The volume considers politics as cooperative group action and takes the position that forms of government can be posited on a continuum with endpoints where governance is shared, and where hegemony dictates, ranging from politics as interaction to politics as imposition. Similarly, dialogue and dialogic action can be superimposed on the same continuum lying between truly collaborative where co-participants exchange ideas in a cooperative manner and dominated by an absolute position where dialogue proceeds along prescribed paths. The chapters address the continuum between these endpoints and...

The volume promotes a pragmatic perspective to the analysis of political discourse as multilayered mediated discourse. The chapters cross the disciplinary and methodological boundaries of speech act theory, social positioning theory, and argumentation theory and rhetorics. They address the strategic use of address terms and irony, the form and function of questions, and the expression of certainty in the contexts of parliamentary discourse, interview, talkshow, phone-in programme and motion of support across different discourse domains. Different cultural contexts are represented, including...

Rethinking Sinclair and Coulthard's sequentiality-based notion of the follow-up, this volume explores its forms and communicative functions in traditional and contemporary modes of communication (parliamentary sessions, interviews, debates, speeches, op-eds, discussion forums and Twitter) wherein political actors address challenges to their political agenda and to their political face. In so doing, the volume achieves two major advances. First, its contributions expand the understanding of follow-ups beyond the traditional focus on structural sequentiality, considering communicative function...

This book explores the various forms and functions of follow-ups in a range of political speech events. Follow-ups are conceptualized as communicative acts, in and through which a prior communicative act is accepted, challenged, or otherwise negotiated by ratified participants in the exchange or by third parties. The broad view suggested here accommodates a large variation in the functions of follow-ups, e.g. positioning, third-party involvement, evaluation and argumentation, ratification, support, challenge and attendance to face wants. These variations are explored in a range of cultural...