Expressing stance in spoken political discourse—The function of parenthetical inserts. (November 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Haselow, Alexander
• Is Part Of: Language sciences. Volume 82(2020)
• Publication Date: 2020-11
• Subjects: Political discourse -- Spoken language -- Stance -- Parentheticals; Linguistics -- Periodicals; Language and languages -- Periodicals; Linguistique -- Périodiques; Langage et langues -- Périodiques; Language and languages; Linguistics; Periodicals; Electronic journals; 405
• DOI: 10.1016/j.langsci.2020.101334
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0388-0001

Abstract

Abstract: In spoken political discourse speakers often suspend the production of an emergent clause or sentence and shift to a second syntactic structure which, after its completion, is followed by a resumption of the initial structure. This article discusses the discourse functions of the parenthetical inserts deriving from such shifts and shows how they are systematically used by politicians as a device to express their stance while a message-oriented structure is underway, and thus to interweave attitudinal information and a core message into a single utterance. Highlights: Parenthetical inserts are frequent in political discourse. They mainly serve the expression of stance-related information. Three categories of indicating stance are distinguished. Parenthetical inserts reflect the tension between syntactic and pragmatic forces. They provide insights into real-time discourse processing.