Interrogative sentences and their functions in Russian and American political discourse: a comparative analysis
Despite the vast research on questions in linguistics, little is known about their functioning in political discourse. So the paper considers questions, their types and functions in political discourse. We pay attention to polar, embedded and non-canonical questions (rhetorical, tag, declarative, special and echo questions), and study their functions depending on discourse participants’ intentions. We also make a qualitative and quantitative analysis and compare the use of questions by V. Putin (Russia) and J. Biden (USA) in interviews to TV channels and during press conferences in order to identify types of questions asked by both presidents and journalists, their functions and connection of the proposed meaning of questions and their interpretation in 60 fragments of political discourse. The study shows that four types of questions are typical for political discourse of Russia and the USA: polar (10% and 34.5%), rhetorical (60% and 65.5%), special (15% and 0%) and echo questions (15% and 0%). Unlike their proposed meaning, polar questions are structured so that the interviewer can get a preferred response; echo questions are aimed at drawing the attention of journalists and the audience to certain parts or expressing negative emotions; rhetorical questions are used by politicians to make the audience think about specific facts, events or consequences or highlight the role of the country on the world arena. Special questions are asked to get accurate information that coincides with their original connotation. The results obtained are promising for further study of the functioning of questions in the speech of politicians.
Korolyova, L. Yu. (2022). Interrogative sentences and their functions in Russian and American political discourse: a comparative analysis, Research Result. Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, 8 (2), 66-83. DOI: 10.18413/2313-8912-2022-8-2-0-5
While nobody left any comments to this publication.
You can be first.
Agbara, C. (2016). The implicitness of some interrogative sentences in legislative debates, Nile Journal of English Studies, 1 (1), 59-66. https://doi.org/10.20321/nilejes.v1i1.37 (In English)
Arita, Y. (2021). Display of concession: maa-prefaced responses to polar questions in Japanese conversation, Journal of Pragmatics, 186, 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2021.09.014 (In English)
Black, E. (1992). Rhetorical questions: studies of public discourse, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, USA. (In English)
Bolinger, D. (1989). Intonation and its uses: melody in grammar and discourse, Stanford University Press, Stanford, USA. (In English)
Chilton, P. (2004). Analysing political discourse: Theory and Practice, Routledge, London, UK, New York, USA. (In English)
Chudinov, A. (2006). Politicheskaya lingvistika [Political Linguistics], Flinta, Nauka, Moscow, Russia. (In Russian)
Dayal, V. (2016). Questions, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. (In English)
Eisenberg, A. and Gamble, T. (1991). Painless public speaking, University Press of America, Lanham – New York – London, USA, UK. (In English)
Fetzer, A. (2002). Put bluntly, you have something of a credibility problem: Sincerity and credibility in political interviews, in Chilton, P. and Schäffner, C. (eds.), Politics as Text and Talk: analytical approaches to political discourse, John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 173-201. (In English)
Ginzburg, J. (1991). Questions without answers, wh-phrases without scope: A semantics for direct wh-questions and their responses, in Barwise, J., Gawron, J. M., Plotkin, G. and Tutiya, S. (eds.), Situation theory and its applications, Vol. 2, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA, 363-404. (In English)
Goffman, E. (1983). The interaction order, American Sociological Review, 48, 1-17. (In English)
Gutierrez-Rexach, J. (1998). Rhetorical questions, relevance and scales, Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses, 11, 139-155. http://dx.doi.org/10.14198/raei.1998.11.11 (In English)
Hague, R., Harrop, M. and Breslin, S. (1998). Comparative Government and Politics: An Introduction, 4th ed., Macmillan, Basingstoke, UK. (In English)
Hamblin, C. (1970). Fallacies, Methuen, London, UK. (In English)
Hautli-Janisz, A., Budzynska, K., McKillop, C., Plüss, B., Gold, V. and Reed, C. (2022). Questions in argumentative dialogue, Journal of Pragmatics, 188, 56-79. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2021.10.029 (In English)
Heim, I. (1994). Interrogative semantics and Karttunen’s semantics for know, in Buchalla, R. and Mittwoch, A. (eds.) Proceedings of the Israeli Association of Theoretical Linguistics, Jerusalem, Israel, 128-144. (In English)
Heritage, J. (1984). Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology, Polity Press, Oxford, England. (In English)
Heritage, J. (2012). Epistemics in action: action formation and territories of knowledge, Research on language and social interaction, 45 (1), 1-29. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08351813.2012.646684 (In English)
Heritage, J. and Roth, A. (1985). Grammar and institution: questions and questioning in the broadcast news interview, Research on language and social interaction, 28 (1), 1-60. (In English)
Horn, L. (1978). Remarks on neg-raising, in Code, P. (ed.), Syntax and semantics 9: Pragmatics, Academic Press, New York, NY, 129-220. (In English)
Huddleston, R. (1994). The contrast between interrogatives and questions, Journal of Linguistics, 30, 411-439. (In English)
Jespersen, O. (1924). The philosophy of Grammar, H. Kolt and company, New York, USA. (In English)
Kartunnen, L. (1977). Syntax and semantics of questions, Linguistics and philosophy, 1 (1),
3-44. (In English)
Kimps, D. (2018). Tag questions in conversation: a typology of their interactional and stance meanings, John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam, Netherlands. (In English)
Koshik, I. (2005). Beyond rhetorical questions: assertive questions in everyday interaction, John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam, Netherlands. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/sidag.16 (In English)
McGregor, W. (1997). Semiotic Grammar, Oxford University Press, Oxford, England. (In English)
Mithun, M. (2012). Tags: cross-linguistic diversity and commonality, Journal of Pragmatics, 44 (15), 2165-2182. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2012.09.010 (In English)
Penz, H. (1996). Language and control in American TV talk shows: an analysis of linguistic strategies, Narr, Tübingen, Germany. (In English)
Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G. and Svartvik, J. (1985). A comprehensive Grammar of the English language, Longman, London, UK. (In English)
Raymond, G. (2003). Grammar and social organization: yes/no interrogatives and the structure of responding, American Sociological Review, 68, 939-967. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1519752 (In English)
Reyes, A. (2011). Voice in political discourse, Continuum International Publishing Group, London, UK. (In English)
Roseman, I., Abelson, R. P. and Ewing, M. F. (1986). Emotion and Political Cognition: Emotional Appeals in Political Communication, in Lau, R. R. and Sears, D. O. (eds.), Political Cognition, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, USA, 279-94. (In English)
Schegloff, E. (1984). On some questions and ambiguities in conversation, in Atkinson, J. and Heritage, J. (eds.), Structures of social action, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, 28-52. (In English)
van Dijk, T. A. (2002). Political discourse and political cognition, in Chilton, P. A. and Schäffner, Ch. (eds.), Politics as text and talk: analytical approaches to political discourse, John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 203-237. (In English)
Watson, L. (2020). Vices of questioning in public discourse, in Kidd, I. J., Battaly, H. and Cassam, Q. (eds.), Vice Epistemology, Routledge, New York, USA, 239-258. (In English)
Weber, E. (1993). Varieties of questions in English conversation, John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam, Netherlands. (In English)