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Cultural standing in expression of opinion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 April 2004

CLAUDIA STRAUSS
CLAUDIA STRAUSS
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Pitzer College, 1050 N. Mills Avenue, Claremont, CA 91711, [email protected]
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Abstract

This article explores an underappreciated pragmatic constraint on the expression of opinions: When expressing an opinion on a topic that has been previously discussed, a speaker should correctly indicate the cultural standing of that view in the relevant opinion community. This Bakhtinian approach to discourse analysis is contrasted with conversation analysis, politeness theory (Brown & Levinson, 1987), and analysis of epistemic modality. Finally, indicators of four points on the cultural standing continuum (highly controversial, debatable, common opinion, and taken for granted) are illustrated with examples from American English usage.I am grateful for helpful comments from Jane Hill and two anonymous reviewers for Language in Society as well as Justin Beck, Paul Ireland, Ronald Macaulay, Naomi Quinn, Daniel Segal, James Van Cleve, other students in Methods of Discourse Analysis (spring 2001) and Language and Power (spring 2003), and other colleagues who commented on the paper when I presented it at Pitzer College in February 2000.

Keywords

Opinion displaydiscourse analysisargumentationhedgesmodalitywelfare discourse
Type
Research Article
Information
Language in Society , Volume 33 , Issue 2 , April 2004 , pp. 161 - 194
Copyright
© 2004 Cambridge University Press

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