Cover not available
Part of
The Discourse of Indirectness: Cues, voices and functions
Edited by Zohar Livnat, Pnina Shukrun-Nagar and Galia Hirsch
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 316] 2020
► pp. 167–202

Directness and indirectness in a presidential debate

| Universidad Nacional de La Plata
This contribution examines the use of directness and indirectness as utilized by the two candidates to the presidency of Argentina, in a debate broadcast on television before the 2015 elections. Adopting a socio-pragmatic perspective, this study makes a qualitative and quantitive analysis of addressivity at the micro and meso levels of the interaction. An exploration of the form and function of the interactants’ contributions demonstrated that directness is the preferred choice when presentations and closing fragments are produced, while the questions and answers addressed by the candidates to each other reveal differences in the use of in/directness. These disparate strategies have a bearing on the interpersonal discourse relationship between the two politicians and the audience.
Keywords: addressivity, political debate, directness, indirectness, micro level, meso level.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Directness and indirectness
  • 3.Context of the interaction and source of the data
  • 4.In/directness at the micro level of the discourse
    • 4.1Directness
    • 4.2Indirectness
    • 4.3Addressivity strategies occurring in all dimensions
  • 5.In/directness at the meso level of the interaction
    • 5.1Presentation of topics and final messages
    • 5.2Question and answer fragments
  • 6.Interpreting indirectness
  • 7.Concluding remarks
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 29 October 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.316.08gra
References (18)
References
Dascal, Marcelo. 2003. Interpretation and Understanding. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dascal, Marcelo, and Elda Weizman. 1987. “Contextual Exploitation of Interpretation Clues in Text Understanding: An Integrated Model.” In The Pragmatic Perspective, ed. by Verschueren, Jef, and Marcela Bertuccelli-Papi, 37–46. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Grainger, Karen, and Sara Mills. 2016. Directness and Indirectness across Cultures. Hampshire United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Halliday Michael A. K. and Christian M. I. M. Matthiessen. 2004. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. Third edition. London: Hodder Education.Google Scholar
Kiesling, Scott F., and Elka Ghosh Johnson. 2010. “Four Forms of Interactional Indirection.” Journal of Pragmatics 42: 292–306. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lauerbach, Guerda, and Anita Fetzer. 2007. “Political Discourse in the Media: Cross-Cultural Perspectives.” In Political Discourse in the MediaPolitical Discourse in the Media, ed. by Anita Fetzer, and Guerda Lauerbach, 3–28. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lempert, Michael. 2012. “Indirectness.” In The Handbook of Intercultural Discourse and Communication, ed. by Christina Bratt Paulston, Scott F. Kiesling, and Elizabeth S. Rangel, 180–204. Chichester, West Sussex: Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Linell, Per. 1998. Approaching Dialogue. Talk, Interaction and Contexts in Dialogical Perspectives. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Piatti, Guillermina. 2019. “En torno a la verdad: algunos usos de marcadores discursivos en la conversación coloquial y en el debate politico.” Presented in the III Congreso de la delegación argentina de la ALFAL y IX Jornadas internacionales de investigación en Filología hispánica . Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Argentina. 24–26 abril de 2019.
Reisigl, Martin. 2008. “Political Speeches and the Public Sphere.” In Handbook of Communication in the Public Sphere, ed. by Ruth Wodak, and Veronica Koller, 243–69. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sifianou, Maria. 1993. “Off-record Indirectness and the Notion of Imposition.” Multilingua 12 (1): 69–79. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Simon-Vandenbergen, Anne-Marie, Peter White, and Karen Aijmer. 2007. “Presuppositions and ‘Taking for Granted’ in Mass Communicated Political Argument.” In Political Discourse in the Media, ed. by Anita Fetzer, and Guerda Lauerbach, 31–68. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sperber, Dan, and Dierdre Wilson. 1995. Relevance. Communication and Cognition, 2nd Edition. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Terkourafi, Marina. 2011. “The Puzzle of Indirect Speech.” Journal of Pragmatics 43: 2861–2865. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Weizman, Elda, and Marcelo Dascal. 1991. “On Clues and Cues: Strategies of Text-Understanding. Journal of Literary Semantics 20 (1): 18–30. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wilson, Dierdre, and Dan Sperber. 2006. “Relevance Theory.” In The Handbook of Pragmatics, ed. by Laurence R. Horn, and Gregory Ward, 607–632. Oxford UK: Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Yus, Francisco. 2017a. “Incongruity-Resolution Cases in Jokes.” Lingua 197: 103–122. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2017b. “Relevance-Theoretic Treatments of Humor.” In The Routledge Handbook of Language and Humor, ed. by Salvatore Attardo, 189–203. New York and London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Al-Adaileh, Bilal A.
2023. Off-record indirectness in Jordanian Arabic. Journal of Politeness Research 0:0 DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 1 july 2024. 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.