Abstract
The present study aimed at analyzing the communication of Certainty and Uncertainty in a corpus of Italian political speeches (pre-election rallies and parliamentary speeches) broadcast on television. The qualitative and quantitative analysis of the corpus shows that 1) in both kinds of speech the communication of Certainty clearly prevails over the Uncertainty; 2) the latter, even if it is at a low level, is slightly higher in parliamentary speeches than in pre-election rallies; 3) in the whole corpus a contraposition constantly occurs also between Good/Evil and True/False: every speaker, regardless of his faction, describes his own party as positive and truthful (Good and True) and the opposition party as negative and untruthful (Evil and False).
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bongelli, R., Zuczkowski, A.: Indicatori linguistici percettivi e cognitivi. Aracne, Roma (2008)
Van Der Auwera, J., Plungian, V.A.: Modality’s semantic map. Ling. Typology 2(1), 79–124 (1998)
De Haan, F.: Evidentiality and Epistemic Modality: Setting Boundaries. Southwest J. Ling. 18(1), 83–101 (1999)
Nuyts, J.: Epistemic Modality, Language and Conceptualization. John Benjamins, Amsterdam (2001)
Nuyts, J.: Subjectivity as an Evidential Dimension in Epistemic Modal Expressions. J. Pragm. 33(3), 383–400 (2001)
Plungian, V.A.: The Place of Evidentiality within the Universal Grammatical Space. J. Pragm. 33(3), 349–357 (2001)
Cornillie, B.: Evidentiality and Epistemic Modality in Spanish (Semi-) Auxiliaries. A Cognitive–Functional Approach. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin (2007)
Papafragou, A., Peggy, L., Youngon, C., Chung-hye, H.: Evidentiality in Language and Cognition. Cogn. 103(2), 253–299 (2007)
Chafe, W.: Evidentiality in English Conversation and Academic Writing. In: Chafe, W., Nichols, J. (eds.) The Linguistic Coding of Epistemology, pp. 261–272. Ablex Publishing Corp., Norwood (1986)
Petöfi, J.S.: Towards an Empirically Motivated Grammar Theory of Verbal Texts. In: Petöfi, J.S., Rieser, H. (eds.) Studies in Text Grammar, pp. 205–275. Reidel, Dordrecht (1973)
Petöfi, J.S.: Scrittura e interpretazione. Introduzione alla Testologia Semiotica dei testi verbali. Carocci, Roma (2004)
Dendale, P., Tasmowski, L.: Introduction. Evidentiality and Related Notions. J. Pragm. 33(3), 349–357 (2001)
González, M.: An approach to Catalan Evidentiality. Intercult. Pragm. 2(4), 515–540 (2005)
Cappelli, G.: I Reckon I Know how Leonardo da Vinci Must Have Felt... Epistemicity, Evidentiality and English Verbs of Cognitive Attitude. Pari Publishing, Pari (2007)
Sanders, J., Spooren, W.: Subjectivity and Certainty in Epistemic Modality: A Study of Dutch Epistemic Modifiers. Cogn. Ling. 7(3), 241–264 (1996)
Aikhenvald, A.: Evidentiality in Typological Perspective. In: Aikhenvald, A., Dixon, R.M.W. (eds.) Studies in Evidentiality. Typological Studies in Language, vol. 54, pp. 1–31. John Benjamins, Amsterdam (2003)
Aikhenvald, A.: Evidentiality. Oxford University Press, Oxford (2004)
Givón, T.: Evidentiality and Epistemic Space. Studies in Lang. 6(1), 23–49 (1982)
Palmer, F.: Mood and Modality. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1986)
Willett, T.: A Cross-Linguistic Survey of the Grammaticalization of Evidentiality. Studies in Lang. 12(1), 51–97 (1988)
Papafragou, A.: Modality: Issues in the Semantics-Pragmatics Interface. Elsevier Science, Oxford (2000)
Mushin, I.: Evidentiality and Epistemological Stance. John Benjamins, Amsterdam (2001)
Ifantidou, E.: Evidentials and Relevance. John Benjamins, Amsterdam (2001)
Kamio, A.: The Theory of Territory of Information. The Case of Japanese. J. Pragm. 21(1), 67–100 (1994)
Kamio, A.: Territory of Information. John Benjamins, Amsterdam (1997)
Vandenbergen, A.M.S.: Modal Un(certainty) in Political Discourse. Lang. Sciences 19(4), 341–356 (1997)
Vandenbergen, A.M.S.: The Functions of I Think in Political Discourse. Internat. J. App. Ling. 10(1), 41–63 (2000)
Fetzer, A.: Negotiating Validity Claims in Political Interviews. Text 20(4), 415–460 (2000)
Fetzer, A.: Well if that Had Been True, that Would Have Been Perfectly Reasonable. Appeals to Reasonableness in Political Interviews. J. Pragm. 39(8), 1342–1359 (2007)
Fetzer, A.: “And I Think That Is a Very Straightforward Way of Dealing With It”. The Communicative Function of Cognitive Verbs in Political Discourse. J. Lang. Soc. Psych. 27(4), 384–396 (2008)
Berlin, L.: “I Think, Therefore...” Commitment in Political Testimony. J. Lang. Soc. Psych. 27(4), 372–383 (2008)
Cheng, M.: The Standoff – What is Unsaid? A Pragmatic Analysis of the Conditional Marker ‘If’. Disc. Soc. 13(3), 309–317 (2002)
Fetzer, A., Johansson, M.: ‘I’ll Tell You What the Truth Is’. The Interactional Organization of Confiding in Political Interviews. J. Lang. Pol. 6(2), 47–76 (2007)
Fetzer, A., Johansson, M.: Cognitive verbs in context. A Contrastive Analysis of English and French Argumentative Discourse. Internat. J. Corpus Ling. 15(2), 240–266 (2010)
Fetzer, A., Bull, R.: Doing Leadership in Political Speech: Semantic Processes and Pragmatic Inferences. Disc. Soc. 23(2), 127–144 (2012)
Mazzoleni, G.: La Comunicazione Politica. Il Mulino, Bologna (1998)
Mazzoleni, G., Schulz, W.: “Mediatization” of Politics: A Challenge for Democracy? Pol. Comm. 16(3), 247–261 (2001)
Campus, D., Pasquino, G., Vaccari, C.: Social Networks, Political Discussion, and Voting in Italy: A Study of the 2006 Election. Pol. Comm. 25(4), 423–444 (2008)
Mazzoleni, G., Sfardini, A.: Politica Pop. Il Mulino, Bologna (2009)
Campus, D.: Mediatization and Personalization of Politics in Italy and France: The Cases of Berlusconi and Sarkozy. Internat. J. Press/Politics 15(2), 219–235 (2010)
Giansante, G.: Le Parole Sono Importanti. Carocci, Roma (2011)
Jefferson, G.: On the Interactional Unpackaging of a ’Gloss’. Lang. Soc. 14(4), 435–466 (1985)
Renzi, L., Salvi, G., Cardinaletti, A. (eds.): Grande Grammatica Italiana di Consultazione. Il Mulino, Bologna (1995)
Antelmi, D., Santulli, F.: Risorse Semantiche per la Costruzione del Consenso. Il Caso Berlusconi. Com. Pol. 3(2), 171–192 (2002)
Santulli, F.: Le Parole del Potere, il Potere delle Parole. Retorica e Discorso Politico. Franco Angeli, Milano (2005)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Bongelli, R., Riccioni, I., Zuczkowski, A. (2013). Certain-Uncertain, True-False, Good-Evil in Italian Political Speeches. In: Poggi, I., D’Errico, F., Vincze, L., Vinciarelli, A. (eds) Multimodal Communication in Political Speech. Shaping Minds and Social Action. PS 2010. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 7688. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-41545-6_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-41545-6_13
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-41544-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-41545-6
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)