(26) MLP: La France que vous défendez, **c'est pas** la France. C'est une salle de marché dans lequel, encore une fois, c'est la guerre de tous contre tous, dans lequel les salariés devront se battre pour préserver leurs emplois, face aux travailleurs détachés ; dans lequel les entreprises entre elles, dans la même branche, devront se battre pour avoir les salaires les plus bas ou la durée de travail la plus longue pour essayer de conserver les marchés entre elles. **C'est absolument pas** la vision qui est la mienne. Moi, je crois encore une fois, à la solidarité.

 'The France you're defending **isn't** France. It's a marketplace where, once again, it's a free-for-all—salaried workers against free-lancers to protect their jobs, businesses in the same field against each other for the lowest salaries or longest hours to protect their profit margins. **That's absolutely not** my vision. Once again, I believe in solidarity.'

In this context, there are indications of pragmatic presuppositions and emphatic meanings even though there is a *ne*-drop. The hyperbolic phrases *salle de marché* 'marketplace,' *la guerre de tous contre tous* 'a free-for-all,' *se battre pour préserver leurs emplois* 'to protect their jobs' that the Le Pen associates with Macron, the opposite candidate, presuppose her having the exact opposite visions of *la France* 'France.' These (26) are examples of the straw man device, which means associating an exaggerated, distorted and even false statement to your opponent, an "argument" then may then argue against and refute. As we also just saw (examples 22–24), straw man arguments involved with negatives do effectively vitalise the opposing pragmatic presupposition of the negation, and thus emphatic negation.

The *ne*-retaining phrases *ce* + *être* + negation come, in the majority of cases, with a stressed *pas* (*PAS*). As noticed, these negations often appear in a longer argumentative sequence, or at least not at the beginning of the turn takings. These utterances (*ne*-retention, *ce* + *être* + negation + stressed *PAS*) appear in phrases with heavier argumentative impact refuting an idea of the opposite side. (ex. 22–25) reinforcing the negative content. This is to say that there is a clear correlation between the *ne*-retention – the reinforced function (emphatic negation) and the elongated *pas* (*PAS*). In the cases of emphatic negation where the *ne* is retained but the *pas* is not stressed there is often another item in the predication that is elongated. In the example below, it is the word "euro" that is focalised and stressed:

(27) EM : Mais on a besoin de l'Europe dans la mondialisation

'But we need Europe to be part of globalisation'

 MLP : Monsieur Macron, ça fait 25 ans que vous promettez l'Europe sociale, vous et vos amis socialistes. 25 ans !

 'Mr. Macron, you and your socialist friends have been promising social reforms for Europe for 25 years!'

 EM : Madame Le Pen, ça fait pas 25 ans que je suis dans la politique..

'Madame Le Pen, I haven't even been in politics 25 years…'

 MLP : La désindustrialisation massive ! Nous avons subi l'effondrement de nos emplois et les délocalisations massives. Et aujourd'hui, Monsieur Macron, l'épargne des Français

 'A massive shift away from an industrial economy! We've undergone the collapse of our job market and massive outsourcing. And now, Mr. Macron, the French people are faced with the loss of their savings accounts.'

EM : **Ce n'est pas** l'euro cela. Les Français le savent…

 'That's not because of the Euro…and the French people know that…'

This focalisation enhance however the emphasising of the negative content and the pragmatic function of negation: the opposite candidate is clearly refuted.

## **5. Discussion**

The results presented in this study have shed light on ever-evolving ways in which negative meanings are successfully communicated when refuting presuppositions in the argumentative discourse of televised French presidential debates over the decades. While individual speaker idiosyncracies remain:

• Macron rarely drops *ne* in this type of utterance and is the candidate who obeys the norm most closely

• François Hollande, Marine Le Pen, and Nicolas Sarkozy are, as a group, more informal than Emmanuel Macron, and they also drop *ne* in a wider range of utterances than Macron does, who drops *ne* mostly in semi-lexicalised forms like *c'est pas* 'it isn't'

The Roitman corpus of French presidential debates presents additional diachronic documentation of *ne*-loss between the last quarter of the 20th century to the second decade of the 21st century, in tandem with an emergent new use of *ne* for negative emphasis, in this case, refutation of a political opponent's presupposition.

As mentioned early in this study, it is difficult to prove anything on the debates as a whole regarding the return of the *ne* – the new *ne* – as a result of the emphasised-polemic negation, due to the general limited *ne*-drop in the actual political debates, a rather normative, elevated type of presentational discourse close to the written form. Whereas the *ne* is dropped in 80%–95% of the cases in conversational mode the *ne* drops in the two last debates only add up to 16%. Even though most negations are emphatic-polemic in these corpora, and the majority of the *pas* are stressed (*PAS*) there is no evidence to say the type *ne* (re) appears for pragmatic reasons to reinforce the negative content of the sentence, but may solely expose the elevated language style of this particular mediatised political event. Our general impressions will however be summarised here.

Regarding the criteria for *ne*-dropping, *ne* drops, to begin with, more with certain forms and contexts than with others: when the clitic pronoun is *ce* 'it,' *je* 'I,' and when it has scope over frequent verbs like *savoir* 'to know,' *vouloir* 'to want,' and *parler* 'to speak.' We have seen that *ne* drops in formulaic expressions (or chunks) such as *je sais pas* 'I don't know' and *je parle pas* 'I don't speak' and to a rather high extent in *c'est pas* 'it isn't' that we have studied more closely in this chapter. *Ne*-dropping also occurs more frequently when the negatives are involved in highly interactive sequences, when they have a corrective function. Furthermore *ne* is more often maintained when the negative content is emphasised, which is obtained through indications in the context such as semantic and syntactic contrastive element, irony, hyperbolic expressions, argumentative connectors, among others. This leads us to the idea that the emphasised function, the polemic negation seems to bring back the *ne*, which is a result that correlates with those of Fonseca-Greber (2007, 2017) among others (Ashby 1976, Sankoff and Vincent, 1980, van Compernolle, 2009, 2010, Donaldson 2017, French and Beaulieu, 2020). The *ne*-retention thus becomes—through its correlation with the stressed and elongated *pas* (*PAS*)—the pragmatically salient feature of negation emphasising the negative content through indications of the pragmatic presupposition. This reinforcing of the negative content works rhetorically in the political debates, refuting the visions and the political ideas of the adversary as it has been shown in Roitman (2015). Accompanied by the stressed *pas* (*PAS*) these negatives become thus a marker of argumentation discourse. Our results also coincide with the analyses on negations' refutative function carried out in Roitman (2017b). The differences found between the *ne*-dropping and the *ne*-retention examples led us early in the study to the pairing of the first with the descriptive negation and the second with the polemic negation. We have seen that the reinforced negation and its refutative function of polemic negation – the idea of a subjacent counterpart that is refuted – of these *ne*-retention examples are enhanced by other semantic and syntactic contrasting elements when closely examined in context.

Regarding the *ce* + *être* + negation that has been studied more in detail the tendency is that the *ne*-retention sentences *ce n'est pas* and the stressed, elongated *PAS* do influence and show a correlation with the emphasising of the negative content and the refutation of the other candidate's arguments, real or false (straw man arguments). In these sentences, *ne*-retention *per se* though is more decisive for this function than is the stressed *PAS*; in fact, sometimes other predicative items in the negative sentence are also stressed, as first observed by Ashby (1976). So, emphatic-polemic negation + stressed *PAS* seem to enhance *ne*-retention, the new emphatic *ne*. This may indicate what has been shown in earlier studies, i.e., that the evolution of French negation seems not merely be a result of the phonetic evolution suggested by Jespersen but may be reinforced through communicative pragmatic needs. The new *ne* would be a result of such a communicative pragmatic need.

In the *ne*-dropping examples of the *ce* + *être* + negation – *pas* sentences *c'est pas*, the *pas* is never stressed even though some of them are emphatic as we have seen in some examples. Our impression is that the sentences' speech rate is slower than normal in this specific discourse where *ne* is maintained although that has not been measured, and remains thus a hypothesis. Indeed, slowed speech rate is one of the correlates of emphatic *ne* (Ashby, 1976, Fonseca-Greber, 2007, Donaldson, 2017).

### 5.1. Conversational discourse versus argumentative discourse

Compared to what has been found in conversational discourse (Fonseca Greber 2007 and 2017) the *ne*-dropping is as it has been mentioned very reduced in the presidential debates. The differences between the retention and deletion of *ne* are enormous between the two very different types of discourses—one vernacular, conversational, agreeable and friendly, and the other formal, confrontational, disagreeable, and bellicose. Here then, we have broadened the scope of inquiry from conversational-interpersonal discourse to argumentative-presentational discourse. While similarities emerge between the two, differences also emerge, perhaps specifically with regards to interlocutor 'face' and the pragmatics of politeness. While the emphatic negations *ce* + *être* + negation *ce n'est pas* in the debates refute the presupposition, the point of view belonging to the other candidate and enhance thus a face threatening act, the emphatic negations *ce* + *être* + negation *ce n'est pas* in the Fonseca Greber conversational corpus are self-directed and do not constitute a face threatening act, other than towards the speaker himself:

(28) S13: Ah! parce que c'était un coin de buissons…**ce n'est PAS** un coin d'herbe! Oh! 'because it was meant to be [drought-resistant] bushes…it isn't meant to be lawn!'

S1: ouais-ouais ouais-ouais…

'Yeah-yeah. Yeah-yeah…'

Conversely the non-emphatic negations in the debates are often not directly towards the opposite candidate but are used as general corrections of erroneous ideas without sender, and non-emphatic negations in the daily conversation are directed towards the interlocutor, attenuating mistakes of the other participant:

(29) S4: non, mais chez nous, chez nous à G., quand tu le font au vin cuit.. tu mets du vin dedans

 'No, but for us, for us in G, when you make a cooked-wine pie, you put wine in it'

 S5: ah, c'est un gâteau au vin, non, mais **c'est pas** même chose un gâteau au vin. Gâteau au vin oui, mais le vin cuit c'est autre chose.

 'Oh, that's a wine pie, no, but it's not the same thing a wine pie. Wine pie, yes, but the cooked wine one is something different.'

Thus, a contrastive typology of self- vs. other-directed rebuttal/correction of presuppositions, based on face, do exist between conversational and argumentative discourse, as outlined in Table 3.7 below.

### **6. Concluding remarks**

The overall purpose of this study relies on its interest for the pragmatics of negation, how negation is used and for what purpose. We have tried to problematise the question of *ne*-retention and *ne*-dropping in French negatives by focusing more specifically on the conditions regulating the emphasising of negative content. In these political debates most of the sentence negations do have a refutative function; the negative content of the phrase is emphasised in the sense that the pragmatic underlying presupposition or point of view is refuted. We have been able to show that these emphatic negatives in one clause-type (*ce* + *être* + negation + *pas*) correlate with the retention of *ne* and to a certain extent also to the stressed *pas* (*PAS*). Thus, a certain need for reinforcement of the negative content do seem to enhance the return of *ne*. What we see is a pragmatic use of negation where an old form is used in order to create specific meanings, i.e. the emphatic negation. This has been shown in earlier studies on grammaticalisation in general and in particular studies on the evolution of French negation. Speaking of return and of a new *ne* must of course be problematised in more than one way. First, as mentioned earlier, this particular corpus with low rate of *ne*-dropping compared to conversational discourse types cannot disclose the pull and push factors behind the appearance of *ne* in the corpus as a whole, although supposedly on specific clause-types. Furthermore, there are apparently many cycles of negation going on simultaneously depending on all aspects of the communicative situation, as Mosegaard Hansen (2009, 2011, 2014 *et al*.) among others also have shown. However, analyzing specific negatives in a specific context and comparing them to earlier studies with other corpora still show the tendency to re-use older forms in new ways in order to satisfy pragmatic needs and communicate specific meanings.

## **Endnotes**

1. Within this framework, the concept of meaning (French: *signification*) "contains above all, according to our view, *instructions* given to those who will have to interpret an utterance of the sentence, inciting them to look in the communicative context for such or such type of information and to use it in such or such a way in order to reconstruct the meaning intended by the speaker " (Ducrot 1980a, 12 Own translation). Analyzing language units such as refutation-statements thus implies not the description of the meaning but the search for indications of the argumentative status (and therefore the argumentative function) of the utterance via the marks of the utterance process (French: *énonciation*) such as pronouns indicating interlocuteurs: connectors, negation, certains tense-forms, scalar words. These units, traces of the énonciation expose different and often opposing "voices" in the utterance, which has been described as polyphony. The presence of sentence negation in a statement indicates, for example, an instruction that the speaker must look for contradictory arguments in the context. This contains the core of argumentation theory in language (Anscombre and Ducrot 1983).

2. This '*ne* Verb *pas*' of Classical French remains in use in the written language today, because the French writing system was codified during this same time period.

3. Outside of France and writing earlier—both as predicted by Ferguson's (1959) model of diglossia—for earlier proponents of French diglossia, see also Lodge (1993), Fonseca-Greber (2000), and Fonseca-Greber & Waugh (2003).

4. For example, prepared speeches, telescripted radio and television reporting, and the like.

5. Ashby (1977), Miller (1991), Pierce (1992), Roberge (1986, 1990), Jakubowicz & Rigaut (1997), Fonseca-Greber (2000, 2009, 2018), Fonseca-Greber & Waugh, 2003a,b), Füß (2005), van Gelderen (2011), Zribi-Hertz (2011), Bahtchevanova & van Gelderen (2016).

6. And even slower in reaching (let alone gaining traction) among the language teaching establishment—whether French-as-a-foreign language overseas (Walz 1986, Joseph 1988, Waugh & Fonseca-Greber 2002, Durán & McCool 2003, Fonseca-Greber 2013, Grangier & O'Connor DiVito 2018) or even French-as-a-second-language within the French-speaking world itself (Giroud & Surcouf 2016).

7. The name of the winning candidate appears in bold.

8. The 2017 data includes a lot of 'noise': *gender* (the only M-F, not M-M, debate); *age* (a 'young' candidate who may have acquired or speechaccommodate the grammar of his elders' generation and/or who may be

on the front lines of a new change through abductive reanalysis (Anderson 1973)); *political party* (the first time a far-right Le Pen-family political party has reached the presidential run-off). Despite this, taken as a whole, the 2010-decade shows a distinct drop from forty years earlier.

9. An anonymous reviewer inquires if the shift from *ce* to *ça* plays a role. Although this is beyond the scope of this article, it is worth noting that *ça*  itself is the so-called stressed pronoun, and therefore, emphatic.

10. An anonymous reviewer inquires if the cleft structure plays a role. Although this is beyond the scope of this article, it is worth noting that clefting serves to focalise the noun, and is therefore a form of emphasis itself.

## **References**

*French Language Studies*, Retrieved from https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr /hal-01940633

Benveniste, É. (1966). *Problèmes de linguistique générale*. Paris : Gallimard.

Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, https://doi.org/10.1075 /pbns.283

## **4. Metadiscursive Negation, Evidential Points of View and** *Ethos* **in Argentine Political Discourse**

*María Marta García Negroni*

## **1. Introduction**

As is widely known, Ducrot (1984) has defined three types of negation: descriptive, polemic and metalinguistic. The descriptive type is regarded as a delocutionary derivative of the polemic type and is said to represent a certain state of affairs which happens to be negative. By contrast, the polemic negation always implies that there exist two antagonistic viewpoints that, within the framework of the theory of polyphony, must be attributed to different discursive beings: enunciators E1 and E2. The former is held responsible for the underlying positive point of view while the latter comprises of an objection to the former and represents the point of view to which locutor L adheres. According to Ducrot, polemic negation functions as an assertive representation of a given situation, and it always has a diminishing or decreasing effect (*i.e.*, its interpretation always implies *less than*) and assumes the presuppositions of the underlying positive utterance.

As opposed to polemic negation, Ducrot depicts metalinguistic negation as a type of negation that contradicts the semantic elements that are comprised within a given utterance that is aimed at being rejected. In this sense, this negation type does not oppose the points of view of two enunciators; rather it has in its scope a different locutor who uttered its positive counterpart. According to the French linguist, it is exactly within the framework of this refusal to an antagonistic locutor that this negation type retains a series of distinctive features. Firstly, this type can bring about 'a majoring or augmentative effect [of the argumentative force] instead of its normal diminishing or weakening effect' (1984, p. 217) [translation]. In Ducrot's view, 'one can say "Peter isn't intelligent, he's brilliant", only as a response to another locutor who

#### **How to cite this book chapter:**

García Negroni, M.M. 2023. Metadiscursive Negation, Evidential Points of View and *Ethos* in Argentine Political Discourse. In: Roitman, M. (ed.) *Negatives and Meaning: Social Setting and Pragmatic Effects: Using Negatives in Political Discourse, Social Media and Oral Interaction*, pp. 83–111. Stockholm: Stockholm University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.16993/bcd.d. License: CC BY 4.0.

has effectively qualified Peter as intelligent' (1984, p. 217) [translation]. Secondly, this negation type may – though it is not necessarily a compulsory feature – reject the presuppositions assumed to be the case in the prior positive utterance. Thus, if in (1) the negative utterance only affects the explicit semantic content (*i.e.*, the presupposition that *Peter used to smoke* remains unaltered), (2) shows a different scenario as is seen in the rectifying utterance following it. In this case, the negative utterance precisely contradicts the presupposition.

To sum up, according to Ducrot, the distinctive feature of this negation type is the fact that it requires a prior enunciation coming from another locutor whose words locutor L considers improper either because they presented an erroneous point of view or because in their utterance, they expressed a presupposition or a certain degree that cannot be accepted, or even

'because there is something that, due to the mode of expression, may be considered inadequate (such as an element of speech independent of the content, a word which might be considered as 'out of place', too colloquial or too distant, a pronunciation or grammar mistake): all these aspects of speech can be rejected by means of a syntactically negative statement' (Ducrot, 2001, p. 30). [translation]

However, as I discussed in previous papers (García Negroni, 2009, 2017), a reply in a dialogue is not a necessary condition for metalinguistic negation to appear. In fact, this is only the case in its metalinguistic use, properly speaking, in which the negative utterance objects to the use of a given word or a group of words uttered by the interlocutor in light of a syntactic or morphological or social rule that is put to light in the utterance that follows – the one which introduces the rectification. However, the scenario will not necessarily be the same when it comes to what I refer to as a metadiscursive use of metalinguistic negation or, to be brief, *metadiscursive negation*. As I will argue, this novel type of negation characteristically rejects a *quotative discourse frame* –a discourse frame related to others' discourse which is dialogically evoked in the very same negative enunciation to favour a particular subjective positioning or stance. In other words, metadiscursive negation always conveys – I will posit – an *evidential quotative meaning*.

Most often approached from referential or cognitive perspectives, evidentiality is usually understood as the semantic domain marking the existence of the source of information in the utterance and specifying what type of source–whether direct or indirect–it involves (Aikhenvald, 2004). The source is said to be direct when the knowledge at stake has been acquired by means of a perception arising from one of the speaker's senses, and is said to be indirect when such knowledge derives from an inference or from a quotation of somebody else's discourse (Anderson, 1986; Willet, 1988).

Depending on whether it is direct or indirect, some researchers that hold a 'broad' conception of evidentiality posit that the source implies different degrees of reliability, which in turn impact on the speaker's epistemic attitude towards the message conveyed (Chafe, 1986; RAE, 2009). This relation of inclusion in which one of the terms is understood within the scope of the other is not, however, the only position regarding the relationships that can be established between evidentiality and modality. Indeed, as indicated in the bibliography on the subject (Dendale & Tasmowksi, 2001), other authors claim that the relationship is one of disjunction or one of overlap. In the case of disjunction, evidentiality and epistemic modality are conceived as independent categories (De Haan, 1999; Aikhenvald, 2004; Cornillie, 2007, among others), given that –as stated– a constant biunivocal correlation cannot always be established between the type of evidentiality and the degree of epistemic commitment. In the case of overlap, although it is admitted that evidentiality and modality constitute independent categories, the existence of a convergence between the two is insisted upon when it comes to inferential evidentiality (Van der Auwera & Plungian, 1998).

Languages vary in terms of the manifestation of evidentiality. Some, such as Tuyuca or Quechua, have different morphemes that specify whether the speaker was a direct witness to the events they are narrating, whether they inferred them or whether they heard about them from a third person. Others, like Spanish, do not compulsorily grammaticalise evidential meanings, but instead have resources that allow the deployment, in certain specific contexts, of 'evidential strategies' (Aikhenvald, 2004).

As previously stated, in this paper, I will focus on the analysis of the evidential meaning of metadiscursive negation in Spanish that, like certain syntactic structures, certain adverbial constructions, some discourse markers, certain uses of verb tenses, etc., can convey this type of meaning1 . However, with a view to accounting for such meaning, I will drift from many of the assumptions upon which most studies on evidentiality rest. In fact, on the research paths paved by the theories of polyphony (Ducrot, 1984, 2001), dialogism (Bakhtin, 1981, 1982) and argumentative semantics (Carel, 2011; Carel & Ducrot, 2005; Ducrot, 2004), the *dialogic approach to argumentation and polyphony* (Caldiz, 2019; García Negroni, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021; García Negroni & Hall, 2020, 2022; García Negroni & Libenson, 2020a, 2020b, 2020c, 2021; Zucchi, 2020), within which this study is framed, advocates a non-truth-value and non-referential characterisation of meaning (*i.e.*, there is no meaning component that can actually be considered purely objective). Furthermore, this perspective drifts from the principle of the uniqueness of an intentional subject in discourse (*i.e.*, the subjective points of view posed in a given utterance cannot necessarily be attributed to the same discursive being) while also focusing on the functioning of signs in the language system and in discourse.

I will delve into what I have described as quotative evidential points of view (García Negroni, 2018, 2019, 2021) and into how such viewpoints are displayed in instances of metadiscursive negation. All the cases analysed here belong to a corpus collected from a series of speeches delivered by different Argentine political figures: Juan Domingo Perón (three times President of Argentina: 1946–1952, 1952–1955 and 1973– 1974), Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (twice President of Argentina: 2007–2011 and 2011–2015) and Julio Cobos (Vice President of Argentina from 2007 to 2011, during Cristina Kirchner's first administration). I will seek to attain a two-fold aim. First, I will bring to light the fact that, in these cases, negative enunciation is presented as emerging from and responding to a discourse frame related to other voices –which are dialogically evoked by the enunciation itself. I will then seek to show that in dialogic response to such discourse frame, a given subjective responsive positioning arises along with a given *ethos*  of the *locuteur* (Ducrot, 1984; Amossy, 1999). Associated with different scenes (Maingueneau, 1999, 2002) typical of political enunciation and moulded in light of the different addressees at stake, the variety of *ethos* identified in the analysis will be as follows: the *ethos* of confrontation and discredit; the pedagogical one; the defensive *ethos* of someone who cares for its own public image; the one showing a condition of symmetry; and the cautious, fearful one facing an extreme situation.

The present work will be organised as follows. In section § **2.**, I will discuss the theoretical and methodological foundations of the dialogic approach to argumentation and polyphony (§ **2.1**.). Within this framework, I propose an approximation to the concept of evidential meaning. More specifically, I explore the dynamics of evidential points of view and how these contribute to sense-making in discourse and the dialogic architecture of (inter)subjectivity (§ **2.2**.). In this light, I characterise the *quotative discourse frame* that metadiscursive negation urges the interpreter to identify and retrieve as its cause (§ **2.3**.). In the following sections, I will focus on the quotative evidential points of view materialised in metadiscursive negation, and the identification of the different *ethos* arising from political enunciation (§ **3.**). Finally, I will draw some concluding remarks on this concern (§ **4.**).

## **2. The dialogic approach to argumentation and polyphony**

## 2.1. Theoretical and methodological foundations

Deeply rooted in Ducrot's theory of polyphony (1984) and the theory of argumentative semantics (Anscombre & Ducrot, 1983; Anscombre, 1995; Ducrot, 2004; Carel & Ducrot, 2005), the *dialogic approach to argumentation and polyphony* (hereafter referred to as DAAP), adheres to the principle that the sense of a given utterance must be understood as the description that the very same utterance makes of the enunciation from which it emerged (Ducrot, 1984)2 . In this sense, DAAP recognises the existence of four types of semantic instruction to account for the meaning of an utterance, namely: illocutionary, argumentative, polyphonic and causal (Ducrot, 1984). These last ones, concerning speech characterisation according to 'cause', explain the difference in meaning between a declarative utterance such as *Peter is very intelligent* and an exclamative one as in *Peter is so intelligent!* According to Ducrot, in declarative utterances, enunciation appears 'as if it were the result of a choice, that is to say, as the result of the decision to provide certain information about an object in particular' (1984, p. 186) [translation]. In the exclamation, however, enunciation is presented as triggered by 'the representation of such object: it is Peter's intelligence itself that seems to have forced the enunciation *Peter is so intelligent!*' (1984, p. 186) [translation]. Following this line of thought, DAAP expands on the notion of causal instructions and characterises them from a dialogical perspective. DAAP proposes that every utterance displays as part of its meaning an image of the dialogic 'cause' that motivated its occurrence in discourse (García Negroni, 2019, 2021; García Negroni & Libenson, 2020a, 2021). It is precisely to that image – which I will call a *discourse frame* – that enunciation dialogically and argumentatively responds with a particular stance or subjective positioning (Bakhtin, 1981, 1982). In other words, the subjective stances3 reflected and imprinted in the utterance are to be seen as dialogic responses to a particular discourse frame that each enunciation brings forth.

In accordance with the principles of argumentative semantics (Carel, 2011; Carel & Ducrot, 2005), DAAP's perspective affirms that the discourse frame, *i.e.*, the image that the utterance provides of its 'cause', should be described in terms of argumentative chains. It should be remembered here that, according to Carel & Ducrot (2005), the argumentative sequences that display the meaning of an expression or an utterance are composed by two segments articulated through either a normative or a transgressive relation. In the first case, the segments of the chain are connected by means of the prototypical conclusive connector *therefore* (abbr. *THF*); in the second case, the two segments are articulated by means of the prototypical concessive connector *however* (abbr. *HW*)4 .

Another essential methodological distinction that DAAP takes from Ducrot (1984, 2001) is the distinction that refers to the existence of two different discursive subjects which should not, by any means, be mistaken for the speaking subject: locutor L and locutor l. Locutor L is the discursive character that, within the sense of the utterance itself, is held responsible for the enunciation at stake. In turn, locutor l is the being to whom all first-person indexicals are assigned and about whom something is said in the utterance. Nonetheless, DAAP departs from Ducrot's characterisation of enunciative polyphony in three main aspects: it does not conceive the locutor L as a theatrical *metteur en scène* who–deliberately and consciously–puts a range of *enunciators* on stage5 . Furthermore, DAAP does not insist on maintaining that the enunciator is the source of the semantic content presented in any given utterance, or that L would necessarily take different stances when dealing with diverse enunciators. With a view to avoiding any psychological bias derived from such characterisations and aiming to account for all the semantic perspectives rooted in discourse, DAAP embraces the concept of *point of view* (hereafter PoV) to account for the semantic values imprinted in the utterance. To add to this, it also advocates that all dialogic features (Bakhtin, 1981, 1982) of sense-making be added to the polyphonic and argumentative depiction of the concept of sense referred to above. In other words, when it comes to sense, all the features related to the engagement of any utterance within the discourse chain, along with the subsequent subjective positioning of response to as well as of anticipation of other discourses, should be considered. In light of these claims, DAAP delves into the different subjective stances presented within argumentative sequences in discourse. Such sequences always occur as dialogic responses regardless of the speaker's rhetorical or strategic intentions (García Negroni, 2021; García Negroni & Hall, 2022; García Negroni & Libenson, 2020a, 2021).

In view of this, by articulating principles rooted in the theories of polyphony and argumentative semantics with those of dialogism, DAAP aims to account for all polyphonic and argumentative features of sense from a dialogic perspective and formalise all dialogic relations within a polyphonic and argumentative framework. It is precisely from this viewpoint that DAAP advocates that the characterisation of the PoVs, staging the dialogic relations that a given utterance establishes with the previous and subsequent utterances within the argumentative sequence should be included in the semantic description. Among these PoVs, the central focus of the following section will be *evidential PoVs*.

### 2.2. DAAP and evidential PoV

From a DAAP perspective, a PoV encoding an evidential meaning involves a set of dialogic-argumentative instructions (García Negroni, 2019, 2021). Such instructions call for the identification of the 'cause' of the enunciation within an *evidential discourse frame*; a frame that has motivated the enunciation in which such PoV emerges. In other words, whether materialised in certain syntactic structures, driven by certain verb tenses or by certain discourse markers, evidential PoVs systematically display an image of the enunciation in which they are expressed as caused by a specific discourse frame (hereafter referred to as DF) which the interpreter must identify and retrieve to access the sense of the utterance at stake. Shown but not uttered, such DF is constituted by argumentative sequences which are related to perceptions or acts of saying that are normatively (*i.e.*, in *THF*) or transgressively (*i.e.*, in *HW*) articulated with different types of epistemic statements about l with respect to them. In other words, the dialogic argumentative instructions embedded in evidential PoVs display the enunciation as one motivated by argumentative sequences referring to perceptions verifying it;

[I have been a perceptive witness to X *THF* I (λ) can assert X]

as arising from a conjectural DF;

[I can see/ It is said/ it is known Y *THF* I (λ) can infer X]

or as a result of a quotative DF in which a series of different relations are established between λ and the quoted or evoked discourses

[They say/They said X *HW* I (λ) cannot confirm X] [They say/They said X *THF* I (λ) think that X is possible] [You said/They said X *HW* I (λ) have realised that it is not X] [They say/They may say X *HW* I (λ) don't think X is true]

among other possible instances6 . In all these cases, in light of the different types of DF giving rise to the enunciation, a given subjective, responsive positioning is conveyed and must be interpreted as the indicator of the dialogic response to such DF. Therefore, if the evidential PoV is direct, the subjective stance that emerges in response will involve a strong commitment to the words uttered. Instead, if it is indirect, enunciation will eventually indicate precaution, detachment, concession, reproach or even refusal according to the evoked DF to which the enunciation replies.

**Figure 4.1.** Direct and indirect evidential PoVs, evoked DF and subjective positioning of response.

Otherwise stated, the analysis of evidential meaning proposed by DAAP does not adhere either to the category of the speaker as the source of sense or as the idea that information is encoded in discourse. Nor does it consider the speaker the source or the empirical origin of the information supposedly conveyed in discourse, as is usually stated in studies conducted about evidentiality (refer to, among other authors, Willet, 1988; Anderson, 1986; Aikhenvald, 2004; Bermúdez, 2006, 2016; Cornillie, 2007; Rodríguez Ramalle, 2008, 2014). Within the DAAP framework, what is central is to account for the way in which the evidential PoVs displayed in an utterance contribute to evince the dialogic, argumentative and polyphonic 'causes' that the utterance offers of its own enunciation. In other words, the DFs – for which evidential PoVs urge identification – account for the reason why the enunciation, in which such PoVs are presented, entails a series of dialogic and argumentative features.

In light of the notions discussed above, I will now focus my analysis on instances of metadiscursive negation. As I will try to prove, in these cases, the negative enunciation urges the interpreter to identify and retrieve as its 'cause' a quotative DF.

### 2.3. Metadiscursive negation and quotative DF

Unlike the metalinguistic use, properly speaking, of negation (Ducrot, 1984), the metadiscursive type does not reject the interlocutor's previous utterance but a DF that must be retrieved as the argumentative representation of the 'cause' of that negative enunciation. Therefore, it is precisely this DF, which is related to external voices to be recovered from the 'discursive memory' (Courtine, 1981) and which are considered inappropriate or incorrect, that the enunciation responds to with a vigorous rejecting positioning. Thus, for instance, in (3), the refusal at stake (cf. *In fact, there are no new labels to depict our doctrine or our ideology. It is not by chanting 'I'd give my life for Perón' that we'll honour our country, our homeland*) is not a reply to a previous utterance of a real flesh-and-bone interlocutor. It involves the representation of a dialogically evoked discourse (Bakhtin, 1981, 1982) embedded in the very same negative discrediting enunciation. In this example, it is the discourse of the revolutionary Peronist youth movement that is being discredited:

3. No hay nuevos rótulos que califiquen nuestra doctrina ni a nuestra ideología. Somos lo que las veinte verdades peronistas dicen. No es gritando la vida por Perón que se hace Patria, sino manteniendo el credo por el cual luchamos.

> (Fragmento del discurso de Juan D. Perón, 21/6/1973. Disponible en http://www.historiadelperonismo.com /pensamientos.php).

 In fact, there are no new labels to depict our doctrine or our ideology. We are what the twenty Peronist principles state. It is not by chanting 'I'd give my life for Perón' that we'll honour our country, our homeland but by abiding by the doctrine we are struggling for.

> (Excerpt taken from Juan D. Perón's speech delivered on 21/6/1973. Available at http://www.historiadelperonismo .com/pensamientos.php).

In short, as the materialisation of a quotative evidential PoV, metadiscursive negation is endowed with semantic instructions which call for the retrieval of a given DF – a DF related to others' discourse which is dialogically evoked in the very same negative enunciation – which *is shown* as the main cause that has given way to the refusal (L's particular subjective positioning or stance) expressed in the enunciation. In the following schema, I represent the DF between brackets, the subjective positioning in italics and the link between the DF triggering the enunciation and the subjective stance of response by means of a dialogic connector, HENCE:

[They say X *HW* I (l)don't think X is true] HENCE *L's refutative (and rectifying) enunciation*

So then, in the case of (3), the evidential PoV embedded in the negative utterance prompts the interpreter to identify the following DFs as a constitutive element of sense in the utterance at stake:

[They say X (*Peronism is the historical label* HW *it can change into Socialism*) HW I (l) don't think X is true] [They say X (*chanting 'I'd give my life for Perón'* THF *honouring our country, our homeland*) HW I (l) don't think X is true]

It should be noted that, against Perón's will, the ultimate aim of the revolutionary Peronist youth movement was to transform Peronism into socialism and, what is more, die for it. That is why in (3), variable X (the discourse evoked in the DF) is expressed by means of the argumentative sequences *<Peronism is the historical label* HW *it can change into*  *Socialism>* and *<chanting 'I'd give my life for Perón'* THF *honouring our country, our homeland>*<sup>7</sup> .

Thus, it is this type of DF that accounts for L's subjective stance of rejection and rectification.

[as what they say is wrong/ illegitimate/inappropriate to me (l)], *I (L) strongly reject it and, in turn, I (L) suggest the argumentative sequence which I consider suitable for the situation at stake*.

To put it briefly, as metadiscursive negation materialises quotative evidential PoVs, the negative enunciation always urges the interpreter to retrieve the DF – shown by the enunciation– which is linked to voices considered erroneous or inappropriate and which must necessarily be interdiscursively recovered. In view of such DF, a certain subjective stance of response arises, along with the advent of a given *ethos* in the enunciative scene (Maingueneau, 1999, 2002). In the following section I will exemplify and analyse the different types of *ethos* that emerge from the enunciation of metadiscursive negations extracted from speeches delivered by contemporary Argentine politicians.

## **3. Metadiscursive negations, political discourse and** *ethos*

3.1. Metadiscursive negation and ethos of confrontation and discredit Shown but not uttered, the source of the evoked discourse in the DF may turn out to be 'more or less' distant, or 'more or less' identifiable in the discursive memory. In (3), paraphrase (3a) makes it clear who is to be held responsible for the origin of the discredited discourse by means of an evidential marker–in this case a reduced adverbial clause–of the type *as (the + an) Z + verb of saying* (Anscombre, 2011).

3. a. In fact, there are no new labels to depict our doctrine or our ideology, as the revolutionary Peronist youth movement claims/ as Montoneros think. We are what the twenty Peronist principles state. It is not by chanting 'I'd give my life for Perón' that we'll honour our country, our homeland, as they insist, but by abiding by the doctrine we are struggling for.

This is the scenario that gives rise to the emergence of the indirect, negative addressee in political discourse8 , along with the rise of a given L's *ethos* (Ducrot, 1984; Amossy, 1999; Maingueneau, 1999, 2002). L, holding the subjective position of a political leader, appears to be endowed with the suitable qualities to discredit and reject a controversial act of saying. To put it simply, retrieving the sense of an excerpt like (3) involves identifying in it – by means of the metadiscursive negative utterances – the quotative evidential PoV evoking a DF related to external voices strongly rejected by L.

In scenes of strong confrontation, in which L discredits and undermines the indirect antagonistic addressee's voice (García Negroni, 2016), the enunciations involving instances of metadiscursive negation do not simply show the emergence of an opposed discourse within L's own discourse. In light of their occurrence, generally followed (less frequently preceded) by a rectifying utterance, metadiscursive negative utterances will also introduce the PoV to which L will adhere. In (3), the rectifying utterances following the converse sequences of those rejected9 evoke the following argumentative sequences: *<Peronism* THF *twenty Peronist principles>, <abiding by the Peronist doctrine* THF *honouring our country, our homeland>*, which, in L's view, correspond to the depiction of the situation at stake. Thus, (3)'s overall structure can be outlined as follows:

[They (the revolutionary Peronist youth movement) say X (Peronism is the historical label HW it can change into Socialism / chanting 'I'd give my life for Perón' THF honouring our country, our homeland) *HW* I (l) don't think X is true]

HENCE

*L's refutative enunciation* (Peronism is the historical label THF NEG. change it into Socialism / chant-

ing 'I'd give my life for Perón' HW NEG. honouring our country, our homeland)

*L's rectification* (Peronism THF twenty Peronist principles / abiding by the Peronist doctrine THF honouring our country, our homeland)

In this sense, in (3) a scene of controversy emerges and in it the indirect antagonistic addressee's discourse is discredited and refuted by a contentious L, whose words are presented as the only legitimate utterances. Yet other instances might appear. In fact, the quotative evidential PoV – embedded in instances of metadiscursive negation – may give rise to other scenes, and eventually other *ethos*.

#### 3.2. Metadiscursive negation and pedagogical ethos

Though also related to previous discourses, the DF that the negative enunciation replies to may also evoke other's voices. Therefore, let us consider (4):

4. Apelo una vez más a mis hermanas de género, nosotras ciudadanas de dos mundos, como digo yo, siempre en el mundo de lo privado, para el cual fuimos educadas, la familia, la protección, los hijos, y en el mundo de lo público, al cual hemos decidido acceder para trabajar, para representar o para dirigir, pero siempre con un pie en un mundo y con un pie en el otro, nos da una visión, no solamente de lo grande que es lo público sino de lo pequeño, del detalle que es la familia, lo privado. Por eso vemos cosas que ellos no ven, por eso podemos distinguir y percibir no porque seamos mejores sino porque tenemos ese mundo dual que debemos compartir y articular.

> (Fragmento del discurso de Cristina Kirchner, 14/8/07. Disponible en: http://www.impulsobaires.com.ar)

I appeal to my fellow women. As I always say, we are citizens of two worlds. We were brought up to live in the private world of family matters, protection and kids. But we were also educated to deal with the public sphere. And we have decided to face it to have a job, to represent others or even to run organisations. Yet we are always split into two worlds, which gives us the chance to appreciate how large the public universe is and how small and delicate family and private life is. That's why we can see details men can't, that's why we can distinguish and perceive veiled aspects of life, not because we are better but because we have this two-world view that we must share and put together.

> (This is an excerpt taken from Cristina Kirchner's speech delivered on 14/8/07. Available at: http://www.impulsobaires.com.ar)

In light of the relationship with the figure of the positive addressee (in (4) the female collective: *my fellow women, we are citizens of two worlds*), the type of *ethos* that emerges from this excerpt can be depicted as a didactic or pedagogical *ethos* and the instances of metadiscursive negation embedded in it are not extrinsic to such emergence. In fact, along with other discursive procedures which are typical of expository/explanatory discourses (definitions, examples, causative relations, to name a few), (4)'s metadiscursive negation gives rise to a teaching scene (Maizels, 2010) in which an asymmetric relationship is established between L–in the position of an expert entitled to refer to a given state of things– and its addressees, discursively constructed as disciples who must be provided with certain knowledge. As can be stated, this type of scene gives rise to an intelligible representation of 'the real', thus the instances of metadiscursive negation do not aim to reject a political adversary's saying, as is the case in (3). The DF, which must be retrieved as the 'cause' of the refutative enunciation and to which the enunciation dialogically replies, –due to the position of power granted by knowledge– now alludes to indefinite voices which, as part of the interdiscursive arena, are held responsible for certain social representations that must be discarded.

[They (indefinite voices/ certain feminist groups) say X (*women can distinguish and perceive veiled aspects of life* THF *they are better than men*) HW I (l) don't think X is true]

Again, paraphrase (4a) containing an evidential marker of the type *as (the + an) Z + verb of saying* enables the interpreter to retrieve the collective voice to which the origin of the rejected discourse is assigned10.

4. a. We can see details men can't, but not because we are better, as certain collectives of women claim.

As opposed to l's own discursive positioning, these representations are rejected and corrected by L by means of the following rectifying utterance, which introduces the 'true/real' sense that L–from a position of power derived from knowledge–reveals to the addressees involved:

[As I (l) consider that what is sometimes said /certain feminist groups state is incorrect],

*I (L) discard it and, in turn, I (L) suggest* the argumentative sequences corresponding to the situation at stake.

In (4), the new sense is expressed by means of the following sequence: *women have a two-world view* THF *they can distinguish and perceive veiled aspects of life*. Thus, (4)'s overall structure can be outlined as follows:

[They (indefinite voices/certain feminist groups) say X (*broader understanding of the state of things* THF *being better than men*) HW I (l) don't think X is true] HENCE *L's refutative enunciation* (*broader understanding of the state of things* HW neg. *being better than men*) *L's rectification* (*women's participation in two worlds* THF *broader understanding of the state of things*)

### 3.3. Metadiscursive negation and self-defensive ethos

However, if metadiscursive negation conveys a quotative evidential PoV, the other different voices evoked by the DF to which the enunciation replies may be either previous or prefigured. As Bakhtin states (1981, 1982), any utterance is a link in the discourse chain. As such, it involves not only a response to previous utterances but also, in an anticipatory manner, a reply to those utterances that might eventually follow it. This can be seen in (5):

5. ¡Qué nos pasa! Y acá quiero hablarnos –*y no es una cuestión de clase, por favor, soy peronista*– a nosotros mismos, a esta clase media tan volátil, a esta clase media como yo, universitaria, a la clase media que muchas veces no entiende y cree que, separándose de los laburantes, de los morochos, le va a ir mejor. Le pasó a todos, es como el sino de las grandes frustraciones en la historia argentina.

> (Fragmento del discurso de Cristina Kirchner, 14/10/2010. Disponible en http://www.lacampora.org/wp-content /uploads/2011/08/CFK-Discurso-acto-de-la-Juventud -Peronista-en-el-Luna-Park-14-09-20101.pdf)

What's going on to us! I'd like to speak to you Argentines –*and, please, it is not a question of class; I'm Peronist*– I'd like to address our own collective, such a volatile middle class I belong to. We belong to a social class that has been able to reach higher education and we sometimes think that life will become rosier for us if we drift apart from the darkskinned working classes. This has happened to us all. This has involved one of the greatest frustrations in Argentine history.

(This is an excerpt taken from Cristina Kirchner's speech delivered on14/10/2010. Available at http://www.lacampora.org/wp -content/uploads/2011/08/CFK-Discurso-acto-de-la-Juventud -Peronista-en-el-Luna-Park-14-09-20101.pdf)

At times introduced by a negative expression of the type *this doesn't mean/doesn't imply* (Sp. *no es que + polemic subjunctive*, RAE, 2009)11, or at times introduced by negative forms presented in explanatory clauses as seen in (5) (*please, it is not a question of class*), the quotative evidential PoV encoded in this type of negation leads the interpreter to identify a DF related to voices of likelihood as the dialogic 'cause' of the enunciation:

[They may say X (*CFK speaking to the middle class* THF *CFK being classist*) HW I (l) don't think X is true]

This teaching scene, in which the refutative enunciation appears to have been caused by a DF related to possible objections to the speech at stake, paves the way for a self-defensive, suspicious *ethos* of someone who is concerned about its own public image. While on the alert for any possible misinterpretations, we can see the rise of the discursive image of a person seeking to control sense, thus cancelling any possible criticism or negative judgement. Let us focus on the adverbial locution *por favor* (Eng., *please*), which can function as a rejection marker that either discards previous discourse as far-fetched or inadmissible (Santos Río, 2003) or, as in the case of (5), disregards what the interlocutor or somebody else might possibly say. Once rejected by means of the converse argumentation (Carel & Ducrot, 2005), the argumentative sequence is rectified on the grounds of a different argumentation. Thus, *<CFK speaking to the middle class* THF *CFK being classist>* is corrected by *<CFK being Peronist* THF *CFK Neg. being classist>*

> [As I (l) know that what somebody might say is wrong], *I (L) fully reject it and, in turn, I (L)suggest* the argumentative sequence that corresponds to the situation at stake.

Thus, (5) should be outlined as follows:

[They may say X (*CFK speaking to the middle class* THF *CFK being classist*) HW I (l) don't think X is true]

HENCE *L's refutative enunciation* (*CFK speaking to the middle class* HW *CFK* neg*. being classist*) *and L's rectification* (*CFK being Peronist* THF *CFK* NEG. *being classist*)

### 3.4. Metadiscursive negation and symmetric ethos

In certain cases, the possible critical utterances being cancelled in an anticipatory manner might be attributed to the adversary or negative addressee:

[They'll say X *HW* I (l) don't think X is true]

As can be seen in the example below, the self-defensive *ethos* merges with the confronting *ethos*:

6. Compañeros y compañeras: quisiera poder contarles de la mejor manera, lo que siento en este momento. Verlos a ustedes me hace recordar parte de la historia de mi propia vida y también la de nuestro país. Déjenme decirles que siento una sana envidia por todos ustedes. *Pero no por lo que seguramente alguno mañana va a decir "claro, querría tener 20 años, por eso se hace la nena". No, qué va*. ¿Saben por qué les tengo envidia? Porque cuando yo fui joven como ustedes, cuando junto a miles y millones de argentinos apostábamos a un país diferente, no tuvimos la suerte que tienen ustedes hoy de vivir en un país con todas las libertades.

(Fragmento del discurso de la Cristina Kirchner, 14/12/2010. http://www.casarosada.gob.ar/informacion /archivo/22619-blank-77976707)

 My dearest fellow citizens, I'd like to describe my feeling to you as clearly as possible. When I see you, I can remember my own personal life as well as the history of our own country. Let me tell you that I can feel healthy envious of you now. *But not because of what some will probably say tomorrow: "I understand, she'd like to be a twenty-year-old, that's why, she pretends to be younger than she really is." By no means*. Do you know why I feel envious? Because when I was young like you, we used to struggle for a different country –we were thousands, millions of us in those days– but unfortunately, we were not as lucky as you are now. Today you can enjoy a country that ensures freedoms of all kinds.

> (Excerpt taken from Cristina Kirchner's speech delivered on 14/12/2010. Available at http://www.casarosada .gob.ar/informacion/archivo/22619-blank-77976707)

Several features in the excerpt above contribute to the emergence in (6) of a conversational scene of convergence in which L addresses its supporters and followers (positive addressees) as if L were a friend of theirs speaking about its most private, intimate feelings; in this case, memories of political militancy in a youth movement. In this intimate scene, we can also see an explanatory clause (*but not because of what some will probably say tomorrow*) containing a quotative evidential PoV embedded in the negation. This example shows that this PoV leads us to interpret the refutative enunciation containing it as one resulting from a DF related to possible voices assigned to the adversary.

However, the negative enunciation in (6) does not just behave as an anticipatory reply which gives rise to a figure confronting an enemy whose voice is being discredited in a mocking tone. By stating some will probably say tomorrow, L alludes to a 'media corporation', which has been one of the favourite targets in former president Kirchner's speeches, particularly in the wake of the conflict with the farming sector in 2008. In light of this scenario, L refers to some knowledge (i.e., the troubled relationship between the former president and the press) that is shared with its positive addressees. This common ground gives way to a strong bond of support between L and its positive addressees, who bring that event to their minds as part of the 'shared memory' in Kirchnerist discourse. In other words, the segment *but not because of what some will probably say tomorrow* acts as a memory of previous discourses, while the sense of those utterances is being updated in the present act of enunciation. This gives rise to a bond of mutual, intersubjective understanding between L and its positive addressees. Therefore, since the addressees are constructed as members of the same collective who share certain knowledge about what is being alluded to12, the symbolic roles L assigns to its addressees and to itself reinforce a scene of a relaxed, friendly talk of mutual understanding. This raises an inherent symmetric ethos.

> [as I (l) know –and we all know– that what some (members of the media corporation) will say tomorrow is a lie],

> *I deny (L) it and, in turn, I suggest (L) the argumentative sequence corresponding to the situation at stake*.

Negation in (6) can be outlined as follows:

[Some (the media corporation) will say X (neg. *being young* THF *being envious of their young age*) *HW* I (l) don't think X is true] HENCE *L's refutative enunciation* (*CFK* neg. *being young* HW neg. *CFK being envious of their young age*)

*and L's rectification* (*CFK's young age without freedom* THF *CFK 's positive envy of young age with freedoms of all kinds*)

### 3.5. Metadiscursive negation and cautious, fearful ethos

A last example will be analysed to illustrate the relationship that can be established between metadiscursive negation and the category of *ethos*. In this case, we can see negative utterances embedded with evidential PoVs urging the interpreter to identify DF related to critical voices or instructions of what should be done or said. Such is the case of the following excerpt taken from former vice-president Cobos in the so-called 'non-positive vote' event, which takes place within the framework of the heated confrontation between the national government and the farming industry over the export tariffs imposed on agricultural goods. It should be noted that this excerpt comes from the final speech of the parliamentary debate on the 125 Bill in which, as President of the Senate Chamber, J. Cobos had to cast a vote to resolve the deadlock. However, his position opposed that of the national government to which he belonged.

7. Yo sé que me cabe una responsabilidad histórica en esto, hay quienes desde lo político dicen que tengo que acompañar por la institucionalidad, por el riesgo que esto implica. Mi corazón dice otra cosa y no creo que esto sea el motivo para poner en riesgo el país, la gobernabilidad, la paz social. Quiero seguir siendo el vicepresidente de todos los argentinos, el compañero de fórmula hasta el 2011 con la actual presidenta de los argentinos. Vuelvo a decir que es uno de los momentos más difíciles de mi vida. *No persigo ningún interés*. Estoy diciendo, o expresando, tratando de expresarlo, que mis convicciones, mis sentimientos empujan la decisión. Muy difícil, seguramente.  Porque no creo que sirva una ley que no es la solución a este conflicto. La historia me juzgará, no sé cómo. Pero espero que esto se entienda. Soy un hombre de familia como todos ustedes, con una responsabilidad en este caso. *No puedo acompañar, y esto no significa que estoy traicionando a nadie*. Estoy actuando conforme a mis convicciones. Así que yo le pido a la presidenta de los argentinos que tiene la oportunidad de enviar un nuevo proyecto que contemple todo lo que se ha dicho, todos los aportes que se han brindado, gente de afuera o aquí mismo. Que la historia me juzgue. Pido perdón si me equivoco. *Mi voto, mi voto no es positivo*, mi voto es en contra.

(Fragmento final del discurso de J. Cobos, 17/7/2008. Disponible en https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDHWP9\_XWhE)

I know I am responsible for a historic decision. On the one hand, some people state I should vote in favour to ensure institutionality, as otherwise might be risky. On the other hand, my heart says something different and I don't think this might eventually put institutions, governance or social peace at risk. I wish to continue holding this position as Argentina's vice-president and Argentine President's running mate until 2011. Once again, this is one of the most difficult moments I have been through in my life. *I don't advocate any vested interests*. What I mean to say is that my decision is driven by my convictions and feelings. This is very difficult, surely. I think that Argentina's president will understand us all, she will understand me. As I don't think that if this law is passed, it will imply a solution to the conflict. History will judge me. I don't know which judgements will be made. I hope this can be understood. I am a family man, like all of you. The only difference is that I bear institutional responsibility over this issue. *I can't vote in favour and this doesn't mean that I'm a betrayer*. I stick to my convictions. Thus, I ask Argentina's president to take this golden opportunity to submit a new bill considering all the aspects dealt with and all the contributions given in this parliamentary debate, whether by parliamentary members or by people from other social sectors. History will judge me. I apologise if I am mistaken. *My vote, my vote is not positive*. My vote is against the law.

> (Excerpt taken from J. Cobos' speech delivered on 17/7/2008. Available at https://www.youtube .com/watch?v=PDHWP9\_XWhE)

Showing signs of nervousness (the speaker moves the microphone constantly, removes signs of sweating, his breathing is shallow) and at a very slow pace (it takes the speaker six minutes to utter his words), his speech puts on stage the figure of an ordinary man (*I am a family*  *man, like all of you*) in a difficult situation (*the only difference is that I bear institutional responsibility over this issue*): either casting a vote in light of his feelings or being accused of betrayal due to his vote because it differs from the ideas supported by the government he is a member of. This excerpt contains several instances of polemic negation (*I don't think this might eventually put institutions, governance or social peace at risk, I don't think that if this law is passed, it will imply a solution to the conflict*) giving rise to dynamic PoVs following the same argumentative orientation (Anscombre, 1990; Roitman, 2009). Such orientation ensures argumentative coherence in the text and is made explicit by some instances of metadiscursive negation such as *I don't advocate any vested interests, I can't vote in favour and this doesn't mean that I'm a betrayer, my vote is not positive*, which clearly reject DFs related to previous or prefigured sayings regarding any vice-president's duties and responsibilities. Therefore, such sayings would condemn his dissenting vote. In view of such voices, attributed to the government of which l is a member as the vice-president (cf. *some people state I should vote in favour to ensure institutionality; I wish to continue holding this position as Argentina's vice-president*):

[You (government l is a member of) say X (*against the law* THF *advocating vested interests*) *HW* I (l) don't think X is true] [You (government <sup>l</sup> is a member of) say X (*negative vote* THF *betrayal*) *HW* I (l) don't think X is true] [You (government <sup>l</sup> is a member of) say X (*being a member of the government* THF *voting in favour*) *HW* I (l) don't think X is true]

the enunciation replies in disagreement. Nonetheless, it is not until it comes to an end that a quasi-confessional scene showing a cautious, fearful *ethos* of someone who is concerned and tentative about its words and just acts in line with its heart, its convictions and feelings that the rectification presented by its own PoV emerges: *my vote is against the bill*.

> [as following my convictions (l) what is said (by the government) is false],

> *I (L) reject it and, in turn, I (L) suggest the argumentative sequence corresponding to the situation at stake*.

The instances of metadiscursive negation should be outlined as follows:

[You say X (*against the law* THF *advocating vested interests*) *HW* I (l) don't think X is true] HENCE *L's refutative enunciation* (*against the law* HW neg*. advocating vested interests*)

[You say X (*negative vote* THF *betrayal*) *HW* I (l) don't think X is true] HENCE *L's refutative enunciation* (*negative vote* HW neg*. betrayal*) [You say X (*being a member of the government* THF *vote must* be positive) *HW* I (l) don't think X is true] HENCE *L's refutative enunciation* (*being a member of the government* HW neg*. positive vote*) *L's rectifying enunciation* (*in the light of my own convictions* THF *negative vote*)

### **4. Concluding remarks**

As has been seen above, DAAP's conception of sense opposes the view that states that linguistic meaning is constituted by informative or cognitive aspects. In view of this conception, DAAP rejects the hypothesis that the study of language implies evaluating propositions in terms of truth values or analysing information content in light of a speaker's underlying intention. In fact, framed within the ground-breaking theories of polyphony, argumentation and dialogism, DAAP drifts from any type of perspective considering that the semantic value of an utterance results from an intentional subject's willingness. Thus, this approach does not focus on the mental activity of a real, intentional subject who would eventually let us know how they acquired the information content embedded in the utterance they assert. Rather, the main interest of this approach lies in the depiction any utterance makes of its own enunciation. In light of these fundamentals, this study has sought to contribute to a dialogic, polyphonic and argumentative depiction of the evidential meaning of metadiscursive negation.

In the analysis of this particular issue, it is held that meaning lies in the identification and retrieval of a DF which, shown by the enunciation, gives rise to a given argumentative depiction of other – previous or prefigured – voices. The DF that gives rise to this enunciation, and in which the evidential PoV is expressed through a metadiscursive negation, is constituted, depending on each case by argumentative chains like the following:

[They say/ They will say/They may say/ You / Some say X HW I (λ) don't think X is true]

Given that λ (the individual L was and is beyond the enunciation) does not agree on X, L (the discourse being who is held responsible for the enunciation) rejects and cancels such saying, which is dialogically evoked in the negative enunciation and then introduces its own rectifying PoV:

[as what they say/ they will say/ they may say/ you say/ some say is unreasonable/illegitimate/inappropriate to me (λ)],

I (L) reject it/ discard it/ cancel it/ deny it and, in turn, I (L) suggest the argumentative sequence corresponding to the situation at stake.

Regarded as the depiction any utterance makes of its own enunciation, the sense of an utterance displays a figure of L that emerges from the dialogic relations established by the utterance as a link in the discourse chain. Thus, L is not in fact an entity that is external, extrinsic to language functioning (*i.e.*, the speaker); rather, it is an internal, language-intrinsic figure that responds in a dialogical way to a DF upon which enunciation is founded. In view of what has hopefully been revealed in this study, it can be held that it is this dialogic stance that gives rise to the emergence of different *ethos* in political discourse in the specific case of metadiscursive negation.

## **Endnotes**

1. Cf. in this regard, among many others, the works by Reyes (1990, 1994), Bermúdez (2006, 2016), Cornillie (2007), Escandell Vidal (2010), Rodríguez Ramalle (2008, 2014), Cornillie & Gras Manzano (2015), González Ruiz, R. *et al*. (2016), García Negroni (2018, 2021), García Negroni y Libenson (2020a, 2020b y 2020c), Maldonado y de la Mora (2020).

2. In French *théorie de l'énonciation*, there is not only that which is said, the utterance (Fr. *le dit*), but also the fact of saying it, the *enunciation* (Fr. *le dire*) that reflects itself in the structure of the utterance. In terms of Ducrot (1984), the enunciation is 'the event, the fact constituted by the appearance of an utterance'. Therefore, to describe the meaning of an utterance is no other thing than to describe its enunciation.

3. From DAAP's view, stance does not refer to the epistemological positioning of the speaking subject but to the positioning which is manifested, within enunciation, as a dialogic-argumentative response towards a discourse frame that unchains it (García Negroni, 2021; García Negroni & Libenson, 2020a, 2021) The present dialogic notion of stance is philosophically anchored in the bakhtinian perspective of discourse, according to which subjectivity is set up as an act of self's response towards otherness.

4. From the very beginning, argumentative semantics (cf. Anscombre & Ducrot, 1983; Anscombre, 1995; Carel & Ducrot, 2005; Carel, 2011; García Negroni, 2017, 2018, among others) has claimed that meaning should be described in terms of argumentative chains and not in terms of reference to reality or to previous cognitive categories. Initially conceived as a sequence 'Argument-Conclusion' connected by means of the prototypical conclusive connector *therefore*, the notion of argumentative chain has been redefined in terms of semantic interdependence between the two segments of the chain (Carel & Ducrot, 2005; Carel, 2011). This semantic interdependence can be expressed not only in terms of a conclusive or normative argumentation (i.e., A *therefore* B), but also in terms of a transgressive relation (i.e., A *however Neg*. B) by means of the prototypical concessive connector *however*.

5. In Ducrot's theory of polyphony (1984), the enunciator (Fr. *énonciateur*) is the discursive character to whom the origin of semantic content of the utterance is attributed.

6. In order to facilitate the interpretation of the DF evoked by the evidential PoVs referred to in the examples, I have resorted to a variable *X* as a simplifying form of the argumentative sequence embedded in its sense in each case.

7. Example (3) involves an excerpt taken from a famous speech delivered by J. Domingo Perón as soon as he returned to Argentina after being in exile for eighteen years. The day before his return, millions of people went to Ezeiza International Airport to offer him a warm welcome. Yet, the event ended up in a very serious armed clash between Peronist union activists and the revolutionary Peronist youth movement (*Montoneros*). Slogans such as *Perón, Evita, glory to the socialist people!* and *Here is the youth movement. Perón again, or rather dead* to which the youth movement adhered are precisely the ones dialogically evoked by the DF which gives rise to (3).

8. According to Verón (1987), as opposed to other discourse types, political discourse intrinsically implies the simultaneous construction of a positive addressee and a negative one. Verón adds that in contemporary democratic systems there is a third type of addressee that is to be persuaded. This figure is the 'indecisive addressee'. For a further characterisation of the different types of negative addressees (veiled, indirect, direct, third-person negative addressees) in political discourse, refer to García Negroni, 1988 & 2016.

9. Let us consider that in terms of argumentative semantics (Carel & Ducrot, 2005), converse argumentation keeps the two segments of the sequence together, but it alters the connector and the negation type. Therefore, for example, the converse sequences X THF Y and X THF *Neg*. Y involve X HW *Neg*.Y and X HW Y respectively.

10. It should be noted that the negative utterance *not because we are better* cannot be analyzed as a polemic negation. In the first place, because it is followed by a rectification utterance introduced by *but*, characteristic of metalinguistic/metadiscursive negation. In the second place, because the positive position (i.e., *we are better*) to which the locutor L opposes is not internal to the discourse in which it is questioned. As shown in paraphrase (8a), the utterance involves a plausible discourse attributed to other locutor(s) in the enunciative scene. Hence the metadiscursive value of the negation at stake is confirmed.

11. In order to provide an example of this type of negative expression with a polemic *subjunctive* (RAE, 2009) in Spanish, we should consider the following excerpt taken from C. Kirchner's speech on 3/12/2016: '*No es que esté descreyendo –en absoluto–* de los partidos políticos y de las organizaciones partidarias, nada más alejado de mí, soy profundamente democrática, pero entiendo que no es suficiente'. *This doesn't mean I don't trust in political parties. I'm far from that idea. On the contrary. I deeply advocate democracy, though I understand it is not enough*. According to RAE (2009, p. 1945), this polemic *subjunctive* (i.e. *'No es que esté descreyendo', This doesn't mean I don't trust*) appears to contradict or reject a previous affirmation.

12. In García Negroni (2019), I deal with *alluding PoVs*. Strongly connected to what Authier-Revuz (1984, 1992, 2020) refers to as marked or unmarked forms of heterogeneity, these PoVs involve saying forms in which something said in previous events is alluded, transformed or framed. In fact, as they do not involve the explicit object of the act of enunciation but imply alluded sense, these PoVs are likely to be overlooked. However, and in line with Authier, if they are identified by the interpreter they act as a memory of previous discourses and they enable the interpreter to have access to them.

## **References**

Aikhenvald, A. (2004). *Evidentiality*. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Anscombre, J.-C. (1995). *Théorie des Topoi*. Paris: Kimé.

and the expression of surprise, *Pragmatics*, https://doi.org/10.1075/prag .20015.gar

## **5. A Corpus-Pragmatic Approach to Negation in Electoral Tweets**

*Elena Albu and Francesca Capuano*

## **1. Introduction**

The extensive use of Twitter to serve political agendas has led to the emergence of a new type of political discourse in the form of political tweets. Characterised by salient textual and discursive features, political tweets have led to a reassessment of the traditional division between spoken and written language, and a re-evaluation of political discourse. The analysis of the constructional strategies and interactional functions of negation may indicate whether the balance is tipped towards the prevalence of oral or written features in political tweets and whether the formal register of political discourse has generally shifted to a more flexible and colloquial form, particularly during electoral campaigns.

This paper aims to discuss the way in which negation is used in the political tweets sent by the UK candidates during the European Parliamentary Elections held in May 2014. Although negation in English is usually represented by *not*-negation and *no*-negation (Biber et al., 1999; Tottie, 1991), we distinguish between *no*-negation, *not*negation and *n't*-negation as separate negative categories (for a similar approach, see Xiao & McEnery, 2010). This tripartite division is ascribed to the textual and discursive properties of tweets, thus better serving the purposes of our investigation. This study will help identify whether the negative constructions in the dataset are illustrative of spoken or written language and will point out how certain features of these constructions contribute to shaping the individuality of political tweets. These research questions are intended to cast light on the on-going debates about the oral vs. written features present in

**How to cite this book chapter:**

Albu, E. and Capuano, F. 2023. A Corpus-Pragmatic Approach to Negation in Electoral Tweets. In: Roitman, M. (ed.) *Negatives and Meaning: Social Setting and Pragmatic Effects: Using Negatives in Political Discourse, Social Media and Oral Interaction*, pp. 113–144. Stockholm: Stockholm University Press. DOI: https://doi.org /10.16993/bcd.e. License: CC BY 4.0.

tweets, and about the colloquialisation of political discourse in the digital environment1 .

This paper is an exploratory study and uses the tools and methods provided by corpus pragmatics (Aijmer & Rühlemann, 2015; Jucker, 2018; Romero-Trillo, 2008; Rühlemann & Aijmer, 2015). The first part of the analysis will take a contrastive quantitative approach, complemented in the second part by qualitative analyses of the collocates found in the immediate surrounding context. Particular attention will be paid to the prevalence and distribution of *no*-negation, *not*-negation and *n't*-negation. By means of syntagmatic patterning, we will carry out two types of collocational analyses: we will analyse the top ten token collocations and the top four part of speech collocations for the negators *no* and *not* with a span of one word to the right and to the left. These will be complemented by contextual analyses, which are meant to disambiguate between the multiple values of the negators. By contrast, the contracted form *n't* cannot be used independently. We will, therefore, present the overall distribution of the auxiliary and modal verbs to which *n't* is attached and carry out contextual analyses of the lexical verbs which combine with the auxiliaries, modals and *n't*.

The paper is structured as follows. In Section (2), we will briefly present the main features of tweets, in general, and on political tweets sent during electoral campaigns, in particular. Section (3) is dedicated to the discussion of the three categories of negation: *no*-negation, *not*negation and *n't*-negation. In Section (4), particular attention is paid to the data analysis, with an emphasis on how the relevant data have been retrieved. For *no*-negation and *not*-negation, we will present the overall frequency of the negation categories and we will analyze the top ten token collocates and the four most used parts of speech, with a span of one word to the right and to the left. For *n't*-negation, we will present the overall distribution and analyse the auxiliaries and modal verbs *n't* attaches to. Section (5) concludes the paper.

### **2. The linguistics of tweets**

The extensive use of the Internet and computer technology has led to the emergence of more types of digital communication and discourse genres (Davis & Brewer, 1997; Panckhurst, 2006; Thurlow & Mroczek, 2011; Bou-Franch & Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, 2019). The messages sent on the Twitter platform, coined as tweets, are one such example. In comparison to other forms of digital communication, tweets display important changes and significant variation in the way in which language is structured and used. In what follows, we will briefly present the formal and discursive features of tweets and then indicate how they shape the electoral political discourse in the digital environment.

Tweets are a form of multimodal communication, where typed, oral and visual elements combine in novel forms. Although tweets are mainly text-based, images, audio elements and videos can also be used, hotlinked or embedded and displayed inline (Wikström, 2017). Generally limited to no more than 140 characters, the body of a tweet may also contain communicative operators: @-mentions, retweets (RT), hashtags (#) and hyperlinks (http://). Having developed an important number of pragmatic functions, the operators compensate for the lack of any visual or auditory information, such as body movement, facial expressions, eye gaze, or intonation and pitch of the voice (Scott, 2015; Einspanner-Pflock et al., 2016). In addition, other Twitter-specific strategies have been developed: non-standard spelling conventions, alternate spellings of words, special orthography and the creative use of punctuation, acronyms, emoticons and emojis (Androutsopoulos, 2015; Knobel & Lankshear, 2008). Other techniques, such as abbreviations, clippings, orthographic reduction, shortenings ellipsis and deletion of pronouns, are used as a means of linguistic economy (Ferrara, Brunner, & Whittemore, 1991; Werry, 1996). However, not all forms are necessarily intended, as some spelling errors or the utilisation of non-standard punctuation and upper case may also be the result of the spontaneous nature of digital communication (Sims, 1996).

Tweets are often considered a form of written discourse, which contains oral features or have an oral discursive style (Soffer, 2016; 2019). In this regard, different labels have been suggested to describe the language on Twitter: 'spokenlike', a 'chatty' writing environment or a part of 'Netspeak', which relies on characteristics of both speech and writing (Crystal, 2006; Kern, 1995; Wikström, 2017). Some of the features that have been attributed to orality are: lexical substitutions, where the phonetic sound of a single letter or digit may replace entire words or repetitions of letters, filled pauses (uhm, uh..), onomatopoeic signs, the strategic uses of punctuation, and the use of emoticons and emoji (Soffer, 2019; Yus, 2011; 2014). Typographic playfulness, flexibility and multimodality are usually employed to establish a dialogical atmosphere (Jovanovic & Van Leeuwen, 2018). In comparison with face-toface conversation, there are no turn transitions, silences, overlappings, interruptions, or interactional combinations such as adjacency pairs and latched turns on Twitter. The number of digressions and hesitations is usually reduced, and if they are used, they are pragmatically loaded. In addition, despite their written format, tweets are said to be registered psychologically as having the temporal immediacy of oral exchanges, which has led to their labelling as 'textual verbal exchanges' (W. Ong in Kleine & Gale, 1996).

The interaction on Twitter can be described as a form of conversation (Zappavigna, 2012), but compared to face-to-face conversation, online conversations often shift from the prototypical dyadic structure to a multi-party configuration, allowing the user to participate in an open-ended, multi-user, one-to-many conversation (Wikström, 2017). The tweets are usually public, the messages becoming instantly visible to other users, especially the sender's followers. Even if the messages are sometimes directly addressed to a user, they can be seen by others who can also take part in the interaction by means of a relevant hashtag. If different forms of Internet communication have been initially described as either being synchronous or asynchronous (Hirotani, 2009; Munneke et al., 2007), tweets are characterised by a mixed temporality. Herring (2008) suggests the term of 'semisynchronous', while Wikström (2017) uses the notion of 'heterochronicity' to talk about the simultaneous presence of several different temporal logics, i.e., they are both interactions in the present and archived artefacts.

Political talk has quickly adapted to the digital environment and to the novel production conditions and, as a result, a new form of political communication has emerged in the form of political tweets. Political tweets are powerful communicative tools, especially during electoral campaigns, and have been greatly used during parliamentary, presidential, congressional, federal and local elections in numerous countries (Conway et al., 2012; Gaffney, 2010; Golbeck et al., 2010; Larsson, 2012). For instance, the 2014 European elections are considered to be 'the Twitter elections' due to the extensive use of the online platform in all 28 member states (Smyrnaios, 2014).

Political discourse is going through a process of 'hybridisation', as a result of the digital environment in which it is used (Moschini, 2010). The structure of the electoral talk has undergone a major change: the traditional one-way oriented electoral speech has shifted to a multi-party configuration and a conversational structure, which invites both the senders and the receivers to interact. The digital medium has shortened the distance from the audience, granting them the possibility to interact with and get immersed in the campaign. In this regard, the political tweets sent during electoral campaigns have been labelled as 'electoral' or 'collective' conversations (Moschini, 2010), where both the public sphere and the private dimension are combined.

## **3.** *No***-negation,** *not***-negation and** *n't***-negation**

Negation is a complex linguistic phenomenon, with multiple forms of expression and various discursive functions. It can be expressed by employing negative markers, *n*-words, negative affixes and lexical words. It is also associated with discourse functions, such as denial, contradiction, rejection, refutation, disagreement and irony, to name a few. Although negation is often associated with negativity, the two notions do not overlap: not every negative form leads to a negatively connoted structure and not every negatively connoted structure is expressed by means of a negative form (for a comprehensive overview, see Horn & Wansing, 2017; Horn, 2001).

The typical ways of expressing negation in English are the negative adverb *not* (including the inflected bound morpheme *n't*) and the particle *no* (including the *n*-words *neither, never, nobody, none, no one, nothing, nor, nowhere*). This formal distinction has led to the classification of negation in *not*-negation and *no*-negation (Biber et al., 1999; Tottie, 1991). The negator *not* and the contracted form *n't* are usually used in the verbal phrase. However, *not* can also be part of non-verbal negative structures, i.e., when it is associated with quantifiers, adverbs, determinatives, degree expressions, prepositional phrases or coordinating structures. There are cases when the structures with *no* and the structures with *not* are used in alternation or have little difference in meaning. If they are grammatically similar, they display pragmatic and stylistic differences: for instance, *no* followed by a noun makes the negation stronger in comparison with *not* followed by the indefinite *a* or *any*.

Following Xiao and McEnery (2010), we distinguish between *no*-negation, *not*-negation, and *n't*-negation as separate categories. We consider that the tripartite division captures better the uses of negation, in line with the textual and discursive features of tweets. From a usage-based perspective, negation is globally more frequent in spoken language than in written texts (Tottie, 1991), and more prevalent in conversation when compared to fiction, news and academic texts (Biber et al., 1999). Additionally, different negative constructions are considered representative of either spoken or written language, formal or informal register, and dialogical or monological structure (Palacios Martinez, 1995; Roitman, 2017; Silvennoinen, 2017; Xiao & McEnery, 2010). Usage differences are found between the full form *not* and the contracted form *n't*: for instance, there is a preference for *not* in writing and for *n't* in spoken language (Xiao & McEnery, 2010). Furthermore, the contracted form *n't* is preferred in conversational contexts, unless there is a clear reason (such as strong emphasis) to use the full form. The contracted form is a marker of informality, and is not preferred in writing or in solemn contexts. When it is used, it increases the level of familiarity and accessibility of the information conveyed. With these findings in mind, before embarking on the analysis of *no*-negation, *not*-negation and *n't* negation in our corpus, we formulate the following assumptions:

## **4. Data analysis**

## 4.1. Methodological aspects

This investigation is part of the international project "Twitter at the European Elections: A Comparative International Study of the Use of Twitter by Candidates at the European Parliamentary Elections in May 2014". The project aimed to compare Twitter use during the European Elections in several countries: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK. All the tweets sent by the candidates in these countries, along with the messages addressed publicly to them and major hashtagrelated conversations associated with the elections in each country were gathered (see Brachotte & Frame, 2015; Frame et al., 2016). Over 50 million tweets were collected in total within a time span of one month: three weeks prior to the elections and one week after the election date. The corpus under analysis comprises of the tweets sent by the UK candidates running for the European Parliamentary Elections in May 2014. A total number of 72,859 tweets (8,346,373 words in total, including all the retweets) were collected from all the 309 Twitter accounts identified as belonging to the UK candidates from 32 national political parties.

The hybridity and medium-specific properties of tweets (the nonconventional use of punctuation, the lack of capitalisation, the alternate ways of spelling the negative particles and the use of ungrammatical structures), the size of the corpus under investigation, and the exploratory nature of the study have posed challenges to the retrieval of the relevant data, rendering the simple automatic searches based on criteria of form more difficult. To retrieve as many instances of *no, not* and *n't* as possible, we first automatically split all the tweets by whitespaces and then defined category-specific steps within these substrings. For *no*-negation, we assumed that, once lowercased and deprived of any non-alphanumeric word character, the corresponding strings would be proper instances of *no* (except when it was part of the expression *no one* or part of a nickname). The remaining instances were inspected by hand, and in case of uncertainty, we referred back to the whole tweet. For instance, we eliminated the instances when *no* was used as an abbreviation for number one (e.g., *no.1*). The possible misspelling or alternate expression of the negative particle were also manually checked and included in the final count (e.g., *nooooooooooo, NO2EU*). The same procedure was followed for retrieving the instances of *not*negation. The presence of *nt* and *not* with additional *o* characters (e.g., *noot, nooot*, etc.) as possible misspellings or alternate expressions of *not* were also inspected manually and included in the final count.

In contrast, the contracted form *n't* is always attached to an auxiliary or a modal verb. We retrieved all the unique substrings that, once lowercased, contained *n't*, or the potential alternatives *n´t, n`t* or *nt*. Due to the big number of English words that include the substring *nt*, we restricted the search to the substrings that only ended in *nt* or contained at least one of the auxiliary or modal verb + *n't* tokens found in the previous step as well as any hashtag containing *nt* in any position in the tweet. Again, we always referred back to the whole tweet if needed (e.g., for *ant* we kept only the instances where it was used as an alternative for *ain't*).

#### 4.2. Overall frequency

The overall frequency comprises all the tokens that belong to one of three negation categories. Overall, 17.18% of the tweets in the corpus contain at least one negative instance, as shown in Figure 5.1. Regarding the overall counts per category, there are 5,230 total instances of *not*, 5,234 total instances of *n't* and 3,986 total instances of *no*, as shown in Figure 5.2.

**Figure 5.1.** The overall distribution of negation.

**Figure 5.2.** The distribution of *no*-negation, *not*-negation and *n't*-negation.

From a contrastive perspective, *not*-negation and *n't*-negation seem to have similar distributions (36.23% vs. 36.21%), while *no*-negation is less represented (*no* alone represents approximately 19%, while *n*-words represent approximately 9%). If we compare the instances of *not*-negation and *n't*-negation (72.44% in total) with *no*-negation, the latter is less numerous in our corpus. The similar distributions of *not* and *n't* do not allow us to draw any conclusions regarding the first assumption about the spoken vs. written features of tweets. Nevertheless, the overall frequency does not imply that the negative constructions have the same function. The contextual analysis will reveal whether *not*-negation and *n't*-negation are used interchangeably or whether there are finer-grained differences that can be drawn between them.

Given the textual and discursive features of tweets, we have added to the general counts all the instances of the negative markers, including their presence in longer strings and hashtags, and their combinations with both conventional and non-conventional punctuation marks. The non-conventional use of punctuation marks may be a typing mistake, but it could also be a strategy used in the attempt to gain more space, given the limitation of 140 characters. Table 5.1 shows the overall counts for *no*-negation and *not*-negation.

Non-conventional spellings, non-standard uses of punctuation marks and inconsistency with standard capitalisation have led to variation among the forms of the negative markers. To illustrate, the standalone counts of *no* (1,338 instances of *no*, 615 instances of *No* and 91 instances of *NO*) are not very faithful to the traditional punctuation and spelling conventions: *no* is sometimes used in initial position, whereas *No* is sometimes found in the body of the tweet. The particle *no* is multifunctional, and only after analysing the contexts in which the particle is used, will we be able to accurately tell when *no* is used as a response particle or as a determiner (expressing both negation and quantification in a noun phrase structure).

**Table 5.1.** Overall counts for *no*-negation and *not*-negation.

Similar to *no*, there is also variation among the instances of *not*: the instances of stand-alone *not* consist of 3,786 instances of *not*, 568 instances of *Not* and 251 instances of *NOT*. We could also identify one instance of *nt* used as *not*, as shown in example (1):

(1) Hd 5k more voted in 2009 we wld nt hv hd 2 endure 5 yrs of bnp hate n portrayal of UK as intolrnt anti-islamic soc Pls dnt let UK dwn again

As previously mentioned, the contracted form *n't* was found to have alternate spellings: either different symbols are used for the apostrophe or the characters are written together (*nt*). In comparison with *no* and *not*, the bound inflectional form *n't* can only be part of longer strings, represented by the prototypical grammatical instances (*don't, can't*, etc.), non-standard instances (*dont, cant*, etc.) or hashtags *(#itslikehedoesntevenknowme*, *#DontVoteUKIP, #cantbeliveaword*). In sum, there are 4,985 instances of *n't*-negation and 249 instance of *nt*-negation. In line with the conventions of use, the hashtags can only contain the form *nt* (31 such instances were identified). A total number of 4,903 tweets have been retrieved.

### 4.3. Collocations

This subsection discusses the token collocations of the negative markers *no, not* and *n't*. For simplicity reasons, we adopt a general view of collocation by which we intend any corresponding token identified by the tagger, be it a grammatical unit, a hashtag or punctuation, with a span size of one to the left and to the right. Punctuation marks are not usually found among the inventory of collocates but we have deemed their inclusion necessary because they are usually employed intentionally and strategically to compensate for the absence of other features. Based on the top neighbouring elements to their right and to their left, it is possible to formulate general assumptions about their behaviour and combinatorial preferences. This is the first step in discriminating between their distinct grammatical properties and multiple pragmatic values. However, only by means of a through contextual analysis can we tell with precision how these negators are grammatically employed and what their pragmatic values are. This is, however, beyond the aims of this paper.

*No***-negation.** We have made an inventory of the first ten collocates and analysed the recurrent combinations with a span size of one word to the left and to the right. Table 5.2 shows the top ten collocates of *no*, together with the corresponding counts and percentages:

**Table 5.2.** Counts and percentages of the top ten collocates of *no*.

From a comparative perspective, the top ten collocates represent only 25% of all the instances of *no* to the right, whereas to the left they represent 40%. This shows that there is more variation to the right, indicating that *no* is being used in combination with more elements to the right than to the left. To the right, *no* is more frequently followed by punctuation marks, either commas or full stops, which suggests that the particle is most likely used as a response particle, i.e., being part of an on-going interaction between more users. It may be used to answer a question or to correct a mistaken belief or a previous statement. *No* is usually used in initial position, directly addressing previous tweets and users, as illustrated in (2), but it can also be used at the end of the tweet to refute a specific statement, as shown in (3):

The imperative value of *no* in combination with the preposition *to*, used as an incentive to take some action, is also among the top collocates, as illustrated in examples (4) and (5). Other patterns we could identify are the comparative constructions *no longer* and *no more* and the idiomatic phrases and formulaic expressions *no doubt, no wonder*, and *no idea*.

To the left, *no* collocates even more often with punctuation marks, but the values are different: after a full stop, a colon or a dash, *no* is most likely a quantifying determiner in a nominal phrase, used in negative explanations or additional comments, as shown in (6) and (7). The verbal tokens *have* and *is*, followed by the coordinating conjunction *and* and *but* and the preposition *with* are also among the top collocates. Although both verbal forms *have* and *is* are in the present tense, they show grammatical differences in the choice of the grammatical subject. Restricted only to the third person singular, *is no* combines mostly with the pronoun *there*, being part of the negative existential expression *there is no*. In contrast, as a result of the great variability of the items used to the right of the collocation, no particular pattern seems to stand out for *have no*. Taken together, the particle *no* has weak recurrent patterns as a result of the great variability among the elements used.

*Not***-negation.** Looking at the top combinatorial preferences of *not* in Table 5.3, to the left, the collocates are divided mainly into two types: punctuation marks and primary and modal auxiliaries. This leads to a first division between the cases when *not* is part of the verbphrase negation, and when it is part of non-verbal negation. Using *not* after commas, full stops and colons is an indication that the negative adverb is part of non-verbal negations, a different constituent being focused in order to give prominence to the associated piece of information.

The examples below illustrate a complex negative structure, consisting of a rejection segment (X) and a correction segment (X'). In examples (8), (9), (10) and (11), the negative segment (X) is preceded by the corrective segment (X') as part of the negative structure [(X') not (X)], whereas in (12), the order of the segments is reversed, being part of the structure [not (X) but (X')].

**Table 5.3.** Counts and percentages of the top ten collocates of *not*.

These are constructional strategies of contrastive negation (McCawley, 1991; Silvennoinen, 2017), which are a type of metarepresentational negation (Albu, 2012a; 2012b). The constituents in the scope of negation represent discourse-old information, while the corrected information represents discourse-new information. The negative segments (*not a politicians answer, not a twisted one, Not individual muslims, Not union or business funded, Not as a default choice*) reject some statements, which were either previously mentioned or implicitly recovered. In other words, the negative construction renders the negated information discourse-old information. Taken together, [(X') not (X)] and [not (X) but (X')] accommodate the negated information, which was probably not part of the hearer's knowledge before. Even though

both structures have the same structure – rejection of some propositional content and correction – the order in which the segments are used may have different motivations. Although the typical construction is [not (X) but (X')] with the negative segment on the first position, the second pattern with negation on the second position [(X') not (X)] is very well represented in our dataset. It appears to be an efficient and more economical construction with a strong argumentative force. It may, however, be more costly, demanding more cognitive effort in retrieving what the negated information represents and to whom it may be attributed. These constructional forms are employed more frequently in speech than in writing, as conversations are usually dominated by asyndetic clause combinations (Silvennoinen, 2017). Similarly, no corrective conjunctions are used in the corpus, and additionally, there does not seem to be much consistency at the level of the punctuation mark used, as the negative segment can be delimited by commas, full stops and dashes. It can, therefore, be speculated that the extensive use of these negative constructions represents a mark of spoken language and conversational style.

When preceded by punctuation marks, *not* can also be used in a less conventional way, as part of an elliptical construction in which the main verb is omitted: *not sure about* standing for *I am not sure about, not cool* standing for *it is not cool, not the way* standing for *this is not the way*, and *not interested* standing for *I am not interested*, as shown in (13–16). This telegraphic way of expression in which the verbs, the first-person pronouns and the discourse markers are omitted may be a strategy employed in the attempt to recreate spoken language and to shift away from the formality imposed by the traditional political discourse:

The negator is also associated with different inflections of the verb *to be* (*is not, are not, I'm not*), the modal *will* and the auxiliary *do*. Looking at the combinatorial patterns to the right, the verb *to be* is used as a copula verb, as shown in (17) and (18). In contrast, *will not* and *do not* usually require a lexical verb to the right, except the cases when they are used at the end of the utterance. *Will not* is used in combination with more elements, but the recurrent patterns contain the verbs *to be* and *stop*, as illustrated in (19) and (20). *Do not* can be used in the indicative mood, situation in which it collocates with lexical verbs such as *want, have, understand, think*, or in the imperative mood, meant to convey various requests or commands, as shown in (21). *Does not* forms weak collocations patterns with *have, mean* and *get*.

When looking at the distribution to the right, the first positions are occupied by the indefinite and definite articles, indicating a nominal preference, to the expense of verbs, which are less frequently used. *Be* and *have* are among the top collocates, being most likely preceded by modal verbs (*will not, may not, should not, could not, would not*). An interesting collocational pattern is represented by *not* followed by full stops. In addition to its common value, i.e., used in combination with the subject and the auxiliary verb to reinforce negation, *not* can also be used as an anaphoric pro-form for a negative clausal complement, marking non-verbal negation in structures like *I'm afraid not, I suspect not, Thought not*, as illustrated in (22) and (23):

All in all, there is great variation among the elements used, which leads to a lack of recurrent expressions and repetitive constructions. The use of the present tense is predominant, while past tense seems to be deficient. Negative descriptions and negative evaluations with mainly mental verbs anchored in the present appear to be preponderant. This is not a surprising finding if we consider the context in which the tweets are sent. Unexpectedly, the distribution of *not* in verbal (approximately 52%) and non-verbal negations (approximately 48%) appears to be almost equal among the top ten collocates.

*N't***-negation.** In comparison with the negative markers *not* and *no*, the bound inflectional form *n't* is always attached to primary or modal auxiliaries. Instead of the top ten collocates to the right and to the left, we present the distribution of the contracted form *n't*, including the alternative spelling *nt* in combination with the verbal base, as shown in Table 5.4. The merged lemmas stand for all the instances of both *n't* and *nt* tokens, while the other columns (\**n't* tokens and \**nt* tokens) show their frequencies separately. The lemmas are illustrated in the table with capitalised letters, but the counts include tokens with both upper and lowercase letters. To show their general prevalence, the percentages include all the *n't* and *nt* instances (5,234 in total).

The data show that there is a strong tendency to use *n't* to the expense of non-conventional forms (which represent only 3.98%). We could also identify alternate spellings of some auxiliary verbs, but they are isolated occurrences: *dn't, havn't, din't, sin't, dsn't, musn't, arn't, cudn't, cdn't, wldn't, wdn't*. Overall, the most used auxiliaries are *don't, didn't*, and *doesn't*, followed by *isn't, haven't, aren't*, and *wasn't*, whereas the most used modal verbs are *can't, won't, couldn't*, and *wouldn't*. From a comparative perspective, the auxiliary *do*, including all its inflected forms, represents approximately 55% of the data, the modal verbs altogether represent approximately 27%, and the auxiliaries *be* and *have* represent approximately 13% and 6%, respectively. If one looks at the stems to which *n't* attaches, *don't* is the most used form, representing 38.8% of the entire category of *n't* negation. The second most used verbal base is the modal verb *can't*, but the latter is considerably less used. *Don't* is widely employed, either as an auxiliary in the indicative mood, as shown in (24) and (25), or as part of an imperative structure, as illustrated in (26) and (27). When used in the indicative mood, it further correlates to the left with subjects such as: *I* (282 instances), *you* (178 instances, including u), *we* (141 instances), *they* (82 instances), and *people* (49 instances, including *ppl*). There are also cases, when the subject is omitted (*I* in particular), contrary to the grammatical rules in English. In line with the findings in Werry (1996), the deletion of pronouns may be a strategy of linguistic economy.

As expected, to the right, *don't* is followed by lexical verbs: *forget* (192 instances), *want* (111 instances), *have* (110 instances), *know* (101 instances), *think* (87 instances), *let* (80 instances) and *vote* (71 instances).  There does not seem to be a preference for the subject with which *don't want* combines, because the distribution of the pronouns is similar. In contrast, the verb *think* shows a preference for the first-person singular pronoun (*I don't think*), 63 instances being identified in total. Our observations are in line with the findings in Iyeiri, Yaguchi and Baba (2015), who found that the mental verbs *know, think* and *want* were frequently used in the press conferences from the White House. Biber et al., (1999) further highlighted that mental verbs (e.g., *forget, know, mind, remember, think, want*, and *worry*) are more likely to collocate with negation in conversations. If we compare the same mental state verbs used in combination with the full form *not*, the recurrent patterns change. We could find only one instance of *do not forget*, 12 instances of *do not want*, 11 instances of *do not have*, two instances of *do not know* and three instances of *do not think* and *do not let*. These findings endorse the observation that the association with mental verbs is especially strong with the contracted form *n't*  (Biber et al. 1999).

The first ten collocates of *n't* show a preference for the auxiliary *do* compared to the collocates of *not*: *don't* represents approximately 39% of the data, whereas *do not* represents only 2.3%. This preference is contrary to the collocational tendencies of the token collocates of *not*, which showed a greater preference for the verb *be*. Another difference is found in the use of the modal verbs. There are four modal verbs among the first ten collocates of *n't* (*can't, won't, couldn't*, and *wouldn't* which represent almost 25%), whereas only the modal verb *will* is found among the top ten collocates of *not* (2.33%). There is also a preference for past tense among the *n't*-negation (*didn't*), tense which was less employed with the full form *not*.

In sum, if initially *not*-negation and *n't*-negation showed similar distributions, the analysis has revealed that *n't*-negation is the predominant form of verbal negation. This further indicates that the full form *not* and the contracted form *n't* shows that they are not used interchangeably, but instead they form different patterns and have distinct combinatorial preferences.

### 4.4. Part-of-speech collocations

This subsection is dedicated to the analysis of the tokens that belong to the same part of speech. We used the off-the-shelf English Part-Of-Speech (POS) tagger, especially created for Twitter data (Gimple et al., 2011), and retrieved the four most frequent parts of speech employed to the right and to the left of the negative markers.

*No***-negation.** Table 5.5 illustrates the main tagsets for *no*-negation in the corpus. The distribution to the right reveals novel patterns. In contrast to the information in Table 5.2, where the top collocates were mainly idiomatic expressions, the part of speech with which *no* collocates the most is represented by nouns. Within the noun category, the idiomatic phrases and formulaic expressions (*no doubt, no idea, no way, no point, no problem, no time, no thanks*) represent approximately 20%. This means that the nouns are more numerous, but they are also very dispersed and thematically widespread, leading to a few recurrent patterns. In addition, there is a big numeric difference between the parts of speech ranked first and second, which indicates that there is a strong tendency towards employing *no* in nominal structures.

**Table 5.5.** Distribution of the main parts of speech with *no*.

To the left, the first two parts of speech that collocate with *no*, punctuation marks and verbs, corroborate the previous findings. The contextual analysis has revealed that the most frequent verb forms used in combination with *no* are the verbs *be* and *have*, followed by the verbs *say* and *vote*. Although they are not a traditional part of speech, @-mentions are also greatly used. This highlights the dialogical and conversational structure of tweets, indicating that the tweet is usually sent in response to previous messages and directly addressing particular users.

Regarding punctuation, if we compare the distribution of the punctuation marks to the right and to the left, *no* is more often preceded than followed by punctuation and the punctuation marks are more diversified to the left. The distribution of the punctuation marks to the left is presented in Table 5.6.

**Table 5.6.** Punctuation marks used to the left and to the right of *no*.

Using *no* after full stops indicates that it is used in initial position and that the tweet is made up of more utterances. As previously anticipated, the contextual analysis has revealed that *no* after a full stop is mostly used as a quantifying determiner in order to negate the noun phrase.  Instead, it is frequently used in utterances where the predicate is omitted: in (28) and (29) the existential *there* is missing, in (30) the lexical verb and the subject are missing (*I do not have a tv*), while in (31) the elliptical predicate can be represented by either the existential expression *there is* or the lexical verb *have* (*I do not have any*). The corresponding utterances may also have different syntactic structures: for instance, in (33) the noun phrase stands for the entire utterance and seems to be part of an *if-then* structure, whereas in (30) and (32) *no* is used in relation to the conjunction *so*, highlighting the consequences of the information expressed by the negative noun phrase:

It can also be used as a directive speech act, aimed at provoking an action in the addressee, as shown in (34), or it can be part of a negative question, as illustrated in (35). These values are not numerous, but they reflect the multifunctionality of this negative particle.

When it is preceded by commas, *no* can be part of both positive and negative enumeration constructions, as illustrated in (36), (37) and (38), may be used to indicate repetition and emphasis, as shown in (39) and (40), or may be used to delimit markers of personal stance (*no surprise, no problem, no question, no doubt*) after addressing a particular person, as indicated in (41), (42), (43) and (44):

In comparison to the distribution to the left, when *no* is followed by a comma to the right, it is most likely used as a response particle. It may be surprising at first sight to find full stops after *no*, but the analysis revealed that they function like commas, *no* being used as a response particle. There are, however, some pragmatic differences. The use of a full stop after *no* as a direct reply to a previous question or statement is meant to give more assertive strength to the answer and to dissociate it from the rectification introduced afterwards by means of *but* and *and*. The full stop is used similarly to a pause in spoken language, as illustrated in (45) and (46). The users are usually mentioned by means of @-mentions but when a name is employed, it is pragmatically loaded, as shown in (47):

We could also identify instances of *no* followed by exclamation marks, which are thought to put greater emphasis on the negative answer. It can be used as a single answer, as illustrated in (48) and (49), or it can be followed by further comments, as shown in (50) and (51). The emphasis can be additionally marked by multiplying the exclamation marks, as in (50).

In sum, when used in initial position, *no* is very often part of elliptical constructions, where the verb and the subject are omitted. The negative nominal phrase usually stands for the entire utterance, which highlights a non-standard use of the particle *no*. In contrast, when it is followed by punctuation marks, *no* is usually employed as a response particle. Accordingly, the tweets can be characterised as informal, resembling spoken language: they are short, simple and have a telegraphic style. Although some patterns can be identified overall, a thorough contextual analysis of all the instances of *no* is necessary in order to identify all its pragmatic uses in the digital environment.

*Not***-negation.** The four most used parts of speech to the left and to the right of the *not* are illustrated in Table 5.7:

**Table 5.7.** Distribution of the main parts of speech with *not*.

It is not surprising to find that the top positions to the left and to right are represented by verbs. To the left, there is a tripartite division: auxiliary verbs, modal verbs and a smaller number of lexical verbs, as indicated in Tables 5.8, 5.9 and 5.10. The most represented verb is *to be* with a percentage of approximately 42%, followed by the auxiliaries *do* with approximately 19% and *have* with approximately 3%. The modal verbs represent approximately 20%, whereas the lexical items that are used before *not* represent approximately 15%.

If we take a closer look at Table 5.9, *hope* is highly prominent when compared to the other lexical items. Moreover, it is part of a larger collocational structure [(X') not (X)]: *hope not fear* or *hope not hate*, as illustrated in examples (52) and (53). The negative segment is associated with negative emotions, e.g., *fear* and *hate*, while the affirmative segment is associated with *hope*, which is positively connoted (Albu, 2018). The tweets in which the structures are integrated represent illustrations of 'call for action' tweets (Albu, 2016), i.e., they represent a form of strategic and goal-oriented discourse meant to persuade the electorate to vote for them.

**Table 5.8.** Distribution of the modal verbs to the left.

**Table 5.9.** Distribution of the lexical items to the left.

**Table 5.10.** Distribution of the auxiliaries to the left.

The forms counted under *can* include 153 instances of *cannot* and 12 instances of *can not*. In comparison with the *n't* forms, although numerically different, the first positions are occupied by the same modal verbs: *can* and *will*. As for the instances of the verb *to be*, approximately 91% of these (and approximately 38% from the total) are used in the present tense (*is, are, am*). Among the lexical items used before *not*, there are 24 instances of -*ing* forms, 39 instances of past participle in -*ed* and 11 instances of irregular past participles.

To the right, after checking all the corresponding inflected forms, *be* (9.68%) is the most common, followed by *vote* (5.98%), *have* (4.46%) and *hate, get*, and *fear* with smaller percentages. There are 459 instances of the progressive aspectual form -*ing*, which encompasses 24.82% of the total number of verbs used after the full form *not*.

The third category is labelled *nominal + verbal*, and stands for structures where the operator is contracted and attached to the subject, i.e., followed by the full form of the negator *not*. Most of the occurrences contain personal pronouns in the subject position and the most frequently used operator is *be* (approximately 92%). As Table 5.11 shows, there is a preference for the present tense compared to past tense and other aspectual forms. In terms of subject forms, the first three positions are occupied by the impersonal pronoun *it*, followed by the first-person singular pronoun *I* and the second-person pronoun *you*. At the opposite end of the spectrum, the contracted forms of *have* are very rare, representing only 4.5% of this category. This contrasts with the findings of negative declarative sentences in spoken and written varieties of English in Varela Perez (2013).

By comparing the overall prevalence of the full form not when preceded by verbs, the operator contraction and the *n't* occurrences, it can be concluded that *n't* is the most prevalent form of verbal negation, followed by the negations with the full form *not* and the operator contraction. If we compare the operator contraction occurrences with those with *n't*, the former shows a preference for *be*, whereas the latter is much more often used with different inflected forms of *do* (*don't, didn't, doesn't*). Another difference is that there is a preference for *I'm* in comparison with *I am*. There are less uses of *aren't* compared with *haven't*, which is contrary to the preference shown for the verb *be* in the case of operator contractions.

**Table 5.11.** Overall distribution of the operator contraction.

## **5. Concluding remarks**

Based on the assumption that negation may be a useful strategy in the investigation of electoral tweets, we discussed the constructional strategies of *no*-negation, *not*-negation and *n't*-negation. Due to the novel production conditions and particular interactional features of tweets, negation was divided into three heterogeneous categories, including standalone occurrences of the negative markers, conventional and non-conventional punctuation use, alternative spellings, and longer strings in which the negators were included. The results showed that *not*-negation and *n't*-negation are more prevalent (72.44%) compared to *no*-negation (approximately 27.57% of the relevant data, including *n*-words). Even though *not*-negation and *n't*-negation seem to have similar distributions, the collocational analyses revealed that these two negation categories are not used interchangeably, and their uses do not overlap. Instead, they have distinct patterns and combinatorial preferences. For instance, *not* contributes almost equally to verbal and non-verbal clausal negation. The latter type is mainly expressed by means of the construction [(X') not (X)], which highlights the use of negation in combination with correction. Another pattern of *not* is represented by elliptical structures, where the subject and the predicate are omitted, resulting in a telegraphic way of expression similar to oral conversation. The use of *not* followed by full stops highlights some non-standard values that *not* can have in final position: as an anaphoric pro-form for a negative clausal complement (*I'm afraid not, I suspect not, Thought not*).

In contrast, *n't*-negation is the most frequently used verbal negation in this dataset. If we compare the first ten collocates of *n't* and *not*, the bound inflectional form *n't* shows a preference for the auxiliary *do*. In contrast, the token collocates of *not* showed a tendency to combine with *be*. Another difference is found in the use of the modal verbs: whereas the contracted form is mainly used in combination with *can't, won't, couldn't*, and *wouldn't*, the negative adverb *not* is mostly used with *will*. The two negators also show dissimilarities in terms of the tenses with which they combine: *not* is associated most of the time with present, predominantly in negative descriptions and negative evaluations, while *n't* is used with both present and past tense. We could also identify instances of *not* preceded by operator contraction forms, but they are less frequent. The predominant operator in this case is *be*.

The analysis of the top ten token collocates of *no* has indicated that it forms weak recurrent patterns, as a result of the great variety of items with which it combines. The frequent combination of *no* with punctuation marks is an indication of the fact that the particle is most likely used as a response particle when it is followed by commas and full stops, and as a quantifying determiner when it is preceded by them. Nevertheless, the particle *no* is multifunctional, and has a multifarious discursive behaviour, as illustrated by the selective contextual analysis. Further research with thorough contextual analyses is necessary in order to disambiguate between the multiple values that *no* can have.

The division between spoken and written language is considered obscured in digital communication. Based on previous research, we have made some initial assumptions meant to help disentangle these issues. First, we assumed that the higher the frequency of negation overall, the more the tweets show similarities with spoken language. The results showed that negation is not massively employed in our dataset, as only 17.18% of the overall tweets contain at least one instance of negation. Therefore, the similarity with spoken language cannot be confirmed based on this criterion. The second assumption was about the correlation between *not*-negation and written language, whereas the third assumption correlated *n't*-negation with spoken language. The overall frequency showed a similar distribution of *not*-negation and *n't*-negation, which renders the predicted assumptions between spoken and written language difficult to account for. Taken together, the general distribution of these negation categories in the present dataset do not show strong similarities with either the spoken or the written language. However, the patterns generated by *not* are usually illustrations of spoken language, showing a tendency towards the prevalence of oral features in comparison with written features.

Regarding the questions of whether the formal register of political discourse has shifted towards a more flexible and colloquial form, the short format and the interactive structure of tweets speak in favour of a new type of political discourse with distinctive properties. Although divergent from casual conversation, the political tweets in our dataset present features that point towards a shift from the formality imposed by the traditional political discourse. These include the use of elliptical structures, the use of non-verbal negation with the full form *not*, the telegraphic way of expression in which the verbs, the first-person pronouns and discourse markers are omitted, the typographic playfulness, the use of non-conventional punctuation with negative markers and the non-standard negative structures.

## **Acknowledgements**