Cover not available
Article published In:
Discourse linguistics: Theory and practice
Edited by Karin Aijmer and Anita Fetzer
[Functions of Language 21:1] 2014
► pp. 67–94

I think, I mean and I believe in political discourse

Collocates, functions and distribution

| University of Augsburg

This article examines the distribution, collocates and function of the first-person-singular 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.

Published online: 7 April 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/fol.21.1.05fet
References
Aijmer, Karin.
1997  I think — an English modal particle. In Toril Swan & Olaf Jansen Westvik (eds.), Modality in Germanic languages. Historical and comparative perspectives , 1–47. Berlin: Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2009  Seem and evidentiality. Functions of Language 161. 63–88. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Aijmer, Karin & Anne-Marie Simon-Vandenbergen (
eds) 2006  Pragmatic markers in contrast . Oxford: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Aikhenvald, Alexandra.
2004  Evidentiality . Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Ariel, Mira.
2008  Pragmatics and grammar . Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Biber, Douglas.
1988  Variation across speech and writing . Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bongelli, Ramona & Andrzej Zuczkowski.
2008  Indicatori linguistici percettivi e cognitivi . Roma: Aracne.Google Scholar
Brinton, Laurel J.
2001 From matrix clause to pragmatic marker. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 2(2). 177–199. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2008  The comment clause in English. Syntactic origins and pragmatic developments . Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bußmann, Hadumod.
1996 Routledgedictionary of language and linguistics. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Celle, Agnes & Ruth Huart (
eds) 2007  Connectives as discourse landmarks . Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chafe, Wallace.
1996 Evidentiality in English conversation and academic writing. In Wallace Chafe & Johanna Nichols (eds.), Evidentiality: The linguistic coding of epistemology , 261–272. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Dendale, Patrick & Liliane Tasmowski.
2001 Introduction: Evidentiality and related notions. Journal of Pragmatics 331. 339–348. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ducrot, Oswald.
1984  Le dire et le dit . Paris: Minuit.Google Scholar
Erman, Britt.
1987  Pragmatic expressions in English. A study of you know, you see and I mean in face-to-face conversation . Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell.Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman.
1995  Media discourse . London: Arnold.Google Scholar
Faller, Martina.
2002  Semantics and pragmatics of evidentials in Cuzco Quechua . Stanford: Stanford University PhD thesis.Google Scholar
Fetzer, Anita.
2007 Reformulation and common grounds. In Anita Fetzer & Kerstin Fischer (eds.), Lexical markers of common grounds , 157–179. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
2008 ‘And I think that is a very straight forward way of dealing with it.’: The communicative function of cognitive verbs in political discourse. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 27(4). 384–396. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2011 “I think this is I mean perhaps this is too erm too tough a view of the world, but I often think...”: Cognitive verbs in political discourse. Language Sciences 33(2). 255–267. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fetzer, Anita & Marjut Johansson.
2010 Cognitive verbs in context: A contrastive analysis of English and French argumentative discourse. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 15(2). 240–266. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fischer, Kerstin
(ed) 2006  Approaches to discourse particles . Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Fraser, Bruce.
1987 Pragmatic formatives. In Jef Verschueren & Marcella Bertuccelli-Papi (eds.), The pragmatic perspective , 179–194. Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Garfinkel, Harold.
1994  Studies in ethnomethodology . Cambridge: Politi Press.Google Scholar
Givón, Talmy.
1993  English grammar: A function-based introduction . Amsterdam: Benjamins.Google Scholar
Grice, Herbert P.
1975 Logic and conversation. In Peter Cole & Jerry L Morgan. (eds.), Syntax and semantics , vol. III1, 41–58. New York, NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Halliday, M.A.K.
1994  An introduction to functional grammar , 2nd edn. London: Arnold.Google Scholar
Hooper, Joan B.
1975 On assertive predicates. In John P. Kimball (ed.), Syntax and semantics , vol. 41, 91–124. New York, NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Ifantidou, Elly.
2001  Evidentials and relevance . Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jucker, Andreas & Yael Ziv (
eds) 1998  Discourse markers . Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kaltenböck, Gunther.
2009a English comment clauses: Position, prosody, and scope. Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik 34(1). 49–75.Google Scholar
2009b Initial I think: Main or comment clause? Discourse and Interaction 2(1). 49–70.Google Scholar
Leech, Geoffrey.
1983  Principles of pragmatics . London: Longman.Google Scholar
Mushin, Ilana.
2001  Evidentiality and epistemological stance . Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nuyts, Jan.
2001 Subjectivity as an evidential dimension in epistemic modal expressions. Journal of Pragmatics 331. 383–400. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schiffrin, Deborah.
1987  Discourse markers . Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Searle, John.
2010  Making the social world . Oxford: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shinzato, Rumiko.
2004 Some observations concerning mental verbs and speech act verbs. Journal of Pragmatics 361. 861–882. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Simon-Vandenbergen, Anne-Marie.
2000 The functions of I think in political discourse. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 10(1). 41–63. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Thompson, Sandra & Anthony Mulac.
1991 A quantitative perspective on the grammaticalization of epistemic parentheticals in English. In Elizabeth Traugott & Bernd Heine (eds.), Approaches to grammaticalization , 313–348. Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tottie, Gunnel.
2014 On the use of uh and um in American English. Functions of Language 21(1). 6–29. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth.
1995 Subjectification in grammaticalization. In Dieter Stein & Susan Wright (eds.), Subjectivity and subjectivisation , 31–54. Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Van Bogaert, Julie.
2006  I guess, I suppose and I believe as pragmatic markers: Grammaticalization and functions. Belgian Essays on Language and Literature 41. 129–149.Google Scholar
Verhagen, Arie.
2005  Constructions of intersubjectivity . Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Watzlawick, Paul, Janet H. Beavin & Don D. Jackson.
1967  Pragmatics of human communication. A study of interactional patterns, pathologies and paradoxes . New York, NY: Norton.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 28 other publications

Adams, Zoë, Agata Ludwiczak, Devyani Sharma & Magda Osman
2022. Verbal interaction in a social dilemma. Rationality and Society 34:3 ► pp. 334 ff. DOI logo
Chor, Winnie Oi-Wan, Foong Ha Yap & Tak-Sum Wong
2016. Chinese interrogative particles as talk coordinators at the right periphery. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 17:2 ► pp. 178 ff. DOI logo
Cuenca, Maria-Josep
2023. Disagreement, epistemic stance and contrastive marking in Catalan parliamentary debate. Journal of Pragmatics 203 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Deppermann, Arnulf & Silke Reineke
2020. Practices of indexing discrepant assumptions with German ich dachte (‘I thought’) in talk-in-interaction. Functions of Language 27:2 ► pp. 113 ff. DOI logo
Fronhofer, Nina-Maria
2019. Chapter 9. My anger was justified surely?. In Emotion in Discourse [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 302], ► pp. 213 ff. DOI logo
Furko, Peter
2017. Manipulative uses of pragmatic markers in political discourse. Palgrave Communications 3:1 DOI logo
Furkó, Péter B.
2020. Discourse Markers from a Critical Perspective: Some Theoretical Issues. In Discourse Markers and Beyond, ► pp. 65 ff. DOI logo
Hart, Christopher & Matteo Fuoli
2020. Objectification strategies outperform subjectification strategies in military interventionist discourses. Journal of Pragmatics 162 ► pp. 17 ff. DOI logo
Hoek, Jet, Jacqueline Evers-Vermeul & Ted J.M. Sanders
2018. Segmenting discourse: Incorporating interpretation into segmentation?. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 14:2 ► pp. 357 ff. DOI logo
Hoffmann, Christian R.
2018. Crooked Hillary and Dumb Trump. Internet Pragmatics 1:1 ► pp. 55 ff. DOI logo
Hofmockel, Carolin
2017. Patterns of (inter)subjectivity. Functions of Language 24:2 ► pp. 166 ff. DOI logo
Jaakola, Minna
2021. Marking one’s own viewpoint: The Finnish evidential verb+kseni ‘as far as I understand’ construction. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 44:3 ► pp. 255 ff. DOI logo
Kozubíková Šandová, Jana
2015. On the use of cognitive verbs in political interviews. Brno Studies in English 41:1 ► pp. 41 ff. DOI logo
Li, Tao
2020. Representing China in Translations of Two Korean News Outlets: A Corpus-based Discourse Analysis Approach. In Corpus-based Translation and Interpreting Studies in Chinese Contexts, ► pp. 183 ff. DOI logo
Li, Tao & Kaibao Hu
2021. Corpus-Based Translation Studies and Political Discourse Analysis. In Reappraising Self and Others [Corpora and Intercultural Studies, 6], ► pp. 13 ff. DOI logo
Liu, Ming
2022. Stancetaking in Hong Kong political discourse. Chinese Language and Discourse. An International and Interdisciplinary Journal 13:1 ► pp. 79 ff. DOI logo
Netz, Hadar & Ron Kuzar
2019. Discourse and metadiscourse of Hebrew SOV in the heated parliamentary arena. Journal of Pragmatics 141 ► pp. 67 ff. DOI logo
Pastuch, Magdalena
2022. O rozwoju dyskursywnej funkcji form rozkazujących (na przykładzie słuchaj). LingVaria 17:2(34) ► pp. 143 ff. DOI logo
Polymeneas, George
2017. Chapter 3. “Today I know, we know, that these sacrifices are heavy, but necessary”. In Greece in Crisis [Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture, 70], ► pp. 83 ff. DOI logo
Ranger, Graham
2018. I think: Further Variations in Subjective Endorsement. In Discourse Markers, ► pp. 275 ff. DOI logo
Ruskan, Anna
2021. Visual perception-based adverbials: Cross-linguistic equivalence and differences. Journal of Pragmatics 186 ► pp. 208 ff. DOI logo
Schubert, Christoph
2019. ‘OK, well, first of all, let me say …’: Discursive uses of response initiators in US presidential primary debates. Discourse Studies 21:4 ► pp. 438 ff. DOI logo
Soler Bonafont, M. Amparo
2020. Usos discursivos de la forma verbal doxásticacreoen la interacción oral en español. Pragmática Sociocultural / Sociocultural Pragmatics 8:2 ► pp. 204 ff. DOI logo
Soler Bonafont, María Amparo
2022. Esto es lo que creo… El dominio de la opinión en el español hablado a través de los usos construccionales de creo. Círculo de Lingüística Aplicada a la Comunicación 91 ► pp. 219 ff. DOI logo
Szczyrbak, Magdalena
2019. EPISTEMIC STANCE IN THE KAVANAUGH CONFIRMATION HEARING: FOCUS ON MENTAL AND COMMUNICATION VERBS. Discourse and Interaction 12:2 ► pp. 72 ff. DOI logo
Szczyrbak, Magdalena
2020. VERB PATTERNS IN TRIAL DISCOURSE: THE CASE OF I THINK. Discourse and Interaction 13:2 ► pp. 119 ff. DOI logo
Szczyrbak, Magdalena
2021.  I’m thinking and you’re saying: Speaker stance and the progressive of mental verbs in courtroom interaction. Text & Talk 41:2 ► pp. 239 ff. DOI logo
Zhou, Jiangping & Yanmei Gao
2022. A corpus-based study of grammatical post-metaphorical expressions. Journal of World Languages 7:2 ► pp. 247 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 18 may 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.