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"I Don’t Know the Answer to that Question" in White House Press…
"I Don’t Know the Answer to that
Question" in White House Press Briefings
Analysis "I don't know" of some American President
"I dont't know" of Obama
main collocates: check, answer, exact, whether, degree, honestly,obviously, honest
Reason of "I don't know" in random 100 case
to express lack of knowledge
to introduce a countering formulation to present more positive facts
to avoid commitment
"I dont't know" of Clinton Sub-Corpus
3,501 in the first administration
3,233 in the second presidency.
The most frequent collocates: check, answer, whether,specific, exactly, exact, detail, necessarily, and particular
Reason of "I don't know" in random 100 case
to point out a specific area outside of the spokesperson’s responsibility
to introduce a countering proposition to present a different assertion as more valuable
to reduce an absolute commitment or a definite answer
to mention the provisional status of a specific topic as still pending
to postpone an answer to a later moment
to express lack or absence of evidence
The most frequent topics discussed with media: correspondence, information, testimony, evidence, release and investigations
mainly used to avoid a straight answer
when seen in their wider context, the Podium’s usage of ‘I don’t know’
to express lack of evidential proofs
to refer to an on-going investigative process
to refer to an on-going investigative process
to avoid predictions
to express lack of competence on specific information
"I dont't know" of Bush
998 in the first administration
2635 in the second presidency.
Most seen lexical items: exact,referring, answer, check, specific, specifically, referring, emails, honestly,exactly, necessarily, details
Reason of "I don't know" in random 100 case
to express lack or absence of evidence
to introduce a countering proposition to present a different assertion as more valuable
to reduce an absolute commitment or a definite answer
Purpose
show how the cluster ‘I don’t know’ can be exploited by various podiums
mainly in accordance with strategic communication choices made by the US administrations
highlighting differences in the podium’s attitude towards the press.
Method
Keywords and Key Clusters
focus on clusters
contiguous associations of words have been labelled differently in the literature
imply a lexical attraction which is a matter of convention
‘give insights into important aspects of the phraseology used by writers in specific contexts’
the notion of ‘keywords’ to reveal for identifying specificity of this particular institutional discourse
compare and contrast 4-word clusters of each presidential term with the whole corpus
track changes in the modern communicative strategies
‘I don’t know’ in the Literature
has been extensively studied in the literature.
characterize by two main grammatical patterns in conversation
followed by a wh-clause
used with wh-complement clauses in post-predicate position
both approaches the
cluster is considered an important device for expressing the speaker’s stance and more particularly involvement
discover the communicative strategies which serve ideological purposes of safeguarding the national image of the country to influence the public audience positively
contribute to the constitution, reproduction of social relations of power and domination