The Linguistics of Political Argument: The Spin-Doctor and the Wolf-Pack at the White House

by Alan Partington

Overview

This book examines the relationship between the White House, in the person of its press secretary, and the press corps through a linguistic analysis of the language used by both sides. A corpus was compiled of around fifty press briefings from the late Clinton years. A wide range of topics are discussed from the Kosovo crisis to the Clinton-Lewinsky affair.
This work is highly original in demonstrating how concordance technology and the detailed linguistic evidence available in corpora can be used to study discourse features of text and the communicative strategies of speakers. It will be of vital interest to all linguists interested in corpus-based linguistics and pragmatics, as well as sociolinguists and students and scholars of communications, politics and the media.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415753890
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	04/03/2014
Series:	Routledge Advances in Corpus Linguistics
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Alan Partington is Associate Professor of Linguistics in the Faculty of Political Science, Camerino University (Italy). He has published in the fields of phonetics, CALL, lexicology and corpus linguistics, and is the author of Patterns and Meanings: Using corpora for English language research and teaching (1998, Benjamins). He is currently researching ways in which corpus techniques can be used to study features of discourse.

Table of Contents

Foreword: The spin-doctor and the wolf-pack
Introduction: Corpora, discourse, politics and the press
1. Briefings as a type of discourse
2. Footing: Who says what to whom
3. Voices of the press
4. Voices of the podium
5. Footing shift for attribution: 'According to the New York Times this morning'
6. 'Rules of Engagement': The interpersonal relationship between the podium and the press
7. Politics, power and politeness
8. Conflict talk
9. The form of words
10. Metaphors of the world
11. Rhetoric, bluster and on-line gaffes
12. Evasion and pursuit
13. General Conclusions