scholarly journals ‘And we are Stuck in One Place, Minister.’ A Study of Evasiveness in Replies to Face-Threatening Questions in Slovak Political Interviews on Scandals (A Combined Approach)

2021 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 690-704
Author(s):  
Jana Lokajová

Abstract The phenomenon of political evasiveness in the genre of a political interview has been the focus of several discourse studies employing conversation analysis, critical discourse analysis and the social psychology approach. Most of the above-mentioned studies focus on a detailed qualitative analysis of political discourse identifying a wide range of communication strategies that permit politicians to ambiguate their agency and at the same time boost their positive face. Since these strategies may change over time and also be subject to a culture specific environment, the aim of this paper is to discover a) which evasive communicative strategies were employed by Slovak politicians in 2012–2016, b) which lexical substitutions were most frequently used by them to avoid negative connotations of face-threatening questions, and finally, c) which cognitive frames formed a frequent conceptual background of their evasive political argumentation. The paper will draw on a combination of quantitative and qualitative approach to the analysis of non-replies devised by Bull and Mayer (1993) and critical discourse analysis in the sample of five Slovak radio interviews aired on the Rádio Express. The selection of interviews was not random- in each interview the politician was asked highly conflictual questions about bribery, embezzlement or disputes in the coalition. Based on qualitative research of Russian-Slovak political discourse (2009) by Dulebová it is hypothesized that a) the evasive strategy of ‘attack’ on the opposition and ‘attack on the interviewer’ would occur in our sample with the highest prominence in the speech of the former Prime Minister Fico, and b) the politicians accused of direct involvement in scandals would be the most evasive ones.

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 272-294
Author(s):  
Piotr Cap

Abstract The present paper explores the current nexus between Cognitive Linguistics (CL) and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), focusing on theories of conceptual positioning, distancing and perspective-taking in discourse space. It assesses the strengths, limitations, and prospects for further operationalization of positioning as a valid methodology in CDA, and political discourse studies in particular. In the first part, I review the cognitive models of positioning that have made the most significant contribution to CDA. Discussing Deictic Space Theory and Text World Theory, among others, I argue that these models reveal further theoretical potential which has not been exploited yet. While they offer a comprehensive and plausible account of how representations and ideologically charged worldviews are established, they fail to deliver a pragmatic explanation of how addressees are made to establish a worldview, in the service of speaker’s goals. The second part of the paper outlines Proximization Theory, a discursive model of crisis and conflict construction in political discourse. I argue that, unlike the other models, it fully captures the complex geopolitical and ideological positioning in political discourse space, providing a viable handle on the dynamics of conflict between the opposing ideologies of the space.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adib Rifqi Setiawan

The Critical Discourse Analysis is often applied to analyze political discourse including the political speech. This article analyzes Grace Natalie Louisa’s Speech, mainly in Festival 11 by Partai Solidaritas Indonesia (PSI), that is exclusively based on the perspective of Teun Adrianus van Dijk. It reveals that we can learn how to deliver our ideology to public. Moreover, we can have a better understanding of the political purpose of these speeches.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shaina Singh

On August 13th 2010, the MV Sun Sea ship carrying 492 Tamil asylum seekers arrived off of the coast of British Columbia. Immediately upon arrival the Tamil asylum seekers were detained for a prolonged period of time, subjected to intensified interrogation techniques, and unfairly questioned even when in possession of identifying documents. This paper examines how the government used political discourse to try and justify the unusually harsh detention of asylum seekers. Through a critical discourse analysis strategy, eight newspaper articles will be analyzed and the theories of securitization, discourse, and orientalism will be used to advance certain political ideologies. The political justifications of detention operate through the theme of the egocentric state, and the theme of categorizing and demonizing asylum seekers. The final theme discussed is the concept of victimization, which will offer an alternate perspective to this paper’s main focus on political discourse.


2018 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmad S. Haider

Abstract Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) investigates the relationship between language, power, and society. Corpus linguistics (CL) is the study of language based on examples of real life language use. Over the last two decades, various scholars have combined some approaches and notions of CDA with the analytical framework of CL to examine the representation of several phenomena in relatively large texts. This study follows a corpus-assisted (critical) discourse analysis approach to investigate a 2.5 million word corpus of Arabic news articles by Jordan’s News Agency (PETRA). It demonstrates how some researchers following this approach may make some decisions, at some stages of their analysis, which are likely to affect their findings. These potential decisions may include selecting what statistical measures to use, what threshold to consider, what terms from the frequency, cluster, and collocation results to further investigate, which concordance lines to include in their study, and some others. In this study, I argue that some of these decisions can be made to suit the researchers’ preconceived assumptions and pre-existing hypotheses. The study concludes that using corpus linguistic techniques to discursively analyze large data reduces but not completely removes researchers’ bias.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 97
Author(s):  
Sami K. Khawaldeh ◽  
Wafa abu Hatab

The present paper investigates Anti-terrorism Ideology (ATI) in King Abdullah II of Jordan political discourse following a critical discourse methodology and focusing on three speeches delivered in 2015. The socio-cognitive approach is adopted as an analytical framework to decipher the underlying ideological attitudes and meanings that are encoded in these speeches. The study revealed that semantic aspects including lexical choices, repetition, and presupposition have been employed to construct (ATI) that aimed at creating a negative mental image of terrorists and a positive image of Islam.


2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-106
Author(s):  
Rasool Moradi-Joz ◽  
Saeed Ketabi ◽  
Mansoor Tavakoli

Abstract Inspired by Aristotle and modern political theory, Fairclough and Fairclough (2012) introduce a model into Political Discourse Analysis (PDA) on the basis of deliberation and conductive argumentation (reasoning). This study makes an attempt to appraise the efficacy and adequacy of this model through examining Trump’s UN speech on Iran in 2017 in the light of other mainstream analytic tools and frameworks of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). The findings suggest that the model is a step toward including the cognitive interface in PDA, and that the premises adduced in Trump’s speech could serve the purpose of delegitimizing Iranian government and ‘Iranoregimephobia’, hence calling for confronting Iran. It is concluded that if integrated with other approaches, the model could serve to possibly counter-balance the subjectivity and skepticism associated with CDA-oriented studies, thus possibly proving itself as a practical, effective, and informative tool for the critical study of political discourse.


2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (9) ◽  
pp. 1739
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Amo Ofori

Intertextuality is the idea that “text cannot be viewed or studied in isolation since texts are not produced or consumed in isolation: all texts exist, and therefore must be understood, in relation to other texts” (Richardson, 2007, p. 100). In this study, I examine the kinds of Intertextuality used in the representation of insults in pro-New Patriotic Party (NPP) and National Democratic Congress (NDC) newspapers in Ghana. I relate Intertextuality to van Dijk’s ideological square to show how newspapers re-echo and legitimize the voice of the in-group by assigning them with authoritative qualities and titles, credentials that make whatever they say very reliable and at times taken as the truth without submitting them to any critical evaluation. However, in instances where the voices of the out-group members are reported, as Rojo (1995, p. 54) puts it, it is a means to “criticize them or discredit them.” The application of Intertextuality, in this study, reveals what both pro-NPP and pro-NDC papers consider newsworthy, that is, whose insult or voice is reported and whose is not. It shows how the in-group’s insults are represented in relation to the out-group. It further identifies the underlying ideologies in the representation of insults in Ghanaian political discourse.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document