A Study Of Evidentiality In The Response From The Prime Minister’s Questions

Evidentiality refers to the source of information and the speaker’s attitude towards the reliability of information.In recent years,linguists have analyzed evidentiality from different perspectives,such as semantics,systemic functional linguistics,etc.Through the literature review,it is found that the studies on the response from the PMQs mainly focused on the level of polite speech,and there is still some space for the study on its evidentiality.Starting from the subjectivity of evidentiality,this thesis studies the distribution of evidentiality and its linguistic features in the response from the Prime Minister’s Questions(shorted as PMQs),and concludes the functions of evidentiality in the response with the help of the Engagement System.Based on this background,this study selects the PMQs from April to July 2019,total of 15 sessions.The corpus is downloaded from the official website of the UK Parliament.According to the classification put forward by linguist Mushin(2001:59),evidentials are divided into five categories: personal experience,inferential,reportive,factual,and imaginative.Based on the analysis of the corpus,the study mainly answers the following two questions:(1)What are the distribution and frequency of five evidentials in the response from the PMQs?(2)How do the five evidentials manifest themselves in the response from the PMQs?(3)What are the functions of evidentials in the response from the PMQs?Through the corpus analysis,it is found that:(1)The distribution of five evidentials in the response from the PMQs is uneven.Inferential,factual,and reportive are mostly used,which is also in line with the language characteristics that the prime minister is supposed to give accurate and objective information.(2)The lexical forms of evidentiality in the response from the PMQs are diverse.For example,reportive evidentials can be expressed as “sb says…” or “in line with…”.(3)Functions of evidentiality are persuading others,expressing attitudes,shifting responsibility,and creating a friendly environment.Based on the analysis of evidentiality in the response from the PMQs,this thesis broadens the scope of the application of evidentiality in the study of different corpus;enriches the research perspective of the response from the PMQs;helps readers to cultivate critical thinking when reading such kind of political discourse.At the end of this thesis,the author discussed the limitations of the present study and gave suggestions for further study.