Language and Politics: Indirectness in Political Discourse
- 1 January 1997
- journal article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Discourse & Society
- Vol. 8 (1), 49-83
- https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926597008001004
Abstract
Politicians, in talking about potential face-threatening acts or politically risky topics, avoid the obvious and communicate indirectly in order to protect and further their own careers and to gain both political and interactional advantage over their political opponents. The indirectness may also be motivated by politeness. This obliqueness in communication may be expressed through evasion, circumlocution, innuendoes, metaphors, etc. Language as well as varying social conventions of the relevant culture as well as differing degree of personal danger inherent in the sociopolitical situation in which politicians operate may also affect the degree of indirectness as well as the kind(s) of obliqueness employed.Keywords
This publication has 18 references indexed in Scilit:
- Political language and textual vaguenessPragmatics, 2022
- Metaphors We Live ByPublished by University of Chicago Press ,2003
- Verbal indirection in Akan informal discourseJournal of Pragmatics, 1994
- Metaphor in Political Discourse: The Case of the `Common European House'Discourse & Society, 1993
- Politeness, Politics and DiplomacyDiscourse & Society, 1990
- Linguistic politeness in Igbomult, 1989
- Conversational sequences and preference for indirect speech actsDiscourse Processes, 1988
- Co-operation and non-co-operation: Ethical and political aspects of pragmaticsLanguage & Communication, 1987
- Indirectness and politeness in requests: Same or different?Journal of Pragmatics, 1987
- Archetypal metaphor in rhetoric: The light‐dark familyQuarterly Journal of Speech, 1967