Metacommunicative follow-ups in British, German and Russian political webchats
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Maria Sivenkova
Abstract
The present study explores discursive functions and cross-cultural peculiarities of follow-ups containing metacommunicative utterances derived from political live webchats. It seeks to identify some typical patterns of online dialogue/polylogue organisation by filtering out discursive functions of metacommunicative follow-ups. It is concluded that politicians and their audiences attempt to shape political interaction by inserting evaluative follow-up moves in question-answer or other types of sequences. Besides, non-evaluative follow-ups are also found to play a role in online political discussion. Both politicians and their audiences sometimes resort to metacommunicative justification, explanation and reasoning to defend their views, redress misunderstanding and otherwise ensure impression management. As for cross-cultural similarities and differences, negative interdiscursive follow-ups that contain complaining sequences and requests to punish underperformance in other genres of political discourse occur most frequently in the British subset of webchat data. Russian politicians criticise the questioners approximately 2.5 times as often as their British counterparts and almost six times as often as German politicians. Neither German users nor German politicians complain about the complexities and challenges of political webchats, whereas both Russian and British users, as well as Russian politicians express doubts in the efficiency of this genre of political multi-party interaction.
Abstract
The present study explores discursive functions and cross-cultural peculiarities of follow-ups containing metacommunicative utterances derived from political live webchats. It seeks to identify some typical patterns of online dialogue/polylogue organisation by filtering out discursive functions of metacommunicative follow-ups. It is concluded that politicians and their audiences attempt to shape political interaction by inserting evaluative follow-up moves in question-answer or other types of sequences. Besides, non-evaluative follow-ups are also found to play a role in online political discussion. Both politicians and their audiences sometimes resort to metacommunicative justification, explanation and reasoning to defend their views, redress misunderstanding and otherwise ensure impression management. As for cross-cultural similarities and differences, negative interdiscursive follow-ups that contain complaining sequences and requests to punish underperformance in other genres of political discourse occur most frequently in the British subset of webchat data. Russian politicians criticise the questioners approximately 2.5 times as often as their British counterparts and almost six times as often as German politicians. Neither German users nor German politicians complain about the complexities and challenges of political webchats, whereas both Russian and British users, as well as Russian politicians express doubts in the efficiency of this genre of political multi-party interaction.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- Following up across contexts and discourse domains: Introduction ix
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Follow-ups in the new media
- Follow-ups in broadcast political discourse 3
- Intertextual references in Austrian parliamentary debates 25
- “I have nothing to do but agree” 57
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Follow-ups across speech events
- Bravo for this editorial! 83
- Metacommunicative follow-ups in British, German and Russian political webchats 109
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Follow-ups across speech events
- Framing the Queen’s head scarf 139
- Follow-ups in political talk shows and their visual framing 169
- Follow-ups in interpreter-mediated interviews and press conferences 205
- Follow-ups in pre-structured communication 231
- Index 263
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- Following up across contexts and discourse domains: Introduction ix
-
Follow-ups in the new media
- Follow-ups in broadcast political discourse 3
- Intertextual references in Austrian parliamentary debates 25
- “I have nothing to do but agree” 57
-
Follow-ups across speech events
- Bravo for this editorial! 83
- Metacommunicative follow-ups in British, German and Russian political webchats 109
-
Follow-ups across speech events
- Framing the Queen’s head scarf 139
- Follow-ups in political talk shows and their visual framing 169
- Follow-ups in interpreter-mediated interviews and press conferences 205
- Follow-ups in pre-structured communication 231
- Index 263
