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Article published In:
(Inter)Cultural Dialogues
Edited by Răzvan Săftoiu
[Language and Dialogue 13:3] 2023
► pp. 364–382

A dialogic speech act approach to ridiculing references in the French presidential debate of 2022

| “1 Decembrie 1918” University of Alba Iulia
The article proposes a dialogic approach to ridiculing in the French presidential debate of 2022, illustrating the ridiculing act as representative of the core dynamics of political debates. The analysis enabled the configuration of a prototype of the ridiculing act within a dialogic sequence of action and reaction, which shows that ridiculing most frequently occurs as an immediate reaction or reactive chain to actions initiated in the free discussion sections of the dialogue. The selected dialogic sequences are shaped by some particularities of ridiculing as a macro speech act of negative humour and the genre of the presidential debate, such as the interplay of the different layers of meaning, as well as the fixed rules of turn-taking, the front-staged nature of the talk and the participation framework.
Keywords: ridiculing, dialogue, political discourse, presidential debates, dialogic speech acts, entre-deux tours
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical background
    • 2.1Dialogue
    • 2.2Ridiculing as a macro speech act of negative humour
    • 2.3The genre of the French entre-deux tours
  • 3.Method
    • 3.1Dialogic speech acts
    • 3.2Data analysis
      • 3.2.1The evoked initiative act and the embedded reactive chain
      • 3.2.2The reactive act as a compound declarative
      • 3.2.3The reactive act as a pretended informative
      • 3.2.4Initiative and reactive acts as double-layered declaratives
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • Data
  • References
Published online: 19 September 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ld.00155.bot
References (25)
Data
Emmanuel Macron – Marine Le Pen, presidential debate, April 20th, 2022: franceinfo – [URL]
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