I think,I meanandI believein political discourse

Abstract

This article examines the distribution, collocates and function of the first-personsingular cognitive-verb-based syntagmatic configurations I think, I mean and I believe in argumentative political discourse, considering their status as parenthetical construction and pragmatic marker in two sets of spoken data: monologic speech and dialogic interview. Its goal is to identify discourse-domain-specific discourse patterns, which manifest themselves in patterned co-occurrences with other pragmatic markers, and with expressions of modality and evidentiality. The explicit accommodation of local context allows for a fine-grained analysis of the three constructions, filtering out those contextual configurations in which I think, I mean and I believe may count as a pragmatic marker.

‘OK, well, first of all, let me say …’: Discursive uses of response initiators in US presidential primary debates

“…Among these markers, I think is shown to be a highly frequent and partially grammaticalized item, fulfilling a wide range of boosting, deliberative, attenuating and tentative functions. While I believe mainly has a boosting effect, I mean chiefly operates as an argumentative marker (Fetzer, 2014: 90). The article by Furko (2017) investigates pragmatic markers in British, American and Hungarian political news interviews, identifying four main categories: evidentials such as of course serve the function of backgrounding information, ‘general extenders’ such as and so on commonly play down other viewpoints, quotation markers like oh and well have contextual effects, such as legitimizing attitudes and the comment clauses I think or I mean result in conversationalization as a linguistic marketing strategy (Furko, 2017: 4–6).…”

“…As far as the use of discourse markers in political dialog is concerned, there are three relatively recent studies that are particularly relevant here. Fetzer (2014) examines three pragmatic markers containing cognitive verbs – I think, I mean and I believe – in British political interviews and speeches. Among these markers, I think is shown to be a highly frequent and partially grammaticalized item, fulfilling a wide range of boosting, deliberative, attenuating and tentative functions.…”

“…Although most studies in this field refer to casual everyday discourse, a few publications have started to examine markers, such as ‘I mean’ in the institutionalized domain of political dialog (e.g. Fetzer, 2014; Furko, 2017). In the present study, a comparatively open concept of response initiators is employed, so that a wide range of recurring turn-initial items can be subsumed under the term.…”

Objectification strategies outperform subjectification strategies in military interventionist discourses

“…However, as Mushin (2013) points out, there is now increasing interest in non-grammaticalised evidential constructions as markers of epistemic authority and responsibility, including in political discourse (e.g. Fetzer 2008Fetzer , 2014Furko 2017), where "speakers are motivated to adopt a particular epistemological stance partially on the basis of their source of information, but also on the basis of their rhetorical intentions, on how they want their utterance to be understood and treated in the moment of the interaction" (Mushin 2001: 58). From a critical or rhetorical perspective, evidentials may therefore be studied as part of the "more elaborate discursive and interactional strategies of persuasively showing the sources, methods, reasons or arguments that show the validity of information and reliability of speakers" (van Dijk 2014: 274).…”

“We believe in democracy…”: Epistemic Modality in Justin Trudeau’s Political Speeches

“…A number of studies have been made to examine the use of this type of modality in spoken and written discourse, especially political discourse (see, e.g., Baumgarten & House, 2010;Boicu, 2008;Fetzer, 2011Fetzer, , 2014Fraser, 2010;Hernández-Guerra, 2016;Lillian, 2008;López, 2012;Milkovich & Sitarica, 2017;O'Grady, 2017;Simon-Vandenbergen, 1996, 1997, 2000Vukovic, 2014ab). Some of these studies have focused on very specific features such as the form, function and distribution of the 'parenthetical' construction (Urmson, 1952) I think (Fetzer, 2011;O'Grady, 2017;Simon-Vandenbergen, 2000), and I think, I mean and I believe (Fetzer, 2014). These studies revealed the frequent use of I think in political discourse.…”