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‘I did it for the nation’: Repertoires of intent in televised political discourse
Author(s) -
Dickerson Paul
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
british journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.855
H-Index - 98
eISSN - 2044-8309
pISSN - 0144-6665
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8309.1998.tb01185.x
Subject(s) - perspective (graphical) , ideology , politics , context (archaeology) , repertoire , discourse analysis , sociology , epistemology , discursive psychology , social psychology , psychology , linguistics , political science , computer science , law , history , philosophy , physics , artificial intelligence , acoustics , archaeology
Previous approaches to understanding intention talk have often operated within the account giving perspective—which has developed taxonomies of various exonerating utterances—the efficacy of which some researchers have attempted to measure. While potentially useful, this approach has sought generalized principles at the expense of exploring the details of talk and the context in which it occurs. This paper has employed a discursive perspective in the analysis of six extracts which refer to ‘the national interest’ drawn from a pool of examples of politicians' televised discourse broadcast in the UK and the USA between March 1992 and May 1996. The analysis illustrates that ostensibly similar extracts which each draw upon the repertoire of ‘the national interest’ can, on close inspection, be seen to accomplish a number of diverse functions which may be interaction orientated, such as exoneration and blaming or ‘ideological’—constructing political reality in a particular way. It also highlights the way in which talk about ‘the national interest’ has to orientate towards potential challenges regarding both the truth and the desirability of the sentiments it expresses. Thus, the paper argues that a discursive perspective can reposition intention talk as an issue which participants orientate to, and that it is through an exploration of detail and context that the functions of such talk and its embededness in interactional sequences can be best appreciated.