<i>I think</i>,<i>I mean</i>and<i>I believe</i>in political discourse

Abstract

This article examines the distribution, collocates and function of the first-person-singular cognitive-verb-based syntagmatic configurations I think , I mean and I believe in argumentative political discourse, considering their status as parenthetical construction and pragmatic marker in two sets of spoken data: monologic speech and dialogic interview. Its goal is to identify discourse-domain-specific discourse patterns, which manifest themselves in patterned co-occurrences with other pragmatic markers, and with expressions of modality and evidentiality. The explicit accommodation of local context allows for a fine-grained analysis of the three constructions, filtering out those contextual configurations in which I think , I mean and I believe may count as a pragmatic marker.