Pronominal Choice Research Articles

Discourses of Anti-Racism in Afro-Uruguay: A Black Feminist Perspective

Abstract: While a number of studies have examined (anti) racism in Uruguay in general (e.g., Andrews; Bucheli and Porzecanski; Olaza, "Políticas"; Rodríguez), discourse analytic studies of anti-racism in the Uruguayan context have not received the same degree of attention. In order to contribute to this gap, the current study examines resistance discourses of Afro-Uruguayan women. Through a Black Feminist lens, discourses regarding intersectionality, gender and racial inequality within the Uruguayan community, and solidarity among Afro-Uruguayan women are examined. A thematic analysis of Uruguayan media (news and social media) is employed to explore such discourses (e.g., Uruguay's Radio Camacuá, YouTube ), and the data are analyzed for discursive strategies following a Critical Discourse Studies approach. Findings reveal themes including the lack of access to employment and education for Afro-Uruguayan women, candombe as central to the identity of Afro-Uruguayan women and site of resistance, intersectionality, and community building within and beyond Uruguay. The discourse structures observed include expressing solidarity and collectivity through pronominal choice (De Fina, Identity ; Martín-Rojo), self-presentation, the use of statistics, and the use of non-sexist language, among others. This investigation aids in furthering our understanding of the ways in which anti-racist ideologies and praxes are reflected through discourses of women regarding racism in Uruguay.

‘YES, WE CAN’: THE USE OF DEICTIC UTTERANCES IN THE INAUGURAL SPEECH OF PRESIDENT NANA ADDO DANKWA AKUFO-ADDO

The study examines President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo's use of personal pronouns to create different identities and to sway public opinion, and support for a political goal in his inaugural address. The goal of the study is to identify the individual to whom the President is referring when he employs the personal pronoun ‘I’, ‘me’, ‘you’, and ‘we’. The key emphasis of the study is to determine whom the President refers to when he uses the personal pronouns I and me, you, and us from the three-tier analytical framework of Fairclough (1980) thus description, interpretation, and explanation. The results suggest that the pronominal choices and their referent swing greatly depending on the context of the speech. The findings reveal the ideologies that Nana Addo aims to espouse. Again, the findings have far-reaching consequences for inaugural address research as a tool for understanding the relationship between rhetorical substance and style and the characteristics unique to presidential political and social perspectives.<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/soc/0014/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

Pronominal choice: Indonesian diglossic code-switching on the Kick Andy show

Indonesian language contains a variety of pronouns and pronoun substitutes which enable speakers to position themselves in a variety of ways in relation to others for communicative purposes. Factors such as social standing, age, gender and cultural background influence pronominal choice but also reflect language alternation between standardised formal and informal Indonesian, a phenomenon known as diglossic code-switching. To study this, we examine the effects of pronominal choice by speakers on an episode of the popular Indonesian television talk show, Kick Andy. We first apply quantitative Discourse Analysis to sample conversations to identify the range of pronominal choice by speakers and instances of diglossic and English code-switching. Next we examine the use of diglossic code-switching through qualitative Conversation Analysis, to explore how speakers index themselves and others through individual linguistic choices of pronoun selection. In this study, we apply social positioning theory as a useful framework to analyse these dynamics. We detail how pronouns reflect social positioning of speakers and serve as a key indicator of societal power dynamics that broadly link to cultural norms. Our study contributes to sociolinguistic literature arguing that pronominal choice in Indonesian language is closely linked to diglossic code-switching.

Anti-racist Text and Talk: A Critical Discourse Studies Approach to Black Feminism

While racist discourse has received much attention in Critical Discourse Studies (CDS), there is a dearth of scholarship on the anti-racist text and talk. A critical observation is that the anti-racist movement, and hence, discourse, often exclude women. With the goal of contributing to this gap in the CDS literature, the current analysis examines Black women's discourses concerning anti-Black racism in general and Black Feminism in particular. Four YouTube videos that feature both conference talks and news programs surrounding the topic of Black Feminism are analysed for recurring themes using thematic analysis and discourse structures from the perspective of critical discourse analysis. Findings reveal that the primary themes that emerged are the inclusion of Black women, Police brutality and unaccountability, and Black Feminism Defined, with various subthemes. In addition, the discourse structures examined are lexical choice, presupposition, pronominal choice, and the use of tag questions, among others. This study serves to further our understanding of the linguistic manifestation of ideologies through discourse concerning anti-racism and Black Feminism.

Linguistic Devices of Identity Representation in English Political Discourse with a Focus on Personal Pronouns: Power and Solidarity

The present study was aimed at exploring the use of pronominal reference for identity representation in terms of power and solidarity in English political discourse. The investigation was based on a corpus of four political interviews and debates amounting 26,500 words. The analysis was both qualitative and quantitative. In the qualitative analysis, a discourse-analytic approach was used to find out the pronouns, their references and their identity load, and in the quantitative analysis, the distribution of different representations of identity were calculated. A nonparametric test, that is, Chi-Square was run in SPSS as the statistical operation needed for the current study. The analysis showed that most of the personal pronouns represented identity in the form of solidarity. The results also showed that political figures use I-pronoun and its variants to represent their identity in terms of power. The representation of identity in terms of power was also found to be correlated with the use of certain terms such as veto and active voice constructions. Furthermore, the results showed that when making claims, instead of giving pronominal reference to self, political figures use first-person plurals. In order to show solidarity, the speakers may also make use of discoursal proximity. Considering the important role that discourses play in constructing reality, it is important for CDA researchers to reveal sources of power, inequality and prejudice in discourses and interpret their hidden meanings. Pronominal choice and academic voice as linguistic constructions that are ideologically loaded need to be brought into the spotlight.

A social semiotic analysis of gender power in Nigeria’s newspaper political cartoons

ABSTRACT This paper is a critical examination of the ideological underpinnings of cartoons in Nigeria’s socio-political milieu. The study seeks to unveil cartoonists’ strategic moves to (mis)represent Nigerian women. The data comprise 10 political cartoons which were selected using a purposive-sampling method in line with the thematic concern of the study. They were analysed using Kress and Van Leeuwen’s social semiotic approach to the analysis of multimodal texts along with insights from critical discourse analysis (CDA). Findings reveal that semiotic resources, such as pronominal choices, speech acts, labelling, visual metaphorisation, information value, salience/emphasis, and framing, play significant roles in cartoonists’ commentaries on gender-related issues in Nigeria’s socio-political domain. Viewed against the United Nations’ global goal of gender equality by 2030, the study concludes that Nigerian newspaper political cartoonists’ representation of women ideologically both (re)produces or resists (un)equal gender relations among Nigerian citizens.

Investigating audience orientation in courtroom communication

AbstractThis study presents an empirical study of audience orientation, investigating lawyers’ overt interpersonal negotiation with jurors. Drawing upon a corpus of the closing arguments of five high-profile American trials, the quantitative and qualitative analysis identifies the traces and degree of the jury’s presence through pronominal choices, questions, directives, references to shared knowledge and asides. Such relational practice does not merely “oil the wheels” of courtroom communication but also constitutes a key way to the meaning-making process in this phase of the trial. The findings attest to the centrality of relational work in accomplishing transactional goals in institutional discourses.

The Use of Personal Pronoun in Political Discourse: A Case Study of the Final 2016 United States Presidential Election Debate

This study aims to investigate the use of personal pronouns in political speeches made by Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton in the 2016 US Presidential Election Debates. The focus is on uses of the first personal pronouns 'we' and 'I' as strategies to express persuasive messages and political ideologies especially the inclusion and exclusion of the participants’ 'self' and 'group’ reference. The data were selected from the TV broadcasted American Presidential Debate between Mr. Donald Trump and Mrs. Hillary Clinton on October 19, 2016. Textual and discourse analysis were adopted in order to examine in what context each first personal pronoun was used in the speeches. The findings reveal that the occurrences of the pronouns 'we' and 'I' in the speeches of both participants’ differ and the uses of each pronoun in certain contexts also differ significantly. The different pronominal choices in different contexts in the debates express differences in the persuasive strategies and political ideologies of the two candidates.

Investigating the Persuasive Pronominal Choices in Barack Obama's International Speeches to the Muslim and Non-Muslim Worlds

Investigating the Persuasive Pronominal Choices in Barack Obama's International Speeches to the Muslim and Non-Muslim Worlds

Meaning in a changing paradigm: the semantics of you and the pragmatics of thou

Many European languages have two pronouns for singular address. For such languages, Brown and Gilman (1960) propose a model that can explain pronominal choice, arguing that the pronouns allow speakers to construe the speaker-hearer relation with respect to two major social dimensions–power and solidarity. Pronominal choice then functions as a major resource for realizing social deixis in dialogic interaction. However, discussions of the Modern English thou/you contrast have criticized the power-and-solidarity model by emphasizing the language-specific peculiarities of the Modern English system. Thou and you appear to deviate in meaning from the second person pronouns in other languages. You can be used to address virtually anyone and in many contexts seems to be a neutral form, rather than a form signalling speaker deference or social distance. Thou is associated with emotional language and seems to express speaker agitation. However, in this paper we argue that the peculiarities of the Modern English system may have been overstated. Using evidence from dialogic interactions in Modern English comedies, it is shown that as long as thou is available as a systemic option, you retains its value of signalling deference or social distance, even in contexts where thou could not appear. As for thou, it is argued that the association with speaker agitation can be interpreted as a pragmatic side effect of the form's dwindling frequency. Both arguments bring the Modern English thou/you contrast back closer in line with the general power-and-solidarity model.

The Central Pronouns in Nigeria’s 2015 Presidential Debate: A Grammatical Analysis

This grammatical analysis of the central pronouns in Nigeria’s 2015 Presidential Debate aimed at determining their occurrence, semantic manifestations, typological and thematic distribution, and textual functions. Twenty-three central pronouns with a combined frequency of 2409 were identified and analysed using Quirk et al.’s (1985) framework. The result showed a 58% representation and a frequency of 94.6 in 1000 words, with the forms we, you, it, I, they, our emerging the most frequent. Personal pronouns were a hundred times more frequent than reflexive pronouns and fourteen times more recurring than possessives. The 1st person, 2nd person and 3rd person forms respectively represent approximately one-half, one-quarter, and one-third of total person contrast made; however, a dominance of plural over singular was seen and this was more pronounced with 2nd person. Whereas the ratio of masculine to feminine was 22:1, neuter gender was generally dominant. A dominance of subjective case over objective case was revealed while genitive case featured as determinatives only. Pronominal choices were governed by theme, structure of responses, and idiosyncrasy, as I was more concentrated under motivation for contesting than any other theme and under recognising and justifying the problem than specifying actions to be taken or making concluding marks. The multiple-authored texts used manifestly exposed the diversity of pronoun forms and their combinatory possibility, which was advantageous since the focus was not a given politician’s idiolect but the use of an aspect of language in politics, namely the central pronouns.

“I'm very Good at and maybe that's Why I'm Center Stage…”: Pronominal Deixis and Trump

Researchers have noted that when delivering speeches, politicians tend to evoke solidarity through the use of linguistic forms such as personal pronouns. This article presents an analysis of pronominal choices (e.g., person deixis I, you, we, they) issued by Donald Trump during 10 presentations (e.g., town halls, victory speeches). The study uses a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) framework in analyzing his speeches using mixed methods. The findings suggest that redundant uses and shifts in deitic expressions were employed as persuasive tools to identify, garner support, and polarize audiences.

A Systemic Functional Approach to Analyzing Thai Pronouns

This article attempts to illustrate the relationships between Tenor dimensions and pronominal reference in standard Thai. It argues for additional consideration of Thai pronouns as negotiators of interpersonal relationship. In addition to making deictic reference and being part of the Mood elements in major clauses, these resources can mark interpersonal social differentiation as well as attitudinal or emotional involvement. Based on examples of data collected from 40 contemporary Thai novels, the study has attested that usage of first and second person pronominal forms reflects the interplay among the three Tenor dimensions—“status,” “contact,” and “affect.” The study further suggests a new approach of pronominal categorization in Thai—pseudo T-pronouns with informal forms, pseudo V-pronouns with deferential flavor, and N-pronouns or pronominally used nominal terms. They all are found strategically used in novels to construe Tenor relations. By means of expressive pronominal switching and discriminatory pronominal choice, Thai pronouns can be employed to differentiate between positive and negative affective involvement of interactants in dialogical texts.

Relational Negotiation in Legal Closing Arguments

This study explores the ways in which lawyers perform relational work with jurors in an understudied area of courtroom discourse, the closing argument (Rosulek, 2015). Incorporating the concept of engagement (Hyland, 2001, 2005), the qualitative analysis focuses on the form and functions of addressee features, including pronominal choices, questions, directives, references to shared knowledge, and asides. The findings reveal that these features not merely foster solidarity and enhance interpersonal relations between addresser and addressee, but also constitute a key way to the meaning-making process. The findings attest to the centrality of interpersonal negotiation in institutional discourse.

Communicating with silent addressees: Engagement features in legal opening statements

This study presents an empirical study of explicit features of audience orientation, investigating how lawyers transform overhearing observers into active participants. Drawing upon a corpus of five high-profile American trials, the quantitative and qualitative analysis reveals the ways in which the lawyers establish solidarity and foster in-groupness through inclusive pronominal choices, and dialogically position the jurors through questions, directives, references to shared knowledge, and asides so as to negotiate agreement and secure consent. The findings reveal how perceptions of the audience influence discursive choices, thereby attesting to the centrality of relational work in legal communication.

Positioning in pre-prepared and spontaneous parliamentary discourse: Choice of person in the Parliament of Montenegro

Pronominal choice in political talk reflects hidden ideologies, which is why it has been a much-studied phenomenon in the discourse analytic research of politics in western democracies. However, similar topics remain largely unexplored in eastern and transition countries. With this in mind, the aim of the present article is to explore the use of subject pronouns and the person of the verb in the Parliament of Montenegro. The budget debate conducted in December 2009 was chosen for the corpus and was later subdivided into 10-minute pre-prepared ‘Speeches’ and three-minute ‘Comments’, which represent spontaneous responses. The two subcorpora were then compared with respect to person deixis. The results of the study point to the fact that, when given the chance to carefully plan their talk in advance, the MPs used the first-person plural and positive self-campaign much more often. On the other hand, in their spontaneous talk, the MPs more often referred to themselves as individuals and resorted more readily to addressing others using negative presentation strategies. Their prepared talk was therefore crafted and tailored for political effect through the use of consciously employed persuasive strategies that relate to the choice of person. It is suggested that the comparison of pre-scripted and unscripted political talk can reveal underlying political ideologies.

Pronominal Choice in Political Interviews

Ways of achieving interactional goals of interpersonal involvement, responsibility and trustworthiness are fundamental to the political arena. The aim of this paper was to investigate the pragmatics of the pronominal choice in two political interviews. Discourse analysis was used to determine if personal pronouns functioned exclusively pertaining to the speakers’ interactional goals and to evaluate their use in the light of what the interlocutor expected. The results revealed that the politician who created interpersonal involvement with the audience and used comprehensible and clear language established credibility, and such a strategy was more likely to receive positive evaluation. It may be concluded that the politician’s communicative success may depend on the extent to which the applied linguistic strategy meets the expectations of the interlocutor. In such a case, the interactional goals of interpersonal involvement with its sub-components of responsibility and trustworthiness may be evaluated positively. Thus, the lack of trustworthiness may be experienced due to the politician’s failure to communicate important meaning components.

The 1st person plural in political discourse—American politicians in interviews and in a debate

Billig (1995) wrote that politicians often evoke nationalistic views when delivering their speeches – they do this through the use of simple words (as personal pronouns) in a specified context. The context, and the way personal pronouns are utilized, creates decisive turning points for any politician, especially one on the electoral road ( Johnson, 1994; van Dijk, 1997, 2002). A politician must decide which stance to take on given issues, which constituents to support, and with which group/ideology to self-identify. This paper analyzes self-identifications that particular American politicians develop through their employment of pronominal choice. The period that was of particular interest was during 2008 elections in the US and the subsequent year. We compared how the 1st person plural pronoun was used during the interviews and during the debate. This paper finds that American politicians make use of personal pronouns to evoke nationalistic emotions and achieve their career goals differently, depending whether it is during the interview or during a debate. We argue that the role of the venue as an external characteristic of context is underestimated in the political discourse research.

Science Communication in Teacher Personal Pronouns

In this study, I explore how personal pronouns used by elementary teachers during science inquiry discussions communicate science and frame teacher–student–science relations. A semiotic framework is adopted wherein teacher pronominal choices are viewed as symbolically expressing cognitive meanings (scientific thinking, forms of expression, and concepts) and indexically communicating social meanings (hidden messages about social and personal aspects of science—human agency, science membership, and gender). Through the construction of interactional maps and micro‐ethnographic analysis of classroom video‐recordings, I focus specifically on participant examples (oral descriptions of actual or hypothetical situations wherein the teacher presents herself and/or her students as characters to illustrate topics under discussion). This analysis revealed that the teacher use of the generalised you communicated to the students how to mean scientifically (i.e. to speak like a scientist), while I communicated scientific ways of thinking and reasoning. Furthermore, teacher pronouns communicated the social nature of science (NOS) (e.g. science as a human enterprise) as well as multiple teacher–student–science relational frames that were inclusive of some students (mainly boys) but excluded girls (i.e. positioned them as science outsiders). Exclusive use of he was taken as indicative of a gender bias. It is argued that science teachers should become more aware of the range of personal pronouns available for science instruction, their advantages and constraints for science discussions, their potential as instructional tools for humanising and personalising impersonal science curricula as well as the risk of ‘NOS’ miscommunication.

Which self? Pronominal choice, modernity, and self-categorizations

This article examines a recent shift in the choice between two singular forms of first person pronoun in Indonesian, namely, aku and saya. More specifically, it seeks to explain motivating factors behind the recent tendency to use aku in public where it was previously considered unacceptable. By contrasting two temporally disjunctive public renditions of this pronoun, the article demonstrates not only that these renditions invite two different interpretations, but also more importantly, that the social expectation associated with aku is shifting. It is argued that theoretical constructs such as intimacy and formality, when viewed as opposing concepts, are inadequate for explaining the choice between the pronouns. The recent use of aku by celebrities in television interviews suggests that a pronoun conventionally associated with intimacy and informality can also be used strategically to assert individuality; moreover, while celebrities are a modern social phenomenon, variation in their pronominal choice is not explicable solely by an appeal to modernity. The article proposes that the recent shift to aku and the variation between aku and saya can be sufficiently explicated by considering these pronouns as linguistic representations of personal and social self-categorizations, respectively.