“I am sure but I hedge”: Fear expression kǒngpà as an interactive rhetorical strategy in Mandarin broadcast talk

Abstract

Drawing upon an 80-h Mandarin broadcast talk database, this study investigates how the fear expression kǒngpà is used from a discourse pragmatic perspective, in particular framed within the theory of hedging. We specifically analyze the use of kǒngpà in a broader context beyond the sentence level, and examine its discourse pragmatic functions in terms of interpersonal relations. Findings from this study further demonstrate that some apparently neutral or even positive propositions following kǒngpà can still have negative interactional effect, either for the speaker or the hearer. Contextual analysis reveals that this negative nuance, which does not lie in the propositional content of the utterance itself, emerges from the illocutionary act of the utterance in a larger context.