Uni-Tübingen

Maren Ebert-Rohleder

Kontakt: maren.ebert-rohlederspam prevention@uni-tuebingen.de

 

Biographie

  • Seit Februar 2019: Wissenschaftliche Angestellte und Doktorandin im Graduiertenkolleg 1808 „Ambiguität – Produktion und Rezeption“ an der Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen
  • Juni 2018 - Januar 2019: Studentische Hilfskraft am Lehrstuhl Prof. Dr. Susanne Winkler
  • Oktober 2018: Erstes Staatsexamen  im Fach Geschichte
  • April 2018: Erstes Staatsexamen im Fach Englisch
  • November 2018 - Dezember 2018: Wissenschaftliche Hilfskraft am SfB 833 A7: Fokus und Extraktion in komplexen Konstruktionen und Inselkonfigurationen
  • Oktober 2016 - Oktober 2018: Stipendiatin der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung
  • Oktober 2014 - Mai 2015: Foreign Language Assistant, Lichfield UK
  • März 2012 - Juni 2018: Studentische Hilfskraft am Seminar für Zeitgeschichte, Tübingen
  • Oktober 2012 - Oktober 2018: Studium der Fächer Englisch, Geschichte für das Lehramt an Gymnasien an der Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen

 

Forschungsschwerpunkte

  • Rhetorische Fragen
  • Fragen
  • Pragmatik

 

Abstract: Functions of Rhetorical Questions in Political Speeches ( Arbeitstitel)

Gricean approach to communication as a form of rational action views the speaker and listener as rational and cooperative conversation partners who optimize their utterances to transfer information efficiently. Following this assumption, one could assume that speakers in political settings should use precise wording to avoid any form of misunderstanding. In this project, I investigate the functions of rhetorical questions (henceforth RQs) in Donald Trump’s presidential election campaign speeches 2015-2016. According to the empirical investigation of 16 speeches and over 700 ordinary and rhetorical questions of Donald Trump, I can show that neither ambiguous nor vague expressions e.g., coded words, are avoided, but rather intended to reach communicative goals other than the efficient transfer of information. I argue for an adapted speech act approach which is influenced by Daniel Harris’ (2018, 2019, 2020, 2021), Craige Roberts’ (2018) and Jennifer Saul’s (2018) observations of speech acts and their perlocutionary force in context. Previous speech acts theories neither include strategic ambiguity nor the relation of ambiguity and RQs in speeches and cannot explain the persuasive power and different functions of RQs in political speech (Han 2002, Ilie 1994, Molnar & Winkler, Roberts 2018, Rohde 2006, Searle 1975).

 

Vorträge

  • “Questions in Political Speech: Speech Act and QuD-Based Approaches” 19.01.2021, Research Colloquium (Prof. Susanne Winkler): Research Topic Topics at the Syntax-Pragmatics Interface. University of Tuebingen.
  • “Questions and Communicative Functions in Political Speech” 01.02.2021, Text (Prof. Regine Eckhardt), Universität Konstanz.
  • “When is it Great Again? Vagueness and Ambiguity as Communicative Strategies in Rhetorical Questions” 01.07.2021, Panel: How vague and ambiguous are vagueness and ambiguity? (organized by Ilaria Fiorentini, Chiara Zanchi), 17th International Pragmatics Conference 27 June – 2 July 2021 Winterthur, Switzerland.
  • “Speech Acts in Discourse Context by Craige Roberts (2018)”, 06.07.2021, Research Colloquium (Prof. Susanne Winkler): Research Topic Topics at the Syntax-Pragmatics Interface. University of Tuebingen.
  • “Rhetorical Questions as Speech Acts in Political Speeches Communicative Functions and Effects” 09.12.2021, New Zealand Discourse Conference 8. University of Canterbury.
  • “Dog Whistles in Rhetorical Questions” Tandem Talk with Jennifer Saul (University of Waterloo) 20.01.2022, Research Colloquium: Ambiguity: Production and Perception. University of Tuebingen.

 

Workshops (Organisation)

  • “Information Structure and Ambiguity: The Process of Integrating Sentences into Discourse”. Internationaler Workshop. 7.-8.10.2019, Universität Tübingen.

 

Publikationen