrences of have to

and have got to. It can be interpreted as an effort of politicians to sound

authoritative and detached rather than responsible for their claims.

In Example 104, the topic discussed is obesity in the UK. Alan Johnson cites

an argument of a scientist who claims that governments should not interfere in

solving this problem since it is similar to smoking or sexual health. When using should

not, the obligation implied by this modal is not so strong:

Modality

189

Example 104

JON SOPEL: I'm joined now by Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary. Welcome to the

Politics Show. How seriously do you see the problem of obesity.

ALAN JOHNSON: Well, I see it's a very serious problem mainly because we asked the

scientists and the clinicians to look at this, we asked them to look at what the world would

look like in 2050 in relation to obesity and it was their report that's driven our policy and

it's the science and the clinicians view that will guide us through this and I think Max's, I'm

obviously with Gill on this argument, Max's argument was not just an argument about

obesity, it was an argument about public health, it was saying that governments shouldn't

intervene, whether it's on smoking, whether it's on issues like sexual health; governments

simply shouldn't intervene at all, that's the extreme libertarian view and I think that's

wrong. And on obesity and life style epidemics, we now know that it's as big a problem

now as smoking was in the '60s.

(App., p. 173, Alan Johnson, 2008-04-13, ll. 7-18)

Discussing a conference about Iraq, Condoleezza Rice explains the

obligations which the states involved in the Iraq conflict have. According to her, they

should stabilize Iraq. She used ought to to signal that this obligation should be urgently

fulfilled but, at the same time, it indicates that other things should also be done, not

only this one.

Example 105

QUESTION: But they could have had a foreign minister-to-foreign minister conversation

in Egypt if they wanted to, foreign minister-to-foreign minister, and they chose not to do it.

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I believe that what I said, Charlie, was that if the opportunity

proposed -- showed itself, of course, I'd be very happy to greet my Iranian counterpart. It

didn't happen. We didn't seek a bilateral with them. They didn't seek a bilateral meeting

with us. Our officials did on the margins of the conference have a chance to exchange

some views about Iraq.

But again, this was a conference not about U.S.-Iranian relations, not about U.S.-Syrian

relations. This was a conference about Iraq. And if the neighbors, including those of us

who are deeply involved in Iraq, can find a way to work together to help stabilize Iraq, we

ought to do it.


Modality

190

9.9.3 Epistemic Attitudinal Modality


178 191 369

Table 33: Epistemic Attitudinal Modality

As already mentioned above, this category is somewhat special since it has

not been identified in the relevant literature, to my knowledge, but it is quite

numerous in the corpus; in concrete terms, it is the third most frequent kind of

modality with 369 occurrences in total. Female politicians expressed it more

frequently than male politicians, as Table 33 shows. It is expressed by the pragmatic

particles really, actually and frankly; really being the most frequent one, which illustrates

Table 34 below.


Politicians Total

really 76 106 182

actually 91 53 144

frankly 11 32 43

Table 34: Modal Means Expressing Epistemic Attitudinal Modality

Really is used by females more frequently than by males, by contrast, male

politicians prefer using actually. Out of 43 occurrences of frankly in total, 32 are

utilized by females.

All examples of really, actually and frankly in the corpus are expressions of

epistemic stance since they relate to the speaker‟s attitude to the truth of the

proposition and to modifying the illocutionary force. The problem with these three

adverbs is that they cannot be placed within any subtype of the epistemic modality

proposed here because they express neither epistemic necessity, possibility nor

assumption. That is why I have suggested a special category of epistemic modality.

The main reason for using these pragmatic particles by the speaker is to

show his/her involvement. As can be seen, they are used by politicians quite often,

which may be ascribed to the fact that politicians, in spite of showing detachment

from what they say, do not want to lose face in front of their audience, they try to

Modality

191

show their involvement with the proposition expressed. They attempt to be closer

to their voters and speak a similar language as they do.

Here again, it may be observed that pragmatic and modal functions are

interrelated. Apart from their modal functions, all three adverbs function

pragmatically both as boosters or hedges. Their pragmatic functions as boosters are

the expression of assurance (really) and content-oriented emphasis (actually, frankly); as

hedges they attenuate the force of the given utterance (for a more detailed account of

these pragmatic functions see Chapter 7, Sections 7.4.4 and 7.4.1, and Chapter 8,

Section 8.4.1). Consider the examples below which illustrate this type of modality.

In the example below, the question of terrorism is discussed. Bush expresses

his fears about the security of the Americans. He wants to stress his worries by the

use of speaker-oriented booster really that shows his involvement with this big

problem the USA faces and the fact that he tries to solve it in some way.

Example 106

COURIC: When you think about the threats out there, what is your biggest fear?

BUSH: Well – my biggest fear is somebody will come in and slip in this country and kill

Americans. And I can't tell you how. Obviously there would be the spectacular. That would

be the use of some kind of biological weapon or weapon of mass destruction. But as we

learned recently from the British plots, people were, you know, gonna get on airplanes and

blow up airplanes with innocent people flying to America.

And – you know, one way to look at it is we have to be right 100 percent of the time in

order to protect this country, and they gotta be right once. And it's just a – just a fact of

life. The – the – we're facing an enemy, Katie, that just doesn't care about innocent life.

I mean, they really are evil people.


In the following extract, Alan Duncan criticizes the attitude of Tony Blair to

nuclear power stations. He points out his reluctance to act by using the booster really.

At the same time, he does not want to sound too critical, therefore he uses the

hedges actually which should attenuate the forthcoming message:

Modality

192

Example 107

JON SOPEL: You say, you heard Bernard Ingham there saying that the Tories are

incredibly vague about all of this. I mean would you like to end some of the vagueness or

are you just going to say, well we just don't know yet because of these new technologies

that are coming on stream.

ALAN DUNCAN: Well you're pretending that the government is not vague. Now we all

hear Tony Blair saying you know, I want nuclear power stations but actually, if you look at

the print, he's really leaving it all to the markets, so it doesn't matter what he says because

nothing that he says actually, in terms of government policy is going to be converted in to

it actually happening, so let's not allow ourselves to be diverted by this rhetoric.

(interjection) ...


In Example 108, Hillary Clinton points out that it is necessary to find a new

solution and approach to the Iraq conflict and to the fight with terrorism. These

problems should be viewed as they really are. She proposes to change the people in

charge. She emphasizes the content of her message by using the adverb frankly. As

already mentioned, frankly is more typical of female politicians. My claim is that they

aim at having a positive and responsible attitude to their audience. They want to be

frank and honest and they do not want to pretend anything as regards the

relationship to their voters since they believe that in this way, they gain their

confidence more easily. This, again, relates to the position of women in the area of

politics, which is not as strong as the position of male politicians.

Example 108

McFadden: Is there a link between Iraq, the war in Iraq and terrorism? The president says

yes. What do you say?

Clinton: Well, the president is right, if you're talking about today, but not if you're going

back to 9/11 or 2002, when the vote was cast, or even March 2003, when the invasion

occurred. ... I just wish that this president and vice president would get out of the bubble

they're in, quit listening to the people they're listening, change their national security team

and maybe bring in some new voices, which is why I've called for the resignation or the

firing, frankly, of Donald Rumsfeld.

Modality

193

But, instead, they're back to business as usual, trying to make links that don't exist, trying to

draw historical analogies that are not accurate. I think that does a great disservice not only

to the American people, but, frankly, to the quality of decision-making.


9.9.4 Circumstantial Possibility


50 48 98

Table 35: Circumstantial Possibility

Circumstantial possibility is, with 98 occurrences, the fourth most frequent

category of modality in the corpus, as demonstrated in Table 35 above. The

difference between males and females is mere two instances, which is insignificant.

Circumstantial possibility is expressed by the modal auxiliary can, both in the present

and past tense, the frequency of occurrence of the forms of this modal expressing

this type of modality is summarized in Table 36 below:


Politicians Total

can 25 20 45

could 20 16 36

can’t 3 12 15

couldn’t 2 0 2

Table 36: Modal Means of Circumstantial Possibility

Although circumstantial possibility occurs in the corpus quite frequently, it is

not mentioned by Palmer. This is quite surprising because in the corpus there are

examples of the modal verb can that cannot be determined according to his

classification. Circumstantial possibility has been identified by Huddleston and

Pullum (2002:184, 197) who define it as a possibility that is likely to happen

under certain circumstances. According to Palmer‘s classification, can is used to

refer to permission or ability. As is evident, could, in Example 109 below, expresses

neither of these categories. In this context, it is used to indicate the possibility for

Iran to have a nuclear weapon on condition that it gains the technology for

constructing it.

Modality

194

Example 109

MCFADDEN: New York Congressman Gary Ackerman said yesterday, "Everybody at

Annapolis has one thing in common: not a love of Israel or the Palestinians, but the fear of

Iran." Everybody needs a relative to protect them from Iran.

RICE: Well, clearly there is every reason to have a deep concern about Iran, about Iran's

support for terrorism and against the peoples of Lebanon and of Iraq and of the

Palestinian territories.

There's a reason to worry about an Iran that is trying to gain the technology that could lead

to a nuclear weapon, because enrichment and reprocessing capability, which is what the

world is trying to stop, is a technology that if used in certain ways can lead to a nuclear

weapon.

So there are reasons to worry about that. Clearly, there are reasons to worry about Iranian

aggression and ambition and what they're doing in the region.

I think people were there at Annapolis because they want to support a Palestinian state, but

of course extremism in the region is something that threatens everybody in that room.


In the next extract, the topic discussed is containment of Saddam Hussein.

Blair explains that it was not possible under any circumstances to keep troops in Iraq

for a long time. He uses the negative modal form couldn’t, which indicates this

impossibility.

Example 110

QUESTION: But if he could have been isolated with the inspectors there, if he could have

been surrounded by 250,000 troops, the entire world, he wouldn't have been able to hold

on forever.

BLAIR: Yes, but you couldn't have kept -- we can go over this again and again, but,

I mean, you couldn't actually, frankly, have kept quarter of a million troops down there.

It's very long.

At some point, you had to come to a situation where he had a chance of heart or there was

a change of regime, and I think what is interesting is that actually removing Saddam took

two or three months.


Modality

195

The subject of discussion in Example 111 is a natural disaster in Rangoon

and the help of various humanitarian organizations. Miliband assures British people

who decided to contribute an amount of money that this money will be used

properly. He stresses it with the modal verb can, which emphasizes that on condition

that they contributed in the UK, they do not have to worry.

Example 111

JON SOPEL: If someone is at home listening to this interview with you and you're

describing the desperate situation there, but also the reluctance of the regime to help, why

on earth would you part with your money to help the situation if you're not sure that the

money you give is going to be turned in to mosquito nets that will get to the people who

need it.

DAVID MILIBAND: Well I want to address that very directly. Anyone who's given

money in Britain, can be sure that it will be properly used, because it won't go - and it

won't go in to the regime's military coffers. Our aid is channeled through organizations like

Save the Children, who rightly have a very high reputation and I think that that's why there

is this very important next thirty six hours.

I mean, the last six or seven days have been really inexplicable I think, to most people, that

it should have taken so long. You rightly drew the comparison with the tsunami and the

response that happened then. But of course the government in that case, actually

welcomed the international community, rather than rejecting it. But I think that we are

clear that our aid will go when it's able to do go, and that's the right basis on which to

appeal to people.


The examples above show that the reason why politicians use the modal

forms can and could with this meaning may, again, be due to signalling detachment

from their utterances and showing irresponsibility for them. Again, it can be judged

as a face-saving strategy. They are not sure if the particular event happens or not,

that is why they present it as possible but only under certain circumstances.

9.9.5 Epistemic Necessity


36 51 87

Modality

196

Table 37: Epistemic Necessity

Epistemic necessity, or strong modality, belongs, together with deontic

possibility, to the least frequent types of modality appearing in political interviews. It

is expressed in 87 utterances in the whole corpus, out of which 36 were produced by

males and 51 instances were produced by females, as shown in Table 37. Concerning

linguistic expression of this type of modality in the corpus, it includes the modal

auxiliary can in its non-assertive form, modal adjectives sure and certain, and the modal

adverbs surely and certainly. The number of occurrences of these lexical means is

summarized in Table 38 below:


Politicians Total

certainly 18 34 52

sure 12 6 18

can’t 1 8 9

certain 1 3 4

surely 4 0 4

Table 38: Modal Means of Epistemic Necessity

This type of modality can also be expressed by must, utilized as a strong

modal, however, it does not occur in my corpus at all. Must in its epistemic use

―conveys the speaker‟s confidence in the truth of what he is saying, based on a

logical process of deduction from facts known to him (which may or may not be

specified)‖ (Coates 1983:41, my emphasis). This use of must is subjective. Objective

epistemic necessity ―involves strict semantic necessity‖ (Huddleston and Pullum

2002:181). However, Coates claims that objective epistemic modality, though present

in natural language, is not very usual (1983:18).

Epistemic must is not utilized in the corpus at all. The explanation for this

could be that it sounds too authoritative and, as stated above, it communicates

confidence of the speaker about what s/he is saying, which may be restrictive for

politicians in that it does not leave them any room for mitigating the force of their

utterances. Politicians tend to leave some room for changing their opinion,

modifying their assertions and also for saving their face in case of potential

accusation of lying.

Modality

197

Modal adjectives and adverbs occur more frequently in the corpus than

epistemic modals verbs. The most frequent of them is certainly. It is interesting that

the modal adverb surely is not so frequent, although there is no semantic difference

between surely and certainly. Both genders prefer using certainly, female speakers did

not use surely at all. Below, there are several examples from the corpus to illustrate

this category.

When discussing the issues concerning the return from maternity leave to

work, the interviewer asks Harriet Harman about the policy of the Labour Party

relating to this subject. She assures the audience, by using the epistemic certainly,

about various choices the parents have in this respect. Pragmatically, certainly

functions as a speaker-oriented booster expressing assurance, which proves that

pragmatic and modal functions in epistemic use are manifestations of the same

meaning.

Example 112

JON SOPEL: Harriet Harman welcome to the Politics Show. Just focusing on that report

that we just saw there. Have your policies been too one-sided, too much encouragement

maybe to get women back to work, but not actually giving them the facility to stay at home

if they wanted to with their children.

HARRIET HARMAN: I don't think they have been one-sided but certainly, there does

need to be more choice for families in the very early years of a child's life. You see, the

national minimum wage was something which actually gave parents more time at home

with their children because if you've got a very low wage then you have to work all hours to

make ends meet. And one of the objectives of that national minimum wage topped up by

the tax credit, was to give some families the opportunity, who otherwise couldn't afford it,

to have one of the couple staying at home full time, or one only working part time and the

reality is that the lower down the income scale you are, the less choice you've got. If you're

high up the income scale, then irrespective of your housing costs and such like, you can

make those choices and we need to support those families, who are constrained in their

choice because it's hard for them to make ends meet.

(App., p. 165, Harriet Harman, 2007-06-17, ll. 9-24)

Modality

198

In the extract below, Sarah Palin expresses her assurance to the listeners of

Barack Obama‘s patriotism. The phrase ―I am sure‖ focuses on the speaker‘s

responsibility for her claim.

Example 113

VARGAS: But, set the record straight. Do you think Senator Obama is as patriotic, as

American, as honorable as John McCain?

PALIN: I am sure that Senator Obama, ... cares as much for this country as McCain does.

Now, McCain has a strong, solid track record of his ... I think, some manifestations of the

opportunities that he's had to prove that patriotism, and that love for country, but no. A ...

and I don't want anybody to ever put words in my mouth, and, and, you know, I'll fight

hard against any kind of false allegation in terms of what I've said or what I've meant. I'm

... I'm, for the record, stating, no, that, I'm not calling someone out on their love of country

or level of patriotism.

(App., p. 198, Sarah Palin, 2008-10-29, ll. 55-63)

In Example 114 below, the speaker uses two means of epistemic necessity in

one utterance, which even more emphasises her claim. Using certainly directs more

attention to the speaker‘s involvement to the proposition.

Example 114

QUESTION: The President of Syria also says that the United States has a large border

with Mexico and we can't prevent a lot of people from coming in. And he also says that

there has to be a relationship before full cooperation can take place.

SECRETARY RICE: Well, a relationship, of course, is going to depend on whether or not

Syria actually carries out the objectives and the responsibilities that it says it needs to carry

out. But this isn't a quid pro quo. This isn't somehow a favor for the United States. I can

assure you that Syria, with extremists transiting through Syria, that the Syrians are going to

find themselves in a situation in which that's destabilizing for Syria.

And it certainly can't be very good for Iraq's neighbors to have a situation in which

extremists are able to move across borders, to kill innocent Iraqis, to create large refugee

flows -- something that the Syrians complain loudly about. So I would hope that Syria

would do this in its own interests, and if there is cooperation to be had on that border,

then, of course, the United States would want to cooperate.


Modality

199

9.9.6 Deontic Possibility


10 13 23

Table 39: Deontic Possibility

As shown in Table 39 above, deontic possibility is not so frequent in political

interviews; altogether, there are 23 occurrences: males produced this type of modality

10 times in the corpus and females produced it in 13 utterances. The low number of

appearances may be explained by the genre of political interview itself since this

modality expresses giving permission, which is not typical of this genre. Deontic

possibility may be found more frequently in different types of spoken discourse, such

as informal face-to-face conversation.

Deontic possibility is expressed by the modal verbs may and can, with may

being restricted to the formal style and can to the informal one. As proposed by

Coates (1983:147), may and might are interchangeable in their epistemic uses, which is

not true about their deontic interpretations since the use of might, in this sense, is

―extremely rare‖, as claimed and proven by Hoye (1997:94-95).

In the corpus, there appear only instances of deontic possibility expressed by

the modal auxiliary can, as Table 40 below demonstrates. Although may is frequently

used in formal style, it does not occur in the corpus. Therefore, the use of can may be

a sign of tendency to informality in this genre.


Politicians Total

can 4 10 14

could 3 2 5

can’t 3 1 4

Table 40: Modal Means of Deontic Possibility

In Example 115, Condoleezza Rice tells a story about her grandfather, who

as an African-American had problems with receiving education. Both modal verbs

could express deontic necessity since they relate to obtaining permission to go to

college and to receiving a scholarship.

Modality

200

Example 115

RICE: [...] But I want to just close with this little story because -- maybe some of you‘ve

heard it. But -- my grandfather, my father's father, was a sharecropper's son in Ewtah,

Alabama -- E-w-t-a-h, Alabama. And for some reason, he decided he wanted to get book

learning. And so he would ask people who came through where could a colored man go to

college. And they said, well, there's Stillman College, which is a little Presbyterian school

about 60 miles from here, but you're going to have to pay to go there. So he saved up his

cotton and he got enough money from his cotton to go to Stillman. He made his way to

Stillman. He made it through his first year of school. And then the second year they said,

okay, now where's your tuition for the second year? And he said, well, I‘ve paid with all the

cotton I had. And they said -- he said, but -- well, how are those boys going to school?

They said, well, you know, they have what's called a scholarship. He said -- and if you

wanted to be a Presbyterian minister, then you could have a scholarship too. And my

grandfather said, oh, you know, that's exactly what I plan to do. (Laughter.)


In Example 116, there are two instances of can illustrating deontic possibility.

The discussion is about the last presidential campaign in the USA. The interviewer

asks Hillary Clinton if Barack Obama is prepared to be president of the USA. Can in

the utterances below expresses that the voters are permitted to ask questions during

the election campaigns.

Example 116

MR. RUSSERT: But is Barack Obama ready to be president?

SEN. CLINTON: That is up for voters to decide, Tim. You know, you can ask that

question of him, voters can ask that question, but that's what I want. I thought the

campaign really started at the debate in New Hampshire. For the first time we really had

a debate that compared and contrasted our records. When Senator Obama was asked, what

is your major accomplishment in the Senate, he said it was passing ethics reform and

getting legislators to be prohibited from having lunch with lobbyists. And then, you know,

Charlie Gibson said, "Well, wait a minute. You can have lunch if you're standing up, not if

you're sitting down." So if that's his main claim for legislative accomplishment, people

deserve to know that. And finally, in New Hampshire, we had an atmosphere where tough

questions were asked and answered. I answered hundreds and hundreds of questions, saw

thousands and thousands of people, and I think that the results really speak to what people

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are hungry for. They want to get beyond, you know, just the coverage of the campaign, to

really understand what motivates us, what we bring to this campaign, and what we will do

as president.


Deontic possibility may also be expressed by the non-assertive form can’t,

which expresses a prohibition. In the example below, Bush speaks about the danger

of various ideologies that are connected with strange prohibitions and permissions.

The negative form can’t in the utterance below expresses the prohibition to

communicate your opinions freely. Two assertive uses of can in the following

utterances signal the permission, however, in this context, Bush is being ironic since

he wants to emphasize the dangers of ideologies that consider only the official

religious belief as correct.

Example 117

Frei: The Chinese government has been saying - part in response to this that - "America is

[slipping back into] Cold War thinking."

Mr Bush: Yeah. Well, you know, they're... I think that's just a brush back pitch, as we say in

baseball. It's... America is trapped in this notion that we care about human life. We respect

human dignity. And that's not a trap. That's a belief. And that many of [us] in this country

recognise that the human condition matters to our own national security. See, I happen to

believe we're in an ideological struggle. And, those who murder the innocent to achieve

political objectives are evil people. But, they have an ideology. And the only way you can

recruit for that ideology is to find hopeless folks. I mean, who wants to join an ideology say

women don't have rights? You can't express yourself freely. Religious beliefs are... you

know, the only religious belief you can hold is the one we tell you. And, oh, by the way, it's

great. You can be a suicider. Well, hopeless people are the ones who get attracted by that

point of view. And, therefore, it's in the world's interest from a national security

perspective to deal with hopelessness. And it has to be in our moral interest. I repeat to

you... I believe to whom much is given, much is required. It happens to be a religious

notion. But, it should be a universal notion as well. And... I believe America's soul is

enriched, our spirit is enhanced when we help people who suffer.


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9.10 Gender-Specificity and Modality

As regards gender-specificity and modality, the corpus indicates that female

politicians employ modal forms more frequently than male politicians. Females

produced 1,124 instances of modal expressions, while males utilized 1,079 modal

expressions. Concerning particular types of modality, deontic necessity, epistemic

attitudinal modality, epistemic necessity, and deontic possibility are types occurring

more frequently in female speakers. Conversely, epistemic possibility and

circumstantial possibility are more frequent in male politicians. The exact numbers of

occurrences of all types of modality by male and female speakers may be found in

Section 9.9.

Even if the corpus of political interviews is extensive, my research into

modality reveals that it is very difficult to make generalizations about gender-

specificity in connection with the concept of modality. Interpretation of the data is

difficult since it is necessary to focus not only on the types of modality but also

on the types of linguistic means used to express these types of modality. At

first, modalities produced more frequently by male politicians than by females will be

evaluated, then the focus will be on modalities utilized more frequently by females.

Male politicians produced more instances of epistemic possibility than

females. Modal expressions of this type of modality that are used by males more

frequently than by females are I mean, may, possible, probably, and possibly. By contrast, I

think, I don’t think, might, maybe, perhaps, apparently, and likely are means of epistemic

modality preferred by females (see Section 9.9.1). A typical feature of this type of

modality is subjectivity because the speaker presents his/her opinions from his/her

own personal perspective. Politicians use this feature to stress their views and beliefs

to influence their voters. Subjectivity relates to the pragmatic function of boosting

the illocutionary force. If the linguistic means of epistemic possibility pragmatically

function as hedges, they express speaker‟s uncertainty and assumption about the

proposition.

Table 41 demonstrates pragmatic functions of epistemic possibility

employed by male and female politicians in the corpus. As is evident, boosting

devices are much more frequent than hedging devices in both genders. From this it

follows that both genders aim at emphasizing their opinions and expressing

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their own beliefs and thus they want to influence the audience. Indeterminacy

expressed by hedges does not manifest itself to such a great extent by this type of

modality. The reason is that neither male nor female politicians want to look

uncertain in front of their audience.

Boosters Hedges

Male Politicians 332 213

Female Politicians 323 184

Total 655 397

Table 41: Pragmatic Functions of Epistemic Possibility

Another type of modality that occurs more frequently in males is

circumstantial possibility. However, the difference between male and female

speakers is not significant. It was produced 50 times by males and 48 instances

appeared in females. This modality expresses that an event may happen or may not

happen, depending on particular circumstances. This modality indicates detachment

of the speaker from the proposition and irresponsibility for it.

The type of modality which shows a clear difference between male and

female speakers in the frequency of occurrence in the corpus is deontic necessity. It

is more frequent in females. As shown in Section 9.9.2, females produced 225

instances of the modal forms have to/have got to and must, and only 86 instances of

should or ought to. Males produced 169 instances of have to/have got to and must, and 85

instances of should or ought to. As already mentioned, deontic necessity expressed by

must or have to is stronger than that expressed by should. This may signal that female

politicians by using stronger modal forms want to sound authoritative and

want to assert themselves in the area of politics. They may attempt to show that

they are equal partners to their male counterparts and that they should not be

undervalued.

Epistemic attitudinal modality is another type of modality that occurs

more frequently in females. It is, again, as epistemic possibility, connected with

expressing subjectivity of the speaker to the proposition. Modal means of this

modality, the adverbs really, frankly, and actually, appear in pragmatic functions of

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boosting and hedging. As indicated in Table 42 below, females used more boosting

devices than males, which shows a high degree of subjectivity and involvement

with their propositions. By contrast, males used more hedging devices within this

type of modality, which indicates a higher degree of hesitation of these

speakers.

Boosters Hedges

Male Politicians 114 64

Female Politicians 149 42

Total 263 106

Table 42: Pragmatic Functions of Epistemic Attitudinal Modality

Epistemic necessity is the third modality used more frequently by female

speakers. It is expressed by linguistic means that pragmatically always function as

speaker-oriented boosters. Their function is to express assurance of the speaker

about the proposition expressed. This fact again confirms the claim that

pragmatic and epistemic modal functions express very similar meanings since

these expressions, although primarily used modally, also express assurance of the

speaker. When using these modal expressions, female politicians aim at asserting

themselves in front of their audience and looking as sure and confident speakers.

Deontic possibility appears more frequently in female speakers, however, as

demonstrated in Section 9.9.6 above, and as already explained, it is not so frequent in

the corpus since giving permission is not typical of this genre of spoken discourse.

In sum, this analysis of modality shows that even if some types of modality

signal detachment (circumstantial possibility and deontic necessity) and

indeterminacy (epistemic possibility), it is subjectivity that prevails in both male

and female politicians. This is another proof of speaker‟s involvement in the

genre of political interview. Politicians want to influence the viewers and persuade

them that they are the best people to perform the political positions they hold.

Lexical means of epistemic types of modality function pragmatically as boosting or

hedging devices, depending on the context and this research shows that their modal

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and pragmatic functions are in agreement. From these results it follows that a modal

and a pragmatic function express very similar meanings.

In the last section of the chapter dealing with modality, modal combinations

in the corpus will be examined.

9.11 Modal Combinations

9.11.1 Modally Harmonic and Modally Non-harmonic Combinations

More modal expressions can be combined in one utterance in a variety of

ways. Lyons (1977:807ff) distinguishes between ―modally harmonic‖ and ―modally

non-harmonic‖ combinations. Possibly and may, for instance, when used

epistemically together in one sentence, are harmonic because they express ―the same

degree of modality‖ and strengthen each other. By contrast, ―certainly and may are, in

this sense, modally non-harmonic‖ (1977:807).

Modal harmony has also been mentioned by Huddleston and Pullum

(2002:179-180) who describe three types of modal harmony, namely, strong, medium

and weak:

The meeting must surely be over by now. - strong modal harmony

The meeting should probably be over by now. - medium modal harmony

The meeting may possibly be over by now. - weak modal harmony

As may be seen, a modal verb and an adverb of the same strength combine in

a single sentence and ―express a single feature of modal meaning‖ (2002:180).

Huddleston and Pullum also refer to the non-harmonic modal combination

where the modal components do not have an identical meaning as in It may surely have

been an accident (2002:180).

Halliday (1970:330-331) calls the occurrence of a modal verb and an adverb

in the same sentence ―double modality‖ and adds that ―where there is double

modality one must be expressed non-verbally‖ (1970:330, note 12). The pairs of

modal expressions which are equivalent in meaning, i.e. they are in a harmonic

combination, strengthen each other (as ―concord‖), for example, ―Perhaps he might

have built it‖ (Halliday 1970:331). When the two modal expressions are not equivalent,

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as in the sentence ―Certainly he might have built it‖ (1970:331), they ―are thus

cumulative in meaning‖ (1970:331, my emphasis).

In case modally harmonic expressions occur within one clause, ―there is a

kind of concord running through the clause, which results in the double realization

of a single modality‖ (Lyons 1977:808). Nevertheless, in case of the non-harmonic

combination of the modal verb and the adverb, these constituents influence each

other in that one lies within the scope of the other. Lyons (1977:808) gives this

examples:

Certainly he may have forgotten.

He may certainly have forgotten.

The first sentence means ―It is certainly the case that he may have forgotten‖,

thus, may is within the scope of certainly. The meaning of the latter sentence is

ambiguous. It may be interpreted either as ―It is certainly the case that he may have

forgotten‖ or as ―It may be the case that he has certainly forgotten‖. However, what

is clear about the modal expressions in the latter sentence is the fact that, as Lyons

puts it, ―no more than one of the two modal expressions can express subjective

epistemic modality (though they may both express objective epistemic modality) and

it is the one which expresses subjective epistemic modality that has the wider scope‖

(1977:808).

In general, combinations of modal expressions are connected with various

pragmatic functions such as making suggestions, recommendations, offers,

commands or requests (Hoye 1997:84). As regards political interviews, the functions

are slightly different. The always depend on the context in which the particular

utterance is uttered. Therefore, these modal combinations may show indirectness,

hesitation, and uncertainty of the speaker, or, by contrast, they may strengthen

the illocutionary force of the utterance, as shown in the examples below.

Although there also appear non-harmonic modal combinations in the corpus,

their number is much lower than the number of harmonic modal combinations, as

Table 43 shows:

Combination Number of Occurrence

Modally Harmonic 15

Modally Non-Harmonic 6

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Table 43: Modally Harmonic and Non-harmonic Combinations

Example 118 is an instance of a modal harmonic combination since two

modal expressions of the same strength are combined in one utterance:

Example 118

QUESTION: The President of Syria also says that the United States has a large border

with Mexico and we can't prevent a lot of people from coming in. And he also says that

there has to be a relationship before full cooperation can take place.

SECRETARY RICE: Well, a relationship, of course, is going to depend on whether or not

Syria actually carries out the objectives and the responsibilities that it says it needs to carry

out. But this isn't a quid pro quo. This isn't somehow a favor for the United States. I can

assure you that Syria, with extremists transiting through Syria, that the Syrians are going to

find themselves in a situation in which that's destabilizing for Syria.

And it certainly can't be very good for Iraq's neighbors to have a situation in which

extremists are able to move across borders, to kill innocent Iraqis, to create large refugee

flows -- something that the Syrians complain loudly about. So I would hope that Syria

would do this in its own interests, and if there is cooperation to be had on that border,

then, of course, the United States would want to cooperate.


By contrast, Example 119 shows a modally non-harmonic combination in

which two modal means, namely, the modal adverb certainly and the modal verb

should, are combined. Should expresses medium modality, certainly expresses strong

modality.

Example 119

QUESTION: We're just about out of time, but I'd like to ask one question about Darfur.

Are you concerned that because of the difficulties we've had in Iraq, it's made it more

difficult to take the kind of forceful action we might need to be taking against what is

a genocide right now in Darfur?

BLAIR: I think that the trouble is that in Darfur, the Africans, other countries don't want

American, U.K., other European troops there. Now, the (inaudible) said it's a United

Nations-African Union force. I don't think that's the issue. I think the issue is getting the

force in there and I think that if, in the next weeks and next couple of months or so, the

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Sudanese government are not prepared to agree to the U.N. plan, then we've got to move

to sanctions and we've got to move to tougher action.

And I think we should certainly consider the option of a no-fly zone to help people in

Darfur, because it's a very, very serious situation and it's now spilling into other countries

next door.

But this is not our military force, certainly, in terms of boots on the ground.


9.11.2 Modal Combinations in the Corpus

The traditional approach to modal combinations described in Section 9.11.1

has been to distinguish only combinations of two elements, namely, a modal verb

and a modal adverb. However, at this point, the results of the present study are not

consistent with earlier studies (Halliday 1970; Lyons 1977; Hoye 1997) since the

corpus of political interviews proves that there are more possibilities of these

combinations (see Table 44 below). Therefore, not only combinations of modal

verbs and modal adverbs have been included but also combinations of pragmatic

particles with modal verbs and adverbs are analysed since they are also relevant to

expressing modality.

Modal Combination Number of

Occurrences

modal verb + modal adverb 10

pragmatic particle + modal adverb 5

modal adverb + modal adverb 3

modal verb + periphrastic form 3

Table 44: Modal Combinations in the Corpus

As demonstrated in Table 44 above, not only a modal verb and a modal

adverb may be combined but various combinations of modal means are possible.

These combinations will be described in greater detail in the following sections.

modal verb + modal adverb

The most frequent modal sequence is the combination of a modal verb and a

modal adverb. As Table 44 indicates, it occurs 10 times in the corpus. Modal verbs

which appear in this type of combinations are should, must, could, can’t, and can, and

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periphrastic forms have got to and have to. Modal adverbs occurring with the modals

are actually, really, perhaps, probably, frankly, and certainly.

Debating immigration problems and immigration law, Condoleezza Rice

assures the audience that the defence of the border and financial support of border

security is a very important issue of Bush‘s administration. The adverb really

combined with must emphasises the illocutionary force of her words:

Example 120

BLITZER: The president meets this week with the leaders of Canada and Mexico.

Immigration, illegal immigration in the United States, a big issue. The House passed

legislation which would make it a felony for an illegal immigrant in the United States simply

to be here. Is that something the Bush administration supports?

RICE: The president has very clearly stated the principles on which we would work to try

and get a more humane and effective immigration law, and those principles include that we

really must, of course, defend our border, and we've put a lot of money into border

security. The State Department has enhanced its request for border security. We are

obviously determined that U.S. laws should be enforced.

It's also the case that we have a population here that needs to be treated humanely. No

matter how they came here, I think Americans want to think that people would be treated

humanely, and the president has talked about a temporary worker program that would

allow people to -- who have work that Americans will not do, to find a way to be legally in

the country.


In Example 121, Hillary Clinton discusses nominations for American

president and decisions president has to make. She uses the modal combination of

the periphrastic form have got to and the modal adverb actually.

Example 121

Whoever is nominated, and it's likely to be Senator Obama or myself, will get a fresh look

by the people of America, will get an increased amount of, you know, questions about who

we are and where we're from. Because all of a sudden it becomes real. You've covered this

for a long time. You know, when my husband ran in '92, he finally clinched the nomination

in June in California. He was running third behind President Bush and behind Ross Perot.

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Others of our candidates on both sides of the aisle start out behind and wage a winning

campaign.

So I think what people who are concerned about electability should be looking at is

number one, who can be the best president, the best president from day one, who is

prepared, who has taken tough positions, because you're going to have to take them. You

know, Senator Obama voted present 130 times in the state Senate. When you're president,

you can't vote present. You have to make a decision. Sometimes it's a split second decision.

You don't have time to, you know, think about it. You've got to actually decide. So I'm

going to take the case to the country as the nominee that I've been tested, I've been

proven. I have the experience we need to make the changes we want and I think that's

a winning case, and, you know, whomever the Republicans nominate.


In the following example, ex-president Bush should explain the problems

with sharing information because his administration had been criticised because of

that. The interviewer also asks if he changed anything in the past five years. In his

answer, Bush uses the modal combination of the modal adverb probably and the

modal verb could. Probably hedges his statement.

Example 122

COURIC: But – but what's your response to that?

BUSH: My response is, is that we're sharing information much better than prior to

September the 11th. We've got a – a counterterrorism center where people from different

agencies come and meet. And, you know, again, I repeat to you: We – we're working to

improve as best as we possibly can. But this system of ours has improved dramatically since

September the 11th.

COURIC: When you look back on the last five years, President Bush, is there anything that

you wish you had done differently?

BUSH: Yeah. I mean, I wish, for example, Abu Ghraib didn't happen. That was a stain on

our nation's character, and it sent a signal about who we're not to a lot of people around

the world. I probably could have – watched my language a little better, you know?


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pragmatic particle + modal adverb

The second most frequent modal combination appearing in the corpus is that

of a pragmatic particle and a modal adverb. There occur 5 instances of this

combination in the corpus. The pragmatic particle I think is combined with modal

adverbs actually and really.

In Example 123, the pragmatic particle I think and the modal adverb actually

are combined in one utterance. Here, actually attenuates the illocutionary force of the

utterance since the speaker wants to gain detachment from her statement:

Example 123

JON SOPEL: But a lot of the candidates seem to be moving to the left. I mean I wonder

how you would characterise the race for the Deputy leadership as it is at the moment - the

different camps.

HAZEL BLEARS: Well, what I think we've got as I say is a range of people out there

who've got a lot of expertise and in different areas, and they've also got a lot of experience.

Myself, I was a Home Office Minister for three years, I dealt with policing, counter-

terrorism after 7/7, I've been a Health Minister, you've got a whole range of talents here. I

actually think that rather than having one or two people to choose from, the fact that the

Labour Party is able to throw up half a dozen people at the top of our movement, who are

capable of taking this on, is actually a testament to what we've achieved.


In the next example, the same combination of modal means as in the

previous example is used, however, actually follows the pragmatic particle I think. It

means that it hedges the following part of the utterance.

Example 124

NEIL CAVUTO, HOST: All right. All right, so Barack Obama plans to show up for

Friday`s big debate at Ole Miss. John McCain does not. He is keeping his campaign going.

John McCain is not. He insists he calls -- called John McCain first. John McCain says he

called him first. So, these

two aren`t even remotely in synch on this issue.

Governor Janet Napolitano, Democrat of Arizona, joins me right now. She`s a big Obama

supporter.

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212

Governor, these two are not on the same page.

GOV. JANET NAPOLITANO (D), ARIZONA: Well, I think actually, they are on some

fundamentals. They`re on the same page in terms of what any kind of bailout legislation

needs to look like, that it has to have independent oversight, that it has to protect home

buyers, that it has to repay taxpayers, and it has to ensure that the CEOs and others who

have profited over the last few years don`t make profits out of this bailout.

(App., p. 195, Janet Napolitano, 2008-09-24, ll. 5-17)

Example 125 is similar to the previous exmple as regards the syntactic

structure of modal means. The modal adverb really follows the pragmatic particle I

think so it emphasises the following part of the utterance.

Example 125

DF: Prime Minister, back in November 2001 you said that the Taliban was in a state of

total collapse. What's happened? It seems to have had a comeback, a revival to be a serious

enemy again. What's happened, did we underestimate them or ...?

TB: No but I think really what's happened is that although in many parts of Afghanistan

they've been beaten back, in the south in a sense they have never really left.

Up in Kabul it's been a different picture, but again what it indicates is that they are very

serious about trying to take us on, trying to take on the Afghan people who obviously want

to elect their government as they've been able to do for the first time, and again the answer

is to stick with it and make sure that we, we help those people who want to, to get a better

future where they‘re not prey to the Taliban and al-Qaeda and their country is turned into

a training camp or a narcotics economy or girls aren't allowed to go to school or any of the

rest of the extremism that comes with them.


modal adverb + modal adverb

This type of combination belongs to less frequent categories in the corpus.

Three instances of this type appear in the corpus, two of them are coincidentally in

one interview. When determining the pragmatic function of this combination, it is

again necessary to take into account the context of the message.

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In the following example, in the first instance, modal adverbs actually and

really accentuate the subjectivity of speaker‘s message, by contrast, in the second

instance, these modal adverbs hedge the utterance:

Example 126

JON SOPEL: Okay, and let me just try and drag you back to where we started because you

say there isn't a contest, well there is.

Peter Hain has announced that he's running, you were sitting next to him when he declared

that he was going to be running for the Deputy Leadership. So has Harriet Harman.

Were they wrong to do that?

HAZEL BLEARS: No, what they've said is that if and when there's a contest they intend

their names to go forward and this is some time in the future.

What I'm actually really interested in is now, today, having a good conference. Also

having some really exciting policies to meet some of the challenges that are coming upon

us. You know, the world is changing very fast indeed.

JON SOPEL: Okay.

HAZEL BLEARS: If you think about migration, security, terrorism, the re-structuring of

industry, particularly manufacturing industry, these are the real pressures on people.

I was at a Party meeting on Saturday morning, when my members actually raised with me

the brand new academy that we've got in the city. They also talked to me about the

maternity services in the hospital and they talked about the Lebanon.

So these were really big, important issues to our party members. But the strongest message

was, for goodness sake, let's get on with that agenda and all this squabbling is actually

really quite disturbing Party members and the public and I think that's a very strong

message to us.


In Example 127, the speaker also uses a modal combination of two modal

adverbs but in this case, they are the same lexical items. Their pragmatic function is

to emphasise the speaker‘s statement and to assure the audience about the

seriousness of the situation.

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214

Example 127

JON SOPEL: And when you talk about the squabbling and you talk about the people in

marginal seats feeling worried, and then you have Clare Short saying, well actually, what

would be the best outcome of, of a General Election would be a hung parliament.

Now what action has been taken, will be taken, where are you on this?

HAZEL BLEARS: Well first of all, I think what Clare Short has said is extremely serious.

Calling for a hung parliament inevitably means that we will have fewer Labour MPs.

The fundamental aim of the Labour Party is to elect Labour people in councils and to

parliament, and therefore I think this is a very serious matter indeed.

The General Secretary has written to Clare Short and the matter will be discussed at the

National Executive Committee on Wednesday, but I think this is a really really serious

matter, I genuinely do.


modal verb + periphrastic verb

As regards this combination of modal means, three instances of a modal

verbs and a periphrastic verb were found in the corpus. The modal verb occurring in

this combination is should combined with have to and be able to.

In Example 128, the combination of should and the periphrastic form have to

express detachment of the speaker from the proposition:

Example 128

QUESTION: Madame Secretary, there was some thinking several years ago that nation-

building was not something appropriate for the United States to do. Has that thinking

changed?

SECRETARY RICE: Yes. (Laughter.)

QUESTION: And how important is it –

SECRETARY RICE: To be fair, yes. Look, I think we always knew nation-building was

important, but I think my view coming in was, look, this isn‘t something the 82nd Airborne

should be doing. As a matter of fact, I think I‘m famous for that quote.

QUESTION: Taking children to school.

SECRETARY RICE: Yes. I still think this is not something that the military should have

to shoulder, which is why getting the civilian capacity is so important. And it‘s why some of

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our biggest supporters in this have been the military and the Defense Department -- Bob

Gates, for instance, because you know, the problem is we now know the real cost of failed

states. We know the cost of Afghanistan as a failed state that became, then, a breeding

ground for terrorism, became terrorism central. I don‘t think anybody wants to let that

happen again. And we know the cost of Somalia as a failed state.


Another two instances of this modal combination occur in one interview. It

is a combination of the modal verb should and the periphrastic form to be able to. Both

these forms put more emphasis on the content of the message.

Example 129

JON SOPEL: And has, I´ve seen it reported that you´re going to let councils borrow from

the private sector so that they can build more. Is that right.

YVETTE COOPER: Well councils can already use their borrowing in order to do all sorts

of investment in their area. There are certain difficulties around the way that the housing

revenue account works and the way that technical rules work and we are looking at greater

flexibility for councils. Of course it´s got to be within proper responsible public borrowing

frameworks, but we do want councils to play a stronger role.

JON SOPEL: And in this vision, you say councils play a bigger role, I´m just trying to get

the simple answer to the question, will there be a lot more council housing.

YVETTE COOPER: We do think councils should be able to build council housing, we

also think that they should be able to work with housing associations, with private sector

organisations, in partnership because that´s what you really need. We want greater

flexibility, but we want that partnership development.


9.12 Conclusion

As the research into modality in political interviews reveals, modal

expressions are very frequent in this type of discourse. Modality is, apart from

boosting and hedging, one of the manifestations of speaker‟s involvement in

political interviews. This study focuses on analysing epistemic and deontic

modalities since dynamic modality does not contribute to the modification of the

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illocutionary force of utterances to such a great extent. The types of modality

appearing in the corpus are summarized in Figure 8 below.

Figure 8: Types of Modality

Modal expressions appearing in the corpus are modal verbs, modal

adverbs, modal adjectives, and pragmatic particles. Modal means expressing

epistemic stance fulfil, at the same time, pragmatic functions related to accentuation

and attenuation of the illocutionary force. Thus, it may be stated that the

epistemic modal function and the pragmatic function express very similar

meanings.

Epistemic types of modality, namely, epistemic possibility, epistemic

attitudinal modality and epistemic necessity, are used more frequently than deontic

types of modality (deontic necessity and deontic possibility) for expressing speaker‘s

involvement in the corpus, as demonstrated in Table 45 below. The high number of

occurrences of epistemic types of modality shows a high degree of involvement of

this type of genre since it is epistemic modality that contributes more to

modification of the illocutionary force.

Type of Modality Number of Occurrences

Epistemic 1,517

Deontic 588

Table 45: Epistemic and Deontic Modality - Number of Occurrences

Types of Modality

epistemic possibility

deontic necessity

epistemic attitudinal

circumstantial possibility

epistemic necessity

Modality

217

Apart from epistemic and deontic modality, the category of circumstantial

possibility has been identified in the corpus. This type of modality expresses a

possibility that may happen or may not, depending on circumstances. It is surprising

that although it is quite frequent in the corpus (see Section 9.9.4), it has been

identified only by Huddleston and Pullum (2002), to my knowledge.

More modal expressions may be combined in one utterance and in this

way, they contribute to a higher degree of modification of the illocutionary

force. Modally harmonic combinations functioning pragmatically as hedging

devices result in a higher degree of tentativeness and uncertainty, and, by contrast,

modally harmonic combinations having the pragmatic function of boosting devices

contribute to greater certainty and confidence of the speaker. As shown in Table 43,

modally non-harmonic combinations are less frequent in the corpus.

Regarding gender-specificity and modality, it has already been stated

above (Section 9.10) that females used modal forms more frequently than their male

counterparts. Before drawing general conclusions, it is necessary to focus not only on

the types of modality but also on the linguistic means used to express these types of

modality. The data indicate that both male and female politicians express a

higher extent of subjectivity relating to their propositions than indeterminacy.

Conclusions

218

10 Conclusions

This thesis investigates linguistic means that contribute to a higher degree of

speaker‘s involvement in political interviews. Speaker‘s involvement manifests itself

in the modification of the illocutionary force which may be accentuated, attenuated

or modalised. As already mentioned in the introduction of this thesis, some studies

claim (cf. Tannen 1985; Chafe 1982, 1984; Elias 1987; Besnier 1994; Katriel and

Dascal 1989, Gumperz 1992, among others) that formal communication displays a

low degree of involvement, whereas informal interaction is characterised by a high

degree of involvement. It is also thought that female speakers are more

indeterminate and vague and they do not speak matter-of-factly and to the point. By

contrast, it is claimed that male speakers are more direct and precise in their

expression.

Based on the literature dealing with involvement (Tannen 1984, 1985; Chafe

1982, 1984; Gumperz 1992) and with language and gender (Holmes 1995; Coates

1993; Lakoff 2003), the following hypotheses were formulated:

hypothesis I



interaction.

hypothesis II




The aim of the present thesis was to confirm or reject the validity of these

hypotheses in the genre of political interview.

This thesis understands political interview as a genre of political discourse

since it has its specific communication goals and conventionalised arrangement with

certain requirements on language use, degree of formality, argumentation, and topics

discussed. The main purpose of a political interview is to inform the public about the

political situation in the country, internal problems, international politics, etc.

Conclusions

219

Another aim politicians want to achieve is to persuade their listeners, to retain and

gain voters. To fulfil this aim, politicians use linguistic means showing involvement

with their propositions.

The corpus of political interviews analysed in this thesis contained 40

interviews (20 interviews with male politicians, 20 interviews with female politicians,

both of the same extent) which were downloaded from the webpages of American

and British TV and radio stations. An analysis of prosodic means was not the subject

of this study, therefore I worked only with the transcripts of the interviews. The

transcripts may contain mistakes since I used them as they were published on the

Internet. These mistakes may have been caused by editing or by the speaker but they

were not corrected by the editor since they belong to a typical feature of spoken

discourse. The topics debated in interviews range from current affairs and internal

issues in the UK, international politics, and presidential campaign to elections in the

USA.

It should be pointed out that only utterances of politicians were analysed.

After the preliminary count of linguistic means of speaker‘s involvement, the number

of these means used by interviewers was very low (only about 200). The reason why

interviewers do not use so many involvement-showing linguistic means is that their

questions are prepared in advance, and they continue to employ very few expressions

of involvement even if they react to politicians‘ replies immediately. Another reason

why interviewers do not use these means too often is that their role in the interview

is different from that of politicians. They lead the interview, ask questions but they

do not aim at persuading voters or asserting themselves in front of their audience.

For these reasons, the language of interviewers was excluded from the analysis.

The concept of involvement is very diverse and linguists approach it from

various angles. Chapter 2 of this thesis discusses the view of interactional

sociolinguistics which emphasises the social organization of involvement.

Involvement has also been studied in discourse analysis that focuses on variation

between spoken and written discourse in connection with involvement (cf. Chafe

1982; Tannen 1985). The present analysis reveals the importance of context

when interpreting pragmatic functions of linguistic means of involvement

since these means may have different pragmatic functions in different

Conclusions

220

contexts. This context-boundness has also been stressed by Tannen‘s

contextualization hypothesis and also by the scholars of the Prague School

(Mathesius 1982 [1942]; Firbas 1992).

When dealing with the differences between spoken and written discourse,

Tannen defines the concepts of high and low involvement. It is often stated that a

high degree of involvement is connected only with informal discourse. One of the

proposed hypotheses in this thesis is that formal interaction belongs to low-involved

styles is also valid in the genre of political interview:

hypothesis I



interaction.

A typical feature associated with a low-involved style is maintaining social

distance between interactants. Language which is used by participants in political

interviews is depersonalized, detached and less immediate. However, these features

of a low-involved style were not found in the genre of political interview to a great

extent, by contrast, there are linguistic means, namely, boosting devices, hedging

devices and modal expressions, which contribute to a high degree of speaker‘s

involvement.

Politicians use phrases relating to the speaker, such as I think, I don’t think,

I mean, I believe, I know, and I agree, which express subjectivity of the speaker and in

this way, they contribute to a higher degree of speaker‘s involvement. All these

means function pragmatically as speaker-oriented boosters or speaker-oriented

hedges, however, their frequency of occurrence is much higher when used as

boosters, which means that they stress subjectivity and self-confidence of the

speaker, rather than his/her uncertainty and indeterminacy. Subjectivity is not, of

course, the only means showing involvement. These phrases also promote

trustworthiness and confidence of the speaker in front of their audience, which

also strengthens the involvement of the speaker. Apart from performing

pragmatic functions, I think, I don’t think and I mean are also modal means, in

concrete terms, they express epistemic possibility. According to the pragmatic

function of a particular linguistic means, epistemic possibility expresses either

Conclusions

221

subjectivity (when the expression functions as a booster) or indeterminacy (when the

expression functions as a hedge).

Politicians do not produce only speaker-oriented statements that emphasise

or attenuate their subjective views but they also show involvement with the

content of the message. For expressing this type of involvement, speakers use

either discourse-organizing boosters or content-oriented hedges. These devices may

accentuate (discourse-organizing boosters) or attenuate (content-oriented hedges) the

propositions expressed.

When politicians want to show involvement relating to the hearer, they

use either hearer-oriented boosters or hearer-oriented hedges. These expressions

again, depending on the context, accentuate or attenuate the illocutionary force of

speech acts. Politicians do not employ them as frequently as speaker- and content-

oriented expressions, which means that they predominantly focus on themselves and

on the content of their messages and not so much on the hearer.

Boosters in the corpus outnumber hedges. There appear 3,449 boosters in

the whole corpus (see Table 3, page 94) and 1,320 hedges (see Table 14, page 133).

As already pointed out, one linguistic means may function as a booster or as a hedge.

The decisive factor for classifying an expression as a booster or a hedge is the

context of the utterance, otherwise, their pragmatic function cannot be determined

properly because these expressions are context-sensitive.

The frequency of occurrence of boosting devices in the corpus was examined

in categories delimited by their relationship to discourse meaning, which means that

boosters were divided into three groups: speaker-oriented, discourse-organizing and

hearer-oriented (see Table 4, page 95). Speaker-oriented boosters are the most

numerous category (1,968 instances), which indicates that politicians concentrate on

emphasising their attitudes and opinions and try to persuade the public that they are

the right persons they should vote for. Speaker-oriented boosters show a high degree

of speaker‘s involvement. Discourse-organizing boosters emphasise the content

of the message, which may be viewed as helping the listeners to orientate in the

message of the speaker better since they put emphasis on the parts of discourse

which are important. There appear 1,078 occurrences. The least frequent category of

boosters are hearer-oriented boosters, with 403 instances. This means that

Conclusions

222

politicians prefer concentrating on strengthening their position in front of their

audience and on the content of the message.

Boosters were also divided into groups according to their pragmatic

functions. They are summarized in Table 6 (page 101) and Figure 2 (page 102). The

most frequent function in the corpus is content-oriented emphasis with 923

occurrences in total, followed by subjectivity with 823 occurrences. Male politicians

produced more instances of content-oriented emphasis than female politicians.

However, this function is not the most frequent one in females, who produced more

instances of subjectivity. It means that female speakers concentrate more on

presentation of their opinions and thus on influencing the audience, while male

politicians focus on the content of their messages in a greater extent. It is generally

thought that politics is a ―male issue‖ and even if females assert themselves in this

area, it does not usually last for a long time. Therefore, to be perceived by the

audience as competent for the position of a politician, female politicians must show

confidence and certainty. Male politicians do not have to defend their position in

front of their audience to such a great extent, thus they concentrate on accentuation

of content of their utterances, which is significant for the listeners. The third most

frequent pragmatic function of boosters is the emphasis of the degree of a certain

quality, which stresses a positive of negative quality of the following expression. It

occurred 425 times in the corpus. Assurance appeared only 421 times in the corpus,

which indicates that politicians attempt to save their face in front of their viewers.

They do not want to show a high degree of assurance since their claims could be

regarded as untrue and politicians would sound unreliable. Intensification by

repetition, which occurred 378 times in the corpus, contributes to greater emphasis

put on politicians‘ claims. A frequency of occurrence similar to that of intensification

by repetition appears in hearer-oriented emphasis, which was produced in 370

instances. Linguistic means expressing this function turn to the hearer and stress

important parts of the speaker‘s message, which provides the hearer with a better

orientation. These means may also ask indirectly for confirmation of speaker‘s

messages. The least frequent function appearing in the corpus is agreement with

109 occurrences. This function is more typical of informal interaction than of

political interview because interviewers ask questions which they suppose the

politicians will oppose. They want to make the discussion more attractive for the

Conclusions

223

audience, therefore they ask challenging questions which are difficult to answer and

the politicians have to defend their views in front of the public.

As is evident, the high number of occurrence of these pragmatic functions of

boosting devices contributes to a higher degree of speaker‘s involvement in this

genre. This fact contradicts hypothesis I, which says that political interview shows

features of a low-involved style.

If the speaker wants to attenuate the illocutionary force, s/he uses hedging

devices. Even though the number of hedges in the corpus is significantly lower than

that of boosters, they are important linguistic devices that modify the illocutionary

force of utterances. Politicians aim at showing responsibility and confidence, they

want to show themselves in a positive light. When using hedges, they express

assumption and uncertainty, which weakens the illocutionary force of utterances. As

with boosters, the number of occurrences of hedges according to their discourse

meaning was investigated since it is convenient for determining their pragmatic

functions. There are three categories of hedges: speaker-oriented, hearer-oriented

and content-oriented. As shown in Table 15 (page 134), the most frequent is the

category of content-oriented hedges with 857 instances of occurrence. This type of

hedges decrease responsibility of the speaker for his/her assertions since when using

maybe, probably or possibly, the speaker says that something may or may not be the case.

Therefore, they may be used as a face-saving strategy of the speaker. The number of

speaker-oriented hedges is substantially lower than the number of content-

oriented hedges; they were produces in 304 instances. These hedges express

hesitation of the speaker, which is a sign of his/her uncertainty or withholding some

information. However, without sufficient context and background information, it

cannot be specified properly if they indicate uncertainty or withholding information.

Hearer-oriented hedges are the least frequent category of hedges in the corpus.

There are altogether 159 instances. They express uncertainty related to the hearer. As

with hearer-oriented boosters, this category does not appear too often since speakers

concentrate more on the content of their utterances, in this case on hedging this

content.

Hedges occur in nine pragmatic functions in the corpus, all of them are

summarized in Table 17 and Figure 5, page 137. The most numerous function is

Conclusions

224

attenuation of the forthcoming message, which was produced altogether in 735

instances. Politicians weaken the illocutionary force of their utterances not only when

they are hesitant or uncertain but also for the reason that they do not want to sound

too reserved and detached from the audience. They attempt to be closer to their

voters. Politicians also try to soften negative facts they have to convey to their

listeners. Assumption is the second most frequent function of hedges in the corpus,

however, its occurrence is considerably lower than that of attenuation. It appears 243

times in the corpus. Assumption expresses uncertainty of the speaker about the

proposition. In some cases, the speaker does not want to reveal the information to

the public and wants to be evasive, but sometimes, s/he cannot predict the

development of the situation so s/he must be vague and make only assumptions.

Hearer-oriented uncertainty occurs 107 times in the corpus. It is connected with

the uncertainty of the speaker concerning the hearer‘s reaction and attitude towards

the speaker‘s proposition. Unspecified reference belongs with 50 instances of

occurrence to less frequent pragmatic functions of hedges in the corpus. It is

expressed by kind of and sort of therefore it is connected mostly with informal

interaction. The fact that it also appears in formal interaction to a certain extent may

be related to conversationalization of media discourse. In terms of frequency in the

corpus, hesitation is similar to unspecified reference because it appears in 48

instances. However, there is a substantial difference between male and female

speakers as regards the distribution of this function. Females used it to a lower extent

than males, which relates to the effort of female politicians to persuade the voters

that they are the right persons for the political position they exercise. They do not

want to be evasive too much when answering the interviewer‘s questions. Content-

oriented uncertainty with a total of 41 appearances but only 14 appearances in

females confirms the claim that females feel the need to show responsibility for their

claims in order to assert themselves in front of the public, therefore, they avoid using

expressions showing their uncertainty. Negative politeness is connected with

indirectness of speaker‘s expression in the corpus. Politicians do not say directly that

they are opposed to something, instead, they use phrases like I would disagree or I don’t

think to hedge the utterance and save his/her face in front of the audience. This

function occurred 37 times in the corpus. Detachment, another pragmatic function

performed by hedges, appeared in only 32 instances in the corpus. It relates to the

Conclusions

225

fact that expression of speaker‘s involvement is more typical of the genre of political

interview than detachment. Politicians attempt to influence and persuade their

audience, therefore, they cannot be detached. They are very well aware of the fact

that being closer to the audience is better if they want to be successful. Therefore,

their language is not so formal but, by contrast, a certain level of informality is

apparent in the language of politicians. As already stated, they attempt to establish a

closer relationship with their viewers. The least numerous function of hedges is

evasiveness. It appeared in 27 instances in total, out of this number only twice in

female speakers. This is a somewhat surprising fact, since evasiveness is typically

connected with political discourse. It relates to the tendency of speakers to avoid

responsibility for their statements. Mere two appearances in females indicate that

they attempt to control their language and speak to the point. It is again connected

with defending their position in front of the public.

Even if the number of occurrences of hedges is lower than that of boosters,

they also contribute to a higher degree of speaker‟s involvement since they

attenuate the illocutionary force of utterances. This attenuation enables

politicians to show uncertainty, assumption, detachment, or evasiveness. However,

politicians do not want to be too detached or evasive since they would not have

confidence of their voters. In sum, it is another proof that contradicts hypothesis I.

This thesis applies a wider approach to speaker‘s involvement, therefore, the

concept of modality was also included. This study follows the traditional division of

modality into epistemic and deontic types. However, this division could not be

applied to all instances of modality found in the corpus so the category of

circumstantial possibility had to be included. This category has been defined by

Huddleston and Pullum (2002). I have proposed a new class of modality, namely,

epistemic attitudinal modality, since there were instances in the corpus which could

not be included in any other type.

There appear altogether 2,203 modal expressions in the corpus (see Table

27 and Figure 7, page 178). The types of modality and number of their occurrence

are summarized in Table 28, page 179. The most numerous category of modality is

epistemic possibility with 1,061 instances. It is expressed by modal means that,

according to the context, function pragmatically either as boosters or as hedges.

Conclusions

226

When these modal means accentuate the illocutionary force of the propositions, they

express subjectivity of the speaker, which should, again, influence the voters. By

contrast, if the modal means hedge the propositions, politicians express uncertainty,

assumption and doubt. Deontic necessity is the second most numerous modality in

the corpus, however, compared with the frequency of epistemic possibility, it

appeared to a much lesser extent. It was produced 565 times in the corpus. This type

of modality is connected with showing detachment of the speaker. Politicians do not

want to be responsible for their claims, therefore they prefer using the forms have to

or have got to to the modal verb must. Using have to/have got to, the speaker is not

involved in the proposition expressed and s/he is not responsible for it. Detachment

is one of the pragmatic functions of hedging expressions and at the same time, it is

connected with the modal functions of deontic necessity and circumstantial

possibility. Epistemic attitudinal modality occurred in 369 instances in the corpus.

I have proposed this type of modality since the means expressing it, namely, really,

frankly and actually, cannot be included in any other type of epistemic modality. They

express the speaker‘s attitude to the proposition as other types of epistemic modality

but they express neither epistemic necessity, possibility nor assumption. These modal

means contribute to a higher degree of speaker‘s involvement in that they attenuate

or accentuate the illocutionary force, depending on the context. Thus, as with other

epistemic types, this proves that pragmatic and modal functions are interrelated.

Circumstantial possibility was produced 98 times in the corpus. This type of

modality expresses possibility that may be fulfilled under certain circumstances.

Circumstantial possibility has only been mentioned by Huddleston and Pullum

(2002), to my knowledge, while Palmer does not refer to it at all. Epistemic

necessity belongs with 87 occurrences to the least numerous modalities in the

corpus. This relates to the fact that this function expresses assurance of the speaker

and politicians do not want to express confidence about their propositions to a great

extent but rather, they leave some space for modifying their assertions, which may

also be regarded as a face-saving strategy. The function with the lowest number of

occurrence in the corpus is deontic possibility, which appeared only 23 times in the

whole corpus. It expresses permission, therefore this type of modality is not so

frequent in political interviews. It is more typical of informal interaction.

Conclusions

227

As the present analysis shows, pragmatic and epistemic modal

functions correlate. They express both epistemic stance and accentuation or

attenuation of the illocutionary force. Thus, it may be claimed that these

functions express very similar meanings.

From the quantitative analysis it follows that epistemic types of modality are

used more frequently than deontic types to show speaker‘s involvement. Epistemic

modalities also show the modification of the illocutionary force more explicitly, and

thus it is possible to interrelate these types of modality with the pragmatic functions

of boosting and hedging devices.

To sum up, hypothesis I concerning detachment of the genre of

political interview is not valid. Although political interview belongs to formal

types of discourse, there are many features of speaker‘s involvement. Using boosting

and hedging devices and modal expressions, politicians modify the illocutionary force

of their utterances. They attempt to strengthen their position in front of their

audience, they also attenuate the force of their utterances when they are not certain

about their propositions. A formal type of discourse is characterised by more

complex syntax of sentences. This issue was not the subject of the present analysis,

but a tendency to use shorter and loosely structured sentences may be clearly

observed. The language of politicians contains informal vocabulary. The reason is

that they aim at being closer to their audience. If they were detached, the voters

would not trust them too much. This is also connected with a certain amount of

affectiveness, which is apparent in political interviews. Even if matter-of-factness

prevails since this genre focuses mainly on conveying information, showing attitude

and relationship towards the audience is also observable. This feature contributes to

expressing speaker‘s involvement as well.

Thus, it may be concluded: The material under investigation reveals that

the genre of political interview shows a high degree of speaker‟s involvement,

which manifests itself in the frequent use of boosting and hedging devices

and their pragmatic functions and in the use of modal expressions.

Conclusions

228

The second hypothesis was formulated as follows:




Pragmatic functions of boosters reveal that female speakers focus on

showing subjectivity and confidence and on emphasising the content of their

propositions, rather than on expressing detachment or uncertainty. Indeterminacy

and vagueness do not manifest themselves to a great extent in the corpus. This is

connected with the position of women in politics. The sphere of politics is usually

regarded as an area typical of men, in which women have a difficult position for

asserting themselves. The voters may consider them ―weak‖, they do not believe in

their abilities, therefore, female politicians must persuade them about the opposite

and show them that they are the right persons for the political functions they hold or

want to hold. By contrast, male politicians have an easier position in this sense. They

do not have to defend their position in front of their viewers to such a great extent,

which is why they can afford to be more indeterminate, hesitant or vague. Males are

also more evasive, which means that they try to avoid responsibility for their

statements. Responsibility for their claims is more apparent in female speakers in the

corpus since they produced only two instances of evasiveness and only 14 instances

of content-oriented uncertainty. Epistemic attitudinal modality is also very common

in female politicians, especially the use of frankly is very frequent. My explanation is

that they attempt to show a positive and responsible attitude to their viewers. They

want to be frank, trustworthy and more cooperative, and in this way to gain the

confidence of the voters.

In sum, although a certain degree of indeterminacy may be found in female

politicians, it does not necessarily have to be a manifestation of uncertainty of the

speaker. It may be a sign of female sensitivity towards the propositional content.

Women are well aware of the fact that the explanation of some issues is not so easy

and that things are not always unambiguous. This may be related to the fact that

women do not tend to make ―clear‖ or ―non-hypothetical‖ claims. For these reasons,

when evaluating the quantitative results of modality and making gender distinctions,

Conclusions

229

it is necessary to focus not only on the types of modality but also on the linguistic

means used by males and females respectively to express these types of modality.

Since male politicians produced more hedging devices showing uncertainty,

assumption, and evasiveness, it may be stated that they do not express themselves

more precisely than females. As already pointed out, they do not have to vindicate

their position in front of their audience to such a great extent as female politicians

do. They therefore do not pay attention to the linguistic means they use and express

themselves less precisely. To conclude: the present analysis of political interviews

shows that hypothesis II is not valid in this genre. A certain amount of

indeterminacy may be indicated by female politicians but it relates to their

sensitivity towards the propositional content of their utterances. Male

politicians used more hedging functions expressing uncertainty, assumption

and evasiveness, which shows imprecision and a lower degree of matter-of-

factness.

This thesis has shown that even if political interview belongs to formal types

of discourse, it nevertheless contains many features of speaker‘s involvement. This

analysis focused on the modification of the illocutionary force by the use of boosting

and hedging devices and modal expressions. The research into syntactic and prosodic

devices which also contribute to expressing speaker‘s involvement was beyond the

scope of the present study. It would also be interesting to analyse whether and to

what extent the political position exercised influences the degree of speaker‘s

involvement. This was not the subject of this study, but certain tendencies

supporting this claim may be observed in the corpus. Another topic for further

investigation might be the difference between TV and radio interviews. Speakers on

the radio are aware of the fact that their gestures and facial expressions are

ineffective, whereas these means are significant when the interviews are broadcast on

TV. It would be interesting to analyse whether the speakers on the radio somehow

compensate the absence of visual means linguistically.

List of Tables

230

List of Tables

TABLE 1: THE EXTENT OF THE CORPUS ........................................................................................................ 55

TABLE 2: POLITICIANS AND THEIR POSITIONS ......................................................................................... 57

TABLE 3: FREQUENCY OF BOOSTERS .............................................................................................................. 94

TABLE 4: BOOSTERS CLASSIFIED BY THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO DISCOURSE MEANING ...... 95

TABLE 5: FIVE MOST FREQUENT BOOSTERS IN THE CORPUS ............................................................ 96

TABLE 6: FREQUENCY OF BOOSTERS BY FUNCTION ............................................................................ 101

TABLE 7: CONTENT-ORIENTED EMPHASIS ............................................................................................... 103

TABLE 8: SUBJECTIVITY ...................................................................................................................................... 106

TABLE 9: THE DEGREE OF A CERTAIN QUALITY .................................................................................... 109

TABLE 10: ASSURANCE ........................................................................................................................................ 111

TABLE 11: INTENSIFICATION BY REPETITION ........................................................................................ 113

TABLE 12: HEARER-ORIENTED EMPHASIS ............................................................................................... 116

TABLE 13: AGREEMENT ...................................................................................................................................... 118

TABLE 14: FREQUENCY OF HEDGES ............................................................................................................. 133

TABLE 15: HEDGES CLASSIFIED BY THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO DISCOURSE MEANING ...... 134

TABLE 16: THE MOST FREQUENT HEDGES IN THE CORPUS ............................................................. 135

TABLE 17: FREQUENCY OF HEDGES BY FUNCTION............................................................................... 137

TABLE 18: ATTENUATION OF THE FORTHCOMING MESSAGE ......................................................... 138

TABLE 19: ASSUMPTION ..................................................................................................................................... 140

TABLE 20: HEARER-ORIENTED UNCERTAINTY ...................................................................................... 142

TABLE 21: UNSPECIFIED REFERENCE ......................................................................................................... 145

TABLE 22: HESITATION ...................................................................................................................................... 147

TABLE 23: CONTENT-ORIENTED UNCERTAINTY ................................................................................... 149

TABLE 24: NEGATIVE POLITENESS ............................................................................................................... 152

TABLE 25: DETACHMENT .................................................................................................................................. 154

TABLE 26: EVASIVENESS .................................................................................................................................... 156

TABLE 27: FREQUENCY OF OCCURRENCE OF MODAL EXPRESSIONS .......................................... 178

TABLE 28: TYPES OF MODALITY AND NUMBER OF OCCURRENCES ............................................. 179

TABLE 29: EPISTEMIC POSSIBILITY .............................................................................................................. 180

TABLE 30: MODAL MEANS OF EPISTEMIC POSSIBILITY ..................................................................... 180

List of Tables

231

TABLE 31: DEONTIC NECESSITY ..................................................................................................................... 186

TABLE 32: MODAL MEANS EXPRESSING DEONTIC NECESSITY ....................................................... 186

TABLE 33: EPISTEMIC ATTITUDINAL MODALITY .................................................................................. 190

TABLE 34: MODAL MEANS EXPRESSING EPISTEMIC ATTITUDINAL MODALITY .................... 190

TABLE 35: CIRCUMSTANTIAL POSSIBILITY .............................................................................................. 193

TABLE 36: MODAL MEANS OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL POSSIBILITY ...................................................... 193

TABLE 37: EPISTEMIC NECESSITY ................................................................................................................. 196

TABLE 38: MODAL MEANS OF EPISTEMIC NECESSITY ........................................................................ 196

TABLE 39: DEONTIC POSSIBILITY .................................................................................................................. 199

TABLE 40: MODAL MEANS OF DEONTIC POSSIBILITY ......................................................................... 199

TABLE 41: PRAGMATIC FUNCTIONS OF EPISTEMIC POSSIBILITY ................................................. 203

TABLE 42: PRAGMATIC FUNCTIONS OF EPISTEMIC ATTITUDINAL MODALITY ..................... 204

TABLE 43: MODALLY HARMONIC AND NON-HARMONIC COMBINATIONS ................................ 207

TABLE 44: MODAL COMBINATIONS IN THE CORPUS ........................................................................... 208

TABLE 45: EPISTEMIC AND DEONTIC MODALITY - NUMBER OF OCCURRENCES................... 216

List of Figures

232

List of Figures

FIGURE 1: BOOSTERS CLASSIFIED BY THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO DISCOURSE MEANING .... 95

FIGURE 2: FREQUENCY OF BOOSTERS BY FUNCTION .......................................................................... 102

FIGURE 3: PRAGMATIC FUNCTIONS OF BOOSTERS ............................................................................... 120

FIGURE 4: HEDGES CLASSIFIED BY THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO DISCOURSE MEANING ....... 134

FIGURE 5: FREQUENCY OF HEDGES BY FUNCTION ............................................................................... 137

FIGURE 6: PRAGMATIC FUNCTIONS OF HEDGES .................................................................................... 159

FIGURE 7: TYPES OF MODALITY AND NUMBER OF OCCURRENCES .............................................. 178

FIGURE 8: TYPES OF MODALITY ..................................................................................................................... 216

České resumé

233

České resumé

Předkládaná disertační práce se zabývá pragmaticko-sémantickou analýzou

jazykových prostředků v ţánru politického rozhovoru, pomocí nichţ mluvčí

explicitněji vyjadřuje svůj postoj. Cílem studie bylo objasnit dvě hypotézy vymezené

v jejím úvodu. Podle první hypotézy mluvčí v ţánru politického interview, podobně

jako v ostatních typech formální komunikace, vyjadřují neosobnost a odstup od

svých výpovědí. Podle druhé hypotézy jsou političky ve svém vyjadřování neurčitější

a vágnější neţ politici, kteří jsou zpravidla spojováni s věcností a přesností výrazu.

Jazykové prostředky vyjadřující postoj mluvčího, které byly zkoumány v této

studii, jsou prostředky zdůrazňující ilokuční sílu výpovědi, oslabující ilokuční sílu

výpovědi a prostředky modality, které téţ přispívají k modifikaci výpovědní síly.

Kvantitativní analýzou bylo zjištěno, ţe zdůraznění ilokuční síly výpovědi podstatně

převládá nad jejím oslabení. Důvodem je snaha politiků zesílit pozitivní informaci,

působit sebejistě, zodpovědně a důvěryhodně před posluchači, zdůraznit své názory

a přesvědčit posluchače, ţe jsou správné osoby na správném místě. Politici nechtějí

působit nejistě nebo nepovolaně, proto se v tomto ţánru vyskytuje méně prostředků

oslabujících výpovědní sílu. Tyto prostředky ovšem téţ vyjadřují odstup mluvčího od

jeho tvrzení, coţ sniţuje zodpovědnost mluvčího za toto tvrzení. Politici se uţitím

prostředků oslabujících sílu výpovědi také snaţí zmírnit negativní informace, které

musí sdělit. Právě toto zdůraznění nebo zeslabení výpovědní síly a pouţití prostředků

modality je důkazem vyjádření postoje mluvčího a tudíţ vyvracejí první hypotézu o

tom, ţe pro politické interview je typické vyjádření neosobnosti a odstupu mluvčího

od tvrzení.

Prostředky, jejichţ funkcí je zesílit a oslabit ilokuční sílu výpovědi, mají

v ţánru politického rozhovoru různé pragmatické funkce, které byly téţ kvantitativně

analyzovány a interpretovány v závislosti na kontextu. Výzkum ukázal, ţe bez

kontextu nelze pragmatické funkce jednotlivých lingvistických prostředků bezpečně

identifikovat, je tedy pro určení těchto funkcí rozhodující. Jeden a tentýţ lingvistický

prostředek tak můţe, v závislosti na kontextu, jak zesilovat, tak oslabovat ilokuční

sílu výpovědi.

České resumé

234

Pokud jde o druhou hypotézu a rozdíl ve vyjadřování politiků a političek,

pragmatické funkce boosterů (prostředků zesilujících výpovědní sílu) ukazují, ţe se

političky zaměřují na vyjádření subjektivity a jistoty a na zdůraznění obsahu svých

výpovědí. Přitom se snaţí omezit neosobnost projevu a nejistotu ve vyjadřování.

Tato skutečnost se vztahuje k postavení ţeny v oblasti politiky, která je většinou

spojována s muţi. Ţeny mají obvykle těţší pozici, pokud jde o prosazení se v této

oblasti. Někteří posluchači jim nevěří v tak velké míře jako muţům politikům, proto

je musí ţeny o svých kvalitách přesvědčit a ukázat, ţe jsou na správném místě.

V tomto smyslu mají politici situaci jednodušší, protoţe nemusí svá stanoviska

obhajovat před voliči tak jako ţeny a mohou si dovolit být ve svém vyjadřování

neurčitější, váhavější a vyhýbavější. Politici se také snaţí se vyhnout zodpovědnosti za

svá tvrzení, která je naopak více patrná u političek, jak dokazuje analýza

pragmatických funkcí zesilujících, oslabujících a modálních prostředků. Političky se

snaţí brát ohled na své posluchače tím, ţe jsou otevřenější, snaţí se ukázat pozitivní

postoj ke svým voličům a získat si tak jejich důvěru. I kdyţ se ve výpovědích

političek ukazuje jistý stupeň neurčitosti, nemusí to nutně být výraz nejistoty, ale

znamení toho, ţe si jsou vědomy, ţe vysvětlení některých skutečností nejsou

jednoduchá a není vţdy moţné dělat jasné závěry. Z toho vyplývá, ţe při evaluaci

výsledků a určování rozdílů ve způsobu vyjadřování politiků a političek, je vţdy

nutné brát v úvahu nejen určitou pragmatickou funkci nebo typ modality, ale také

prostředky, jimiţ je vyjádřena. Výsledky analýzy tedy ukazují, ţe ani druhá hypotéza

se v ţánru politického interview nepotvrdila.

Dalším významným projevem vyjadřování postoje mluvčího v politických

rozhovorech je modalita. Tato studie zkoumá dva druhy modality, epistemickou a

deontickou. Epistemická modalita přispívá k modifikaci ilokuční síly výpovědi ve

větší míře a ve zkoumaném materiálu se vyskytuje mnohem častěji. Modální

prostředky vyskytující se v analyzovaných politických interview jsou modální slovesa,

modální adjektiva a adverbia a pragmatické částice. Tyto prostředky epistemické

modality současně plní pragmatické funkce zesilujících a oslabujících výrazů. Modální

prostředky lze téţ kombinovat v jedné výpovědi, ovšem jejich výskyt není

v analyzovaných interview příliš častý.

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Harman, H. (2007a) Harriet Harman Interview. 15 June, 2007. www.harrietharman.org.

Harman, H. (2007b) Harman: ‗Increase in spending...‘ 17 June, 2007. BBC NEWS. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/programmes/politics_show/6746407.stm.

Harman, H. (2008) Harriet Harman Interview. 29 April, 2008. BBC NEWS. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/programmes/politics_show/7372602.stm.

Johnson, A. (2008) On the Politics Show, Jon Sopel interviewed Alan Johnson MP, Secretary of State for Health. 13 April, 2008. BBC NEWS. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/programmes/politics_show/7336215.stm.

Kelly, R. (2007) Interview with Ruth Kelly, MP, Secretary of State for Communities & Local Government. 10 June, 2007. BBC NEWS. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/programmes/politics_show/6725673.stm.

May, T. (2008) On the Politics Show, Jon Sopel Interviewed Shadow Leader, House of Commons, Theresa May. 9 March, 2008. BBC NEWS. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/programmes/politics_show/7276464.stm.

McCain, J. (2007) Larry King Live: Interview with Senator John McCain. 16 August, 2007. CNN.com. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0708/16/lkl.01.html.

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=2403942

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=2403942

http://www.cnbc.com/id/21254463/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22634967/page/6/

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0708/16/lkl.01.html

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Miliband, D. (2008) David Miliband Interview. 11 May, 2008. BBC NEWS. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/programmes/politics_show/7385768.stm.

Napolitano, J. (2008) Interview with Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano. 24 April, 2008. FOX NEWS. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,595926,00.html.

Palin, S. (2008) '20/20' Co-Anchor Elizabeth Vargas Speaks with Alaska Governor on Campaign Trail. 29 October, 2008. ABC NEWS. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/Story?id=6140030&page=2.

Rice, C. (2006) CNN Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer: Interview With Condoleezza Rice. 26 March, 2006. CNN.com. http://transcripts.cnn.com/ TRANSCRIPTS/0603/26/le.01.html.

Rice, C. (2007a) Interview on NBC's Today Show with Matt Lauer: Condoleezza Rice. 19 March, 2007. NBC. http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2007/ mar/81865.htm.

Rice, C. (2007b) CNN Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer: Interview With Condoleezza Rice. 29 April, 2007. CNN.com. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/ 0704/29/le.01.html.

Rice, C. (2007c) Interview on the Charlie Rose Show: Secretary Condoleezza Rice. 7 May, 2007. U.S. Department of State. http://www.state.gov/secretary/ rm/2007/may/84460.htm.

Rice, C. (2007d) Cynthia‘s McFadden‘s Interview with Condoleezza Rice. 28 November, 2007. ABC News. http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/Story?id =3927548&page=1.

Rice, C. (2008) Interview with the Washington Times Editorial Board: Secretary Condoleezza Rice, 27 March, 2008. U.S. Department of State. http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2008/03/102757.htm.

Smith, J. (2005) Interview with Jacqui Smith. 27 November, 2005. BBC NEWS. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/programmes/politics_show/4475810.stm.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/Story?id=6140030&page=2

List of Boosters

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BDO

- a different kind of Middle East

- A downturn

- a lot

- a lot of

- a small working group

- A success means

- about an Iraq that

- accurately

- act that way

- actually

- after all

- All that would happen is

- all they have to do is

- All they're focused on is

- although I totally understand what Senator McCain is saying

- an awful lot

- And – and I made it clear that

- And – and so the first objective– Katie, is

- And – and the reason why is the army has stayed intact

- and again the answer is

- And– and – look, the key thing for the American people to understand is

- And as far as what's happening at the moment with the international situation

- And as I keep saying to people

- and as we were saying earlier

- And I'm comfortable with

- And in that

- And in the end the answer to it is

- And in those circumstances

- And incidentally, that's an interesting point

- And just

- And let me address the point

- And let me just add here

- And much of what I've gone through in my entire life is

- And my job is

- And on the other side

- And one of the interesting questions, Bob, about this whole debate is

- And one of the interesting things I think people will find in this speech is

- And one of the objectives of that national minimum wage topped up by the tax credit was

- And one of the reasons that an agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority would be very good is

- And one of the subjects that we would, of

course, talk with the Iranians about if Zal Khalilzad meets with his counterpart would be

- And one of the things I look for is

- and one of the things that Colin Powell was talking about yesterday was

- And one thing we want during this war on terror is

- And our job is

- And so one of our high priorities is

- And so really what we are doing is

- And so the question I'm now faced with is

- And so what I care really about is

- And so what I'm asking Congress to do is to – is

- And so what we've done now is

- And that is precisely why

- and that is to make it clear to people that

- and that is why our strategy is

- And that trend is

- And that‘s what

- And the amazing thing about the United Kingdom

- And the answer is

- And the best way to achieve success is

List of Boosters

II

- and the best way to do that is

- And the best way to succeed at this point in time is

- And the decision I had to make was

- And the difference is

- And the fact is

- and the choices that people have made on Thursday is

- and the interesting thing is this

- And the message that we are working to send to the Iranian regime and the Iranian people is

- and the most important thing to realise is

- And the objective with Iran is

- And the only way you can recruit for that ideology is

- And the question is

- and the reality is

- And the reason for that is

- And the reason I brought up the mistakes is

- and the reason that he stands against amnesty is

- And the reason they can't go and elect a President is because, I believe

- And the reason why this is important is

- And the reason why we're moving them there is

- And the thing about brown field land is

- And the way to do that is

- And the whole idea is

- And the whole point about what I was saying both in respect of Syria and Iran is

- And then the final option is

- And then, finally

- And there this is essential

- And therefore

- and this is really what is being debated at the moment

- and this is what terrorism does

- and this is what we're going on to address is

- and this is why it's so important for us to send a message to the region

- and what Colin Powell was talking about at the UN yesterday

- and what counts is

- And what I have felt from these Palestinians and these Israelis is

- And what is interesting now is

- And what Palestinians and Israelis are now going to have to do is

- and what people did was

- And what we've been doing over these past few years is

- And what we've got to do is

- And what's different is

- And what's going to change this time is

- And yes

- and yes, as he said last week

- And, I've said this before

- And, so, what people gotta understand is

- Another thing is

- As a matter of fact

- as a result of

- As a result of that

- as far as we know

- as I also said

- As I mentioned in my speech

- As I mentioned in my speech that you kindly listened to

- As I talked about in my speech

- as the Ministry of Defence has said

- At some point

- At the same time

- basically

- because at the moment what's happening is

- Because he

- Because our most important job is

- Because the question is

- Because what actually happened was

- because what he is doing is

- because what's fatal in politics

- because you know, the problem is

List of Boosters

III

- benchmarks

- Beyond that

- but actually

- But actually what has happened in Afghanistan is

- but again what it indicates is

- But anyway

- But as far as I'm concerned, the important thing to do is

- But as of January 20, 2009

- But essentially

- but here's the other thing and this is

- But I said to my colleagues the very first day

- but in the end what we have got to understand

- but let's be clear

- But let's be frank

- But let's just be clear

- but more importantly

- But one thing that we wanted to do was

- But one thing that we've had to do is

- But one thing we do know is

- but surely the most important thing for a government is

- but that's what I want

- but the bottom line is

- But the clear understanding was

- but the fact is

- But the greater purpose is

- but the important thing is

- But the key thing is

- But the one thing I hope we can all agree on is

- But the other thing is

- but the point is

- But the problem is

- But the purpose of the terrorism and the destruction and the chaos is

- But the question is

- But the strongest message was

- But the thing about being Secretary of State is

- But the thing to be most worried about, I would say, yes,

- but the truth is

- But the view of government is

- But this is a decision the Iraqis have got to take

- But this is why

- But we were finding

- but what can't be debated is the fact that

- But what I would like understood as a black American is

- but what is interesting for example is

- But what is needed is

- But what it does call for, rightly, which is what, in an event, we're working on is

- but what our forces are doing there

- but what we are doing is

- But what we can do is

- But what we can say to families is first of all

- but what we do do is

- But what we owe them is

- But what we really are having to train differently is

- But what we share with France is

- But what we were finding

- but what we're seeking to do is

- But what we've got to do going forward is

- But what's deafening is

- but what's more important and in fact actually this isn't about competition between schools

- But, and this is the challenge for the future

- But, by no means

- But, let's be clear

- But, Wolf, let me be very clear

- by far

- by the way

- come to that in a minute

- compared to

- critically

- entirely

- essentially

- Failure in Iraq

- finally

- firmly

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IV

- first

- first and foremost

- first of all

- Firstly

- For instance

- Fourth

- frankly

- genuinely

- good for

- hard for us to

- hard to overcome years of

- he misled

- He's always been dangerous

- He's going to talk about

- his whole point is

- honestly

- However, what is absolutely clear, and this is what we have said all the way through, is

- hugely

- I mean the reason I won't give the absolute undertaking that Jeremy was asking me to give

- I praised

- I say that the reason for the Annapolis conference is

- I want to be very clear

- I will tell you

- I, let me make one thing absolutely clear

- If there is anything that I really resent

- in a sense

- in a way

- In actual fact of course, what we've succeeded in doing in London is

- in all due respect

- In fact

- In other words

- in part

- in particular

- In respect of other stuff however

- In the end

- Incidentally

- increasingly

- indeed

- is what he said

- it came in to place at a time I understand it

- It can't be ignored

- It happens

- It is absurd

- it is important

- It is likely

- It means

- It must be viewed in context of how

- It seemed really remote

- it seemed remote

- It was not just an intelligence problem with

- it wasn't me saying that, it was the scientists who said that

- It would need

- it‘s also important

- It‘s important

- It's a decision

- it's about people

- it's difficult

- it's difficult because

- it's fair to say

- it's going to be filled by

- it's going to filled by

- It's not difficult because

- it's very difficult

- Judgment

- just

- let's accept that the most important thing is

- let's be clear

- long-held

- looked at

- many, many, many

- means

- Message is

- must be viewed in a context

- need to know

- need to see that

- needs to see that

- No one is saying

- nobody likes to go to war

- Nobody wants to go to war

- not going to comment on it

- Now just literally within the past few days

- Now the problem that we pointed out in our response to the obesity review that was conducted by the scientists, is

- Now the reason why Israel-Palestine is important and the situation in Lebanon is important, is

- Now to be fair

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V

- Now what's actually happening at the moment

- Now, the question is

- Now, what the president said yesterday is

- Number three

- Oh, that is so

- On that basis

- On the contrary

- On the one hand

- On the other hand

- On the other hand though

- on the recommendations of

- One

- One advantage that we have on that one is

- one of his first press conferences, he said the problem is

- one of the amazing things about our country is

- one of the hardest parts of my job is

- One of the interesting lessons from the Vietnam era was

- One of the interesting things is

- one of the problems in managing a big organization is

- one of the problems is

- One of the things I understand that they do in their report is

- one of the things that has helped us to improve standards

- one of the things that I'm keen, very keen on

- One of the things that is very important in discussing Iran is

- one of the things we have done is

- One option was

- One thing most have said to me is

- only

- Our – our most important job is to – is

- part of the reason that the Iraqis are doing anything is

- Part of what we're doing here is

- particularly

- Passionate about

- people don't believe

- philosophy

- plenty

- principally

- quite

- Second

- secondly

- significantly

- simply

- So

- so actually

- So my first reaction on this report from the battlefield is

- So one of the arguments for votes at 16 is

- So something that the Commission have looked at very specifically

- So the question is

- So the really key thing is

- So the thing that I have, have been urging for many months and urge again is

- So what the president did was

- So what they want to know from us is in greater detail

- So what we've got to do

- some people read it

- Specifically what I said about saying no rather than yes is

- Stability

- still

- Success means

- Surely the important thing is

- Surely the single biggest question in a democracy is

- Surely, the first question to ask is

- that ended up finally with

- that ended up with

- That is the thing I believe would have

- That is what

- That is why

- That means

- That meant that they

- that what you need is

- That's not what

- That's one of the reasons

- That's what

- That's what is clear

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- that's what they're trying to do

- that's what we're trying to do

- that's what we've tried to do

- That's why at the heart of White Paper is

- That's why he

- that's why it's important for us to

- That's why we say

- The answer is that it is actually important

- The best way to defeat the man in a team is

- The common ground is

- the cost of an Iraq that

- The danger is

- The fact is

- The fact is however

- The fact is that

- The first is

- the first thing Cameron will do is

- the first thing I‘ll do

- The first thing is

- the first thing that I would describe myself as is

- The fundamental aim of the Labour Party is

- The goal is

- The good news for the American people is

- The great thing about all elections is

- The important thing about the Crewe by-election is

- The issue is

- The key here over the last several months has been

- The message to the Iranian people is

- the more difficult transformation for the Department has been

- The most obvious one is

- The only issue between us really is

- The only issue is, at the moment

- The only reason that people are pressing them to get it done more quickly is

- The only way a radical can recruit is

- The other piece that we've had to work really hard on is

- The other thing is

- the patriotic thing to do was

- The point about setting a target is

- The point of the surge was

- the point that I was responding to from Senator Obama himself in a number of speeches he was making

- The point that I'm making is this

- The point, Wolf, is

- The problem is

- the problem the report identifies, which is that

- the question is

- The question therefore is

- The question with imminence is

- The real problem, frankly is

- The real question is

- The reason I have to do that is

- The reason they can do that in America is

- the reason this whole struggle came about was

- the reason we're dealing with these now is

- The reason we've been able to get so much money going into the health service and schools now, why we have forward investment plans for schools, hospitals, crime, transport is

- The reason why is

- The reason why Scotland has been able to engage in the refurbishment and now over the future years, the continuing refurbishment of every school in Scotland, why it's been able to build new hospitals, invest in new primary care facilities in Scotland, is

- The reason why the strategies we have in relation to Iraq is

- the reason your taxes are so high is

- The ROSE QUESTION was

- The trouble with the fund-holder system was

- The truth is

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VII

- The two most important things parents want to do is

- The whole point is

- the whole purpose was

- The world will see

- the wrong message to

- there are difficult issues about

- there is no reason

- there is this breakdown

- there was no

- There's a lot of skepticism

- There's a reason

- There's just no point

- There's no point

- there's no reason

- There's skepticism

- The--the other thing that's interesting about the elections, though, that I found fascinating is

- they didn't have

- they don't believe

- they're operating in

- they've seen

- third

- thirdly

- This is – what I'm describing to the American people is

- This is about saying

- this is what we've got to address

- To a huge extent

- To be fair to France and Germany

- to be frank

- to the best of my recollection

- two

- ultimately

- unfortunately

- We should engage them

- we want

- we want people

- We were looking at

- Well

- Well – the first thing I would tell people that

- we'll turn

- Well what it means is

- Well, first of all

- Well, the fact is

- Well, there again

- Well, well

- Well, what came out of that conference was

- well-governed states

- we're feeling

- We're going to leave an Iraq

- We're not going to

- We've done it before

- we've got

- what a fantastic thing that would be

- what British forces are doing in Iraq, in Afghanistan is

- What business can do and what we're saying is

- what caused September 11 was

- what Colin Powell was doing yesterday

- What Gordon Brown was asked was

- what Hans Blix has said is

- what happened is

- What happens is

- what he said was

- What he was talking about

- What I am offering the health insurance industry

- what I'm happy with

- what is being referred there -- to there

- What is clear is

- what is interesting about the report is

- what is interesting is

- what is interesting is that actually

- What is supposed to happen is

- What is wrong with

- what it opened up here

- what it's saying is

- what I've learnt about this subject is

- what made my determination that we needed to change policy was

- What people are talking to me about

- what people want is

- what really matters is

- what she is referring to is

- What the American people need to understand is

- What the question is

- What the sanctions were supposed to do was

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VIII

- what the scientists say is

- What they can't do is

- What they said was

- What they'd do is

- what they're saying is

- what they've said is

- what was put on the agenda was

- What wasn't noticed was

- What we can see today as around the world

- what we face in the region is

- What we have got now

- What we need to do is

- what we're saying very clearly, Ruth Kelly said it very clearly is

- what were we looking at

- what we've done is

- what we've got to do as I say in every single area, but particularly in the Middle East, is

- What we've got to do is

- what will be really important for us, is

- what you are really seeing is

- What you want is within every block, within every development, along every street

- what you're doing is

- What you've got to do as Deputy Leader and I've said this very clearly, is

- What you've got with Gordon is

- what you've now got is

- What's different is

- what's going to matter is

- what's important is

- what's interesting actually is

- What's interesting is that

- what's quite interesting is

- What's wrong with

- when he talks about

- Where this conversation has got to go is

- work

- worried about

- yes the answer is

- You know, what you should be doing as a government

BHO

- A first step, and it's a very important first step which was introduced in January as you rightly say, is

- All that I know, Charlie, is

- all you can do is

- And as you quite rightly point out

- and do you know what

- and I just simply say to you

- And I want to remind your viewers, Bob,

- And I will tell you

- And I'm telling you that

- And let me just give you one fact

- and my point to you is

- And one of the points that I made, Wolf

- and one of the reasons why I appreciate talking to you is

- And so what you are seeing

- and the best you can think of is

- And the interesting is, Scott

- and what I'm saying to you is

- and you know

- And you know what

- as I said to you before

- As I told you

- As you know

- as you rightly have just implied internationally

- as you rightly imply

- as you said

- as you say

- as you well know

- as you‘ve kindly said

- But all I'm saying to you really is this

- but I also would say to you

- But I just want to point this out to you

- But I simply do say to you

- But I want to just make one thing very clear to you

- But I will tell you that

- But I'll tell you

- but I'll tell you this

- but let me just say this to you

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IX

- But my first consideration - and listen

- But the one point that I'm simply making to you is

- But Tim, as I understand it

- but you know

- don't be under any doubt at all

- I can tell you

- I've got to tell you

- let me emphasise to you

- let me just broaden it to say the following

- let me just deal with the oil thing

- let me repeat to you

- Let me say one thing

- Let me try and explain

- Let's not forget the essential thing

- Listen

- Look

- Look at

- Look at the fact we've got

- OK you know

- See

- So all I'm saying to you is

- So my point to you is this

- So you know

- So, you know

- that´s what you really need

- the - the purpose of the strategy, Jim

- The only thing I can tell you is

- We would like you to

- Well – listen

- Well hang on

- Well, you know, Juan

- what I am saying to you is

- What I‘m asserting to you is

- what we're trying to do is

- what you actually end up doing is in fact

- What you are not asking me about, which would be a more fruitful line of endeavour, is

- What you are referring to

- What you can do is

- what you don't do is

- what you were asking about I thought was

- what you will get is

- what you'll get is

- What you're really arguing for is

- With a lottery all you're basically trying to do is

- You have to learn how to

- you know

- you know, again, I repeat to you

- You know, one of the things we've done is

- you look at

- You see

- You're going to tell

- you're good

BSO

- Absolutely

- abundantly

- Actually, my experience is

- Actually, what I said was

- all I can do is

- and as I've been saying recently

- And I – my answer is

- And I do think

- and I don't think

- And I just want to say

- And I needed them not just in

- and I really do really look forward now

- And I said

- and I think

- And I think a – an important job is

- and I think this is the key point

- And I think we should certainly consider

- And I think what the American people want to know is

- And I'm quite certain that

- and I'm sure as the Navy has already said

- And in my judgment

- And it's true

- And my answer to that is actually

- and my attitude is

- and my dilemma and my problem is

- And my only call to Congress is

List of Boosters

X

- And my point, as I said, with President Bush, is

- And one of the things that I am proud of is

- And so from my point of view

- And so I think

- and so my first answer is on Iraq

- And so the first thing I did was

- And so to my mind

- And so, as I said in my speech

- and that's what I proposed

- and that's what I've been trying to articulate is

- And that's why I think

- and that's why I'm saying to people

- And the best way, in my judgment, to do it

- And the point I make is

- and the reason why I wanted to go through the United Nations is

- and then I agree with you

- And there is no doubt that

- And what I was saying is

- And what I'm also convinced of is

- and, you know, from my perspective

- as far as I'm concerned

- as I put it

- As I said

- as I say

- as I've said

- at least I hope

- at least to my knowledge

- because as I say

- Because my concern is

- Because my goal is

- because my view is

- because one thing I think we should look over our shoulder at Cameron at, is

- But I also believe

- But I do believe

- but I do think

- But I have a pretty (D. of qual.) good idea how difficult it is

- But I have a view

- But I mean I, the basic thing is

- But I said

- but I think

- But I think it is fair to point out

- but I think really what's happened is

- But I think that the important thing to do is

- but I think the thing that does make a real difference today is

- But I think what is important is not just for Israel and Palestine but also in respect of relationships between Israel and Lebanon, is

- but it's my honest belief

- But on the other hand I think

- but one thing is for certain

- But there isn't really much doubt about

- But what I am saying is

- but what I've said is this

- but, I mean, you couldn't actually, frankly,

- certainly

- certainly I do

- clearly

- completely

- definitely

- exactly

- extremely

- Fine

- fully

- fundamentally

- greatly

- grossly

- I absolutely think

- I actually think

- I agree

- I also know

- I also remember

- I also think

- I am absolutely certain

- I believe

- I believe that -- the thing I was most concerned about, frankly, is

- I can absolutely assure you

- I can assure you

- I can assure you from my experience

- I certainly believe

- I certainly hope

- I do believe

- I do believe that

List of Boosters

XI

- I do not think

- I do really believe

- I do think

- I do want to assure

- I don't believe

- I don't doubt

- I don't think

- I expect

- I fully agree

- I genuinely do

- I guess

- I have no doubt at all

- I have spoken about it

- I have spoken with

- I honestly believe

- I hope

- I just think

- I know

- I know how challenging it is

- I listen

- I listen to

- I mean

- I mean I really believe

- I mean I think what is important is

- I mean one of the things that strikes me as odd about the Labour Party under Gordon Brown is

- I mean the one thing you can't say is

- I mean the truth is

- I mean this is what our intelligence services are telling us

- I really believe

- I really do

- I really do think

- I remember

- I said

- I said at the time

- I say

- I say right now

- I sincerely hope

- I still think

- I strongly believe

- I sure hope

- I take the view

- I think

- I think it's really important

- I think that one of the key problems with lotteries is

- I think that the answer to that is

- I think that the fact is

- I think that the simple answer to that is

- I think that the trouble is

- I think that what happened to us on September 11th was

- I think that what was happening was

- I think that's what they mean

- I think the issue is

- I think the issue is for them

- I think the one thing that has changed my thinking about these issues, in relation to the 11th of September, is that

- I think the piece that we do have to be very careful about is

- I think the problem is

- I think the reason we should look at it seriously is

- I think the thing you should be most worried about in terms of security

- I think the very first point that Jeremy was making to me

- I think this is the key thing

- I think what Fred was saying there was

- I think what is being described

- I think what is important is

- I think what we didn't know was

- I think what Wendy Alexander was exposing

- I think what's important

- I think what's interesting about it is

- I think, in principle, I think it's absolutely right

- I totally agree with you

- I truly believe

- I understand

- I understand that it came in to place at a time

- I want to

- I would say

- I, I, I'm absolutely certain

- I, therefore, think

- I'm not going to comment on it

- I'm sure

List of Boosters

XII

- in my judgment

- in my opinion

- in my view

- In other words, one of the things that I expect to see is

- incredible

- incredibly

- it is our objective

- It must be viewed in the context of

- I've spoken about it

- I've spoken with

- Mm-hmm

- My attitude is

- My belief was

- My experience of it actually is that

- my hope is

- my own judgement having visited both Scotland and Wales this last week, is

- My own view is

- My point then is

- My principal objective is

- My purpose really is to -

- My response is

- my view is

- my view of the task for us is

- Myself

- Now in fact I think in this particular instance

- Now, I think what's interesting about the current period in politics is

- obviously

- obviously then

- of course

- Okay

- One of the things I think we need to do is

- One of the things I've learned is

- one thing I think everybody should've learned after New Hampshire is

- our view has been

- perfectly

- pretty

- profoundly

- really

- really really

- Right

- So I do hope

- So I do think

- So I– my point was is

- So I think

- So I think it's important

- So I think what people who are concerned about electability should be looking at

- So, I think

- So, my point is

- So, of course

- so, yes

- strongly

- Sure

- that we saw on

- that we've seen on

- that's all I'm saying

- that's my view

- That's right

- that's true

- That's what I believe

- that's what I intend to do

- The thing I did think was

- The way I choose to answer it is

- there is absolutely no doubt at all

- there is no doubt

- There is no doubt about that

- there's no doubt

- there's no doubt that

- To me, the key thing is not

- to my mind

- totally

- truly

- very

- very very

- we also think

- We are concerned about proliferation

- we are feeling

- We believe in

- we can outline

- We do believe

- we do know

- we do make

- we do think

- We expect

- We got

- we have

- we know

- We need

- we need more

- We need to

- We need to stop

- we respect

List of Boosters

XIII

- We share

- We think

- We understand

- we want to

- We will begin

- We will ensure

- we will make gains

- we will turn

- we'd have

- Well I can assure you

- well I do think

- Well I think it's important

- Well I think the issue then is

- we'll make gains

- Well we agree

- Well you're absolutely right in saying

- Well, I hope so

- Well, I think it's really important

- Well, I think one of things we'd do

- Well, my view of this is

- Well, that's what we have said

- Well, Tim, I think all of us should

- We're all in common

- We're at the stage

- We're doing it because we think it's the right thing to do

- We're going to

- We're going to ask you to

- we're going to continue to

- we're going to have to

- We're willing to

- we've been concerned about proliferation

- We've got one the highest

- We've imposed

- we've lifted

- What are we going to do

- what I am is

- What I am saying is

- What I am saying is the most important thing is

- what I am trying to say is

- what I believe is

- What I can assure the American people of is

- What I can't do is

- What I do think is

- What I do want to do is

- What I don't want us to do is

- what I have answered is

- what I keep saying to people about the United Kingdom is

- what I object to and what David Cameron objects to

- What I really care about is

- what I said was

- what I say to people is

- what I strongly believe

- what I think that's necessary

- what I think we've got as I say is

- What I want to do is

- What I was talking about was

- what I was trying to say in the exchange I was having is

- What I'm actually really interested in

- what I'm not going to do is

- What I'm saying is

- what I'm saying is this

- What I'm talking about is

- what I've seen in my ten years as prime minister is

- what we argue is

- what we have to do is

- what we said very, very clearly is

- What we said was

- what we were saying was

- What we're being very clear about

- what we're clear about is

- What we're doing is

- what we're interested in

- What we're really talking about

- which I'm sure we'll want to discuss

- Yeah

- Yes

- Yes I do

- Yes I do. I agree with that

- yes of course we do

- Yes, he does

- Yes, I think we will

- yes, it's true

List of Hedges

XIV

List of Hedges

HCO

- a bit

- a bit of

- a little

- a little bit

- actually

- almost

- and just

- And the inno – and – and – and

- apparently

- basically

- but actually

- But all in all

- but I--it--it—it

- But it would not be correct to say

- But let's look at the--let's look at the ...

- could

- first of all

- frankly

- in a sense

- in fact

- in some sense

- It is not acceptable for poor people not to be given the chances they need in life

- it seems

- It would--it--it--it--I--I am going to

- it--it—it

- It's not just that I won't talk about the investigation. I just won't talk about it full stop, cos anyway, in the weeks to come it will

finish as an enquiry and why don't we just wait for that time

- 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

- just

- kind of

- kinda

- Let‘s let the historians work it out

- like

- Like the weapons of mass destruction

- may

- may not

- maybe

- might

- Mm-hmm

- Mmm

- more or less

- nearly

- Oh well I haven't got a figure I can take out of the top of my head but I'm saying that we

- Oh, well

- On what issue

- particularly

- possibly

- probably

- quite

- really

- relatively

- see

- seem to be saying

- seem to say

- seems to suggest

- simply

- somewhat

- sort of

- supposedly

- that – that we're in– we're in a – a– a major struggle

- The person who earns Ł34 million, if they're paying the top rate of tax, will pay far more tax on the Ł34 million than the person on Ł34,000

- The, the government is not looking at that

- There seems to be

- These are, these are all matters for er, the proper authorities and, and

- this whole - there will be lots of stuff that will ricochet around the media. The thing is to let the thing take its course and then wait for the outcome. Let's do that

- Well

- Well, er

- 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.

List of Hedges

XV

- Well, for example – there's a – we – we uncovered a – a potential anthrax attack

- Well, no, I mean I don't do that sort of thing and I just don't think, I mean I don't know who it was or why they said it

- what has happened is that

- what there was, was evidence

- wholly

- would

- wouldn't

- yeah

- Yeah but it

- Yeah but you know, I think most people would accept that at least you know, there's got to be some process of transition, if you're saying, cos the whole context in which I was saying that was...

- Yeah, well

- Yeah, well the question was as very specific and not one that we can possibly answer

- Yes, but that is of importance then in asking how do you deal with someone - okay let's accept

- Yes, I know what your question is. I am choosing to answer it in my way rather than yours

HHO

- And my point to you earlier was - and the point I made to

Congress is - is that failure is - shouldn't be an option

- and--it--you--you--you

- as you know

- He's, you know, he, he's ready

- In some that may be

- just, you know

- look

- No I sorry Jeremy, I'm not allowing you away with that

- not very many people read the whole thing

- So this is about you know

- So you know

- Well I mean I've been in, I mean I totally understand the point you're making

- Well Jon, that's exactly the sort of thing that you and other commentators enjoy talking about

- Well, I'll tell you at another time

- Well, you know, I

- Well, you know, I'm not

- Well, you know, where does it stop

- you know

- You know, Scott

- you might as well just, you know, let's er

- you say, oh, well

- You see

- Your – your – we're talking right before I go – about to go

HSO

- And maybe it was, you know, I think maybe it was a mistake to say that you can. You just ... the point is ...

- I mean I suppose we're both trying to, you know, kind of overturn the government and win

- And – I – I am a – I am – I am convinced

- and I don't think

- And I think

- And I would very much hate to see

- and I've said, I mean I believe that that allowance we should take that housing allowance out - that's my personal view, take that housing allowance out. I think we should …

- But I don't, I suppose, I, I don't think anyone erm, really predicted accurately

- but I think

- But I think it´s, you know, it´s not on really for councils to simply turn their backs

- But what I don't think anybody is calling for is

- I actually think

- I also think

- I am afraid

- I am answering actually in the way that I want to answer it

- I am not reshuffling on any basis, Jeremy. The election has not happened

List of Hedges

XVI

- I assume

- I assumed

- I don't know, you'd have to ask him. I don't, I don't sense one at the moment

- I don't personally think

- I don't really think

- I don't think

- I gather

- I genuinely think

- I guess

- I hope

- I just don't think

- I just think

- I mean

- I mean he is, you know, in a sense I can totally understand

- I mean I think the interesting thing is that

- I mean I, I think that - who knows in the time to come

- I say

- I sense

- I suppose

- I think

- I think we should just let the thing take its course cos what can I say and in any event we'll know the answer to all these questions when you

- I think we should look at things

- I think we should look at those things

- I think, you know,

- I would disagree

- I would hate

- I would hope

- I would say

- I would think

- I wouldn't say

- I'm afraid

- I'm just ... thinkin'

- I'm not exactly sure

- I'm quite certain

- I'm sorry

- it seems like to me

- No. No. No, I mean it's not - why do you ask that

- Perhaps

- so I think

- So I would hope

- so, I think

- very

- we believe it's almost certainly an accident

- Well I do actually believe this intelligence

- well I mean

- Well, I - look, I mean (E. poss.), I think (E. poss.) that's a

- Well, I think that that's, this is what, what should happen is that we should, as Britain, we should take this issue to the Security Council

- Yeah. I, I'll tell you

- You either - I'm not getting in to all this business

the speaker's involvement in political discourse

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