This paper looks at the way in which politicians use radio interviews to present an image of themselves as fully committed to their cause. In previous research the focus has been on strategies of evasion which are developed by interviewees in response to face-threatening questions. In this article I aim to complement the picture of the hedging politician by concentrating on the equally important linguistic devices employed for conveying intellectual power. The desirable image is created through the use of expressions emphasizing cognitive certainty as well as emotional and social commitment. The investigation is based on a corpus of radio interviews with British politicians recorded between 1985 and 1990.
Beattie, G. (1982) `Turn-Taking and Interruption in Political Interviews: Margaret Thatcher and Jim Callaghan Compared and Contrasted', Semiotica39(1/2): 93-114.
2.
Biber, D. and Finegan, E. (1988) `Adverbial Stance Types in English', Discourse Processes11: 1-34.
3.
Blum-Kulka, S. (1983) `The Dynamics of Political Interviews', Text3(2): 131-153.
4.
Chafe, W. (1986) `Evidentiality in English Conversation and Academic Writing', in W. Chafe and J. Nichols (eds) Evidentiality: The Linguistic Coding of Epistemology. Advances in Discourse Processes XX, pp. 261-272. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
5.
Clayman, S. (1991) `News Interview Openings: Aspects of Sequential Organization', in P. Scannell (ed.) Broadcast Talk, pp. 48-75. London: Sage.
6.
Day, R. (1975) Day by Day. London: William Kimber.
7.
Fairclough, N. (1988) `Discourse Representation in Media Discourse', Sociolinguistics17(2): 125-139.
8.
Fairclough, N. (1992) Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press.
9.
Fairclough, N. (1995) Media Discourse. London: Edward Arnold.
10.
Greatbatch, D. (1986) `Aspects of Topical Organization in News Interviews: The Use of Agenda-Shifting Procedures by Interviewees', Media, Culture and Society8: 441-455.
11.
Hall, S. , Critcher, C., Jefferson, T., Clarke, J. and Roberts, B. (1978) Policing the Crisis. London: Macmillan.
12.
Halliday, M.A.K. (1970) `Functional Diversity in Language as Seen from a Consideration of Modality and Mood in English', Foundations of Language6: 322-361.
13.
Halliday, M.A.K. and Hasan, R. (1985) Language, Context and Text: Aspects of Language in a Social-Semiotic Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
14.
Harris, S. (1991) `Evasive Action: How Politicians Respond to Questions in Political Interviews', in P. Scannell (ed.) Broadcast Talk, pp. 76-99. London: Sage.
15.
Heritage, J. (1985) `Analyzing News Interviews: Aspects of the Production of Talk for an Overhearing Audience' in T.A. van Dijk (ed.) Handbook of Discourse: Discourse and Dialogue, Vol. 3. pp. 95-117. New York: Academic Press.
16.
Heritage, J. and Watson, D. (1980) `Aspects of the Properties of Formulations in Natural Conversation: Some Distances Analyzed', Semiotica30: 245-262.
17.
Jucker, A. (1986) News Interviews: A Pragmalinguistic Analysis (Pragmatics & Beyond VII:4). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
18.
Kiparski, P. and Kiparski, C. (1971) `Fact', in D.D. Steinberg and L.A. Jakobovits (eds) Semantics: An Interdisciplinary Reader in Philosophy, Linguistics and Psychology, pp. 345-369. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
19.
Kress, G. and Hodge, R. (1979) Language as Ideology. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
20.
Leech, G. (1983) Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.
21.
Maitland, K. and Wilson, J. (1987) `Pronominal Selection and Ideological Conflict', Journal of Pragmatics11: 495-512.
22.
Philips, S. (1985) `Reported Speech as Evidence in an American Trial', in D. Tannen and J.E. Alatis (eds) Languages and Linguistics: The Interdependence of Theory, Data and Application, pp. 154-170. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
23.
Simon-Vandenbergen, A.M. (1992) `The Interactional Utility of of course in Spoken Discourse', Occasional Papers in Systemic Linguistics6: 213-226.
24.
Stubbs, M. (1986) ` “A Matter of Prolonged Field Work”: Notes Towards a Modal Grammar of English', Applied Linguistics7(1): 1-25.
25.
Van Dijk, T.A. (1980) Macrostructures. An Interdisciplinary Study of Global Structures in Discourse, Interaction, and Cognition. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
26.
Van Dijk, T.A. (1985) `Structures of News in the Press', in Discourse and Communication, pp. 69-93. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
27.
Werth, P. (1986) `A Functional Approach to Presupposition. Pulling the Plug on Holes and Filters', Belgian Journal of Linguistics1: 239-279.
