presenting self via the pronoun “i” in public discourse=the case of the dutch member of...

7/27/2019 Presenting Self via the Pronoun I in Public Discourse=The Case of the Dutch Member of Parliament Geert Wilder

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Presenting Self via the Pronoun I in Public Discourse:

The Case of the Dutch Member of Parliament Geert Wilders

By

Jamel Abdenacer Alimi

e-mail:[email protected]

31 March, 2012

Abstract



This research presents a descriptive analytical investigation into the issues of speaker roles

and selves as taken on and represented by means of the the first-person singular pronoun

(1PSP) over the course of a political TV interview and across a supplementary prescripted

speech.

Taking as a case in point the public discourse of the Dutch Member of Parliament Geert

Wilders, the study specifically sought to raise and answer the following research questions(RQs):

RQ 1: What preferential speaker roles did the political figure here selected

tend to take on vis--vis hisI-prefaced statements in the data at hand?

RQ 2: What values would he assign to the pronounIin these very statements?

RQ 3: What desired images of self would he present via the use of the

pronounIin the texts here selected?

This study undertook a three-stage exploration of the above-mentioned issues:
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


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a- Phase One concerned itself with tallying the frequencies of the 1PSP and I-related

speaker roles, drawing on Goffmans 1981 notion of speaker.

b- Phase Two concerned itself with categorizing the identities that arose from the pragmatic

functions of the 1PSP performed within the I-clauses (and parts of clauses) in the data

under investigation.

c- Phase Three involved a qualitative analysis and discussion of the quantitatively-drivendata outcomes within Critical Discourse Analysiss discursive representation and

legitimization frameworks.

The data analysis and results showed that the pronounIis a powerful, versatile indicator of

the selected political figures speaker role inhabitance, self- and other- representation,

thought formulations, stance articulation and emotion sharingthus, concurring with

previous studies done on thefirst-person singular pronoun.

Secondly, the analysis and results showed several examples of the selected politicians skill

in exploiting the potentials of this very deictic pronoun to its utmost strategic, pragmatic

effects in view, most notably, of demonstrating principalness towards his own discourse,and, by the same token, vis--vis his interlocutor, addressees and overhearing audience at

large.

Thirdly, the analysis and results suggested that consideration ofI(and, for that matter, other

person pronominals) beyond its conventional role as referents can pave the way for a bottom-

up, unprejudiced appreciation of the texts at hand (and, indeed, any other discourse materials)

and lead, as yet, to solid inferences and interpretations. Analysts approaches to (political)

discourse need not necessarily be a top-down, pre-conceived one. For a trust in such

seemingly innocent linguistic tokens as the 1PSP can undeniably yield not less firmly-

grounded inferences about, and glimpses into, the attitudes, values, and identities that a

political figure may wish to conceal or, conversely, intend to project.

It is hoped that this study will contribute to the understanding of the tremendously elusive

textual, pragmatic, and identity construction working of the indexical pronoun, I, and of its

variations. It is also hoped that a deeper awareness about the intricacies of the politically-

minded usages of this very deictic item will be of great benefit for deconstructing (political)

discourse.

The same resulting effects, as inferred by the current investigation, are of immediate

educational relevance; English Language teachers at all levels of instruction are urged to

reconsider their views on the 1PSP (and its counterparts), and teach them not only for theirbasic syntactical uses but also for their broader, pragmatic speaker motivations. For this and

other similar reasons, the study at hand strongly recommended that concerned teachers and

syllabus designers start presenting personal pronouns based on authentic, conversational

language use.

This work is based on previous studies done recently in various parts of the world for

exploring personal pronouns in political and otherwise settings.

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1- Introduction and Background

1.1 Theoretical rationaleof the study:

Over the last few years, the field of applied linguistics has become increasingly interested in

comprehending the uses, functions, and impacts of personal pronouns in media (political)

discourse (e.g., Adetunji 2006: 177-91; Bramley 2001; Kulo 2009: 29-55; OKeeffe. 2002:

91-113, 2006; Schffner 1997; Van Dijk 1992: 87-118; Wilson 1990). The revived attention

takes as a point of departure the premises that language, always appears as the representative

of a system of linguistic terms (Dellinger 1995: 3), that language indirectly indexes

particular dispositions, understandings, values, and beliefs (Ochs 1990: 287-308), that

ideological manipulations are expressed, enacted, sustained and, at times, inculcated through

discursive structures (van Dijk 2005: 728-40), that the personal pronouns deployed in

political texts and talks have the capacity to both encode and reveal different aspects of the

ways political speakers and writers constantly (re)construct and (re)negotiate their multiple

identities (Kuo 2002: 29-30; van Dijk 2000a: 15-34; 2002: 7; 2005: 728-40; Wilson 1990:

46), and that the propositions with embedded personal deixis are, more often than not, typical

sites where political figures covert intentions and stances may be best uncovered (see, e,g.,

I believe that people whose only goal is to destroy

everything we stand for []; those people don'tdeserve equal constitutional rights, I think."

Geert Wilders,BBC Hardtalkinterview,22

March 2006

The most familiar and therefore least noticed kind

of identity is grammatical; expressed by the

personal pronouns [].

William J.M. Mackenzie (1978: 111)

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Biber, 2004: 107; 2006: 97; De Fina 1994: 379-410; Maitland and Wilson 1987: 495-512;

Van Dijk 1993a: 31-64, 1993b: 179-193, 1997: 31-64, 2002: 15-34).

While there is a sizeable body of studies which looks, amongst others, into the distribution,

deployment, and pragmatic impacts of personal pronouns in political text and talk discourses,

there have been, unfortunately, but relatively scarce and scattered researches thatquantitatively concentrate on the use of the first singular personal pronoun (1PSP) as vehicles

for speaker self-assigned roles (Goffmans 1979/ 1981) and as exponents of his or her macro

political bends and ideological affiliationsthus, leaving, much of the power of these very

lexico-grammatical terms unduly under-researched, to date.

1.2 Purpose of the Study:

The present study will attempt to contribute in filling the gap in research pointed out just

earlier. It will equally seek to respond, within its purview, to the numerous calls which are

being voiced for further investigating the phenomenon of the 1PSP in (political) discourse(e.g., Suleiman et al. 2002:269-87). Taking as an example the public discourse of the Dutch

politician Geert Wilders (See Section 3.1.1.3 below for a concise profile), it will specifically

attempt to identify, analyze, and discuss the deployment, lexico-semantic denotations, and

subsequent representational effects of the 1PSP over the course of an interview that this

political figure had on BBC World TV HARDtalk programme on 22 March 2006 and,

secondarily, across a pre-scripted speech he himself addressed on 1 June, 2011 as part of his

final remarks at his trial in Amsterdam (See Table in Section 3.1.2.1 for details and

Appendices B and D for full, unedited texts).

1.3 Statement of theresearch questions:

The following three research questions underlie the present study:

RQ 1: What preferential speaker roles did the political figure here selected

tend to take on vis--vis hisI-prefaced statements in the data at hand?

RQ 2: What values would he assign to the pronoun I in these very

statements?

RQ 3: What desired images of self would he present through the pronoun I

in the texts here selected?

1.4 Significance of the study:

The originality of the present study lies in four points. First, it will be part of a larger,

ongoing body of investigations aimed at exploring personal deixis well beyond their

conventionally referential uses (Bramley 2001; Brown and Gilman 1960, cited in Maitland

and Wilson 1987: 495-512.; Chang 2002:115-52.; OKeeffe 2002: 91-113.; Wales 1996;

Wortham 1996: 331-48). Secondly, it will look at the uses of I from a perspective that

heavily relies on a quantitative approachthus, departing away from anecdotal ones, as has

been the case with a considerably huge number of studies carried out so far (Suleiman et al.

Op.Cit). Thirdly, it will be jointly framed by the concept of speaker roles (Goffman 1981)

and the notions of discursive representation and discursive legitimization (van Dijk 1998:

15-16; 1993a: 264), which, we believe, will collectively help provide significantlyinformative insights into the potentials that the deictic I so powerfully offer.

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1.5 Scope and limitation of the study:

Due to the nature of our current research interest, we are here only concerned with the

analysis of the verbal, semantico-pragmatic functions and denotations of the 1PSP as they

each occur in samples of a broadcast TV interview and a court address. We are therefore notaddressing any of the complex, yet not less telling, features inherent in talk-in-interaction

including, most pertinently, voice quality, stress, pitch, volume, speed, gestures, gaze, and

other para-linguistic features (see, for example, Francis and Hunston 1992: 123-6; Hutchby

and Wooffitt 1998; Sacks et al.1974; Schegloff 2000). Even so, the approach outlined below

would, mutatis mutandis, also be applicable to pronoun-oriented analyses of spoken and/or

written material with other different subjects in other different settings, be they casual or

institutionalized (Drew and Heritage [ed] 1992 ).

It is important to remain aware of what the emerging number of instances of the 1PSP can

and cannot reveal, though. A sample data of this size can evidently offer but a rough

indication of the different functions and uses of these linguistic items and their respective

frequency. Such an unavoidable limitation is, understandably enough, prone to leave blind

spots where infrequent features or phenomena simply are left unaccounted for. Bearing this

shortcoming in mind, this present study does not permit any generalization of results; this

cannot be, and explicitly was not, our goal, anyway. For our present purpose, however, the

sample is, indeed, sufficiently large: it has turned out to contain enough relevant instances of

the 1PSP-related aspects which concern usthus, allowing us to unveil their hidden

speaker roles and values.

The dictum of a critical method of analysis, as made use of in the Discussion Section below,

makes it clear that a researcher cannot practically remain neutral in his or her investigation ofpolitical discourse. Nonetheless, we have endeavoured to keep our own approach in this

dissertation both dispassionate and ideology-free. Our objective behind this research, it must

be emphatically stressed, was neither to defend nor attack the ethno-political perspectives in

the data at hand, however tempting that might compellingly be. The work was in its entirety a

linguistic rather than a political one. It was strictly driven by, and exclusively oriented

towards answering, the research questions mentioned above with utmost objectivity.

As it must also be explained, a number of terms such as terrorism, violence, murder,

Islamist, and far-Right are placed within quotation marks throughout this paper. This is

done with the purpose of representing that these terms are solely discursive from our own

perspective and that they can be questioned depending on what position they are analysedfrom and/or the context they are used in.

2- Review of Related Literature

The current research concerns itself with two aspects of the first-person singular pronoun: (a)

its uses in (political) talk and text discourse and (b) its role in constructing speakers/ writers

stances and identities. This section will provide a concise literature review of each aspect.

These general backgrounds on either feature are directed towards paving the way to assessing

the degree of principalness in the Goffmanian sense of the term (see Section 3.2.1 below) and

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coming to terms with the identities, which have been demonstrated and (re)negotiated by the

political figure here selected.

In the ensuing review, it is assumed that the reader is familiar with the systems of modality

and personal pronouns (and their respective variations) in the English language (e.g.,

Maitland and Wilson 1987: 495-512; Quirket al. 1985).

2.1 I and Other Personal Pronouns in (Political) Discourse:

Studies on political language have investigated politicians' use of personal pronouns (or

indexicals) for various purposes, ranging from personal to political, from persuasive to

manipulativeall essentially dependent on both the context of production and the speaker's

intentions (e.g., Blas-Arroyo 1998 1-27; Kitagawa and Lehrer 1990:739-59.; Maitland and

Wilson 1987: 495-512; van Dijk 2000b: 85-103; Zupnik 1994: 339-83).

The works carried out in this avenue of research tend to share the same driving hypothesisnamely, the capacity of pronouns to simultaneously encode and disclose various aspects of

the attitudes, values, and communicative intentions that political figures may wish to hide

(Kuo 2002: 29-30; Wilson 1990:46).

The data used in this regard are of different genres, spatial settings, and socio-political

conjunctures. These include party leaders public speeches (Maitland and Wilson 1987: 495-

512; van Dijk 2002: 203-37), presidents oratories (Adetunjin 2006: 177-91), interviews with

world leaders (Suleiman 1999: 104-21; Suleiman et al. 2002: 269-87), televised electoral

debates (Kuo 2002: 29-55), campaign speeches (Allen 2007: 1-13), party manifestos (Dobson

2007: 99-124), and parliamentary debates (Gelabert-Desnoyer 2008: 407-24), to name but a

few.

The foci of the studies in this vein are different, too including, most notably, analyzing the

use of first-person singular, I, in contrast with the first-person plural, we (de Fina 1994:

379-410), comparing pronoun use across speeches and interviews (Bolvar 1999: 5669),

looking into the generic you and referential you as used in Taiwanese political debates (Kuo

2002:29-55), investigating the us/them dichotomy (OKeeffe 2002: 91-113; Wortham 1996:

331-48), probing the complex pragmatic processes involved in the resolution of we and the

consequent effects of such complexity on the persuasive functions of indexicals (du Bois

2009: 137-82; Wilson 1990; Zupnik 1994: 339-83), and exloring the identity work done by

pronoun choice in political interviews (Bramley 2001).

The results arrived at tend to provide evidence that the pronominal selections on the part of

politicians betray their not-too-frequently explicit perspectives and stances vis--vis certain

political topics and political personalities (Maitland and Wilson 1987:495-512.; Wilson

1990). Besides, the observations show the varying abilities and readiness of political figures

to actively exploit the flexibility of pronominal reference to construct the different identities

of themselves and others and use them to create different alignments to, and boundaries

between, their multiple selves and others (Bramley 2001: v).

2.2 Identity Construction viaI in (Political) Discourse:

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The idea above that pronominal indexicals are non-neutral in essence (Chang 2002: 115-52;

OKeeffe 2002:91-113; Pennycook 1994: 173-8; Wortham 1996: 331-48) and possess the

theoretical power to function as an index of speaker personhood and agency (Mhlhusler

and Harr 1990) could not be more pertinent than with the use of I (Cramer 2009: 95;

Ndambuki and Janks 2010: 88). Described as the reality of discourse (Benveniste 1971:

218, quoted in Bramley 2001: 27), this very pronoun acts as a signifier of the person who isuttering the present instance of the discourse containing I (Benveniste, ibid.); it would,

therefore, be grossly misconceived if viewed as a mere substitute for a noun or name

(Halliday and Hasan 1976; Sacks 1991: 1: 675, quoted in Bramley, Op.Cit.), as commonly

advanced in classical grammar definitions (Quirk et al. 1985).

In Goffman (1981)s view, as will be explained in further details later on (Section 3.2.1), the

pronoun in question transcends the scope of a one-dimensional signifier to encompass the

more comprehensive speakers roles of animator, figure, author, and/or principal. In the latter

case, the principal politician (or, indeed, any other person) is to be considered not as merely

the speaker of words; rather, as Goffman (ibid) maintains, he or she is to be regarded as the

authority whose position is established and identified by the words they themselves utter.

The degree of principalness that a politician displays in a certain proposition via the use of

I is, however, just one single facet of political discoursea highly rhetorical field where

goals are, very often, pursued beyond a simple statement on a domestic or foreign issue (van

Dijk 2006: 359-83). Fundamental to this political pronoun is the way in which politicians

create and convey their own identities and those of their political opponents by virtue of this

very indexical (Chang 2002: 115-52.; OKeeffe 2002: 91-113; Pennycook 1994: 173-8;

Wales 1996; Wortham 1996: 331-48). The intended pragmatic effects almost invariably seek

to show oneself in a positive light and present, by the same token, the negative aspects of

ones opponents (van Dijk 1989a: 229-53). According to Bramley (2001), this practice can be

achieved through the use of I in conjunction with talking about [ones] personal qualities,

being a responsible politician, being a person in touch with the electorate, being a person of

principles, a person of action, a person with a track record, a person of authority etc. (23).

As additionally noted by many a researcher, the first subject personal pronoun frequently

occurs in combination with epistemic modality markers such as may, can, and might. The

exploitation of such elements of discourse in both speaking and writing allows politicians to

achieve several objectives of utmost importance, which, most significantly, include the

empowerment to encode varying degrees of commitment to the spoken/written words and

convey personal assessment of the probability, certainty, belief or doubt about the truth of the

expressed proposition and its actual occurrence (De Haan 1999: 83-101). In so doing, they tryto lead their interlocutor, addressee, and overhearing audience to perceive the logic of the

semantic unity and purposefulness of their discourse (van Dijk 1989: 229-53; Van Leeuwen

2009).

As further observed, the personal pronoun here in focus very often appears as part of such

phrases asI think,I believe, andI mean. The recourse to such combinations makes it possible

for the politician to (a) position themselves in agreement or disagreement with certain

information or event in which they are implicated (Bramley 2001: 74) and to (b) drive home

that particular perspective or personal voice (Wilson 1990) to the interlocutors and

overhearing audience they are trying to establish a rapport with (Clayman 1988: 476).

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The literature review above was not intended to be exhaustive. The aim here was to present

but some important information about the areas most relevant to this study.

The Chapter to follow will attempt to place the indexical at issue in its larger discursive and

socio-political contexts.

3- THE STUDY: CONTEXT, DATA, AND CONCEPTUALFRAMEWORKS OF ANALYSIS

Given the utmost importance to take into account the context of production of the personal

pronoun under examination, the present Chapter will therefore begin, in Section 3.1, by

placing the indexical at issue in its larger socio-political context, before giving an account of

the data under analysis, including its sources, rationale for selection, and analysis procedures.It will then provide in Section 3.2 a description of the most pertinent features and tenets of

the theoretical frameworks which underpin the study.

3.1 Data under Analysis:

3.1.1 Socio-historical and political context of the study: A brief description:

For a more complete understanding of the 1PSP-related

issues outlined earlier, it is of the utmost importance to take

into account the micro and macro contexts that surround the

production of the texts here selected. This sub-section will

therefore provide concise backgrounders on (a) the current

Muslim immigration scene in the Netherlands, (b) the

surge for anti-Islamization of Holland and the West, and (c) the

political figure taken as a case in point. These brief outlines

are, it is felt, of utmost relevance as they will facilitate a

better grasp of the particularities of the context in which the

main and supplementary texts are situated and, as will be

later seen in theData Analysis and Discussion Chapter, view G. Wilderss discourse from a

wider, more critical perspective1

.

3.1.1.1 The Netherlands: Country profile and Muslim immigration scene:

The Netherlands is a relatively small country (41,864 sq km or 16,164 sq miles) with a

population of approximately 16.3 million (as of 2010). She is bordered by the North Sea in

1Most of the information used for this sub-sec

tion comes from online articles written by Bayham (2008), Burns (2009), Buruma (2009), Dalrymple (2009),DeLeeuw and Van Wichelen (2005), Gosden (2009), Hajer and Uitermark (2008), Holm (2011), Kirby (2008),

Liphshiz (2008), Marquand 2010.), Mock (2010), Russell and Mock (2009), Traynor (2008), van Leeuwen

(2009), van Osch (2008), Veldhuis and Bakker (2009), Vidino (2008), Vossen (2010), and Warman (2011).

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the north and west, by Germany in the east and by Belgium in the south. Her major religion is

Christianity.

At present, around 1.7 million people originate from, or have parents from, non-Western

countries. Turks, Moroccans, Surinamese and Antilleans/Arubans make up nearly two-thirds

of these non-Western ethnic minorities1.

Table 1: Percentages of Dutch citizens from Western and non-Western origins 2

Once reputed for its societal harmony and tolerance towards its Muslim communities3, the

Netherlands has, since the turn of the century, witnessed much tension over the cultural,

religious, and physical space of Islam and Muslims, following the September 11, 2001

attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and on the Pentagon near Washington, D.C.

The tensions already surrounding the reportedly high levels of crime and unemployment

among Muslim youths in the country drastically escalated in 2002 after the killing of Pim

Fortuyn, the maverick political leader who famously described Islam as a backward religion.

Two years later, on 2 November 2004, the killing of Theo van Gogh, a filmmaker who, a

year earlier, had collaborated with Ayaan Hirsi Ali in making the film Submission4, by

Mohammed Bouyeri, an Islamist Dutch-Moroccan citizen, added fuel to the already heateddebate on the integration of ethnic and religious minorities. Critics of multiculturalism,

including far-right politicians like Wilders and Rita Verdonk, quickly framed the murder of

Van Gogh as the exemplary case that showed that the then Amsterdams political

1The four major immigrant groups have lived in the Netherlands for decades:

Turks and Moroccans came to the Netherlands in the 1960s and 1970s as guest workers in Dutch

industries. In the Netherlands they started their own families or brought in relatives or marriage partnersfrom their respective countries of origin;

Suriname is a former colony of the Netherlands which declared its independence in 1975. ManySurinamese emigrated to the Netherlands and there are still strong cultural ties

between both countries;

The Dutch Antilles and Aruba are still part of the Royal Kingdom of the Netherlands, but have a large

degree of administrative freedom. There are strong cultural ties between these regions and theNetherlands.

2Source: CBS 2008; reproduced in Forum 2008: 7 at http://www.forum.nl/pdf/factbook-islam-en.pdf

3 The Netherlands hosts more or less 944000 Muslims 945,000 or 5.8% of the population. This number isdifficult to establish, however, as census figures are often questioned and many countries choose not to compile

such information anyway.

4In this film, Qur'an verses which are said to legitimate the submission of women to men are inscribed in

Arabic on a veiled woman's body. Through the female body, a battle is fought out between 'woman/ security/

integration/ Dutch-culture/ universalism/ modernity/ liberalism versus Islam/ terror/ culturalism/backwardness/ theocracy' (De Leeuw and Van Wichelen 2005:336).

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leaderships policies and attitudes towards migrants had been too soft; too nave. Their

suggestion that the tolerance and calm of the previous years had been nothing but a

conspiracy of silence by the leftist media and political elite was believed to be the reason that

led the government to harden its line on immigration and failed asylum seekers.

Four years after the violent, high-profile death1 of Theo van Gogh, the Dutch society'slongstanding tradition of multiculturalism and tolerance towards Islam was to be seriously

stirred up before and after the release of the short film, Fitna2, inMarch 2008, by the self-

avowed anti-Islam Geert Wilders.

The debate concerning Islam in the Netherlands is still fiercely raging. This debate seems to

be polarized, with politicians such as Rita Verdonk and Geert Wilders as main critics of Islam

while the larger political parties, among which the Christian democratic party (CDA) and the

social-democratic labour party (PvdA), try to take on a mediating role.

The rise of Geert Wilderss Right-wing PVV (the Partij voor de Vrijheid or Party for

Freedom), as a key player in the Dutch political arena after the 2006 national elections, seemsto reflect the alignment of a growing segment of the public in the Netherlands with the PVVs

criticism of Islam as being radically opposite to the Dutch identity and irreconcilable with

allegedly unique Western liberal, secular values such as freedom of speech.

The Muslim population in Holland, on the other hand, often feels discriminated against.

3.1.1.2 Dutch Freedom Party: Surge for anti-Islamization of Holland and the West:

In the 2006 national elections, the Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV, Party for Freedom),

founded and led by Geert Wilders, received 5.9%of the votes and was represented in the

Dutch 150-member House of Representatives with nine seats as a result. In autumn 2008, it

took over the leading position, as Rita Verdonks movement was afflicted by internal quarrels

and disappointing polling results. On 9 June, 2010, it became the third largest party in the

Netherlands.

The emergence of the PVV as a major winner in the June 2010 national elections, which took

its number of seats from nine in the previous parliament to 24, was attributed by many an

observer to its arguably polemical views on such high-sensitivity issues as Islam, the halt of

1Mohammed Bouyeri, a 26-year-old Dutch citizen of Moroccan descent, shot Van Gogh seven times before

cutting his throat and stabbing a note onto his chest. It contained an extensive death threat to Hirsi Ali, whiletwo other politicians were explicitly mentioned: Jozias van Aartsen, the leader of the VVD party and patron ofHirsi Ali, and Job Cohen, the (Jewish) mayor of Amsterdam. (Soon afterwards other politicians were reported to

be on a death list).

2Fitna (meaning public chaos, religious ordeal, strife, discord, severe division of opinion or a test

of believers faith in Arabic) actually appeared on 27 March, 2008 nighttime. Fragments of the film wereshown worldwide, showing suras from the Qur'an linked with images of 'Islamic' violence such as the attacks on

the New York World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. A bar graph grows through the top of the television

screen to signify the explosive growth of the number of Muslims in The Netherlands and Europe. The film ends

with a declaration that says Islam does not offer space or respect to nonbelievers and states that we must triumphover Islam like we have over Nazism and communism earlier this century.

Over six million people watched the English and Dutch versions when they appeared online. Only a few hours

after the film appeared on the internet, Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende released a press statement inboth Dutch and English criticizing the irresponsibility of showing the film. He said that the film wronglyequated Islam with violence.

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immigration from Muslim countries, the Arabo-Israeli conflict, and the future well-being of

the Netherlands and Europe.

The PVV s anti-Islamist ideology had already been spelled out a few years earlier in the partys

literature, its leaders radicalized speeches and announcements on Islam (see

http://www.geertwilders.nl) and, perhaps most eloquently, via the 16-minute film, Fitna,which presented Islam as an ordeal for Western democracies and portrayed the Koran not

as an old and dusty book, but in large parts of the world, including Europe and the

Netherlands, the reason and inspiration for intolerance, murder, and terror (Wilders 2007).

The Party for Freedom further propagates that Europe is facing a clash of civilizations and

that the time has come to be intolerant in defense of freedom. It wants the fascist Koran

outlawed in Holland, the constitution rewritten to make that possible, all immigration from

Muslim countries halted, Muslim immigrants paid to leave and all Muslim criminals

stripped of Dutch citizenship and deported back where they came from.

The message of the Freedom Party is that the Koran is akin to Hitler's Mein Kampf, thatIslam is a 'fascist ideology' - and that Dutch society is being engulfed in a tidal wave of

Islamisation. It calls for an end to immigration by Muslims and for payments to encourage

Muslims to emigrate.

3.1.1.3 Geert Wilders on BBCsHARDtalkA backgrounder:

Geert Wilders, born in 1963, worked in 1990 as a speechwriter for the People's Party for

Freedom and Democracy (Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie VVD), the largest

conservative-liberal party in the Netherlands. He was elected as a city councilor in Utrecht in

1997 and a member of parliament the following year. In 2004, he left the VVD in protest of

its support of admitting Turkey into the EU. The following year, he formed the Party for

Freedom. (Partij voor de Vrijheid PVV) in order advance his idea for a temporary

moratorium on immigration from Turkey and Morocco.

Whilst initially, before the formation of the PVV, he merely took a hard-line position against

radical Islam, Wilders started from 20032004 onwards to criticize the Islam tout court.

According to him, Islam is not a religion but rather a violent, expansionist and totalitarian

ideology that poses a threat to the West comparable to that of communism and fascism

hence his usage of the term Islamofascism. He describes Prophet Mohammed as the devil

of that ideology, likens the Quran to Adolf Hitlers Mein Kampfand describes Muslims as a

threat to European democracies, rejecting the division of Muslims into moderates andextremists. Accordingly, he has made it his mission to warn people of the Islamization of

our Western societies, claiming that the Netherlands" and the West at large are on the verge

of falling under the sway of Islam.

To reverse the situation, the PVV leader advocates for and promotes legislation that will

severely restrict the practice of Islam, including a ban on the Quran and the construction of

new Islamic schools and mosques in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe, Canada,

Australia and the USA. He also seeks to create legislation in Europe that formally recognizes

Humanism and the Judaeo-Christian traditions as the dominating culture, or Leitkultur, over

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Islamic culture, which he has described as a culture of backwardness, of retardedness, of

barbarism and is totally contrary to our values.1

In January 2009, the Amsterdam Court of Appeal ordered Wilders' prosecution for allegedly

fomenting "incitement to hatred and discrimination" against Islam on grounds of his

controversial 2008 film about his views on Islam,Fitna. He was acquitted of these charges on23 June 2011.

Wilders was banned from entering the United Kingdom between 12 February 2009 and 13

October 2009 by the Labour government, the Home Office saying his presence would be a

"threat to one of the fundamental interests of society". The ban was overturned after Wilders

appealed and he visited the UK in October 2009, and again in March 2010 to show his film.

On 10 November 2004, two suspected attackers, presumed to be members of what the Dutch

intelligence agency, the General Intelligence and Security Service, has termed the

Hofstadgroep, were captured after an hour-long siege of a building in The Hague. Since this

incident Wilders has been under permanent security protection and living at differentaddresses

3.1.2 Data Source, Data Justification, and Analysis Procedures:

3.1.2.1 Data sources:

The data comprise the following: (a) Geert Wilderss Final Remarks at his Trial in

Amsterdam, and (b) an interview he had with Stephen Sackur on BBCS HARDtalkon 18

April, 2009. The speech in question was retrieved from Wilderss website

and reproduced unedited; the 23-minute interview wasaccessed online at www.youtube.com (YouTube 2009) and transcribed by the author. The

details of both texts as well as a summary of the transcription conventions are available in the

Appendix Section.

Data under examination

Titles Dates Word count

1 Geert Wilderss interview with S. Sackur onBBCSHARDTalk

22 March 2006 5,010

2 G. Wilderss Final Remarks at his Trial inAmsterdam

1 June, 2011 1,191

Total: 6,201

Table 2: Data under examinationtheir titles, sources, dates, and word counts

3.1.2.2 Justification of data selection:

1A closer look at the rhetoric of Mr. Wilders shows that Muslims are not the only enemies in his sight. Equally

dangerous are the people whom he refers to as the cultural elite; that is, those liberals who, in his view, are so

concerned about Western racism that they find it hard to tolerate any criticism of non-Western people or non-

Western faiths. He condemns what he terms their cultural and moral relativism, leading to a refusal to

distinguish between superior and inferior cultures, as a result of which the West has become weakened and has

not recognized the Islamic threat in time. As a consequence of the elites failures, the Islamification of the West

was able to take off, which endangers the very future of Western civilisation. Such a rhetoric is also reiterated inthe texts selected for this dissertation.

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The choice of Geert Wilders, an arguably controversial far-right political figure (Van

Leeuwen 2009: 1) as a case in point was a conscious and deliberate one. And so were the

contexts of the interview, court address, and speech, which were all marked, in great part, by

the strong presence of Islamophobic language and imagery.

The interview was chosen as an example of a spontaneous, real-time talk-in-interactionwithin the TV political interview framework, where the political figure at hand would

expectedly deploy a high rate of the 1PSP&V but be only minimally prepared to consciously

make any pronominal choices while expressing his views and perspectives (Maitland and

Wilson 1987: 495-512).

The pre-scripted text, in contrast, was selected on the hypotheses that (a) each of its syntactic

constructions and constituent lexico-grammatical items were, for the most part, explicitly

programmed or planned and, therefore, better controlled prior to ultimate delivery to target

audiences (van Dijk 1989: 41), that (b) the intended pragmatic functions of the personal

pronouns used therein underwent several meticulous revisions in a deliberate effort to achieve

maximum persuasive effects, and that (c) much of the underlying ideological load of thepersonal pronoun I and its corresponding forms was to be intentionally left hidden by the

speech writer and might not be that obvious to potential listeners and readers at a first hearing

or glance (Adetunji 2006: 177- 91; Maitland and Wilson 1987: 498; Pu 2007: 205-16).

3.1.2.3 Data analysis procedures:

The data selected consisted of two texts with 6,201 words in total. They were dealt with in

the following way:

1. The downloaded TV interview (Appendix B) was transcribed by the researcher as verbatim

as possible, without intentional adjustments to what was spoken. Transcription symbols

(Appendix A) were adapted from Jefferson (1984), Ochs et al. (1996:4615) and Tsui (1994).

These transcription conventions allowed the detaisl of the surrounding talk of the pronouns to

be captured. This included intonation, stress on words, pauses and interruptions in the turns in

which the pronounIand its counterparts occurred.

2- The Interviewees turns (Appendix C) were then singled out and the occurrences of the

pronoun I and its variations in his turns were counted manually and tallied. Repetitions of

these very pronouns, which were deemed of little or no impact on the data analysis, were left

out.

3. The Interviewees turns were next searched for the presence of the pronouns we,you, and

they (and their respective forms); these words were also counted manually and tallied.4. Each of the downloaded texts was read in a line-by-line fashion in its entirety and scanned

for the presence ofIand its variations. Their occurrences in each text were counted manually

and tallied separately for later comparison and contrast purposes.

5. Tallies of the previously mentioned personal pronouns were verified by means of a

computer-driven analysis provided by the website

(Friedman 2004).

6. All the previously mentioned personal pronouns were finally represented in tables for ease

of reference, comparison, and inferences for the overall analysis and discussion (Appendices

G and H).

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N.B: Steps 2 through 6 were undertaken to answer Research Question One concerning the

dominant speaker roles that the political figure here selected tended to take up in the data at

hand.

7. The semantic functions of the pronoun I deployed in the Interviewees turns were

identified and categorized according to the identity type that he tended to project.8. This last step was taken up with regard to the Court Address text here chosen.

N.B: Steps 7 through 8 were undertaken to answer Research Question Two concerning the

values assigned by means of the pronoun I as well as the potential identities that may be

hidden behind it.

All the steps taken together provide a useful foundation to be able to answer the third and

last Research Question concerning the selected political figures representation of his own

self (and the Other).

9. The sources of the examples are coded in the following format: [HTI], [ACA], where thecapital letters respectively correspond to the HARDtalkInterview and the Amsterdam Court

Address.

10. The pronouns I was chosen for this study because of its centrality in the presentation of

speaker role and self in (political) text and talk discourses. References to the rest of the

person pronouns are included in the analysis only when they occur as part of a sequence of

pronouns showing the representation of self (and other).

3.2 Conceptual Frameworks of Analysis:

The present investigation will address the Research Questions stated in Section 1.3 by

adopting a complementarily quantitative and qualitative approach. The analysis and

discussion of the three questions will rest on the analytical frameworks selected for our

purpose and draw on our personal interpretation and knowledge of the broader socio-political

contexts of the data at hand.

The study looks into the selected political figuress speaker roles according to Goffmans

1981 model of Speaker and the subsequent effects of such roles on his representations of

self and the Other beside the elaboration of his ethno-political bends under the light of

the conceptof discursive representation and legitimization (Drew et al. 2006: 357; van Dijk

1993a: 264, 1993b, 2000c).

The first theoretical framework, we believe, is very useful in helping distinguish, categorize

and, subsequently, quantify the various speaker roles that the political figure here chosen

visibly inhabited; the second in making it possible to get closer to the heart of the selected

texts and see the identities, power, and ideology that hid behind pronominal uses and

selections. Taken together, the two theoretical frameworks will, hopefully, allow the study to

yield quantitatively-, and qualitatively-supported interpretations of the poly-selves that the

political figure in question apparently wished to stage-manage (Goffman 1959) in the

encounters here selected, and move the investigation from a purely linguistic discursiveanalysis level to a broader pragmatic/rhetorical one, in which the choice of the political figure

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in our case of the personal pronouns is symbiotically related to the speaker roles taken up

throughout.

The most salient features of each of these analysis frameworks are provided in the sub-

sections to follow.

3.2.1 Goffmans 1981 concept of Speaker roles:

In his seminal 1979/1981 paper, Footing, Erving Goffman (19221982) criticizes the

simplistic concepts of speaker and hearer widely used in approaches to the study of

language and communication. He observes that the complexities of the participation

framework1 for communication take us beyond a notion of everyday communication as

interaction between two unitary entities: sender and receiver.

Insofar as the notion of speaker2 is concerned, Goffman points out that speakers in the

course of any instance of natural conversation constantly change the footing 3of their talk. In

so doing, they may at any one time be subsuming the roles of animator, figure, author,and/or principal of their utterance, as defined in Goffman (1981)s own terms:

a- Animator:

In canonical talk, one of the two participants moves his lips up and down to the

accompaniment of his own facial (and sometimes bodily) gesticulations, and words can beheard issuing from the locus of his mouth. His is the sounding box in use, albeit in some

actual cases he can share this physical function with a loudspeaker system or a telephone. Inshort, he is the talking machine, a body engaged in acoustic activity, or, if you will, an

individual active in the role of utterance production. He is functioning as an "animator" (144).

b- Author:

[S]omeone who has selected the sentiments that are being expressed and the words in which

they are encoded (ibid).

c- Principal:

[S]omeone whose position is established by the words that are spoken, someone whose beliefs

have been told, someone who is committed to what the words say (ibid).d- Figure:

A person who belongs to the world that is spoken about, not the world in which the speaking

occurs (147).

According to these definitions, the speaker will always play the role of the animator since

he/she is the one who produces the utterance. However, unless he/she is expressing his /herown ideas with his /her words, the principal or author can be someone else.

1The notion of participation frameworks was introduced by Erving Goffman (1974, 1981) to refer to the way in

which any utterance in conversation furnishes a certain range of possibilities for recipients to situate themselvesin relation to the speaker. For instance, the way in which an utterance is phrased may enable a hearer to situate

themselves as its direct target, an indirect addressee, an overhearer, and so on.

2 Goffmans decomposition of the speaker is theorized in tandem with the hearers involvement, and the set ofrelations between all participants and the current speaker is called the participation framework (1981).

3In Goffman 1981's usage, a change of footing implies a change in the alignment we take up to ourselves and

the others present as expressed in the way we manage the production or reception of an utterance. (128).

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Taken all four together, the above different production formats, as Goffman argues, can be

considerably telling not only about the speakers stance towards the very proposition that

he/she utters at some point of the conversation but also about aspects of his or her self,

values, and posture vis--vis their co-interactants and the audience (ibid: 145). In contrast,

however, it is the third distinction (i.e., principal) that indicates the speakers creation of

images of involvement, trustworthiness, authenticity, and ultimate responsibility in the courseof interaction, in the legalistic sense of the terms. Equally, it is this very distinction that helps

account for the speakers intentionality underlying a given utterance: the belief or epistemic

commitment underlying an assertion, the desire or deontic commitment underlying a

command, the feeling or expressive commitment underlying an exclamation, and so on

(Kockelman 2004: 127150; Dontcheva-Navratilova 2009). It is for this reason that

speakers/writers very often resort to such small cues as I suppose, Ithink, Ibelieve,Ihope,

may, and couldto convey a sense of intimacy or distance regarding their own utterances and

propositions. Trustworthiness can be severely damaged by these small cues, something that

analyses of discourse may reveal.

3.2.2 Discursive representation and legitimization:

The present sub-section is divided into two parts which concern the examination of terms

discursive representation and discursive legitimization.

3.2.2.1Discursive representation:

Discursive Representation refers to the language used in a text or talk to assign

conceptualizations of the self and of the other especially, at the levels of membership

categories and associated defining properties (who are we? who are others? what do others

call us?, [] how do X usually act?) (Drew etal. 2006: 357).

As inquiries into such conceptualizations reveal, speakers/writers prefer to describe

themselves in positive terms, following a well-known interactional and sociocognitive

strategy to manage the impression on ones interlocutors (see, for instance, Goffman 1959).

As van Dijk (2005: 76) maintains, the speakers/writers quest for making a good impression

is particularly important in political discourse given the fact that any wrong presentation of

Self is a very serious faux pas may most evidently be exploited by the media, political

opponents, asnd the audience at large who are critically listening and/or hearing.

According to van Dijk (1993a: 264), such conceptualizations may be achieved through the

following fundamental six rhetorical strategies:

Rhetorical strategies Exponents

a Argumentation: Argumentation: the negative evaluation follows from the facts

b Rhetorical figures: Hyperbolic enhancement of their negative actions and our positive

actions; euphemisms, denials, understatements of our negativeactions

c Lexical style: Choice of words that imply negative (or positive) evaluations

d Storytelling: Telling above negative events as personally experienced; giving

plausible details above negative features of the events

e Structural emphasis of their

negative actions:

For instance, in headlines, leads, summaries, or other properties of text

schemata (e.g. those of news reports), transactivity structures ofsentence syntax (e.g. mentioning of negative agents in prominent,

topical position)

f Quoting credible witnesses, For example, in news reports

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sources or experts:

Table 3: Strategies of discursive representation of Other (van Dijk 1993a: 264)

Inherent in this type of discursive practice is the (political) speakers/writers creation of his

or her positive image of self by contrasting it with a model, stereotyped negative image of

other. According to Van Dijk (2000c), this may be achieved by applying the following fourbasic principles:

Emphasize positive things about Us.

Emphasize negative things about Them.

De-emphasize negative things about Us.

De-emphasize positive things about Them (44).

As inquiries into the representation of the Other(s) reveal, the Other is represented in terms of

socio-cultural differences, deviation from dominant norms and values (van Dijk 1998: 15-

16). In virtually all cases, the Other is focused upon as a menace to our most cherished

material and symbolic resources: territory, nationality, neighbourhood, space, income,housing, work, language, religion, welfare and so on (Ibid).

3.2.2.2 Discursive legitimization:

Discursive legitimization is a crucial component of political communication Chilton (2004).

It refers to a social act of attributing acceptability to social actors, actions and social

relations within the normative order (Rojo and Van Dijk 1997: 560).. It stands for creating

a sense of positive, beneficial, ethical, understandable, necessary, or otherwise acceptable

action in a specific setting (Vaara and Tienari [2008:3] citing van Dijk 1998; van Leeuvan

and Wodak 1999)

Delegitimization, on the other hand, involves negative representations of others (such as

political opponents). Some techniques of delegitimzation include the use of ideas of

difference and boundaries, and speech acts of blaming, accusing, insulting, etc. (Chilton

2004: 46).

Legitimization and delegitimization are closely connected with representation. As Chilton

(2004) points out, delegitimization can manifest itself in acts of negative other-

[re]presentation, while legitimization may involve positive self-[re]presentation (47).

Drawing on van Leeuvans earlier work on the Grammar of Legitimation, van Leeuvanand Wodak (1999, cited in Vaara and Tienari 2008:6) distinguish four general ways in which

language functions and is used for the construction of legitimacy authorization,

rationalization, moral evaluation, and mythopoesis. The legitimation of each of these

semantic-functional strategies, as Table 4 shows, is conveyed via specific references and

Legitimation strategies Legitimation by reference to

a Authorization the authority of tradition, custom, law, and persons in whom institutional authority

of some kind is vested.

b Rationalization the utility of specific actions based on knowledge claims that are accepted in a

given context as relevant.

c Moralization specific value systems that provide the moral basis for legitimation.

d Mythopoesis the building of stories, narrative structures or myths to indicate how a given issuerelates to the past or the future.

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Table 4: Legitimation strategies (van Leeuvan and Wodak (1999, cited in Vaara and Tienari 2008:6)

means. Their individual relevance naturally depends on the setting in question and their

utmost effectiveness very often relies on the speakers/writers skill in intertwining them all

into a multiple legitimation product in specific talk and texts.

Representation and legitimization are central to some forms of critical discourse analysis

(CDA) (van Dijk, 1993a, 1993b). Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is an interdisciplinary

approach to the study of discourse that views language use as social practice, with language

users not operating in isolation, but in a social and cultural framework (Fairclough and

Wodak 1997). Taking the social context into account, the said approach explores how social

realityincluding, notably, social power abuse, dominance and inequalityis enacted,

reproduced and resisted by the discursive practices in social institutions and everyday life

(van Dijk 1998:1). In so doing, the framework of analysis in question provides us with

rather powerful, while subtle and precise, insights to pinpoint the everyday manifestations

and displays of social problems in communication and interaction (Van Dijk 1985: 7)

This chapter included sections concerning the context of the study and the phases the research

was conducted in. It also provided information about the selected subject or politician, the

instruments used, the steps taken to collect the data, and, lastly, an overview of the

framewoks of analysis to be employed. What will follow are the results from the data analysis

along with the discussion about the findings.

4- Results for Research Questions and Discussion

The present, penultimate chapter aims to report and discuss the findings of this study. The

chapter is organised into two distinct parts: the first part will report and discuss the answers to

the reasearch questions posed in the Introductory Chapter; the second section will comment

on the merits and shortcomings of the analysis of data.here conducted. Results and

discussions will be presented for each individual research question separately.

4.1 Results for Research Questions and Discussion:

4.1.1 Initial Observations: Frequency of Personal Pronouns:

Personal Pronouns HARDTalk Court Address

First-person singular (Total: )

I 93 53

Me 14 14

My 20 19

Mine 00 01

Myself 00 00

First-person plural (Total: )

We 57 06

Us 01 01

Our 26 06Second-person (Total).

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You 45 03

Your 03 01

Yours 01 00

Third-person singular (Total).

He 02 00

Him 00 00

His 00 00She 00 00

Her 00 00

Third-person plural (Total).

They 08 02

Them 01 01

Their 01 01

Indefinite (Total).

One 00 02

Ones 00 00

Ones 00 00

Table 5: Frequency of personal pronouns in G.Wilderss discourse

Table 5 shows the selected political figures deployment of personal pronouns within his own

turns in the HARDtalk interview and across his final address to the Amsterdam Court. The

word count for the former text yields 127 occurences ofIand its variants, nil for One, 84

repetitions of We and its corresponding variations, and 29 pronominal and other indexical

referents to the subjectss self-declared (political) opponentsall out of a total 3, 403 words

which make up his own 98 turn allocations.

The latter text (i.e, the Court Address) comprises, for its part, 84 occurences ofI and its

various non-subject forms, two instances ofOne, 13 cases of We, Our, and Us all together,

five repetions ofYou and its variants, and four cases that pronominally and deictically refer to

G.Wilderss rivals (see Appendix G and H for a detailed count of the above-mentioned

pronouns and other deictic devices).

When normalized to occurrences per 10.000 words so as to allow eaisier comparability, the

above raw figures yield the following percentages:

G.Wilderssutterances in HARDTalk

(Word count: 3, 403)

G.WilderssCourt Address

(Word count:1, 191 )

Raw frequencies Normalized

frequencies

Raw frequencies Normalized

frequenciesPro

nouns/Frequencies

I &

Variants

127 37.5 84 24.8

We &

Variants

84 24.8 13 3.8

You &

Variants

49 1.4 05 0.1

One 00 00 02 1.5

He, They,

Others

29 8.5 04 1.1

Table 6: Raw and normalized scores of the pronouns used by G.Wilders in the HARDtalk Interview and Court

Address. Normalized scores are out of 10,000 words.

The above statics reveal a higher ratio of the first-person singular pronoun, in its subject and

non-subject forms alike, in the one-to-one HARDtalk interview and the one-way speech

address. This observation should, however, come as no surprise given the highly

confrontational nature of the television programme in question, on the one hand, and the

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utterly sensitive stakes in the court case, on the other, where Wilders had to defend his

standpoints, refute what he regarded as mere allegations, and convince his interlocutors and

audience at large with the legitimacy of his own cause.

It is worthwhile to notice here that the interview encounter frequencies and percentages,

when contrasted to the scriped textitself made up of as much as one-third of the total wordcount of Wilders utterances in the said interviewshould, more precicely, be read

approximately three times less than the figures mentioned in the summary tables above. The

numbers tend to be in stark opposition with the view that the use and deployment ofIand its

derivatives are to be expected in ostensibly lower rates in written texts (Maitland and Wilson

1987: 495-512).

5.2 Results- Research Question 1:

What preferential speaker roles did the political figure here selected tend to take on vis--vis

his I-prefaced statements in the data at hand?

The analysis of the data at hand was done partly in view of (a) identifying the roles that the

selected political figure tended to take on via the first-person singular pronoun and (b)

coming to terms with the kinds of rapport he would establish with own I-prefaced utterances.

A summary of this analysis is shown in Table 7 below:

Speaker roles

Sources: Author Principal Figure

HTI 25 98 1

ACA 23 28 03

Table 7:A frequency count of speaker roles in HTI and ACA texts

The results in both texts indicate a noticeably higher number ofprincipalspeaker roles, as

compared to the author and figure ones. These statistically significant differences may be

illustrated in these excerpts:

because everything what Ive just said happened in europe the danish werethreatened everything Ive said and europe was silent europe was weak europe was

thinking //Oh, comon, this is not my cup of tea and if I say something perhaps that

might happen to my country as well// we did nothing we were silent and it angered

me I thought I want to b-have some solidarity with the danish and I want to put avery strong signal that I adhere the most principal the most important right at least

in the dutch constitution which is the freedom of expression and I was so:: angeredby this-this cowardness of europe the only I saw also my own foreign minister mr.

bot but also mr. solana the one in charge from europe when it comes to foreignaffairs went to saudi arabia a country that doesnt even know how to spell

democracy let alone the freedom of speech=

Frequency counts: Author: 03 Principal:04 Figure: 01

Table 8:A frequency count of speaker roles (HTI: Turn 150)

I am here because of what I have said. I am here for having spoken. I have spoken,I speak and I shall continue to speak. Many have kept silent, but not Pim Fortuyn,

not Theo Van Gogh, and not I.

Frequency counts: Author:02 Principal:05 Figure: 00

Table 9:A frequency count of speaker roles (ACA: Sequence 02)

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The selected political leaders expression ofprincipalness, as evidenced in the sample

extracts above, is achieved, at many a point of the utterances, through the explicit use of

adverbial stance markersincluding, most notably, the word believe. This strategy was, in

our view, attributable to the subjects omnipresent attempts at giving the interviewer, TV

viewers, and political partisans and opponents alike a strong impression that he did meanwhat he saidto such an extent that he could willingly be held responsible for the content of

the propositions he was advancing (Goffman 1981).

In the case of the Court Address, the display of speaker principalness is not less conspicuous

with, perhaps, more dramatic effects given the fact that Wilders, now a defendant facing

imminent incarceration, need demonstrate continuous involvement and commitment towards

his statements and win the court memberssympathy with, and acceptance of, his standpoints.

The results presented just earlier are very much in accordance with recent (Bramley 2001) as

well as earlier (Goffman 1981) results and conclusions concerning the endeavour of

politicians to present themselves as predominantly inclined to take on authorand principalstances towards their discourse in lieu of mere animatororfigure ones.

Other findings concerning the subject politicians pragmatic usage ofI will be reported

during the course of answering the second research question.


What values would the selected political figure assign to the pronoun I in his I-initiated

statements?

Utterance: 04yes I believe unfortunately not only in the netherlands but the whole europe1 the whole western societies erm arein fact experiencing what huntington wrote down I believe quite correctly that in fact is a clash of civilization 2

and erm well that that it unfortunately the sense of urgency the sense of urge that we need in europe and in in mycountry the netherlands to really solve this problem and to win this so-called clash is not there yet

I-assigned values

1 An insider/ Someone who knows what he is talking about

2 A knower/ An assessor

Table 10: I-assigned values in one of Wilderss turn takings in the HARDtalk interview

Sequence: 02

I am here because of what I have said1. I am here for having spoken2. I have spoken3, I speak4 and I shallcontinue to speak5. Many have kept silent, but not Pim Fortuyn, not Theo Van Gogh, and not I6

I-assigned values

1 Awareness of the situation mixed with disbelief and indignation

2 Disbelief and indignation

3 Admission (as apposed to denial) of ones past deeds / Courage

4 Expression of current state of affairs/ Courage/ Unyielding

5 Determination/ Courage/ Resolution

6 Self-distance from those who have kept silent/ Affiliation with those who have NOT kept silent/

Affiliation with men of moral beliefs/ Man of courage, dignity and respect for oneself and ones beliefs

Table 11: I-assigned values in one of the sequences in Wilderss Court Address

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The extracts above, also taken from the HARDtalkand Court Address texts, give a glimpse

into the various values that the political figure in our case has assigned to his own first-person

singular pronouns.

A look into the interviewees I-prefaced utterances would, in fact, yield even more varied

value assignments than the ones in the above excerpts. The table to follow includes some ofthe most prominent values that Wilders was visibly very keen on assigning via the deictic I:

Turns I-assigned values Illustrations

48 Man of beliefs/ Man embracing

tolerance/ Man angered by a currentstate of affairs

Ive a belief that we have been too tolerant to be

intolerant

88 Defender of the Dutch families/Cautious/ Man unwilling to expose his

nation to Islamic bombers

I choose for the safety of the dutch families I choosefor the fact that I dont want to take the risk that

tomorrow in the metro of rotterdam one of these guysputs off a bomb or some (xxx)

178 A man not embracing hate this is not-this doesnt mean that I am- I hate islam this

is ridiculous180 A man of principles/ Man with no

racist viewsI am not a ra- [ no not at all

184

Politician whose viewpoints andvalues are shared by others

I believe that once again europe is also sharing ourvalues

Politician with a clear viewpoint and I believe turkey is a very nice country with very

nice people and I want to have very good relations withturkey

190 Defender of Holland and the rest of

Europe

I am not talking for my own country the netherlands

really has everyday

Man with beliefs/ Man with initiative

and solutions to problems

again I believe we will not become stronger but well

become wea:ker and if you want to be open for people

to come to our countries also from other cultures weshould first solve the enormous problems we have in

our country

196 Man o f initiative/Man with tolerant

beliefs/ Defender of tolerance

I try really to solve it then perhaps we get back to a

country where we can again become tolerant toeverybody

Table 12 Examples of I-assigned values in Wilderss turn takings in the HARDtalk interview

Insofar as the Court Address is concerned, the reader would most certainly notice the

reoccurrence of many of thevalues figuring in the table above. TheI-assigned values, and, by

extension, the I-constructed identities, selves, and personas, as Table 13 and Appendix F

amply testify, overlap at many a point. Here, through the same personal deixis, Wilders

depicts himself, more emphatically, not only as a politician who dearly values Dutch entity,

freedom of speech, Judao-Christian, Humanist traditions and concepts, tolerance, and human

rights but also as a pan-European leader who unrecedingly pursues a truly just anti-islam

cause.

Sequences Assigned values Illustrations

02 A person of deep-rooted convictionsand determination/ fighter for freedom

of opinion and speech

I am here because of what I have said. I am here forhaving spoken. I have spoken, I speak and I shall

continue to speak. Many have kept silent, but not PimFortuyn, not Theo Van Gogh, and not I.

09 A martyr of freedom of speech and

opinion/ A person ready to defend hiscountry at the expense of his own life

I am risking my life in defence of freedom in the

Netherlands.

20 A person epitomizing values of Acquit me, for if I am convicted, you convict the

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frredom of speech and opinion sharedby millions of compatriots

freedom of opinion and expression of millions ofDutchmen.

A person of principles/ A politician

with patriotic beliefs

Acquit me. I do not incite to hatred. I do not incite to

discrimination. But I defend the character, the identity,the culture and the freedom of the Netherlands. That is

the truth.A person speaking the truth and

nothing but the truth

A person of principles/with a mission/

with a predestined cause

I say: Here I stand, I can do no other.

Table 13: I-assigned values in one of the sequences in Wilderss Court Address

It is worthy to bear in mind that while the values assigned in the interviewees turn

allocations are being built more or less spontaneously as the interview progresses, their

counterparts in the speech address are arguably thought of priori, balanced and

counterbanced for the sake of seamless self-control and absence of self-incrimination, and

finalized as a piece of discourse where hisI-prefaced statements will only present the positive

sides of his personality and political leanings (Maitland and Wilson 1987: 459-512; van Dijk

1993a, 1993b, 1997). The successive Is in Sequences 2, 5, 12, 20, 21, and 25 typicallyexemplify such a pre-contrived, non-improvised way of producing written discourse. They

also betray the speech writers covert intention for visualzing the selected politician as

someone who readily admits his past deeds, who courageously affirms his present

determination to speak up his mind, and who will defiantly keep standing up for his mission

jusqu au boutirrespective of the looming threats of assassination ot the Courts final

verdict.

The above comments very much echo similar ones advanced in the literature,

notwithstanding the politico-ethnic specificities of the subject and context chosen for our

purposes (see Section 3.1.1 above). The dissimilarities lie essentially in the amounts of

writers/speakers show of principalness, which is more evidently displayed in our data.


What desired images of self would the selected political figure present via the use of other

personal pronouns in the texts here selected?

The presentations of self identified just ealier are not carried out exclusively through the

explicit use and deployment of first-person singular pronoun, though. The deixis I, being

either overtly part and parcel ofwe (and its non-subject forms) or inderectly embedded in the

the generic you, is, in the long run, not without strong connection with the third-person

pronoun he and they, be they both in subject or otherwise form. As the extracts in thefollowing tables illustrate, our subject additionally presents himself as a person with

Turns Desired images of self via we and its

variants

Illustrations

14 A nation with democratic principles our democratic principles

32 A nation subjected to Islamic danger/

People facing imminent loss of

selfhood

if we dont see what kind of islam wants to do to our

western society were losing our societies we are losing

our countries

166 A nation in trouble with the pure andradical islam

we have a problem with the pure and radical islam

we have to face up to this problem

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190 A nation subjected to Islamic danger/People facing danger of weakness and

defeat in the face of enemy

if we dont face up to to the problems that themulticultural societies in europe and I am not talking

for my own country the netherlands really has everydayagain I believe we will not become stronger but well

become wea:ker

People facing enormous problems with

foreigners

we should first solve the enormous problems we have

in our country with people from non-western countries196 A nation of tolerance, justice, and

equality in essence

we get back to a country where we can again become

tolerant to everybody

Table 14:Desired images of self via we and its variants in G. Wilderss discourse

Turns Desired images of self via you Illustrations

118 People from Islamic background ascriminals

ye::s indeed if people commit a crime and they do itagain and they do it again for the third time then at the

end of the day I would say that if you have a dutch

national a double nationality for instance you are amoroccan and a dutch and we will have to strip from

you the dutch nationality and send you away136 People from Islamic background as

responsible for womens slavery,

segregation and isolation

if you wear a burka in holland you will get no dutchfriends you will get no job you will not become

independent and you will be therefore be unsuccessfulin the dutch society

190 People from Islamic background as asource of socio-political insecurity

if you want to be open for people to come to ourcountries also from other cultures we should first solve

the enormous problems we have in our country

Table 15:Desired images of self via you in G. Wilderss discourse

Turns Desired images of self via they and its

variants

Illustrations

10 A growing danger and menace

worldwide/

they are a minority of the muslims in the world and

they are a minority that is growing and a minority andthat is endangering everything we stand for

74 Murder / Terrorism/ unleashed terror in holland there are a few hundred terrorists radical

islamists that are walking through the street=peoplelike mohammed bouyeri who killed theo van gogh

178 Out-of-place/foreigners/ with non-Dutch values and standards/ lack of

education/ often going to crime

90% of them come from countries like morocco andturkey with a totally different culture a different

background and lack of education often go to crime

190 A very heavy burden to Dutch tax-

payers/ Useless

they are three four times more dependent on social

security

Table 16:Desired images of self via they and its variants in G. Wilderss discourse

democratic beliefs, a person with tolerant views, a politician with a just cause and mission, to

mention but a few.

The repeated shifts fromI to we, as could be noted at many a point of the texts at hand serves

the strategic pragmatic function of getting the speaker/writer to be seen not as an individual

on his own or by himself but, on the contrary, as someone whose ideas, fears, concerns, and

personality traits are shared by others within the same frame of reference. The desired,

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subsequent effects are multi-party inclusion, involvement, and sharing (Suleiman 1999: 401-

24).

In contrast with many politicians strategic uses ofwe, the we in Wilderss discourse at hand

does not, in our view, filter out any signs of evasiveness or attempts at dodging principalness

in the Goffmanian sense of the term. To the contrary, this very pronoun, as he makes use ofit, both resonate and consolidate theI-induced values and presentations of self stated earlier;

it also serves the function of construing many different selves whose essence and ideals are

shared in pairs, groups, and larger communities adhering to the very anti-Islam philosophy he

professes.

The usages of third-person deictics occur in a rather different way. The strategy is not unique

to G.Wilders, though. The technique is to present the Other to the intended lister/reader from

a negative perspective and to get him/her see the speaker/reader from a totally opposed angle

(Van Dijk, Op.Cit). Thus, the values that the politician in our case assigns to the third-person

pronouns and consequently constructs for his political rivals are intrinsically meant to to tell

about what and who he is not. As Table 16 and Appendices E and F make this point moreconcrete, he presents himself as an intransigent fighter for freedom of speech, democratic

values, religious tolerance, ethnic co-existence, and womens emancipation and civil rights in

Holland and elsewherejust what and who his opponents, as he depicts them, are

diametrically not.

The Section to follow will briefly comment on the merits and limitations of the analysis

carried out here.

4.2 Commentary:Merits and Caveats of the Analysis

4.2.1 Merits:

The quantitatively-driven analysis approach that we have proposed here is interesting at many

a level.

Results revealed that, by the mere use of the first-person singular pronoun, the political leader

here selected (and, arguably, any other accomplished politician with sufficient awareness

about the pragmatic effects of personal pronouns) was able to signal preferred speaker roles

and project different but inter-complementary values and selves. In so doing, he managed

quite successfully to give strong hints as to the ways he preferred to position himself inrelation to his views, addressees, and overhearing political rivals and enemies.

Results also yielded that the unveiled roles and identities were heavily dependent not only on

the overall context of situation (including time, place, participants, nature and intended aims

and goals of the ongoing involvement of the conversation and/or scripted text) but also,

surprisingly enough, on the very clauses within the same stretch of turn allocation and text

sequence. The identities in their entirety did not come, as it was revealed, in one single block,

as it were.Instead, they kept emerging one by one in a consecutive, non-contrived manner as

the discourse went on unfolding in the case of the interview, or as G.Wilders (or his speech

writer) had intentionally wanted them to be disclosed beforehand in the case of the Court

Address text. In either case, the multiplicity of selves accounted for in the previous Chaptershared the same core characteristic: they were discursively constructed and conveyed. This is

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very much in line with the social Constructionist perpective whereby identities are best

regarded as constructed within, not outside, discourse and understood as produced in

specific discursive formations and practices by specific enunciatively strategies (Hall and de

Gay 1996: 4).

Closely in connection with the above analysis outcomes, it was revealed that I seldomoccurred without a stance marker or a personal pronoun in its very proximitythus, making

it possible for the I-assigned values, stances, and identities to be highlighted, compared, and

juxtaposed to those generated via such pronouns as we, you, he, and they (see Section 5.4).

This, again, validates the point that a look into the workings of such seemingly apolitical

pronoun deictics asIwill indeed show how G.Wilders uses it to his own advantage in order

to express what he believes in, to reiterate his allegiance to his party line, to voice his anger

with, and frustration about, other political adversaries, and, last but not least, to establish

intratextuality, as is more evident in the written speech.

4.2.2 Caveats:

Despite the numerous advantages it has presented, the data analysis is not, unfortunately,

without a few rather severe weaknesses.

For one thing, the analysis is flawed by stopping short from providing an extensive

interpretation of the various inferences regarding the pronoun-generated values and identities

identified in the course of the investigation. As a result, many of the selected politicians self-

and Other-representations were left, for the most part, not linked to the higher-level features

of Hollands mosaic society, politics, power relations, ideologies, and cultural values, which

constitutes a very critical foible in the opinion of Critical Discourse analysts (Fairclough

1995: 23).

While acknowledging the seriousness of this shortcoming, we would like to draw attention to

the fact that a component of analysis of that type, however informative it may prove, was

decided, on purpose, not to be a part of the reseach aims from the very outset; a step down

this avenue, it was feared, would jeopardize our line of objectivity and violate the readers

integrity with some comments that they might judge prescriptivistic or, even, polarizing.

Secondly, the analysis may be found fault with for not providing any contrast between the

strategic uses ofIby the interviewee and his host, S.Sackur, as if wishing to suggest that the

guests deployment of this and other pronouns were undertaken within a monologic setting.

That criticism is legitimate to a great extent. A comparison-and-contrast exploration into thepragmatic usages ofIby the two interlocutors was initially contemplated by the researcher.

However, it was finally thought not particularly necessary after realizing the rather limited

number ofI-initiated utterances on the part of the programme host in question. The quasi-

absence of the first-person singular pronoun and its variations in the interviewers turn

allocations remains, nonetheless, worth exploring in its own right and will require a separate

study.

Thirdly, the analysis may very well come under attack for not including enough materials or

texts for further pattern-finding and triangulation. The weakness of that criticism lies in its

very strength. The purpose of the present study was not to establish patterns of the usages of

the personal pronoun under investigation across very many text settings and genres, althoughthis may have undoubtedly been more comprehensive in scope (see Bramley 2001, for

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instance, for a line of approach of this kind). The quest for coming to terms with the uses and

effects ofI and its counterpart pronouns does not necessitate a large corpus; it could be

achieved by examing a single text or even a short extract from a larger text.

Last but not least, the analysis may be prone to open criticism for its exclusive dependence on

a quantitative approach to accounting for the realization of Self and Other in the data at hand.The validity of this criticism could not have been denied had we not already had an endless

plethora of studies in this avenue of research, where the qualitative approach is the

predominant one par excellence (Suleiman et al. 2002: 269-87). The present study was

therefore deliberately carried out in line with current quantitatively-driven investigations.

5- Conclusion

This chapter concludes this research study by reflecting on the whole dissertation. It will give

a summary of the major findings discussed in Chapter 4 and the implications of these

findings. It will then describe the limitations of the present study and, finally, offer some

suggestions as to the directions which future research might take.

5.1 Summary of Major Findings:

As mentioned earlier, previous studies of political, media discourse showed the considerably

great impact of the first-person singular pronoun on politicians expression of standpoints and

agendas. This study

presenting self via the pronoun “i” in public discourse=the case of the dutch member of...

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