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van Dijk, T. (1995) Discourse analysis as ideology analysis. In C. Schäffner and A. Wenden (eds) Language and Peace (pp. 17-33). Aldershot: Dartmouth.

van Es, G. (1996) De volkswil van Oranje. Het functioneel lege koningschap lijkt onverslaanbaar. NRC Handelsblad 27 April 1996,1-2.

Verhey, E. (1995) Wat Hare Majesteit kreeg voorgezegd en wat zij zelf wilde zeggen. Vrij Nederland 8 April 1995, 7-8.

Witteveen, W. (1992) Het theater van de politiek. Publieke retorica en de paspoortaffaire.Amsterdam: Amber.

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The Debate

Ownership of Speeches and Language Choice

Frank Knowles (Aston University): A question of interest to me is the question of what I would call the ownership of the kind of speeches we are talking about. Who actually writes these speeches? They are the result of interaction between the person giving the speech and the speech writer. What do we know about the mechanics by which the actual speech takes its final form?

Stephan Elspaß (University of Münster): Related to this: was the speech originally written in English? Or was it written in Dutch and then translated?

Christoph Sauer (University of Groningen): An official speech like the Queen's speech in the Knesset is produced by her staff and by some advisers under the responsibility of the government. But there is also a pre-history, at least in this case. Before the Queen's visit to Israel, a public debate had been conducted in the Netherlands on whether or not the Dutch resistance myth should be questioned or not. And some of the ideas of the Queen's advisers had been presented by the media. So we can say that the text was collectively produced. As to the language, the speech was originally given in English, and the press releases by the Information Service were in English and in Dutch. All the quotations in the newspaper reports were in Dutch.

Christina Schäffner (Aston University): So are you saying the speech was actually written in English, and for the press releases in the home country it was then translated into Dutch?

Titus Ensink (University of Groningen): I don't think so, although I don't have any proof. But as a Dutch person reading this text, I must say that it sounds quite formal but also quite natural as a Dutch text. When you compare it to the English text then I have reason to believe that translators from the Information Service worked on it and translated the original Dutch text into English. The Dutch press release has been produced for the Dutch media, so that they can quote from it, and interestingly, the first sentence says that only the spoken word is valid.

Christina Schäffner: This is typical of political speeches. The press releases usually say at the very beginning 'Check against delivery', meaning that the spoken word is the authoritative version. In addition, there is also an embargo, i.e. a time is set when the speech can be made available to the public. This is also important for situations when the speech has been translated because the translation will not go out before the original text has been delivered.

Titus Ensink: There is a mixture here between the production process and the delivery process. The latter is the oral presentation by the Queen herself, and that is the valid act of communication, at the level of inter-state communication. But the production process originated, I believe, from the Dutch text, from a team of Dutch advisers and politicians. For the occasion

of presenting a speech in the Knesset, a carefully weighed Dutch text was produced and then translated into English.

Sue Wright (Aston University): I think there is a very important point here. The

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Dutch nation is represented by their Queen who is speaking English. I wonder if you have any evidence about how the Dutch feel about this. After all there is no need for English to be spoken because the Knesset is a Hebrew-speaking meeting-place and the Queen is head of a Dutchspeaking people. Presumably it would have been possible to get an interpreter to interpret from Dutch into Hebrew.

Christina Schäffner: This struck me as well. English is neither the mother tongue of the speaker nor of the audience. So how can this use of English be accounted for?

Titus Ensink: This is related to the Dutch culture. In the Dutch monarchy, it is known right from the cradle who will be the next monarch, and thus head of state. The whole education of the Crown Prince or Princess is aimed at the tasks the head of state has to fulfil, and the education includes linguistic competence. For example, the Queen is perfectly able to present a speech in English or French or German, when the occasion requires her to do so.

Sue Wright: I accept that and obviously, in a French environment, speaking French would be to honour your hosts. It's a way of flattering the people who receive you. But to speak English in a Hebrew-speaking Parliament is very interesting. It says a lot about the feelings, or lack of them, of the Dutch people for their language. I cannot believe that other European nations would accept that so easily.

Titus Ensink: In France, for example, this would be a problem, because of their specific law. But I think in the Dutch culture, it is not a big deal.

Eve-Marie Aldridge (University of Portsmouth): Isn't it a fact, or should I rather say a myth, that in the Dutch context, English is really looked upon as a second language, and not as a foreign language?

Titus Ensink: This is true. I think for many Dutch people English is some kind of status symbol.

Eve-Marie Aldridge: When you have reached a certain level of education, then it is taken for granted that you can deliver anything you want to say in English.

Titus Ensink: If Queen Beatrix were to deliver an address like this in Holland itself, speaking in English would not be appropriate. But in this case she is visiting another country, and politicians from this country have been shown in the media, delivering addresses in English. So speaking English does not seem to be strange. I have not read any remarks about this speech where the use of English was criticised.

Theo van Leeuwen (London College of Printing): One other suggestion to make comes from a book about the Dutch culture in the 17th century by Simon Schama called The Embarrassment of RichesAn Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age.The author points out very clearly that Dutch culture has got two sides to itthe side it shows to the world and the side that is turned inward. The former comes from the merchant trading heritage, it is very open, and this is the side most people see when they go to Holland. This is the side where people in all kinds

of public endeavours are using other languages. However, the side that is turned inward, the culture itself, is very much only for the Dutch. The

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Dutch do very little to promote their literature and culture in other countries, even though they have a rich culture. So this is all a relative matter, but the proficiency of the Dutch in English can be explained because of this particular background.

Christina Schäffner: But the choice of the language is indeed a delicate and interesting question. Whenever there is an important political occasion, it is normal for public figures, and politicians in particular, to deliver their speeches in their mother tongue and have them interpreted, even if they speak the foreign language quite fluently. It is mainly for status reasons that they use their mother tongue because sometimes they want to avoid misinterpretations or they want to convey slight nuances. After all, they often represent the position of their government, therefore the choice of the mother tongue is a deliberate choice. In this particular case, there is no obvious need for the Queen to speak English, because simultaneous interpreting could have been provided.

Theo van Leeuwen: I think it is also very curious because in the current situation, with the near dominance of English, I am a bit worried about how far other members of small countries are prepared to go. I am less worried about not speaking Dutch in public. Although this doesn't mean I would not be worried if Dutch were to disappear. But this is another matter and is related to this aspect of the public side and the inward-looking side of the culture.

Eve-Marie Aldridge: The Dutch people obviously don't feel that their own language is being slighted if their head of state speaks English, as the French would.

Paul Chilton (Aston University): I think the choice of language here tells us more about the status of Israel than about Dutch culture. The fact that we are not having the speech interpreted into Hebrew is, I think, a significant point and it points to the peculiar status of Israel as a nation state in the international system and its peculiar relationship to the English-speaking world. It is perceived not only as an Israeli Hebrew-speaking state but also as having a very special relationship with the United States and to a lesser extent with the UK, and it may be that this is what the choice of language symbolises.

Frank Knowles: It was explained to us that Queen Beatrix is extremely circumscribed as to what she can say. This could create a tension when she is asked to say something she would rather not say or when she is prevented from saying something she rather would say. In other words, in my view the Queen herself hasn't got any ownership of that speech.

Julian Edge (Aston University): When you ask in whose name the Queen is speaking, you have a problem. What hit me when reading the speech was first of all the representation of Holland by the Queen. Then, towards the end of the speech, there is quite a dramatic shift: she is representing the European Union, and a very clear political position vis-à-vis Israel is articulated.

Titus Ensink: In my paper I have formulated the hypothesis, that especially for the passage that you are referring to, the Dutch government is liable, although I am sure that you will not get any

official acknowledgement of such a hypothesis.

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In contrast, Queen Beatrix herself has had more influence on the first part of the speech.

Julian Edge: But it seems to me that while the voices change, the actual patterning of the text is very much one piece. There are matching patterns between the paragraphs of the first part and the paragraphs of the second part of the speech which have quite impressive coherence, even though the voices change.

Christoph Sauer: I think that ownership is a very interesting question, because it can be looked at from different perspectives. We encountered enormous problems in getting the video recording of the speech. This is a form of ownership in a direct sense. Some heads of state prepared different speeches during the commemorative years 1994/1995 which they delivered on different occasions. In these addresses, some ideas were exclusively expressed by one particular politician. This is another way of claiming ownership of some topics. Maybe this is an old fashioned way to look at ownership and we may need new ways to account for the problem. But these are highly interesting questions: who owns a speech, or a language, or a topic?

Speaker Intention and Effect/The Concept of Reformulation

Titus Ensink: What happens to ownership once the media report on a speech? This brings me to another point: I think that there is circularity in Christoph's reasoning about discourse analysis of a speech and a speech having media impact. You have to prove that the orator is aiming at getting media attention and subsequent media discourse, but from the fact that a speech gets media attention, you cannot prove that it was the orator's intention to get it.

David Pritchard (Aston University): I think that there is a general problem: when people look at discourse they do not always distinguish between what the intention of the speaker was and what the effect was. They tend to assume that the actual effect was also the intended effect.

Norman Fairclough (University of Lancaster): When you speak of the impact of a speech, particularly in relation to media coverage, could you clarify again what you mean by 'reformulation'?

Christoph Sauer: Concerning the question about impact and intention and proving the relationship, I would like to say that I differentiate between the pre-history, the history and the post-history of an event. This is a form of historisation of discursive events which helps us to analyse more complex discursive situations. But my aim was not to reconstruct the intention of the speaker. What I see as a discourse analyst is the text itself, e.g. the text of the media coverage. As discourse analysts, we are not looking at the intention of the speakers, but at the products. I relate what I can find in the text to situational contexts. The discussion in my paper on the shift from classical rhetoric to modern political communication is meant to make us aware of the complex processes involved here, and media coverage and embedding of quotations are nowadays part of the production and reception side of a speech. As a hermeneutic analyst I try to find some indications to establish what is involved. What I mean by

the concept of reformulation is the intertextuality, or interdiscursivity, between the speech and the media coverage. If an address is oriented towards

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media coverage, and if it is intended that certain passages will be quoted in news reports, then I call this reformulation. Reformulation is what journalists do and not what the speaker does. The speaker is stimulating reformulation but is not actually reformulating himor herself.

Eve-Marie Aldridge: I noticed in my research on political speeches that some parties distribute the speeches of their party leaders to the press with a front-cover giving a summary of that speech or highlighting the main points they wish the media to cover, which is a sort of preformulation of the reformulation.

Julian Edge: President Reagan always had a person who came out to us and said 'what the President meant to say is . . .'

Norman Fairclough: I felt that in the way you use the concept of reformulation you seem to be undecided between two things. On the one hand, the concept of reformulation seemed to suggest to me something like the notion of sound bites, that is an attempt to actually formulate after the speech in a way that can be taken over in the media with minimum change, for example in the headlines. I did not find much of that in Queen Beatrix' speech, I have to add. Your notion of brevity was also pointing in that direction. However, when you came to the speech itself, it struck me that your emphasis was actually on a different conception of deviation of markers. You pointed out that the first five paragraphs were descriptive but then, and I think you are right, there was a sudden change in Paragraphs 6 and 7, and you argued that the paragraphs stood out for that reason. It struck me that you seemed to be pointing to two rather different things, that's why I was uncertain what was meant by reformulation. Your comments now have clarified it. You said that it was not what the speaker was doing but what the journalists were doing. So my next question to you is what was the speaker doing to make the journalists do that? What's going on in the text that sparks off this process of reformulation by the journalist?

Christoph Sauer: It seems to me that speakers already know what journalists are seeking, so they stimulate the search process amongst journalists. This can be done directly, for instance when a speaker says 'this is off the record . . .', or 'now this is very important . . .'. This emphasis is usually indicated phonologically, by modifying the voice. There are different ways to stimulate such searching processes. In Queen Beatrix' address, there are specific forms of signalling. In the first five paragraphs, the history of the Dutch and Jewish relationship for four centuries is mentioned, which is a distant description. At the beginning of Paragraph 6, there is an evaluation formulation 'During the most difficult years of the 20th century, which has been so filled with disaster, . . .'this is the first signal to the media that the shift is beginning. In the second sentence 'It is not necessary to call to mind here, in this place, the horrors . . .'now the topic is clearly established, and this is the second signal to the media. Then she begins anew by a description phrase: 'Most of our Dutch Jews were carried off to concentration camps . . .'. As a journalist seeking such quotations in order to put them in my news report, I have different signals where to find them. In Queen Beatrix' case, this is very distant. Other politicians, like