Topics in Linguistics - Issue 13 – June 2014
DOI: 10.2478/topling-2014-0002
“I Feel a Deep Sense of Responsibility for the
People we have Hurt...” – Explicit Stance
Attribution in Crisis Communication Contested
Edyta Rachfał
Państwowa wyższa szkoła wschodnioeuropejska w przemyślu, Poland
Abstract
The theme of crisis, and consequently of crisis response, has been extensively studied within
the disciplines of crisis communication (see Rachfał (2013a) for an overview of crisis
communication as an independent academic discipline and its place among other allied subdisciplines of public relations) and public relations with the aim of protecting organisations or
reducing the damage caused by a crisis episode (Fediuk, Pace and Botero, 2010). Nowadays,
with the growing recognition of crisis response as persuasive communication there is a need
for an interdisciplinary approach which would help researchers understand the effects that
crisis messages have on the perceptions and behaviours of stakeholders. Therefore, this
paper seeks to bridge the aforementioned disciplines and examines crisis from the
perspective of linguistics. Thus, it analyses grammatical stance-marking devices (Biber, et
al., 1999), which might provide insights into how speakers manipulate linguistic resources
for persuasive purposes. The paper focuses on explicit stance attribution and explores how
the first-person plural pronoun we is used in crisis response to alter the stakeholders’
perceptions concerning people and events. The analysis draws on statements issued in 2011
by people in top public positions in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal at the News of
the World.
Keywords
Crisis, crisis communication, crisis response, grammatical stance-marking devices, stance
attribution, first-person plural pronoun we, ambiguity, phone-hacking scandal.
Introduction
When I first became interested in the theme
of crisis I found that it was studied both by
several allied disciplines within public
relations and also by a range of independent
disciplines, among which Ulmer, Sellnow and
Seeger (2011, p.15) enumerate psychology,
sociology,
business,
mathematics and
physics, and political science. Each discipline
has worked out several theories which have
fed crisis communication with valuable
insights. Table 1 below is an extended
version of Ulmer, Sellnow and Seeger’s
(2011, p.15) table and it features the
disciplines and the concomitant theories.
The variety of disciplines notwithstanding, I
was struck by the fact that the field whose
name so explicitly indicates the imparting of
information to people by the primary
medium of language had so little to do with
the linguistic analysis, instead finding such
disciplines as, e.g. political science or
mathematics and physics, nourishing. And
so, the need for a thorough linguistic
analysis of the texts that emerge in
connection with crises occurred to me.
Table 1: Academic disciplines contributing
to understanding of risk and crisis
communication (Ulmer, Sellnow and
Seeger, 2011, p.15)
Discipline
Psychology
Theory contribution
Mental models approach to risk
and crisis communication
Social amplification of risk and
crisis perceptions
(they provide insights into how
Unauthenticated
Download Date | 6/16/17 8:11 PM
Topics in Linguistics - Issue 13 – June 2014
Sociology
Business
Mathematics &
Physics
Political Science
people cognitively perceive and
ultimately respond to crisis
events)
Disaster evacuation theory
Social response to disasters
Social and institutional networks
during disasters
(they deal with how to carry out
evacuations during disasters and
how people respond to these
disasters)
Organizational sensemaking
theory
Organizational learning theory
High reliability organizational
theory
(they examine sensemaking
processes of leadership during all
phases of crisis; the role of
organizational learning in
response to crisis &
organizational structures that
represent a crisis-prepared or
crisis-prone organization)
Chaos theory
Complexity theory
Sandpile/Self-organized criticality
theory
(they have been extensively used
in the field of communication as
metaphors for the disruption and
self-organization produced by
crisis events)
Policy change theory and
catastrophic disasters
Deep security theory
(they draw on complexity and
network theories for policymakers
to prepare and respond to crises
such as terrorism)
Over time, this initial inspiration crystallised
into interdisciplinary scholarly pursuits, a
small number of which this article presents.
It is based on an unpublished PhD
dissertation (Rachfał, 2013b) which provides
a detailed quantitative and qualitative
analysis
of
various
aspects
of
all
grammatical stance-marking devices (Biber,
et al., 1999) and links stance with face
(Goffman, 1967; Terkourafi, 2007), showing
how the former is used to perform facework
in crisis communication.
Admittedly, “crisis and disaster studies have
become increasingly popular as scholars
come to terms with the seminal nature of
these events” (Seeger, et al., 2005, p.78).
Nonetheless, until recently, with the notable
exception of the recent publication of
Discourse and Crisis. Critical perspectives
(De Rycker and Don, 2013), most of the
research into crisis has been done within the
field of crisis communication or public
relations and the theme has not as yet
earned much academic interest from
linguists. Therefore, this paper seeks to fill
the gap and explores speakers’ attempts to
alter stakeholders’ (i.e. any group of people
who can affect or be affected by the
behaviour of an organisation, or an
individual, in a crisis1) perceptions of crisis
events and people implicated in them, by
means of ambiguous use of linguistic
resources such as grammatical stancemarking devices (Biber, et al., 1999). Unlike
most studies within crisis communication,
and inspired by the Crisis Communication
Messages Model (CCMs model) (Fediuk, Pace
and Botero, 2010), the present analysis
draws on crisis messages rather than
strategies (Ware and Linkugel, 1973; Benoit,
1995; Coombs, 1995; Ulmer, Seeger and
Sellnow, 2007). Furthermore, it follows a
rhetorical approach to crisis (Heath and
Millar, 2004) which recognises its two
constitutive dimensions, i.e. the actual one
and the perceived one. Consequently, it
appreciates the fact that it is how
stakeholders assess the magnitude of a
crisis (rather than what it actually is) that
seems to have a decisive role in crisis
resolution.
Following this introductory section, which
provides a brief overview of the status quo
of the research on crisis, the article consists
of four more sections: 1 Data, 2 Theoretical
anchorage, 3 Analysis and discussion, and
finally, 4 Concluding remarks. The first
presents the overall composition of the
corpus, with detailed data arranged in the
form of a table. The second introduces Biber
et al.’s (1999) model of stance (2.1) and
focuses mainly on stance attribution and the
grammatical forms that make the attribution
of stance explicit (2.2). It winds up with a
sub-section (2.3) which features the author’s
argument that grammatical forms with the
first-person plural pronoun we cannot always
be considered as explicitly attributing stance
in crisis communication. Section 3 is
comprised of five sub-sections, the first of
which discusses clear, unambiguous cases of
the use of the first-person plural pronoun we
(3.1); the next three sub-sections (3.2-3.4)
identify different types of ambiguity that
stems from the use of this pronoun; and the
last one (3.5) provides a summary of the
core analysis. Finally, conclusions are drawn
on the basis of the analysis of the data
available.
Agle, Mitchell and Sonnenfeld (1999);
Bryson (2004).
1
Unauthenticated
Download Date | 6/16/17 8:11 PM
Topics in Linguistics - Issue 13 – June 2014
1. Data
The material for the present analysis
comprises texts (messages) which have
surfaced in the wake of the News
International phone-hacking scandal.2 The
texts in the corpus amount to approximately
11 000 words. The corpus has been divided
into two sub-corpora. The first one (C1)
consists of eleven resignation statements
and replies to resignation statements. It
amounts to 5 309 words. The other one (C2),
see Rachfał (2013a) for an overview of the
“News International Phone Hacking Scandal”.
2
consists of four statements which are neither
resignations nor replies to resignations but
were made as a direct consequence of the
scandal and they concern critical scandalmotivated decisions. C2 amounts to 5 650
words. All statements in the corpus (C1+ C2)
have been released by the people in senior
positions in the media, politics and the
police in the UK who were directly, or
indirectly, implicated in the events and they
were issued between 21 January 2011 and
20 July 2011. Table 2 below provides an
overall composition of the corpus.
Table 2: Overall composition of the corpus
Speaker ref. no
Speaker
1 [S1]
Andy Coulson
2 [S2]
David Cameron
3 [S4]
Rebekah Brooks
4 [S3]
James Murdoch
5 [S5]
Les Hinton
6 [S5]
Les Hinton
7 [S6]
Rupert Murdoch
8 [S7]
Robert Thomson
9 [S8]
10[S9]
Sir Paul Stephenson
John Yates
11[S10]
Theresa May
12 [S3]
James Murdoch
13 [S2]
David Cameron
14 [S6]
Rupert Murdoch
15 [S2]
David Cameron
Type of statement
Corpus 1
Resignation statement
Response to Coulson’s
resignation statement
Resignation statement
Response to Brooks’s
Resignation statement
Resignation statement
(to r murdoch)
Resignation statement
(to dow jones staff)
Response to Hinton’s
resignation statement
Response to Hinton’s
resignation statement
Resignation statement
Resignation statement
Response to police
officers’ statements
Sub-total
Corpus 2
Statement on closure of
NOW
Statement to the HC
On hacking scandal
Statement to
The cms committee
Statement to the HC
On hacking scandal
Sub-total
Total
2. Theoretical anchorage
2.1 Grammatical marking of stance: an
overview
Although Biber, et al. (1999) appreciate the
fact that people express stance meanings in
a variety of ways, including grammatical,
lexical, and paralinguistic, their approach
seeks to explore grammatical stance
marking
as
a
three-dimensional
phenomenon, i.e. 1) structural, 2) semantic,
and 3) that of attribution of stance.
Therefore, the first dimension focuses on
various types of structure that are used to
express
stance.
Those
structures
No. of words
Date
158
21.01.11
136
21.01.11
368
15.07.11
473
15.07.11
258
15.07.11
181
15.07.11
415
15.07.11
166
15.07.11
1 679
376
17.07.11
18.07.11
1 096
18.07.11
5 309
945
7.07.11
1 801
13.07.11
643
19.07.11
2 257
20.07.11
5 650
10 959
(grammatical stance-marking devices) have
been grouped into five sets: 1) Stance
adverbials, 2) Stance complement that- and
to- clauses, 3) Modals and semi-modals, 4)
Stance noun+ prepositional phrase, and
finally 5) Premodifying stance adverb (stance
adverb+
adjective/
another
adverb/
numeral).
Another dimension in stance is concerned
with the three major semantic distinctions
between the epistemic, attitudinal and style
of speaking stance. This level of analysis is
likely to reveal a wide range of personal
meanings expressed by speakers, spanning
both speakers’ comments on the status of
Unauthenticated
Download Date | 6/16/17 8:11 PM
Topics in Linguistics - Issue 13 – June 2014
the information in a proposition, i.e.
certainty (doubt), actuality, precision, or
limitations, and strictly attitudinal meanings,
as well as some information concerning style
of speaking (Biber, et al., 1999).
Finally, the approach provides structural
patterns of looking into the attribution of
stance and singles out three types: explicit,
implicit, and ambiguous attribution of
stance. Communicating stance and in
particular, attribution of stance invariably
involves presenting/ revealing self and its
relation to the audience – the other(s). It is
so, since as Fahnestock (2011, p.279)
argues, “[a]ttitudes and bids for alignment
are encoded in every language choice, and
the [speaker]’s presence and relation with
the audience are the unerasable ground of
all discourse”. Probing that ground can best
be done in English through examining the
use of first-, second- and third-person
pronouns. The article focuses solely on
explicit stance attribution and in particular,
it explores the ambiguity that arises from
the use of the first-person plural pronoun we
and how it is used to influence the
stakeholders’ perceptions of the crisis
events and people implicated in them.
2.2 Explicit stance attribution
To ascertain the force of any stance-marking
device, one needs to take into consideration
whose stance is represented by a given
stance marker. This brings us to the issue of
stance attribution and the systematic
relations between the grammatical form
chosen for stance markers and the extent to
which stance is attributed to the text
producer (Biber, et al., 1999, p.976). Apart
from implicit and ambiguous stance
attribution, which are beyond the scope of
this article, speakers may overtly attribute
stance to themselves.
The grammatical forms that make the
attribution of stance explicit include the
following: a) comment clauses, e.g. I got
lots of them, [I think].*3
b) I/we+ verb+ complement clause,
e.g. [I] [know] [that the whole House will
agree with me that (…)]
c) I/we+ be+ adjective+ complement clause,
e.g. [I] [am] [convinced] [they are the right
thing to do].
d) It+ verb/ adjective+ me/us+ extraposed
complement clause,
All examples have been taken from corpus
unless marked with (*). Square brackets [ ]
have been used for highlighting.
3
e.g. [It] [amazes] [me] [that they can just
stand on the street].*
e) My/our+ noun+ complement clause,
e.g. Earlier on this afternoon I informed the
Home Secretary, (…) [my] [intention] [to
resign as Assistant Commissioner of the
Metropolitan Police Service] (Biber, et al.,
1999, p.976).
Commonly, esp. in news and fiction, all the
above structures can be used with thirdperson pronouns, or full noun phrases to
show that stance is attributed explicitly to a
third party (Biber, et al., 1999).
2.3 Ambiguity in explicit stance
attribution
As evidenced above, according to Biber, et
al. (1999) all the structures with the firstperson plural pronoun we (with its
possessive and objective variants) are on a
par with first-person singular I in that they
show that the expression of stance is in both
cases attributed to the speaker. I would like
to argue that in the case of crisis
communication where the speakers quite
frequently tend to avoid responsibility and
apportion blame to other parties, or
purposefully turn what is expected to be an
apology for wrongdoing into an infelicitous
speech act compromised in a number of
ways (Kampf, 2009), we cannot be treated as
automatically marking the speaker’s stance,
although it certainly does in many cases.
There are instances, however, which the
analysis will expose, where the first-person
plural pronoun we serves as an escape route
which allows the speaker to downplay
his/her own presence among the pronoun
we
referents.
Consequently,
explicit
attribution of stance becomes a subtly
powerful tool used by speakers to minimise,
or on occasion avoid, commitment to the
truth of the propositions framed by the
stance.
3. Analysis and discussion
Following a short discussion of clear,
unambiguous use of the first-person
pronoun we in explicit stance attribution,
this section is now going to examine three
types of ambiguity in explicit stance
attribution which arise from speakers’
handling of the first-person plural pronoun
we.
3.1 Clear cases
The claim of explicitness of stance
attribution in grammatical structures with
the first-person plural pronoun we seems
Unauthenticated
Download Date | 6/16/17 8:11 PM
Topics in Linguistics - Issue 13 – June 2014
tenable when the referents of we are
unambiguously present in the audience’s
perception
(e.g.
by
means
of
anaphoric/cataphoric reference), as in the
following examples:
(1) My son and I have come here with
great respect for all of you, for
Parliament and for the people of Britain
whom you represent. This is the most
humble day of my career. After all that
has happened, I know we need to be here
today ([S6], statement to the CMS
Committee4).
(2) There will be a certain amount of
uncertainty in the coming days, but we
should all be clear that, as Dow Jones
journalists, we owe Les an enormous
and irredeemable debt ([S7], response to
Hinton’s resignation statement).
In both examples there seems to be little
doubt as to who else, apart from the
speaker, is the referent of the first-person
plural pronoun we and should be attributed
stance-marked in the above sentences and
expressed by the verbs: need (1) and should
(2). Thus, the referents of we in (1) are the
speaker and his son and in (2) the group of
referents includes the speaker and all Dow
Jones journalists. Similarly, the speaker in
example (3) below makes the referents of
the pronoun we relatively unambiguous
when he is saying the following:
(3) Last night the Deputy Prime
Minister and I met with the Leader of the
Opposition. And I also met with the
Chairs of the Culture Media and Sport,
Home Affairs, and Justice Select
Committees to discuss the best way
forward. Following these consultations, I
want to set out today how we intend to
proceed ([S2], statement to the HC on
hacking scandal).
In (3) stance expressed by the verb intend
which controls the to-complement clause
that follows, can be attributed to the Deputy
PM and the speaker himself (the British PM),
both men being the referents of the pronoun
we. Even if the group of referents turns out
to be larger and includes Cabinet members,
[S1,2,3,..., 10] stands for speakers whose
statements have been analysed. For details
on speakers and statements see Table 2
(Section 1).
4
generally
speaking,
we
most
likely
represents the people responsible for
decision-making at the governmental level in
the UK. Consequently, stance referring to
personal obligation and intention expressed
in examples (1), (2) and (3) can be explicitly
attributed to the speaker and other referents
who have been fairly unambiguously
introduced to the discourse. In this sense
Biber et al.’s (1999) claim that the
grammatical forms that make the attribution
of stance explicit include we-constructions
(2.2) appears to be fully grounded.
3.2 Ambiguous referents of the first
person plural pronoun we
Sub-sections 3.2-3.4 below identify three
sources of ambiguity which stems from the
use of the first-person plural pronoun we.
The ambiguity that arises makes the explicit
attribution of stance to the people
represented by the pronoun we increasingly
difficult, even though in each case the
speaker is an inevitable referent of the
pronoun. In the original statement example
(3) above has immediately been preceded by
the following one:
(4) Mr Speaker, we all want the same
thing: press, police and politicians that
serve the public ([S2], statement to the
HC on hacking scandal).
Here, it is ambiguous whose stance is being
conveyed by means of the stance verb want
in we all want. The determiner all (in post
position) is only apparently helpful as its
scope is broad enough to include: people in
the world, people in Europe, people in the
UK, Members of Parliament, the British
government, the audience, to name just a
few. Even if, as in (5) below, the speaker
narrows down the group of people denoted
by the pronoun we to the people
representing one institution (the Met), it still
remains ambiguous who exactly the speaker
means, e.g. those in top positions in the Met
(i.e. himself and John Yates, the Met’s
Assistant Commissioner – both directly
implicated in the crisis) or lower rank
officials, whose role in the crisis has never
surfaced as the subject of police inquiry. The
resolution of the matters connected with
pronoun representation is of considerable
importance,
especially
in
sensitive
discourses such as that of crisis response
where the circumstances require precise
apportioning of blame for the events in
order to commence the repair process.
Unauthenticated
Download Date | 6/16/17 8:11 PM
Topics in Linguistics - Issue 13 – June 2014
(5) We the Met cannot afford this – not
this year ([S8], resignation statement).
Therefore, the stance expressed by the
modal verb in (5) cannot be said to be
explicitly attributed as the referents of the
pronoun we are not clearly defined. Actually,
the speaker seems to be using the pronoun
we as a shield behind which he hides himself
and thus avoids taking full responsibility for
his decisions which have led to his
resignation. Instead, the speaker is trying to
justify his decision to step down as
Metropolitan Police Commissioner with the
well-being of the institution he represents
rather than his own, which reflects itself in
the pronoun used. Similarly, in examples (6)
and (7) stance is apparently explicitly
attributed to the group of people inclusive of
the speaker but only vaguely defined.
Consequently, stance expressed by will and
must loses its persuasive power as it is
hardly clear who obliges themselves to do
more.
(6) No one should be in any doubt we
will get to the bottom of the truth and
learn the lessons for the future ([S2],
statement to the HC on hacking scandal).
(7) Operation Elveden and Lord Justice
Leveson’s inquiry are charged with doing
just that, but I believe that we can and
must do more ([S2], statement to the HC
on hacking scandal).
There are numerous cases of apparently
explicit attribution of stance caused by the
ambiguous reference of the pronoun we.
This fact reflects what Lerman (1985) calls
the problem of dual identity which is present
in the speech of all public figures, whose I is
fused with a public role and addressed to a
mass audience, or, in other words, it reflects
“the discourse of the Institutional Voice, the
discourse of one who speaks in a dual role,
as an individual, who also represents (as the
journalists do) or personifies (as the
President may) an institution” (Lerman,
1985, p.185). She further claims that the
inherent paradoxes of what she dubs
Institutional identity “are most apparent in
non-trivial and public discourse, in which
serious propositions are asserted for which
the speaker is not responsible, or whose
propositional structure creates a level of
ambiguity which defies logical analysis”
(Lerman, 1985, p.185). Actually, all the
speakers in both sub-corpora represent
institutional identity, which is however, more
pronounced in C2 due to the nature of the
statements (Section 1). In C1, as it includes
resignation statements, an individual is
apparently
more
enhanced
than
an
institutional identity. With this in mind, it
would be quite a challenge to maintain the
claim concerning the explicitness of stance
attribution in cases like those above.
3.3 Ambiguous referents of the subject(s)
of the proposition(s) framed by stance
and expressed by means of the first
person plural pronoun we
Most
intriguing
however,
and
fairly
numerous across the analysed messages, are
the cases where stance is unambiguously
attributed to the speaker, but the subject(s)
of the proposition(s) framed by that stance
and expressed by means of the first person
plural pronoun we, has/have ambiguous
reference. Examples (8), (9) and (10) are
illustrative of this type of ambiguity.
(8) However, as Commissioner I carry
ultimate responsibility for the position
we find ourselves in. With hindsight, I
wish we had judged some matters
involved in this affair differently. I didn’t
and
that’s
it
([S8],
resignation
statement).
(9) So, just as I acknowledge we have
made mistakes, I hope you and everyone
inside and outside the Company will
acknowledge that we are doing our
utmost to fix them, atone for them, and
make sure they never happen again
([S3], statement on closure of NOW).
(10) I wish we had managed to see and
fully solve these problems earlier
([S6], statement to the CMS Committee).
In each case above the speaker explicitly
attributes stance to himself (I carry ultimate
responsibility for, I wish, I acknowledge, I
hope, I wish) but dilutes his own
participation in the activity expressed by the
verb in the proposition framed by stance, by
means of the ambiguous representation of
the pronoun we (we had judged, we have
made mistakes, we had managed to see).
The plural pronoun seems to shelter the
speaker and dilutes his/her presence among
other referents of the pronoun, especially
considering that in most cases the
proposition concerns the crisis events and
exposes misjudgment or wrongdoing.
Unauthenticated
Download Date | 6/16/17 8:11 PM
Topics in Linguistics - Issue 13 – June 2014
Therefore, first the speakers avoid taking
personal responsibility for the actions
described in the propositions, and second,
realising the face-threatening power of the
exact representation of the pronoun we, they
are vague as to who else we refers to.
Furthermore, in many cases, the speakers
introduce a different set of referents each
time they make use of the first-person plural
we. Additionally, the examples above reveal
the speakers’ consistent tendency to
alternate their use of the first-person
singular and plural pronouns for selfreference. The reason for this is that the
speaker
wishes
to
achieve
certain
communicative goals by conveying different
persuasive messages to different people at
the same time but “[p]roducing coherent
statements in such situations is only
possible by using various forms of
indirectness or vagueness because different
groups of the audience may have dissimilar
(and even contradictory) wants” (Grubner,
1993, p.3).
3.4 Ambiguity arising from the weclusivity issue
Another issue that arises in connection with
the use of the first-person plural we is
clusivity and how it is handled by speakers
in building their relationship with audiences.
In its regular use, the pronoun should be
interpreted as “I in addition to one or more
other persons” Lyons (1968, p.277); and the
other persons may or may not include the
hearer. If the set of other persons does
include the reference to the hearer, it is
customary to talk about an inclusive use of
the pronoun we, if it does not, then the term
exclusive is employed. Hence, we is not “the
plural of I’: rather, it includes a reference to I
and is plural” (Lyons, 1968, p.277).
The speakers tend to juggle with inclusive
and exclusive we at will, depending on which
serves their persuasive purposes better,
which becomes evident when one studies
longer passages from the statements of
particular speakers. Example (11) below is
indicative of this trend.
(11) I have important things to say
about the News of the World and the
steps we are taking to address the very
serious problems that have occurred. It
is only right that you as colleagues at
News International are first to hear what
I have to say and that you hear it
directly from me ([S3], statement on
closure of NOW).
The speaker uses the self-reference, firstperson singular pronoun I to commence his
statement, which might suggest that he
wants to signal to his audience(s) that he
represents himself as an individual and is
presenting his own subjective position.
Moreover, it may be indicative of his wish to
be separated from other(s) whom he later
brings into the discourse. Nonetheless, right
in the same sentence he fights shy of I and
breaks into a run of we. In terms of pronoun
use, this is a tendency that prevails
throughout his statement. When says (...)
and the steps we are taking to address (...),
he uses exclusive we (Lyons, 1968), which
has the effect of distancing himself from his
audience but more importantly, enables him
to melt into the group and dissolve his
responsibility for the crisis. Torode (1976)
refers to such use of we as a transcendental
voice and suggests that the implication is
that the decisions will be taken elsewhere
and at another time. In example (11) above,
the implication might be that the steps are
being taken somewhere else and in a
broadly understood presence. When the
speaker is saying the steps we are taking, he
conjures up the idea of a group of people
currently not on the scene whose
deliberations will decide the matter, and for
which the speaker is not fully responsible
(Harré, 1985, p.138). Following Torode
(1976),
Harré (1985, p.138) sharply
contrasts the use of we as a transcendental
voice with the royal we, in which the speaker
appears as the embodiment of the collective
will. It is the user of the royal we who makes
the decision there and then, and as such can
be addressed. The difference is that the
decision once made is announced with the
majesty of the one who is the sovereign, the
embodiment of people, and not with the
feeble authority of the human individual.
Apparently, there is no clear clue as to who
else, apart from the speaker, we in example
(11) encompasses. Most probably, they are
the powerful at News International. The
exclusive use of the first-person plural in
example (11) becomes even more intriguing
inasmuch as it seems to contradict the
speaker’s intentions expressed at the
beginning of his statement, when he
addresses his audience with the following
words: you as colleagues at the News of the
World. If the speaker were consistent in the
way he uses the first-person plural we, this
kind of address would only strengthen
inclusiveness of the previous we. On the
other hand, if we were inclusive, the speaker
Unauthenticated
Download Date | 6/16/17 8:11 PM
Topics in Linguistics - Issue 13 – June 2014
would not need to inform the audience
about the steps being taken, they would be
well-informed as part of the team, but they
are not. Moreover, example (12) below
(which immediately follows example (11) in
the original statement) also features the
first-person plural pronoun we, which on this
occasion is most probably exclusive.
(12) We now have voluntarily given
evidence to the police that I believe will
prove that this was untrue and those
who acted wrongly will have to face the
consequences ([S3], statement on closure
of NOW).
The same tendency to form close alignments
with the audience(s) by means of inclusive
we, can be traced in the statements of other
speakers as well. The only difference being
their treatment of the plural pronoun we.
(13) (...) we pride ourselves on, the
reputation of the company we love so
much, the press freedoms we value ([S4],
resignation statement).
Unlike other speakers, the speaker in
example (13) does not constantly alternate
her use of the first-person singular and
plural pronouns. Instead, she uses the
inclusive we to create a strong sense of
community with her audience at the
beginning of her statement, as illustrated
above, and having achieved her goal, she
consequently sticks to the first-person
singular pronoun I, as in (14) below.
(14) I feel a deep sense of responsibility
for the people we have hurt and I want
to reiterate how sorry I am for what we
now know to have taken place ([S4],
resignation statement).
It is not only the spirit of community that the
speaker wants to feed with the inclusive we,
her handling of the pronoun reveals her
attempt to apportion blame among other
referents of the pronoun we in we have hurt.
The first-person plural pronoun we functions
here as an escape route which allows the
speaker to downplay her own presence
among the pronoun we referents whoever
they are. Characteristically, the referents of
we in we have hurt and we now know are
different in terms of clusivity, the first one
most likely being exclusive and the other
one most probably inclusive. It does not
change the fact that precise identification of
the pronoun we referents is equally difficult
and escapes analysis.
3.5 Findings
Section 3 primarily identifies and discusses
three different reasons why the weconstructions cannot invariably be said to
explicitly
mark
stance
in
crisis
communication, esp. in a crisis response
phase,
where
precise
pronoun
representation seems to be the condition
sine qua non for crisis resolution. Although,
inevitably the speaker is represented by the
pronoun we, and consequently the stance
can be explicitly attributed to him/her, it is
the ambiguous reference to the Other(s) who
are represented by the pronoun that is the
issue. The analysis shows that the speakers
exploit the first-person plural pronoun we in
a threefold manner. First, they are unclear
about other referents of the pronoun, which
makes it barely possible to decide whose
stance is conveyed, which renders all the
intentions,
obligations
and
promises
expressed by the speakers vacuous as in fact
nobody commits themselves to their
fulfilment (3.2). Second, although they
explicitly attribute stance to themselves by
means of the first-person singular pronoun I,
they are unclear in terms of the referents of
the pronoun we, which functions as a
subject of the proposition(s) framed by
stance. This move seems to have a double
pay-off for the speakers. First, they
downplay their role in the actions which
constitute the crisis events and which are
described in the propositions. Second, they
refrain from naming other referents of the
pronoun for fear of committing facethreatening
acts.
Consequently,
the
stakeholders are kept in the dark about the
wrongdoers but are left with the speakers’
declarations of regret for acts they
apparently have not committed (3.3). Finally,
the speakers exploit the plural pronoun we
by the expedient of juggling its clusivity,
with the aim of creating a sense of
community with their audience and also of
making the apportioning of blame difficult
(3.4).
Unauthenticated
Download Date | 6/16/17 8:11 PM
Topics in Linguistics - Issue 13 – June 2014
Concluding remarks
As the present analysis is part of a larger
study (see Introduction), which among other
issues, comprises the analysis of explicit,
implicit and ambiguous stance attribution in
grammatical stance-marking devices in crisis
response messages, the results should be
viewed in that context. Table 3 below shows
the overall distribution of explicit, implicit
and ambiguous stance attribution across the
corpus in all analysed grammatical stancemarking devices.
Table 3: Overall stance attribution in
grammatical stance-marking devices in
the corpus
Corpus
C1
C2
C1
C2
C1
C2
C1
C2
C1
C2
C1
C2
Total
Stance attribution in grammatical stance
marking devices
EXPLICIT
IMPLICIT
AMBIGUOUS
1) Adverbials
13
11
0
9
18
0
22
29
0
2) Stance complement clauses
110
32
0
118
46
7
228
78
7
3) Modals and semi-modals
48
44
0
48
94
0
96
138
0
4) Stance noun+ prepositional phrase
constructions
12
5
4
7
11
1
19
16
5
5) Premodifying stance adverb
constructions
33
4
0
19
10
0
52
14
0
1)+ 2)+ 3)+
4)+ 5)
216
96
4
201
179
8
417
275
12
Contrary to the expectations grounded in
the knowledge of the strategies used by the
speakers in crisis communication (Benoit,
1995), but in accordance with the overall
results, in the majority of cases, the
speakers
overtly
attribute
stance
to
themselves (or to a third party referred to by
relevant pronouns). Thus, explicit stance
attribution is most commonly used in stance
complement clauses (228 instances), stance
noun+ prepositional phrase constructions
(19 instances) and premodifying stance
adverb constructions (52 instances). Then,
the second most common way to attribute
stance is the implicit one, where although
stance is not overt in such cases, it can
easily be inferred as that of the speaker. In
the corpus, the stance markers which
expose
the
latter
characteristic
are
adverbials (29 instances) as well as modals
and semi-modals (138 instances). Finally and
unexpectedly, the ambiguous attribution of
stance turns out to be the least frequently
used in the analysed crisis response
messages (12 instances altogether).
The rub is, however, that what Biber, et al.
(1999) classify as explicit stance attribution
loses its explicitness as a result of the
speakers’ ambiguous handling of the
pronouns (other than the first-person
singular pronoun I), particularly the firstperson plural pronoun we. Consequently,
although we-constructions are classified as
explicitly attributing stance, they testify to
the fact that adroit attribution of stance in
crisis response messages becomes one of
the powerful persuasive devices in crisis
communication.
Although the present study provides insights
into how speakers manipulate explicit stance
attribution for persuasive purposes, the fact
that it lacks perception data that would
incorporate the stakeholders’ assessment of
the statements renders it somewhat
subjective and may be perceived as a
limitation of this study. Compensating for
this absence could be a challenge for future
research in the field.
References
AGLE, B.R., MITCHELL, R.K. and SONNENFELD, J.A., 1999. Who matters to CEOs? An
investigation of stakeholder attributes and salience, corporate performance, and CEO values.
Academy of Management Journal, vol. 42, no. 2, pp. 507-525.
BENOIT, W.L., 1995. Accounts, excuses and apologies: A theory of image restoration. Albany:
State University of New York Press.
BIBER, D. et al. 1999. Longman grammar of spoken and written English. Harlow: Longman.
COOMBS, W. T., 1995. Choosing the right words: The development of guidelines for the
selection of the “appropriate” crisis response strategies. Management Communication
Quarterly, no. 8, pp. 447-476.
DE RYCKER, A. and DON, Z. D. eds., 2013. Discourse and crisis. Critical perspectives.
Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Unauthenticated
Download Date | 6/16/17 8:11 PM
Topics in Linguistics - Issue 13 – June 2014
FAHNESTOCK, J., 2011. Rhetorical style. The uses of language in persuasion. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
FEDIUK, T. A., PACE, K. M. and BOTERO, I.C., 2010. Crisis response effectiveness:
Methodological considerations for advancement in empirical investigation into a response
impact. In: W.T. Coombs and S.J. Holladay, eds. The handbook of crisis communication.
Malden, MA: Wiley- Blackwell, pp. 205-221.
GOFFMAN, E., 1967. Interaction ritual: Essays in face-to-face behaviour. Garden City, NY:
Doubleday.
GRUBNER, H., 1993. Political language and textual vagueness. In: Ch. Briggs, F. Brisard, Y.
Fujii, H. Grubner, S. Marmaridou, R. Marquez Reiter and G. Senft, eds. Pragmatics. 3.1.
Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association, pp. 1- 28.
HARRÉ, R., 1985. Persuasion and manipulation. In: T.A. van Dijk, ed. Discourse and
communication. New approaches to the analysis of mass media discourse and
communication. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, pp. 126-143.
HEATH, R. L. and MILLAR, D. P., 2004. A rhetorical approach to crisis communication:
Management, communication processes, and strategic responses. In: D.P. Millar and R.L.
Heath, eds. Responding to crisis. A rhetorical approach to crisis communication, Mahwah,
New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, pp. 1-19.
KAMPF, Z., 2009. Public (non-) apologies: The discourse of minimizing responsibility. Journal
of Pragmatics, vol. 41, pp. 2257- 2270.
LERMAN, C. L., 1985. Media analysis of a presidential speech: Impersonal identity forms in
discourse. In: T.A. van Dijk, ed. Discourse and communication. New approaches to the
analysis of mass media discourse and communication. Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter,
pp. 185-215.
LYONS, J., 1968. Introduction to theoretical linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
RACHFAŁ, E., 2013a. Where crisis communication meets linguistics. Topics in Linguistics, no.
11, pp. 40-50. Available at: www.kaa.ff.ukf.sk/en/2012-01-19-16-21-04/topics-in-linguistics
RACHFAŁ, E., 2013b. Responding in times of crisis: A study of the “News International Phone
Hacking Scandal” (unpublished PhD dissertation).
SEEGER, M. et al., 2005. Post-crisis discourse and organizational change, failure and renewal.
Journal of Organizational Change Management, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 78-95.
TERKOURAFI, M., 2007. Toward a universal notion of face. In: I. Kecskes, ed. Explorations in
pragmatics. Linguistic, cognitive and intercultural aspects. Berlin and New York: Mouton de
Gruyter, pp. 313-339.
TORODE, B., 1976. The revelation of a theory of the social world as grammar. In: R. Harré,
ed. Life sentences. London: Wiley.
ULMER, R. R., SEEGER, M. W. and SELLNOW, T. L., 2007. Post-crisis communication and
renewal: Expanding the parameters of post-crisis discourse. Public Relations Review, vol. 33,
no. 2, pp. 130-134.
ULMER, R.R., SELLNOW, T.L. and SEEGER, M.W., 2011. Effective crisis communications.
Moving from crisis to opportunity. Los Angeles, London, New Dheli, Singapore, Washington
DC: Sage.
WARE, B. L. and LINKUGEL, W. A., 1973. They spoke in defence of themselves: On the generic
criticism of apologia. Quarterly Journal of Speech, vol. 59, pp. 273-283.
Author’s address and contact details
Edyta Rachfał, PhD
Państwowa Wyższa Szkoła Wschodnioeuropejska w Przemyślu
ul. Terleckiego 6
37-700 Przemyśl
Poland
Phone: +48 16 7355220
E-mail: [email protected]
Unauthenticated
Download Date | 6/16/17 8:11 PM