In this paper I will describe some recent developments of a much wider ongoing research project which sets out to explore the linguistic resources of the quintessential site for political discussions – Parliament (Bayley ed. 2004, Wodak and van Dijk eds. 2000) – by combining the methodologies of Discourse Analysis and (small) Corpus Linguistics. More specifically, I shall deal with one particular aspect of domain-specific discourse: the role and function of attribution, in particular direct quotations, in parliamentary discourse. The reporting of speech or thought – or what in Systemic Functional Linguistics terms has been defined “projection” (Halliday 1994) – is one of the linguistic areas which has most attracted the attention of discourse analysts. However, with the exception of a small number of contributions (Slembrouck 1992), research has predominantly focused on other domains, in particular prose (Volosinov 1973; Short and Leech 1981; Sternberg 1982; Clark & Gerrig 1990; Short, Semino, Wynne 2002), academic discourse (Swales 1990; Tadros 1993; Thompson 1996; Hyland 1999; Hunston 2000) and, quite extensively, news discourse (Bell 1991; Caldas-Coulthard 1994; Fairclough 1992, 1995; Fowler 1991; van Dijk 1988). Yet it must be noted that the phenomenon of attribution plays an essential and very distinctive role in parliamentary discourse. In this privileged institutional setting, in fact, MPs can (and constantly do) make use of several authoritative sources, among which is the official verbatim report of the proceedings, Hansard (Antaki & Leudar 2001). In particular, the perspective adopted here stems from the assumption that attribution is loaded with evaluation, or APPRAISAL (Martin 2000, Martin and Rose 2003, White 1998, 2002, 2003, Miller 2005, Martin & White in press) and occurs against a heteroglossic backdrop of other opinions (Volosinov 1973; Bahktin 1981, 1986). The data used in this study are based on a corpus of all the sittings of the House of Commons of 2003 (about 1,200 hours of talk) and a subcorpus representing all discussions held in the House on Iraq (about 120 hours of talk).
Attribution as evaluation: a corpus-based investigation of quotations in parliamentary discourse
BEVITORI, CINZIA
2005
Abstract
In this paper I will describe some recent developments of a much wider ongoing research project which sets out to explore the linguistic resources of the quintessential site for political discussions – Parliament (Bayley ed. 2004, Wodak and van Dijk eds. 2000) – by combining the methodologies of Discourse Analysis and (small) Corpus Linguistics. More specifically, I shall deal with one particular aspect of domain-specific discourse: the role and function of attribution, in particular direct quotations, in parliamentary discourse. The reporting of speech or thought – or what in Systemic Functional Linguistics terms has been defined “projection” (Halliday 1994) – is one of the linguistic areas which has most attracted the attention of discourse analysts. However, with the exception of a small number of contributions (Slembrouck 1992), research has predominantly focused on other domains, in particular prose (Volosinov 1973; Short and Leech 1981; Sternberg 1982; Clark & Gerrig 1990; Short, Semino, Wynne 2002), academic discourse (Swales 1990; Tadros 1993; Thompson 1996; Hyland 1999; Hunston 2000) and, quite extensively, news discourse (Bell 1991; Caldas-Coulthard 1994; Fairclough 1992, 1995; Fowler 1991; van Dijk 1988). Yet it must be noted that the phenomenon of attribution plays an essential and very distinctive role in parliamentary discourse. In this privileged institutional setting, in fact, MPs can (and constantly do) make use of several authoritative sources, among which is the official verbatim report of the proceedings, Hansard (Antaki & Leudar 2001). In particular, the perspective adopted here stems from the assumption that attribution is loaded with evaluation, or APPRAISAL (Martin 2000, Martin and Rose 2003, White 1998, 2002, 2003, Miller 2005, Martin & White in press) and occurs against a heteroglossic backdrop of other opinions (Volosinov 1973; Bahktin 1981, 1986). The data used in this study are based on a corpus of all the sittings of the House of Commons of 2003 (about 1,200 hours of talk) and a subcorpus representing all discussions held in the House on Iraq (about 120 hours of talk).I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
