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DOI: 10.1177/0957926511431507

2012 23: 184Discourse SocietyMilica Vukovic

Choice of person in the Parliament of MontenegroPositioning in pre-prepared and spontaneous parliamentary discourse:

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Discourse & Society

23(2) 184202

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Positioning in pre-preparedand spontaneous parliamentarydiscourse: Choice of person inthe Parliament of Montenegro

Milica VukovicUniversity of Montenegro, Montenegro

AbstractPronominal choice in political talk reflects hidden ideologies, which is why it has been a much-

studied phenomenon in the discourse analytic research of politics in western democracies.

However, similar topics remain largely unexplored in eastern and transition countries. With thisin mind, the aim of the present article is to explore the use of subject pronouns and the person

of the verb in the Parliament of Montenegro. The budget debate conducted in December 2009

was chosen for the corpus and was later subdivided into 10-minute pre-prepared Speeches and

three-minute Comments, which represent spontaneous responses. The two subcorpora were

then compared with respect to person deixis. The results of the study point to the fact that, when

given the chance to carefully plan their talk in advance, the MPs used the first-person plural and

positive self-campaign much more often. On the other hand, in their spontaneous talk, the MPs

more often referred to themselves as individuals and resorted more readily to addressing others

using negative presentation strategies. Their prepared talk was therefore crafted and tailored for

political effect through the use of consciously employed persuasive strategies that relate to thechoice of person. It is suggested that the comparison of pre-scripted and unscripted political talk

can reveal underlying political ideologies.

Keywords

Comments, I, parliamentary discourse, person of the verb, speeches, subject pronouns, we, you

Corresponding author:

Milica Vukovic, Institute of Foreign Languages, University of Montenegro, Jovana Tomaevica 37, 20000

Podgorica, Montenegro.

Email: [email protected]

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Vukovic 185

Introduction

Language does not merely mirror reality, language also constitutes reality. On the onehand, language represents a medium that allows for communication to take place in a

social setting, whereas on the other, it actually conditions and impacts the way reality isperceived, categorized, characterized and assessed. Thus, the discourse of politicsnowadays, in a period of increasing social paradigm shifts and political polarizations(Ilie, 2010: 879), participates in the consititution of a fundamental element of practicallyevery society its political reality. Words do not simply describe a pre-existing truth;words in political discourse effectively help realize it (Hodges, 2008: 2).

Person deixis encodes the perspective from which the speaker addresses his/heraudience, be it the perspective of an individual, a member of a group or a member of agreater whole. In political discourse, the choice of person shifts depending on the

message a politician wants to send: vote for me or vote for us or even vote againstthem. By exploring referential management (the term used by Tomlin et al., 1997), wehave tried to identify the obvious, surface messages, but also to deconstruct the hiddenones in a piece of political discourse a 7-hour 30-minute long extract from the 2009budget debate held in the Parliament of Montenegro. Taking advantage of the fact thatparliamentary discourse in Montenegro consists of speeches prepared in advance, to beread out in the parliament, and comments that are spontaneous in nature, the aim wasto see whether the two discourses would differ with respect to how person deixis wasemployed, and thereby discover whether there were any consciously employedpronominal strategies intended for persuasion.

Politics in Montenegro is in everyones mouths and homes. Parliamentary debates arebroadcast on the first channel of the National Broadcasting Company, typically from 11a.m. to 5 p.m., and later thoroughly digested by the media and the electorate. Therefore,parliamentary discourse was chosen as a par excellence piece of political discourse,where one could encounter both pre-scripted and unscripted political talk. Namely, poli-ticians are invited to give a 10-minute speech, provided that they have applied to do soto the President of the Parliament1in advance, and 3-minute comments on the speechesand comments of the other MPs, which are typically spontaneous. The comparison of thetwo, through the lenses of person deixis, is the aim of this article.

Linguistic research of this type of discourse is consistently on the rise (Rasiah, 2007:3), bearing in mind that parliaments represent institutional arenas featuring processesthat are at the heart of western democracies (Bayley, 2004: 9). Arena is not too stronga word what sets parliamentary discourse apart from other kinds of political discourseis its pronounced polarization, a consequence of constant power struggles (Gelabert-Desnoyer, 2008: 409), manifested in the striving of one side to win power and the otherto preserve it. This discourse, therefore, features prototypical patterns of the processesof identification and disassociation, which result in in-group identity and inter-groupdissent (Ilie, 2004: 83), and which are reflected in and fuelled by the choice of person.

Previous research on parliamentary discourse

Even though its research is on the rise, the discourse of parliamentary debates remainslargely unexplored (Gelabert-Desnoyer, 2008: 410; Van der Valk, 2003: 315). A stronger

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186 Discourse & Society 23(2)

interest in this genre developed at the turn of the 20th century, and it is safe to say that thenumber of research articles on parliamentary language is increasing by the day. However,there still seems to be a lack of broader, systematic and comprehensive research, resultingin the fact that few entire books have been published on the topic.

In the research conducted so far, most attention has been devoted to the UK House ofCommons, the most visible institution of UK political life (Ilie, 2003b: 73), which can beexplained by the fact that its discourse is ritual in some of its elements (the consequenceof its long history) and that its debates are conducted in English.

Several research articles have dealt with the nature of parliamentary discourse ingeneral (Bayley, 2004; Bianchini, 2008; Ilie, 2003c, 2006). In a number of articles,authors have focused on specific parliamentary speeches (Ensink, 1997; Flttum andStenvoll, 2009; Frumuselu and Ilie, 2010; Sauer, 1997; Van Dijk, 2002, 2005), whereasothers have written on the use of key words (Bayley and San Vincente, 2004; Bayley

et al., 2004; Ilie, 1999; Jose and Moore, 2007; Vasta, 2004) and phraseology (Elspass,2002). The methodology of corpus linguistics has been employed in the research ofsimilar topics by Bara et al. (2007) and Cucchi (2007), as well as by Bijeikien andUtka (2007), who wrote on gender equality in parliament. In addition, authors haveconcentrated on particular topics of the debates (see, e.g., a number of Van Dijks arti-cles dealing with immigration and racism in western parliaments (1997, 2000); theissue is also discussed by others (e.g. Van der Valk, 2003)).

A number of articles have dealt with parliamentary discourse from a pragmaticperspective. These include papers on politeness (David et al., 2009; Ilie, 2004, 2005;

Yetkin, 2006), interruptions (Bevitori, 2004; Carb, 2004; Shenav, 2008; Zima et al.,2008) and metadiscourse (Ilie, 2000, 2003a, 2003b).Parliamentary debates have also been examined from the point of view of contextual

analysis (Dupret and Ferri, 2008; Van Dijk, 2004, 2008), intertextual analysis and themedia representation of parliamentary discourse (Archakis and Tsakona, 2009, 2010;Gadavanij, 2002).

Additionally, researchers have dealt with questions in parliamentary discourse, focus-ing mostly on adversarialness and evasion (Fenton-Smith, 2008; Rasiah, 2007, 2010).

The review presented here does not claim to be all-inclusive, but aims to give an idea

of the lines of research currently conducted in the area.

Person deixis in political discourse

The change of the perspective that is used by a politician can be employed either subcon-sciously or strategically (Partington, 2003: 63), but either way it encodes ideologicalpositions, that is, it gives an insight into whether a politician sees himself/herself as anindividual or a member of a group that may or may not involve the electorate. This is atthe heart of our hypothesis if politicians are true to how they referentially present them-selves and address others, there should not be any substantial differences between theirspontaneous discourse and the discourse they have prepared to read. If, however, we findsuch differences, this could point to a conscious use of person deixis for persuasive effectand manufacturing of identities. It is worthwhile to note that most Montenegrin MPsprepare their parliamentary speeches themselves and that, in respects other than referentialmanagement, their comments do not differ greatly from their speeches.



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Various research articles have been written on the topic of pronominal choice inpolitical discourse (such as Ensink, 1997; Fetzer and Bull, 2008; Halmari, 2008; VanLeeuwen, 2009; Wilson, 1990). Different positioning is achieved through the use ofpersonal pronouns, possessive pronouns and the person of the verb (in highly inflected

languages, such as Montenegrin), and can be used to the ends of mitigating responsibil-ity, encouraging solidarity, designating others as in-group or out-group, and also reflectingpersonal and political ideologies.

When taking credit for an achievement, politicians will speak through theI-perspective. The excessive use of this pronoun and person can, however, suggest ego-tism and individualism, which is why it is often avoided. As has been well documented,in the discourse of politics, preference is given to the we-perspective, with severalpotential referents: I and another person, I and a group, I and the whole country, andI and the rest of humanity. The use of this person connects the speaker and his/her

audience, suggesting that what is said is common and indisputable. In addition, thesocio-psychological process of group identification is at work, creating emotional alle-giance between the persons who see themselves as belonging to a group (Ensink, 1997: 7)and, in political discourse, identification is actually persuasion (Allen, 2007: 3).

The relation between the use of the I-perspective and the we-perspective can beindicative of the strategies employed. Thus, the use of the I-perspective signals thatthe speaker positions himself outside the collective. This is why the we-perspectivegives advantage to the politician he/she can share responsibility with the collectiveand encourage the audience to identify with the emotions of the speaker (Jones and

Peccei, 2007: 53).Further, the use of theyou-perspective suggests division and polarization. By omittingit, categorizing can be avoided and the distance between politicians and people can bereduced (Halmari, 2008: 259). Such divisions are commonly accompanied by positiveself-presentation and negative other-presentation strategies (Van Dijk, 1997: 36), whichare basically semantic strategies, to use the term employed by Van der Valk (2003: 317).

However, pronominal choice is not just a matter of personal choice research sug-gests that in the western sociocultural context, a speaker will typically conceptualizeherself as an individual (Fetzer and Bull, 2008: 277). Having in mind that culture also

plays a part, we decided to conduct this analysis on a corpus from only one nationalparliament.

Data and methodology

As mentioned previously, the corpus for this research was taken from the first and seconddays of the budget debate held in the Parliament of Montenegro in December 2009.

We have explained that parliamentary sessions in Montenegro have wide TV audi-ences and that they are broadcast in their entirety on the first channel of the NationalBroadcasting Company. This is a TV company with the best coverage in the countryand in many areas one of the very few stations that can be watched without cable sub-scription; it is also the third most watched TV network in the country.2The budgetdebate is one of the most important debates and MPs regularly put much effort into



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Vukovic 189

rules of procedure and also decides whether an MP or a political party was mentioned ina negative context in the case of replies. The president controls the microphones installedin front of every MP, which are immediately turned off after the allowed time has passed.Interruptions by MPs who do not hold the floor at the time are therefore inaudible to TV

viewers and are not included in the proceedings, which is why interjections are rare.We did not encounter much difficulty in separating the speeches from the comments,

considering their duration and the announcements of the president, who clearly stateswhether an MP is entitled to a speech or a comment in the upcoming turn.

Throughout the article, we comment on the findings qualitatively and critically, in thevein of critical discourse analysis.

Before we proceed any further, a few factors that could influence the results need tobe considered. First, we must bear in mind that speeches and comments belong to dif-ferent modes. Whereas speeches are mostly written to be spoken, comments belong to

spoken discourse, but of the kind which is loaded with a great deal of prepackagedpolitics, to use Franklins term (1994), meaning that politicians readily repeat theirmessages and arguments over and over again. As far as we know, there have not beenany studies of the frequency of personal pronouns in spoken and written discourse inMontenegrin and related regional languages, but we must assume that these would dif-fer significantly in a number of respects. However, there are no arguments to suggestthat the frequency of personal pronouns would be significantly lower in the writtenmode, although we do assume that it could be somewhat lower, on account of the factthat greater care is taken to avoid repetition in the written mode.

In addition, we accept that different modes also impact on the choice of person.Generally, there is less self-reference and direct reference to others in the written mode,but this is precisely what we want to bring attention to. The written mode is certainlycrafted and therefore we want to examine exactly how crafted it is, in terms of persuasivestrategies regarding the choice of person, in comparison to spoken, unscripted discoursein the area of political genres. What will the politicians be careful to avoid and prudentenough to promote?

Another potential impact of mode to consider is the monologue/dialogue dimension.Namely, although both speeches and comments are part of parliamentary debate, which

can be considered a public dialogue, speeches tend to be more monologic, whereascomments are more dialogic in nature. However, exchanges of comments are rarelydialogues between two MPs only, bearing in mind that virtually at all times MPs directlyaddress or at least consider other MPs in the House and the TV audience. For the samereason, speeches are rarely monologues only and this is why both the subgenres areintrinsically dialogic. This dimension of mode can account for some of the differencesregarding the choice of person in the speeches and the comments analysed, which iswhy we shall deal with this matter later in the article.

Use of personal pronounsIn this part of the text, we deal with the frequency and use of personal pronouns in theSpeeches and Comments separately.



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The Montenegrin electoral system is such that people vote for parties and much lessattention is devoted to individual politicians on the list (of course, excluding the mostprominent leaders). In this light, it does not surprise us to find that, when given theopportunity to plan their talk, MPs will generally promote themselves as party members.

Therefore, the reference to wein the Montenegrin political discourse is most frequentlya political party, meaning that weis used in its exclusive sense:

(1) DAMJANOVI: Interesuje me da li planirate da uvaite ove preporuke, jer ako nebrinemo o Centralnoj banci Crne Gore mi u SNP-udefinitivno brinemo ousklaenostipolitike Centralne banke Crne Gore koja je zaduena za monetarnu stabilnost itd

( I would like to know whether you plan to accept these recommendations, becauseeven if we do not take care of the Central Bank of Montenegro, we in SNP3definitely dotake care about the consistency of the policy of the Central Bank of Montenegro, whichis in charge of monetary stability etc.)

(2) MEDOJEVI: Sada, praktino, mi ovdje se samo gledamo kao dvije strane, niti mimoemo da utiemona njihove planove, niti moemo da utiemo na to to oni rade

(Now, practically, we here are looking at each other as two sides, we can neither exertinfluence on their plans, nor can we influence what they do. . .)

(3) KONJEVI: Mi iz Socijaldemokratske partijeovih dana smo iznosili jasne primjedbekoje se tiu Budeta

(. . .We from the Socialist Democratic Partyhave been making clear complaints about the

budget)

(4) BOOVI: Mi emo i danas kao Socijalistika narodna partijau tom smisluuloitisav svoj napor ...

(We as the Socialist Peoples Partyare going to invest all our efforts in this mattertoday as well)

(5) UGI: . . . Dakle i Vlada Crne Gore i resorno Ministarstvo i mi poslanici vladajuekoalicije, vladajue partije, svakako podravamo sve ono to se deava na polju poreskereforme . . .

(Therefore, both the Government of Montenegro and the competent Ministry and we,the MPs of the ruling coalition, of the ruling party, certainly support everything that is

being done in the area of tax reform)

While making speeches, MPs are mostly promoting their policies and their group,using positive self-presentation strategies (such as we . . . are going to invest all ourefforts (extract 4)), that is, parties are prevailingly positively self-oriented. Thisexplains the dominant use of the subject we(37.11%).

In addition, this exclusive use of the pronoun we(mi) is very typical of Montenegrin

politics, which is characterized by pronounced polarization between the two sides, theposition and the opposition. Because of overwhelming polarization, such references ofwethat encompass all MPs are avoided, practically, at all costs.



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However, when challenged in the exchange of comments, self-orientation tends to getlost to a certain degree and is replaced by negative other-presentation and the frequentlyused subject pronounyou:

(6) LUKI: Dakle, Vi imate problem sami sa sobom i prvo se opredijelite ta je topolitika koju vi zagovarate

(So, you have a problem with yourselfand first do make up your mind of what thepolicy that you stand for is about . . .)

(7) PINJATI: Naravno, Vi priate ovdje istu priu godinamakoju priaju vaipolitikilideri

(Of course,you have been telling us the same story for years, the story that your politicalleaders have been telling us)

(8) LABUDOVI: Ja se ba ivo pitam na osnovu egaVi tako transparentno ispoljavatetaj optimizamkad ga ne ispoljava ni onaj koji je sainio ovaj budetski predlog?

(I really wonder on the basis of whatyou express your optimism soopenly, when eventhe one who has drafted this budget bill does not express it)

(9) MILI: . . . Vi zovite to vanredne penzije - ja ih zovem one penzije koje su oteteod onihkoji su ih zasluili u prethodnom periodu

(. . .you call it extraordinary pensions I call it pensions that have been robbed fromthose who earned them in the previous period)

In the Montenegrin parliament, the referent of youis typically a whole party, althoughsometimes it refers to a single MP. The use of this pronoun is frequently accompaniedby negative other-presentation techniques, as is the case in all of the four examplesillustrated above (extracts 69). When challenged, parliamentarians readily resort to(negative) other-presentation strategies, which they are so careful to avoid in theirspeeches (you is used in 46.37% of the cases in the Comments vs. 21.11% in theSpeeches). Therefore, the strategy employed to reply to challenging is primarilycounter-attacking, not self-defence.

When comparing Tables 2 and 3, the most striking finding is that subject pronouns arefar more frequent in the Comments, which are more spontaneous. The pronounIis used3.57 times more frequently in this subcorpus, and the same can be said of we, which is2.06 times more frequent, and of you, which is 7.73 times more often used in theComments than in the Speeches. The logical question is: why are subject pronouns usedmuch more frequently in the Comments?

One of the reasons is that comments tend to feature more of the I/you orientationdue to their dialogic nature, bearing in mind that they come as a response to what aspecific MP has said. However, we believe that this argument cannot account for all the

differences in the density of subject pronouns in the Speeches and the Comments.Namely, we argue that directly addressing the individual/party that is challenged, thatis, naming the names, contributes to a more confrontational discourse and a moresuccessful attack. Also, referring to oneself (either as an individual or a member of agroup) helps assert the challengers position. The use of personal pronouns puts greater



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Vukovic 193

emphasis on individuals/parties and brings them to the foreground. Let us consider thefollowing examples:

(10) IVKOVI: Jamislim da ste Vi, gospodine Lukiu, da je Vlada pomogla, tano je

to, bankarski sektor (. . .Ithink thatyou, Mr Luki, that the Government have helped the banking sector, that

is true. . .)

(11) KONJEVI: Znai, nemojte Vi mene da kritikujete ako ja kao poslanik imamodreenu primjedbu na to to radi gospodin Luki

(Dontyoucriticize me ifIas an MP have a certain complaint about what Mr Lukiis doing)

The statements in extracts 10 and 11 would certainly have been weaker had the proposi-

tion been:Mislim da ste pomogliorNemojte me kritikovati(without the subject pronounsIand you). In literature, we find similar claims by using pronouns, the emphasis isdeliberately put on the speaker and the addressee, changing the focus of the sentence(Piper et al., 2005: 1006). Such emphasis especially comes in handy in the exchange ofcomments where more face-threatening acts (FTAs) are employed. Therefore, the use ofpersonal pronouns depends largely on the context. Generally, the more challenging thediscourse, the more often personal pronouns will be used to address and more stronglychallenge another MP.

We shall support this claim with the following example. The Minister of Finance,

Luki, who was at the centre of the debate, bearing in mind that he was most directlyresponsible for the budget bill, engaged in a series of comments with Medojevi, one ofthe leaders of the opposition. In their exchange of 1452 words or 3% of the entire budgetdebate, 43 subject pronouns were used, that is 10.52% of all such pronouns in the wholecorpus. Just how subject pronouns were used in this exchange of comments can be seenfrom its extracts:

(12) LUKI: Viimate problem sami sa sobomVikao partija imate problem

To za to se Vizalaete je zaista neto to u Evropi ne moete pronaiJase zalaem za konzistentan poreski okvir koji ne treba da zavisi od togakako vjetar duva ili kako ste se Viprobudili jedno jutroVizamajavate javnostMismo definisali okvir koji je potpuno zadovoljavajui(Youhave a problem with yourself . . .Youas a party have a problemWhatyoustand for is really something you cannot find anywhere in EuropeIstand for a consistent tax framework which should not depend on your whim or howyouwoke up one morningYouare fooling the publicWehave defined a satisfying framework)



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MEDOJEVI: Vibjeite sa strune raspraveMigovorimo o graanima Crne Gore, a Vigovorite o eliti s kojom se vjerovatnodruiteVigovorite da smo odbijeni, objavite to, a ja Vam kaem da govorite ortodoksnu

neistinuMise zalaemo da se oporezuju bogatiViste uradili kontraVito ne elite, bjeite od realnog sektoraVine znate koliki e prihodi biti(Youare running away from an expert debateWeare talking about the citizens of Montenegro and youare talking about the eliteyou are probably friends withWewant the rich to pay the taxes

Youdid exactly the oppositeYoudo not want to do it, you are running away from the real sectorYoudo not know what your incomes will be)

The use of personal pronouns while challenging singles out the addressee. We saw earlierthat the discrepancies are most evident with the subject pronounyou, which is used up toeight times more often in the Comments. By examining extract 12, we find the reasonwhy. Namely, while challenging,youis used with negative presentation, where it helpsattribute responsibility or has an accusatory effect on the person(s) it refers to. If youwere omitted, the proposition would be weaker, as the addressee that is condemnedwould be in the background and not the very focus of the sentence. The subject positionof these pronouns, most frequently the first position in the clause, also contributes todrawing the focus on the challenged MP(s).

Let us now examine and compare these comments with the speeches delivered byLuki and Medojevi. Namely, in the introductory speech made by Minister Luki,there were 2799 words (four times as many as in the comments from which the extractswere taken), which featured only one subject pronoun. In the exchange of commentsthere were 20, although the exchange was much shorter. On the other hand, earlier inthe debate, Medojevi delivered a speech of 1774 words, which is twice as long as the

comments the extracts were taken from. However, the number of subject pronouns inthe speech was 26, whereas in the comments it was 43. Both politicians challengedmuch less in their speeches, which could account for the lower use of subject pronouns.So, once again, the degree of challenging may be directly linked to the frequency ofsubject pronouns.

Use of the person of the verb

Given that the subject can be omitted in the Montenegrin language, on account of the fact

that the person is already expressed in the finite verb, most such verb forms do not fea-ture their subject. This is why a comprehensive analysis of person deixis in Montenegrincannot be carried out without analysing the person of the verb. On the other hand, giventhat subject pronouns change the focus of the sentence and are more frequently used in



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Table 4. Person of the verb in Speeches.

Speeches

Finite verb forms withanimate subject:

1.p.s. 2.p.s. 3.p.s. 1.p.p. 2.p.p. 3.p.p.

931 247 5 81 396 103 99

100% 26.53% 0.53% 8.7% 42.53% 11.06% 10.63%

p.s., person singular; p.p., person plural

Table 5. Person of the verb in Comments.

Comments

Finite verb formswith animate subject:

1.p.s. 2.p.s. 3.p.s. 1.p.p. 2.p.p. 3.p.p.

1435 387 0 132 361 332 223

100% 26.96% 0% 9.19% 25.15% 23.13% 15.54%

p.s., person singular; p.p., person plural

challenging contexts, the use of subject pronouns must also be analysed separately, as wedid in the previous section. This is why our task of analysing the choice of person issomewhat more complex than it would be for English corpora, for example.

As the aim of this research is to examine the positioning of discourse participants, we

have excluded all finite verb forms that had inanimate subjects and considered theseirrelevant for the current analysis.

Let us start by examining Tables 4 and 5, which give details about the distribution ofthe person of the verb in the Speeches and Comments respectively. The frequency isgiven in percentages, so that we can compare the results more easily.

We notice tendencies similar to those observed in the frequency of subject pronouns.Among these similarities are the following: the Speeches feature the first-person pluralin 42.53% of the finite verb forms having an expressed or implied animate subject,versus 25.15% in the Comments; the second-person plural is twice as frequent in the

Comments than in the Speeches; the use of the third person is substantially greater in theComments; the first-person singular is roughly equally used in the two subcorpora.

The first result, the overwhelming use of the first-person plural in the Speeches,confirms that this perspective is very often artificially introduced into political talk.Politicians know the benefits of using this perspective (such as group identification,party promotion, sharing responsibility, etc.), which is why they are careful to use it asmuch as possible when they can plan their talk. However, in spontaneous talk, theyhave other things to worry about and therefore become less careful about it, whichresults in a drop of its use by more than a third. We conclude that the more spontaneous

the talk, the less inclusive perspective is used.Accordingly, the first-person plural perspective can be employed deliberately as apersuasive device, meaning that politicians consciously prefer to present themselves asmembers of a group and promote the group, probably counting on group identification



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with the electorate. But, as a matter of fact, politicians do not consider themselves part ofa group that much in reality. Consequently, when they talk spontaneously, they accuseothers more often and refer to themselves less as group members and more as individu-als. Their underlying personal and political ideologies seem to be different in reality.

The first-person plural usually has a more inclusive meaning when used without asubject pronoun. Namely, whereas wecan be followed by restricting content (such as wein SNPor we, the ruling party, etc.), no such restrictions can be imposed on a subjectlessfinite verb:

(13) BULAJI: Uvoz je finansiran inokreditima i za posljedicu imamoveliki rast spoljnjegduga

(. . . Import is financed through foreign loans and consequently we havea large increasein external debt)4

(14) LUBURI: Da bismo bolje sagledaligdje se i u kakvoj situaciji nalazimodanas kadarazmatramopredlog novog budeta, u kakvoj situaciji se moemonai ve sjutra, modanije zgoreg da se ukratko osvrnemoi na neka ekonomska deavanja u Evropskoj uniji

(. . . So that we couldbetter see where we areand what position we arein today whenwe are reviewingthe budget bill and what situation we may findourselves in tomorrow,

perhaps it will not be excessive if webrieflyconsidersome economic occurrences in theEuropean Union)

(15) RADUNOVI: Sada smo dotakli dno i moramo da se sukobimo s problemom i

suoimo da Crna Gora nema razvijenu privredu, da se niko nije bavio tim problemom taemo da radimokada sve rasprodamo . . .

(. . . Now we have hitthe bottom and we have toface the problem and see that Montenegrodoes not have a developed economy, that no one has dealt with the issue of what we aregoing to dowhen we selleverything off)

(16) VUKSANOVI: to vie prolazi vrijeme imamo taj pozitivni trend rasta ovihelemenata, to govori da, ipak, imamo pomake unaprijed

(. . . As the time goes by, we havethis positive trend of growth of these elements, whichsays that we do havesome progress)

In all these cases, the implied subject is somewhat ambiguous, but given that it was notstated otherwise, we will conclude that the subject is the most inclusive one: I + party +people/country. Even if it could be understood as I + the ruling coalition (the govern-ment), as in the case of the position of MPs, the result is the same, bearing in mind thatthe position frequently presents its government as equal or identical to the state/country/nation, which is very manipulative.

As was shown in the analysis of pronominal choice, the more frequent use of thesecond-person plural occurs while challenging and this also goes for the third person,

singular and plural.Apart from the finding that the second-person plural is associated with the strategies

of negative presentation of others, which is not surprising, we would like to point here toanother more interesting and significant result. Namely, our analysis has shown that17.7% of all the forms used with this person were in the imperative form:



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(17) MEDOJEVI: Objaviteto, dajte,potpiite. Molim Vas, Vi ste rekli da smo odbijeni,objavite to, a ja Vam kaem da govorite ortodoksnu neistinu i to nije prva

To je jedna neodgovorna, nedomacinska politika i mi smo vas sto puta pozivali,raskinitetaj ugovor, naplatitepenale

(. . .Publishit, common, signit. I pray you, you said that we were rejected,publishit, andI tell you that you are telling a complete untruth and this is not the first one from you It is an irresponsible, reckless policy and we have called on you a hundred times, break

this agreement, chargethe penalties)

(18) LUKI: Dakle, Vi imate problem sami sa sobom i prvo se opredijelite ta je topolitika koju vi zagovarate

(. . .Therefore, you have a problem with yourself and first do make up your mindof whatthe policy that you stand for is about . . .)

(19) KONJEVI: Znai, nije ba da se nita ne prihvata.Dajtevi konkretno . . . . . . Znai, nemojte Vi mene da kritikujeteako ja kao poslanik imam odreenu primjedbu

na to sto radi gospodin Luki (. . . Its not as if nothing got accepted. Giveus concrete proposals Therefore, dont you criticizeme if I as an MP have a certain complaint about what

Mr Luki is doing)

(20) IVKOVI: . . . Ne vjerujem da ete vi ostvariti jer se prvim rebalansom ovo bitiprepolovljeno, ali makar nemojte diratiovo sa sjevera

(I dont believe that you will be able to achieve all this because this will be halved in

the first rebalance, but at least dont touchthis on the north)

The imperative is frequently avoided in institutional settings, in which politeness normshave to be met, at least formally, and there is a need not to impose. However, as we cansee, while challenging, MPs often resort to it, although it is a bald, on-record strategyin Brown and Levinsons model (1987), lacking any effort to minimize threats to theothers face. Negative presentation strategies are therefore frequently associated withexpressing threat to the others face and a lack of politeness.

In the Comments, the third person is the implied subject of 15.54% of the finite verb

forms. Whereas the difference between the use of the second person of the verb in theSpeeches and the Comments was 100%, the difference in this case was about 50%. Thereason is the fact that Montenegrin MPs prefer to challenge other MPs directly. In otherwords, they hesitate to employ distancing techniques, as in:

(21) LABUDOVI: Ja se bojim da e se gospodin Krivokapi na poetku ovog mogkomentara najeiti

(. . . I am afraid that Mr Krivokapi will be upsetat the beginning of this comment ofmine)

(22) LUKI: Sutina je da ako prihvatimo makar dio teza koje je izniogospodinMedojevi i ako dijagnosticiramo stanje ekonomije upravo onako kako ga je ondijagnosticiraoi izrazimo tim povodom sumnju u realnost primitaka

(. . . The point is that if we accept at least part of the hypotheses delivered by Mr Medojeviand we diagnose the state of the economy just as he has diagnosed itand we expressdoubts about the reality of achieving these revenues . . .)



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(23) BULAJI: Poto je gospodin Gospi rekao nove grin fild investicije,interesuje mekoje su to stare grin fild investicije u privredi i ekonomiji Crne Gore?

(. . .As Mr Gospi mentionednew green field investments, I would like to know whatold green field investments there have been in the economy of Montenegro?)

This is a strategy commonly used in the UK House of Commons, for example, where itis actually imposed by the parliamentary rules, which forbid second-person address toanother member. As such, the strategy rests on distancing, that is, negative politeness.Montenegrin MPs rarely engage in distancing and prefer directness when opposing others,thus delivering more face-threatening acts. This can explain why the use of the second-person verbs saw a dramatic 100% rise in its frequency in the Comments.

At this point, we would like to go back to the issue of the monologic/dialogic natureof speeches and comments. Namely, comments come as a direct response to what a

specific MP has just said, and thus could, by their very nature, feature more of theI/youorientation. We argue that this fact can account only for some of the differences inTables 4 and 5, but that the scope of its influence is limited.

First, if we consider the data from Tables 4 and 5, we notice that theI-perspective saw avery slight rise in the Comments, when compared to other figures. A further point to makeis that the third-person singular perspective had an increase of 5.63%, while the third-personplural perspective rose substantially by 46.19%, which can only be explained by the argu-ments presented earlier the more frequent use of other-referencing along with negativepresentation strategies in adversarial contexts. Therefore, we accept that the Comments

were moreyou-oriented due to their dialogic nature, but we also argue that the dramatic riseby exactly 109.13% cannot be accounted for solely on the basis of this argument.Additionally, the idea that pre-scripted and unscripted political talk differ in the

density and use of pronouns can also be confirmed by research such as that ofWilson (1990: 746). Namely, after comparing some of the pre-scripted andunscripted speeches delivered by Michael Foot, Wilson found that the frequency ofpronouns was much greater in the unscripted speeches and that they more oftenfeatured the pronoun you. The monologue/dialogue dimension of mode could nothave played a role in this analysis, which is why we suggest that the dramatic dif-ferences between the speeches and the comments from our study cannot solely beexplained by this argument. This phenomenon is probably universal and notrestricted to Montenegrin politics.

Conclusion

In interpreting the results of this article, we will start from the hypothesis set out in theintroduction spontaneous political talk could differ from political talk prepared inadvance when person deixis comes into question and this could be, at least partly, aconsequence of politicians efforts to consciously employ certain pronominal strategieswith the intent of persuasion.

The results of the analysis of the subject pronouns used, as well as the subject of theverb, strongly suggest that in speeches, which are prepared in advance, Montenegrin poli-ticians will use more of the first-person plural (we) perspective, while its use will be sig-nificantly less in spontaneous talk. Apparently, politicians are keenly aware of the benefits



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Author biography

Milica Vukovic has been a teaching assistant of Phonetics of English at the Institute ofForeign Languages, University of Montenegro, since 2006. As a member of the Institutesstaff, she also teaches English at the Faculty of Economics and the Faculty of Mathematicsand Natural Sciences. Ms Vukovi acquired her MPhil degree in linguistics at the Facultyof Philosophy in Niki, where she is currently working toward her PhD. The scope ofher interest covers discourse analysis, and, in particular, political discourse analysis,conversation analysis, genre analysis and critical discourse analysis.

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