ABSTRACT
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.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part |1 pages
Conclusion: indirectness
part |1 pages
Conclusion: concordancing for participant roles and strategies
part |2 pages
Conclusion: summary of the podium’s footings
chapter 5|10 pages
Footing shift for attribution: ‘according to the New York Times this morning…’
chapter 6|10 pages
‘Rules of engagement’
part |2 pages
Conclusions on politeness in the briefings
part 11|2 pages
Rhetoric, bluster and on-line gaffes
part |2 pages
Conclusion