• The Conference
  • Home
  • Programme
  • Venue & directions
  • Organizing Committee
  • Scientific Committee
  • Exhibitors & sponsors
  • Satellite events
  • Conference Party
• Past & future
  • Previous symposia
  • Finland 2014
  • Spain 2016
• About FU Berlin
  • University homepage
  • Humanities at FU

Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 974

Part of General Paper Session (Other abstracts in this session)

Tim(ing) is of the Essence: The Construction of Political Identity in U.S. Presidential Primary Debates

Authors: Sclafani, Jennifer (1,2)
Submitted by: Sclafani, Jennifer (Georgetown University, United States of America)

Recent work on language and identity has emphasized the situated, emergent, relational, and ideological aspects of individual and group identity construction, focusing on constructs such as “stance” and “style” as a means for connecting micro-level linguistic strategies with intermediate-level aspects of social engagement and macro-level social structures (Bucholtz and Hall 2005, Eckert and Rickford 2001, Englebretson 2007, Jaffe 2009). While such perspectives provide a solid contribution to sociolinguistic theory in their consideration of the scale and scope of the indexical potential of sociolinguistic variables (e.g. Eckert 2008, Irvine and Gal 2000), issues of temporality – including both timing and the representation of time – and their effect on the discursive construction of identity have been less systematically theorized, especially outside the study of narrative. 

This study considers issues of temporality in the construction of political identity by closely investigating a segment of a 2011 U.S. primary presidential debate, in which seven candidates vying for the Republican Party nomination perform the speech act of personal introductions. Introductions have been shown to be constrained temporally and conventionally by local factors and generic norms (e.g., Myers 2006), and are an important feature in establishing a relationship with one’s audience in public discourse. Taking into account the mediated nature of nationally televised debates, which involves a complex, spatially dispersed, and temporally displaced audience, candidates’ introductions must involve an intricate interweaving of interpersonal alignments or footings (Goffman 1981). Embedded in these footings, candidates must present a coherent self by indexing temporal links between past and present (Duranti 2006), while simultaneously casting themselves as a viable candidate in the general election, hence indexing temporal links between present and future.

 Employing multiple analytical perspectives, including pragmatics, conversation analysis, interactional sociolinguistics, and multimodal discourse analysis, this study investigates both the effect of timing and the representation of past, present, and future time on the discursive construction of a personal political identity. It adds to the body of work on political discourse by focusing on what is usually considered the least “political” aspect of political debates and demonstrating that introductions in fact play an important role in establishing distinctions and oppositions among candidates with similar political views. The analysis also deconstructs the notion of audience in the increasingly mediated environment of televised and socially networked political discourse. Finally, this study demonstrates that tim(ing) must be considered from multiple analytical perspectives in order to understand the role that temporality plays in political identity construction.