Involvement and detachment in David Cameron and Ed Miliband’s political discourse. An analysis of deictic shields on the pronoun ‘I’ in UK 2015 General Election news interviews

The goal of my study is to investigate the relationship between selected deictic shields on the pronoun ‘I’ and the involvement/detachment dichotomy in a sample of television news interviews. I focus on the use of personal pronouns in political discourse. Drawing upon Caffi’s (2007) classification of mitigating devices into bushes, hedges and shields, I focus on deictic shields on the pronoun ‘I’: I examine the way a selection of ‘I’-related deictic shields is employed in a collection of news interviews broadcast during the electoral campaign prior to the UK 2015 General Election. My purpose is to uncover the frequencies of each of the linguistic items selected and the pragmatic functions of those linguistic items in the involvement/detachment dichotomy. The research is structured as follows. Chapter 1 provides an account of previous studies on the three main areas of research: speech event analysis, institutional interaction and the news interview, and the UK 2015 General Election television programmes. Chapter 2 is centred on the involvement/detachment dichotomy: I provide an overview of nonlinguistic and linguistic features of involvement and detachment at all levels of sentence structure. Chapter 3 contains a detailed account of the data collection and data analysis process. Chapter 4 provides an accurate description of results in three steps: quantitative analysis, qualitative analysis and discussion of the pragmatic functions of the selected linguistic features of involvement and detachment. Chapter 5 includes a brief summary of the investigation, reviews the main findings, and indicates limitations of the study and possible inputs for further research. The results of the analysis confirm that, while some of the linguistic items examined point toward involvement, others have a detaching effect. I therefore conclude that deictic shields on the pronoun ‘I’ permit the realisation of the involvement/detachment dichotomy in the speech genre of the news interview.

The poetical works of Edmund Spenser.

Illustrated title pages.

Radiation shields and shielding : a literature search /

"Physics and Mathematics, TID-4500(15th Ed.)."

The complete works in verse and prose of Edmund Spenser /

Vol. 10 ("Glossarial index, with notes and illustrations on every word, person and thing, in the entire works") never published?

Radiation shields and shielding : a bibliography of unclassified report literature.

This bibliography contains 77 annotated references to unclassified reports on radiation shields and shielding. References are included to reports written prior to November 1954. Author, subject and report number indexes are provided.

Radiation shields and shielding : [a bibliography] /

Included are 687 selected references to unclassified reports and scientific journal literature on radiation shields and shielding. Author, report number, and subject indexes are also included.

Memoir of George Edmund Street, R.A., 1824-1881 /

Includes lectures given before students of the Royal Academy in the spring of 1881.

Radiation shields and shielding; a bibliography of unclassified AEC report literature.

Supplement, compiled by Hugh E. Voress (16 p. 27 cm.) issued in 1954.

The life and character of Edmund Geste, S. T. P. The principal compiler of the church of England ... the first protestant bishop of Rochester, afterwards bishop of Salisbury, by appointment of and almoner to Queen Elizabeth.

Appendix I: A treatise against the prevee masse in the behalfe and furtheraunce of the mooste holye communyon made by Edmund Geste. 1548: p. [69]-140.

Canada and her resources: an essay, to which, upon a reference from the Paris exhibition committee of Canada, was awarded, by His Excellency Sir Edmund Walter Head, bart., governor general of British North America ... the second prize.

At head of title: Prize essay.

Correspondence of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke : between the year 1744, and the period of his decease, in 1797 /

Includes index.

The public and domestic life of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke /

Mode of access: Internet.

The epistolary correspondence of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke and Dr. French Laurence.

Mode of access: Internet.

Correspondence of Edmund Burke & William Windham,: with other illustrative letters from the Windham papers in the British museum,

Presented to the Roxburghe club by Arthur James Balfour.