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Article published In:
Journal of Argumentation in Context
Vol. 5:2 (2016) ► pp.191–217

Maneuvering strategically in a press conference to diminish political responsibility for a critical event

The case of the soma mine disaster

| Department of English Linguistics, Hacettepe University, Ankara
It is an essential requirement of democracy that politicians provide account of their words and actions to the public. However, being able to account is especially important when a politician or the party he/she is representing is assumed responsible for a critical event that has undesirable consequences for the public. Under such a condition, political press conferences serve as an instrument for a politician to justify the position of the government by means of argumentation. By adopting the pragma-dialectical framework, this paper sets out to explain how a politician maneuvers strategically in a press conference for the purpose of diminishing political responsibility when his party which is in charge of the government is assumed responsible for a critical event. The paper draws its data from the political press conference held by Erdoğan, a former Prime Minister of Turkey, following the mine accident that took place in Soma, Turkey, in 2014.
Keywords: pragma-dialectics, press conference, strategic maneuvering, accountability, critical event, political responsibility
Published online: 20 October 2016
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https://doi.org/10.1075/jaic.5.2.07dem
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Hernández, Alfonso
2021. Journalists’ moves in political press conferences and their implications for accountability. Journal of Argumentation in Context 10:3 ► pp. 281 ff. DOI logo
Hansson, Sten
2018. Analysing opposition–government blame games: argument models and strategic maneuvering. Critical Discourse Studies 15:3 ► pp. 228 ff. DOI logo

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