Final published version
Other version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Mapping Hansard Impression Management Strategies through Time and Space
AU - Archer, Dawn Elizabeth
PY - 2017/10/19
Y1 - 2017/10/19
N2 - Impolite behaviour is thought to be easier to investigate than polite or politic behaviour in diachronic contexts, because of attracting more evaluative comment. But an approach based on such metapragmatic commentary can miss a lot of facework strategies in contexts such as the UK parliament (modern and historical). In this paper, I draw on Historic Hansard datasets (1812–2003) to demonstrate how a (semi)automatic method involving contiguous searches of two-to-four features can better reveal the nuances of these MPs’ facework strategies than a focus on metapragmatic terms has afforded hitherto. The (semi)automatic method uses the recently created Historic Thesaurus Semantic Tagger (HTST) to search for meaning constellations (Archer and Malory 2017). Meaning constellations relating to facework are made up of sequences of semantic fields and/or parts-of-speech which, when organised in certain ways, achieve im/politeness, politic behaviour, strategic ambiguity, a combination of face enhancement and face threat, etc. This paper discusses a number of these meaning constellations, with a particular focus on those which engage in both face enhancement and face aggravation simultaneously (whilst nonetheless avoiding the label, “unparliamentary language”).
AB - Impolite behaviour is thought to be easier to investigate than polite or politic behaviour in diachronic contexts, because of attracting more evaluative comment. But an approach based on such metapragmatic commentary can miss a lot of facework strategies in contexts such as the UK parliament (modern and historical). In this paper, I draw on Historic Hansard datasets (1812–2003) to demonstrate how a (semi)automatic method involving contiguous searches of two-to-four features can better reveal the nuances of these MPs’ facework strategies than a focus on metapragmatic terms has afforded hitherto. The (semi)automatic method uses the recently created Historic Thesaurus Semantic Tagger (HTST) to search for meaning constellations (Archer and Malory 2017). Meaning constellations relating to facework are made up of sequences of semantic fields and/or parts-of-speech which, when organised in certain ways, achieve im/politeness, politic behaviour, strategic ambiguity, a combination of face enhancement and face threat, etc. This paper discusses a number of these meaning constellations, with a particular focus on those which engage in both face enhancement and face aggravation simultaneously (whilst nonetheless avoiding the label, “unparliamentary language”).
KW - Hansard records
KW - parliamentary language
KW - politeness
KW - impoliteness
KW - facework
KW - self-presentation
KW - impression management
KW - semantic tagging
KW - meaning chain
KW - speech act
U2 - 10.1080/00393274.2017.1370981
DO - 10.1080/00393274.2017.1370981
M3 - Journal article
JO - Studia Neophilologica
JF - Studia Neophilologica
SN - 0039-3274
ER -