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Article published In: Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 23:2 (2024) ► pp.239–260

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“Does being pretty help?”

The use of negation in debut interviews with female Israeli politicians

ORCiD logo with link | David Yellin College of Education
ORCiD logo with link | Achva Academic College
Published online: 27 November 2023
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.22093.coh
Abstract
The article analyzes debut interviews of female Israeli politicians, in which the interviewees are faced with questions or statements that imply that their gender, ethnicity or background prevent them from fulfilling their function as politicians successfully, in accordance with the “Gendered mediation thesis” (Goodyear-Grant, Elizabeth. 2013. Gendered News: Media Coverage and Electoral Politics in Canada. Vancouver Toronto: UBS Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). We focus on the interviewees’ responses to these questions, and particularly on how grammatically negative utterances are deployed in the service of coping with the presuppositions directed at them. The analysis indicates that the negative utterances do not carry the full weight of rejection of implied presuppositions. Moreover, in some cases negative utterances are used by the speakers as part of a hedging strategy. By describing the role of negation in debut interviews of female Israeli politicians, the paper aims to advance a more comprehensive understanding of linguistic patterns used by women, and other silenced groups, to cope with biased representation.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
    • 2.1Female Politician Biased Representation
    • 2.2Presuppositions and Negation
    • 2.3Challenges in Interviews
  • 3.Methodology
  • 4.Analysis
    • 4.1Category A – Partial acceptance of the presupposition
    • 4.2Category B – Denying the Presupposition
  • 5.Discussion and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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