“And I Think That Is a Very Straightforward Way of Dealing With It”

Abstract

This contribution examines the distribution and communicative function of cognitive verbs in political discourse, giving particular attention to their impact on the expression of commitment. From a semantic viewpoint, cognitive verbs are seen as a means of subjectification expressing the speaker's attitude towards proposition and force whereas, from a discursive perspective, they are assigned the status of multifunctional devices expressing different types and different degrees of commitment. Part I analyzes the semantics and pragmatics of cognitive verbs, in particular those of think. Part II examines their particularized form and function in political discourse, accommodating both quantitative and qualitative perspectives. It shows that cognitive verbs tend to co-occur with other linguistic devices expressing commitment, thus illustrating their fine-grained interplay in the presentation of the political agent. The particularized use of cognitive verbs is assigned the status of a contextualization device, inviting the addressees to adopt the speaker's perspective and interpret a communicative contribution accordingly.

Thinking out loud: A discourse analysis of ‘thinking’ during talk radio interactions

“…In keeping with the findings of Fetzer (2008), think was by far the most frequent cognitive verb in our data. Across the dataset we identified frequencies of the following cognitive verbs (also referred to as weak assertives [Hooper 1975] or parantheticals [Urmson 1952]): think = 708; believe/ief = 79; expect = 22; suppose = 26; imagine = 10; guess = 4.…”

“…Nuyts (2001: 390) agrees with such a conclusion, asserting more broadly that 'mental state predicates systematically express subjectivity. ' Fetzer (2008' Fetzer ( , 2011 also applies the concept of commitment to the use of the cognitive verb think in political discourse. In line with Simon-Vandenbergen (2000), Fetzer (2011: 265) argues that, when it co-occurs with 'markers of epistemic modality expressing probability and possibility, I think has an attenuating function, and with markers expressing certainty and necessity, it has a boosting function.'…”

I think,I meanandI believein political discourse

“…This may be because of its determinate meaning, encoding the speaker's own beliefs. Accordingly, its prime function is that of a booster, intensifying the pragmatic force of an argument (Fetzer 2008). Analogously to the other two constructions, I believe may occur initially, medially and finally, with the initial position being the preferred one (cf.…”

“…e.g. Erman 1987;Fetzer 2008;van Bogaert 2006). This paper provides an analysis of the distribution, function and collocates of the first-person-singular cognitive-verb-based syntagmatic configurations I think, I mean and I believe in the context of spoken argumentative political discourse (using a corpus of dialogic face-to-face interviews and monologic speeches).…”

“…Hence I think no longer expresses solely the cognitive disposition of the speaker but rather, if used as a parenthetical construction, her/his attitude towards the proposition over which it has scope, as is the case with modal verbs, modal adverbs and other expressions of epistemic modality. Depending on its local context and distribution across discourse domains and contexts, I think may not only attenuate but also boost the pragmatic force of an utterance, expressing possibility and probability on the one hand, and certainty on the other (Fetzer 2008;SimonVandenbergen 2000). More recently, its dialogic function has been in the focus of investigation, and I think has been assigned the status of a construction of intersubjectivity (Verhagen 2005).…”