“Does being pretty help?”
The use of negation in debut interviews with female Israeli politicians
The article analyzes debut interviews of female Israeli politicians, in which the interviewees are faced with
questions or statements that imply that their gender, ethnicity or background prevent them from fulfilling their function as
politicians successfully, in accordance with the “Gendered mediation thesis” (
GoodYear-Grant
2013). We focus on the interviewees’ responses to these questions, and particularly on how grammatically negative
utterances are deployed in the service of coping with the presuppositions directed at them. The analysis indicates that the
negative utterances do not carry the full weight of rejection of implied presuppositions. Moreover, in some cases negative
utterances are used by the speakers as part of a hedging strategy. By describing the role of negation in debut interviews of
female Israeli politicians, the paper aims to advance a more comprehensive understanding of linguistic patterns used by women, and
other silenced groups, to cope with biased representation.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Literature review
- 2.1Female Politician Biased Representation
- 2.2Presuppositions and Negation
- 2.3Challenges in Interviews
- 3.Methodology
- 4.Analysis
- 4.1Category A – Partial acceptance of the presupposition
- 4.2Category B – Denying the Presupposition
- 5.Discussion and conclusion
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
-
References