Publications

Publication details [#56988]

Eriksson, Göran and Ulla Moberg. 2013. Managing ideological differences in joint political press conferences: A study of the strategic use of the personal pronoun ‘we’. Journal of Language and Politics 12 (3) : 315–334.
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English
Language as a subject
Place, Publisher
John Benjamins
Journal DOI
10.1075/jlp

Annotation

This study focuses on Swedish political press conferences and explores the discursive efforts of politicians to express unity despite diverging ideological views. It concerns the use of the first person pronoun ‘we’ (Swedish. we) and is influenced by both dialogue theory and linguistic theories, which highlight the meaning of pronouns in context. The data consist of transcribed web broadcasts of press conferences with the leaders of the four political parties that form the Swedish Government since 2006. The analysis reveals that a clear-cut use of the personal pronoun ‘we’ can serve the same political purposes as a more ambiguous use, i.e. to show unity while there are differences. The four party leaders are involved in a communicative project of ‘doing unity’ to demonstrate that they are a very capable government.