Pronominal Choice as an Interpersonal Strategy

Abstract

This paper offers a review of the main aspects of address theory and examines the main interpersonal strategic functions of terms of address. In order to illustrate these issues I have chosen some examples from political discourse. Specifically, I selected three political interviews which took place around the same time (21st April 2003, 16th November 2003 and 30th May 2004), and with the same worldwide conflict in the background (the Iraqi war), but which featured three different interviewees of three different nationalities. Nonetheless, these interviewees share a common characteristic: they held the highest political office in their countries at the time. These interviewees are: Mr. José M. Aznar (President of Spain), Mr. George W. Bush (President of the USA) and Mr. Tony Blair (Prime Minister of the UK). I will try to relate the choice of specific pronominal references to the pragmatic nature of the questions being asked. For this purpose, I will borrow the terms “CC (communicative conflict) question” and “equivocation” from Bavelas, Black, Chovil and Mullett (1990)