Knowing, Unknowing or Believing? Epistemic Stance in Donald Tusk’s Testimony in the Trial on the Polish Air Force Tu-154 Air Crash

Q2 Arts and Humanities Studies in Polish Linguistics Pub Date : 2018-10-31 DOI:10.4467/23005920SPL.18.010.9259
Magdalena Szczyrbak
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引用次数: 4

Abstract

This article reports on a study into epistemic strategies used in the trial on the 2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154 air crash which took the lives of many high-ranking Polish officials including the President of Poland. It follows the KUB model proposed by Bongelli and Zuczkowski (2008), in which three epistemic stances are distinguished: Knowing, Unknowing and Believing. Taking into account the political context of the trial, the study focuses on the ways in which the witness, Poland’s former Prime Minister Donald Tusk, communicates his knowledge (certainty), unknowledge (neither certainty nor uncertainty) and belief (uncertainty). As the data reveal, when referring to the circumstances of the crash itself, the witness most willingly communicates unknowledge and belief while his declarations of certitude (knowledge) concern mostly procedural matters which are not directly related to the crash. As regards the explicit marking of (un)knowledge with the verb wiedzieć (‘know’), both wiem (‘I know’) and nie wiem (‘I don’t know’) are used rather sparingly. By contrast, phrases including references to the witness’s memory (e.g. to, co mam w pamięci [‘what I can remember’]) – marking either unknowledge or limited/uncertain knowledge (belief) – resurface as the witness’s preferred strategy. The data also demonstrate frequent co-occurrences of ‘knowing,’ ‘unknowing’ and ‘believing’ markers, reducing the overall degree of certainty communicated by the speaker. In sum, the study reveals how Poland’s former Prime Minister skillfully avoids unequivocal or categorical answers and conveys a low degree of certainty in his testimony.
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知道,不知道还是相信?图斯克在波兰空军图-154空难审判中证词的认识立场
本文报告了2010年波兰空军图-154空难中使用的认知策略的研究,该空难夺去了包括波兰总统在内的许多波兰高级官员的生命。它遵循Bongelli和Zuczkowski(2008)提出的KUB模型,其中区分了三种认知立场:知道、不知道和相信。正如数据显示的那样,当提到坠机本身的情况时,证人最愿意表达不知道和相信,而他的确定性声明(知识)主要涉及与坠机没有直接关系的程序问题。至于用动词wiedzieki(“知道”)明确标记(un)知识,wiem(“我知道”)和nie wiem(“我不知道”)的使用都相当少。相比之下,包含引用证人记忆的短语(例如,to, co mam w pamięci['我能记住的'])-标记不知道或有限/不确定的知识(信念)-重新成为证人首选的策略。数据还显示,“知道”、“不知道”和“相信”标记经常同时出现,降低了说话者传达的总体确定性。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
Studies in Polish Linguistics
Studies in Polish Linguistics Arts and Humanities-Language and Linguistics
CiteScore
0.50
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0.00%
发文量
3
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