“I think” in political speech

O'Grady, Gerard Nigel

doi:10.1163/18773109-00901006

“…A number of studies have been made to examine the use of this type of modality in spoken and written discourse, especially political discourse (see, e.g., Baumgarten & House, 2010;Boicu, 2008;Fetzer, 2011Fetzer, , 2014Fraser, 2010;Hernández-Guerra, 2016;Lillian, 2008;López, 2012;Milkovich & Sitarica, 2017;O'Grady, 2017;Simon-Vandenbergen, 1996, 1997, 2000Vukovic, 2014ab). Some of these studies have focused on very specific features such as the form, function and distribution of the 'parenthetical' construction (Urmson, 1952) I think (Fetzer, 2011;O'Grady, 2017;Simon-Vandenbergen, 2000), and I think, I mean and I believe (Fetzer, 2014). These studies revealed the frequent use of I think in political discourse.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“We believe in democracy…”: Epistemic Modality in Justin Trudeau’s Political Speeches

Hardjanto

¹

,

Mazia

²

2019

Hum.

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This article investigates epistemic modality in political discourse. It focuses on modality markers in terms of their word classes, semantic meanings and discourse functions in political speeches. The data were taken from three speeches delivered by the 23rd Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The results show that the markers found in the three speeches are of five different types, i.e., lexical verbs, modal adjectives, modal adverbs, modal auxiliary verbs and modal nouns, with meanings ranging from possibility, probability, to certainty. The markers also indicate the speaker’s commitment whose degree reflects the function in the social context. The speaker’s commitment is divided into three degrees of engagement, each of which serves as a means to be polite, to be diplomatic, and to be persuasive. The findings suggest that Trudeau tends to use reasonable judgment expressions to sound diplomatic and persuasive in his speeches.

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“…A number of studies have been made to examine the use of this type of modality in spoken and written discourse, especially political discourse (see, e.g., Baumgarten & House, 2010;Boicu, 2008;Fetzer, 2011Fetzer, , 2014Fraser, 2010;Hernández-Guerra, 2016;Lillian, 2008;López, 2012;Milkovich & Sitarica, 2017;O'Grady, 2017;Simon-Vandenbergen, 1996, 1997, 2000Vukovic, 2014ab). Some of these studies have focused on very specific features such as the form, function and distribution of the 'parenthetical' construction (Urmson, 1952) I think (Fetzer, 2011;O'Grady, 2017;Simon-Vandenbergen, 2000), and I think, I mean and I believe (Fetzer, 2014). These studies revealed the frequent use of I think in political discourse.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These studies revealed the frequent use of I think in political discourse. Moreover, this parenthetical structure serves not only to express uncertainty or lack of commitment, but also to indicate tentativeness and authoritative deliberation (O'Grady, 2017;Simon-Vandenbergen, 2000). O'Grady (2017) further argues that I think is used to express either commitment to a proposition if it receives an intonational prominence or hesitation if it is followed by a filled pause.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“We believe in democracy…”: Epistemic Modality in Justin Trudeau’s Political Speeches

Hardjanto

¹

,

Mazia

²

2019

Hum.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article investigates epistemic modality in political discourse. It focuses on modality markers in terms of their word classes, semantic meanings and discourse functions in political speeches. The data were taken from three speeches delivered by the 23rd Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The results show that the markers found in the three speeches are of five different types, i.e., lexical verbs, modal adjectives, modal adverbs, modal auxiliary verbs and modal nouns, with meanings ranging from possibility, probability, to certainty. The markers also indicate the speaker’s commitment whose degree reflects the function in the social context. The speaker’s commitment is divided into three degrees of engagement, each of which serves as a means to be polite, to be diplomatic, and to be persuasive. The findings suggest that Trudeau tends to use reasonable judgment expressions to sound diplomatic and persuasive in his speeches.

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(Inter)subjectivity in Estonian registers

Metslang,

Habicht,

Hennoste

et al. 2024

JUL

2

0

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This issue focuses on a little-studied aspect of (inter)subjectivity (S/ IS) in language: the expression of S/ IS in different registers. In the introduction, we overview the background and approach, describe the central registers in connection with using S/ IS devices, and correlate the choice and frequency of S/ IS devices with the situative features of registers. The introduction also includes a brief overview of the articles in the issue. We have studied three groups of S/ IS devices: (1) pragmatic particles, (2) CTP markers based on complement-taking predicates, and (3) modal verbs. Our central data comes from the Estonian Pragmatic Corpus. We look mainly at the expression of S/ IS in seven registers, broadly divided into three groups: spoken, online, and printed texts. The papers on the issue deal with the use and development of different particles in registers of Estonian and the use of S/ IS differences between registers to develop metrics for distinguishing registers.

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“I think” in political speech

Cited by 5 publications

References 15 publications

“We believe in democracy…”: Epistemic Modality in Justin Trudeau’s Political Speeches

“We believe in democracy…”: Epistemic Modality in Justin Trudeau’s Political Speeches

“We believe in democracy…”: Epistemic Modality in Justin Trudeau’s Political Speeches

(Inter)subjectivity in Estonian registers

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