'I think' in televised political debate

O'Grady, Gerard ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1730-9074 2017. 'I think' in televised political debate. International Review of Pragmatics 9 (2) , pp. 269-303. 10.1163/18773109-00901006

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Abstract

Simon-Vandenbergen (2000:61) concluded her study of I think in political discourse by noting the importance of further study of its prosodic realisation. Consequently, I investigate the prosodic realisations of I think in political debates. At the same time I examine the lexico-grammatical form of the construction, and its surrounding co-text. My exploration confirmed that I think is frequent in political speech, and revealed that it projected four types of meanings. Three of the meanings occurred irrespective of the intonational choices, though prosody influenced the likelihood of the occurrence of a particular meaning. There was a greater likelihood of the speaker expressing a tentative statement if think was prominent/tonic. Intonational prominence on I explicitly warranted the source of the evaluation. When the construction did not contain an intonational prominence it signalled s commitment to a proposition, or if followed by a filled pause or rhythmic disjunction a hesitation marker.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	English, Communication and Philosophy
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN1990 Broadcasting
Publisher:	Brill Academic Publishers
ISSN:	1877-3095
Related URLs:	Publisher
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 March 2016
Date of Acceptance:	22 March 2016
Last Modified:	22 Nov 2024 02:00
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/88179

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