Cover not available
Part of
The Dynamics of Political Discourse: Forms and functions of follow-ups
Edited by Anita Fetzer, Elda Weizman and Lawrence N. Berlin
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 259] 2015
► pp. 219–243

If I am elected President …

Other-quotations in French presidential debates

ORCID logo | University of Turku, Finland

The main objective of this chapter is is to examine how other-quotation is used in French political debates. Other-quotations are follow-ups, i.e. communicative acts by which speakers take up what the other speaker has said in previous contexts. The data come from six second round presidential debates held in France from 1974 up to 2012. The objective is to study what candidates take up in their quotations, and what are functions of other-quotations. The other-quotations are studied in their local context accounting for their dialogical and socio-pragmatic characteristics. The results show that the targets of other-quotations are sociopolitical topics, and discursive identities of politicians, as well as the nature and force of communicative acts. They mark a positioning by which the candidates disagree by showing accurate facts according to them, challenge the opponent, and mark their own standpoint when the topic is related to sociopolitical discourse. When the other-quotation concerns the identity of the politician, they aim at undermining it with negative evaluations or accusations. Other-quotations are also used to describe the emotional talk or to conduct the dialogue in an ironic manner. These two latter cases are more intense in the political debates held in 2007 and 2012 with Nicolas Sarkozy.

Published online: 27 August 2015
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.259.09joh
References

Materials

Face à face 2002 Le débat télévisé au second tour à l’élection présidentiel (1974–1995). Textes rassemblés. Paris: Boucher.Google Scholar
INA
1965 Interview de Charles de Gaulle 1965 par Michel Droit. Institut National de l’Audiovisuel. [URL] [Accessed 1.4.2013]Google Scholar
Les débats télévisés. Textes des débats (1981–2007)
. Service-public.fr. [URL] [Accessed 14.1.2013].
Les grands duels de l’entre-deux-tours des présidentielles. Vidéos et dossiers
. Paris: Institut National de l’Audiovisuel. [URL] [Accessed 14.1.2013].
Nancy, Hugues
2007a Documentaire: Les duels présidentiels. “Toutes les petites phrases”. Paris: Institut National de l’Audiovisuel.Google Scholar
2007b Les grands duels de l’entre-deux-tours des présidentielles 1–2. Paris: Institut National de l’Audiovisuel.Google Scholar
Beck, Ulrich
1994 “The Reinvention of Politics: Towards a Theory of Reflexive Modernization.” In Reflexive Modernization: Politics, Tradition, and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order, Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens, and Scott Lash (eds), 1‒56. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Caillat, Domitille
2012 “La notion de temporalité au coeur de l’analyse des discours représentées à l’oral: essai de typologie, procédés rhétoriques et portées argumentatives des DR dans le débat présidentiel français.” In Actes du 3ème Congrès Mondial de Linguistique Française. [URL] (Accessed 14.7.2014)Google Scholar
Constantin de Chanay, Hugues, Anna Giaufret and Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni
2011 “La gestion interactive des émotions dans la communication politique à la télévision: quand les intervenants perdent leur calme.” In La parole politique en confrontation dans les médias, ed. by Marcel Burger, Jérôme Jacquin and Raphaël Micheli, 25‒49. Bruxelles: De Boeck.Google Scholar
d'Almeida, Fabrice and Christian Delporte
2003 Histoire des médias en France. De la Grande Guerre à nos jours. Paris: Flammarion.Google Scholar
Delporte, Christian
2001 “Corps à corps ou tête à tête? Le duel politique à la télévision (des années 1960 à nos jours).” Mots 67, 70‒91. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Doury, Marianne and Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni
2011 “La place de l’accord dans l’argumentation polémique: le cas du débat Sarkozy/Royal (2007).” A Contrario 2(16), 63‒87.Google Scholar
DuBois, John
2007 “The Stance Triangle.” In Stancetaking in Discourse, ed. by Robert Englebretson, 139‒182. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dupuy, Pierre-Olivier and Pascal Marchand
2011 “Confrontation et positionnement dans les duels de l’entre-deux-tours: une approche lexicométrique.” In La parole politique en confrontation dans les médias, ed. by Marcel Burger, Jérôme Jacquin and Raphaël Micheli, 129‒147. Bruxelles: De Boeck.Google Scholar
Élection du Président de la République
Service-Public.fr. [URL] (Accessed Accessed 1.2.2014).
Fairclough, Norman
1992 Discourse and Social Change. London: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Fetzer, Anita
2012 “Quotations in Monologic and Dialogic Political Discourse.” In Follow-ups Across Discourse Domains: A Cross-Cultural Exploration of their forms and functions, ed. by Anita Fetzer, Elda Weizman and Elisabeth Reber, 72‒86. University of Würzburg.Google Scholar
2007 “Challenges in Political Interviews.” In Political Discourse in the Media. Cross-cultural Perspectives, ed by. Anita Fetzer and Gerda E. Lauerbach, 161‒195. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2004 Recontextualizing Context. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goffman, Erving
1974 Frame Analysis. An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Haverkate, Henk
1990 “A Speech Act Analysis of Irony.” Journal of Pragmatics 14, 77‒109. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Johansson, Marjut
2000 Recontextualisation du discours d’autrui. Discours représenté dans l’interview médiatique politique. Annales Universitatis Turkuensis. Ser. B – tom. 237. Turku: University of Turku.Google Scholar
2002 “Sequential Positioning of Represented Discourse in Institutional Media Interaction.” In Rethinking Sequentiality. Linguistics Meets Conversational Interaction, ed. by Anita Fetzer and Christiane Meierkord, 249‒272. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2007 “Represented Discourse in Answers. A Cross-Linguistic Perspective on French and British Political Interviews.” In Political Discourse in the Media: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, ed. by Anita Fetzer and Gerda E. Lauerbach, 139‒162. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2008 “Presentation of the Political Self: Commitment in Electoral Media Dialogue.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology 27(4), 397‒408. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2013 ““Olette aivan oikeassa…herra pääministeri!” Ranskalaisten presidentinvaalien väittelyiden lentävät lauseet. [““You are quite right… Mister Prime Minister!” The catch phrases in French presidential debates]”. Politiikka 2, 109‒117.Google Scholar
2015. ““Bravo for this Editorial!” Users’ Comments in Discussion Forums.” In Follow-ups in Political Discourse, ed. by Elda Weizman and Anita Fetzer, 84–107. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI: 101075/dapsac.6004joh
Kerbrat-Orecchioni, Catherine
2012 “Analyser du discours: le cas des débats politiques télévisés.” CMLF – Congrès Mondial de Linguistique Française. [URL] (Accessed 14.3.2013)Google Scholar
2013 “Corpus médiatiques et interprétation: le cas des débats présidentiels.” Dacoromania XVIII(1), 19‒34.Google Scholar
Linell, Per
1998 Approaching Dialogue. Talk, Interaction and Contexts in Dialogical Perspective. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Minow, Verena
2012 “Types of Positioning in Television Election Debates.” In Dialogue in Politics, ed. by Lawrence N. Berlin and Anita Fetzer, 89‒112. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Roulet, Eddy
1997 “L’organisation polyphonique et l’organisation inférentielle d’un dialogue romanesque.” Cahiers de linguistique française 19, 149‒179.Google Scholar
Sandré, Marion
2012 “Discours rapporté et stratégies argumentatives: Royal et Sarkozy lors du débat de l’entre-deux tours.” Langage et société 140, 71‒88. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sullet-Nylander, Françoise and Malin Roitman
2011 “Discours rapportés et débats télévisés. Etude comparative: Chirac/Jospin (1995) vs Sarkozy/Royal (2007).” In Citations II. Citer pour quoi faire? Pragmatique de la citation, ed. by Anna Jaubert, Juan M. López Muñoz, Sophie Marnette, Laurence Rosier and Claire Stolz, 113‒128. Louvain-la-Neuve: L’Harmattan.Google Scholar
Weizman, Elda
2008 Positioning in Media Dialogue. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Livnat, Zohar
2019. “You bring the steaks, I’ll bring the salad”. In The Construction of ‘Ordinariness’ across Media Genres [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 307], ► pp. 51 ff. DOI logo
Weizman, Elda
2018. Commenting on in-memoriam columns. Internet Pragmatics 1:1 ► pp. 161 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 11 march 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.