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Pragmatic strategies for follow-ups in US political debates

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Political debating in the United States forms a type of pragmatic act with a recognizable script. Within that script, the nature of the debate presents itself as rife with examples of follow-ups (Sinclair and Coulthard 1975) whereby candidates react to challenges to their prior assertions by reasserting, justifying, and/or mitigating their original claims. Follow-ups can be identified sequentially or functionally, and emerge in the linguistic and interactional context both intra- or interdiscursively when, in the latter case, speakers are called upon to follow up on an assertion they made in an earlier political discourse (e.g., in a political speech or campaign advertisement); that is, the previous assertion has been entextualized in the latter discourse. Using the Multilayered Model of Context (Berlin 2007, 2011) as a framework to conduct a critical discourse analysis, pragmatic strategies are identified within selected debates which occurred during the final days of the 2010 US Midterm Elections. The integration of Positioning Theory (Harré and van Langenhove 1991, 1999) in the analysis also emerges as instructive in classifying those strategies as affirmative versus negative.

  • Affiliations: 1: Northeastern Illinois University, USA

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References

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     [Google Scholar]
  2. ABC News
    2010b “Florida Senate Debate: Transcript Part II – ABC News” (Transcribed byK. McCarthy). ABC News Blogs & Posts – ABC News, 6Oct 2010 Web. 10Oct 2011 <blogs.abcnews.com/george/2010/10/florida-senate-debate-transcript-part-ii.html.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Austin, John
    1962 How to Do Things with Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198245537.001.0001
     https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198245537.001.0001 [Google Scholar]
  4. Bakhtin, Mikhail Mikhailovich
    1981 The Dialogic Imagination, ed. by Michael Holmquist . Austin: University of Texas Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Berlin, Lawrence N
    2007 “Cooperative conflict and evasive language: The case of the 9/11 Commission Hearings.” InContext and Appropriateness: Micro Meets Macro, ed. by Anita Fetzer , 176–215. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. doi: 10.1075/pbns.162.10ber
     https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.162.10ber [Google Scholar]
  6. 2011 “Fighting words: Hybrid discourse and discourse processes.” InContext and Contexts, ed. by Anita Fetzer and Etsuko Oishi , 41–65. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. doi: 10.1075/pbns.209.04ber
     https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.209.04ber [Google Scholar]
  7. 2012 “The making of a new American revolution or a wolf in sheep’s clothing: ‘It’s time to reload’.” InDialogue in Politics, ed. by Lawrence N. Berlin and Anita Fetzer , 167–192. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. doi: 10.1075/ds.18.13ber
     https://doi.org/10.1075/ds.18.13ber [Google Scholar]
  8. Chouliaraki, Lilie , and Norman Fairclough
    1999 Discourse in Late Modernity: Rethinking Critical Discourse Analysis. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Cillizza, Chris
    2014 “Charlie Crist didn’t leave the Republican party because of racism. He left it because he couldn’t win a primary – The Washington Post.” The Washington Post – Blogs – The Fix, 8May 2014 <www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/05/08/charlie-crist-didnt-leave-the-republican-party-because-of-racism-he-left-it-because-he-couldnt-win-a-primary/.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Davies, Bronwyn , and Rom Harré
    1990 “Positioning: The discursive production of selves.” Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior, 20 (1), 43–63. doi: 10.1111/j.1468‑5914.1990.tb00174.x
     https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5914.1990.tb00174.x [Google Scholar]
  11. Geertz, Clifford
    1983 Local Knowledge (3rd ed.). San Francisco: Basic Books.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Halliday, Michael A.K
    1984 “Language as code and language as behavior: A systemic-functional interpretation of the nature and ontogenesis of dialogue.” InThe Semiotics of Culture and Language: Volume I; Language as Social Semiotic, ed. by Robin P. Fawcett , Michael A.K. Halliday , Sydney M. Lamb , and Adam Makkai , 3–35. London and Wolfeboro, NH: Frances Pinter.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Harré, Rom , and Fathali Moghaddam
    2003 The Self and Others: Positioning Individuals and Groups in Personal, Political, and Cultural Contexts. Westview, CT: Praeger Publishers.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Harré, Rom , and Luk van Langenhove
    1991 “Varieties of positioning.” Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior, 21 (4): 393–407. doi: 10.1111/j.1468‑5914.1991.tb00203.x
     https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5914.1991.tb00203.x [Google Scholar]
  15. 1999 Positioning Theory: Moral Contexts of Intentional Action. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Holmes, Janet
    1995 Women, Men, and Politeness. London: Longman.
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Hymes, Del
    1972 “Models of the interaction of language and social life.” InDirections in Sociolinguistics: The Ethnography of Communication, ed. by John J. Gumperz and Del Hymes , 35–71. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Lakoff, George
    1972 “Hedges: A study in the meaning criteria and the logic of fuzzy concepts.” InPapers from the Eighth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society, ed. by Paul Peranteau , Judith Levi , and Gloria Phares , 183–228. Chicago: University of Chicago.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Lakoff, Robin
    1975 Language and Woman’s Place: Text and Commentaries, ed. by Mary Bucholtz . Oxford: Oxford University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Las Vegas Sun 2010 “Transcript of the Harry Reid-Sharron Angle debate, Oct. 14, 2010 – Friday, Oct. 15, 2010 | 6:56 a.m. – Las Vegas Sun.” Las Vegas Sun, 15Oct 2010 Web. 10Oct 2011 <www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/oct/15/transcript-harry-reid-sharron-angle-debate-6-pm-oc/.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Levinson, Stephen C
    1983 Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  22. Malinowski, Bronislaw
    1923 “The problem of meaning in primitive languages.” InThe Meaning of Meaning, ed. by Charles K. Odgen and Ivor A. Richards , 296–336. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Mey, Jacob L
    2001 Pragmatics: An Introduction. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
     [Google Scholar]
  24. Sinclair, John , and Malcolm Coulthard
    1975 Towards an Analysis of Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  25. Spradley, James P
    1980 Participant Observation. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
     [Google Scholar]
  26. Toulmin, Stephen E
    2003/1958 The Uses of Argument. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/CBO9780511840005
     https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511840005 [Google Scholar]
  27. The Uptake
    2010 “Michele Bachmann and Tarryl Clark Debate in St. Cloud” (Cart provided by L. Richardson, Paradigm Reporting & Captioning). The Uptake, 26Oct 2010 Web. 10Oct 2011 <www.theuptake.org/2010/10/26/michele-bachmann-and-tarryl-clark-debate-in-st-cloud/.
     [Google Scholar]
  28. Urban, Greg
    1991 A Discourse-Centered Approach to Culture: Native South American Myths and Rituals. Austin: University of Texas Press.
     [Google Scholar]

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