«ОПЯТЬ ДУРАЦКИЙ ВОПРОС!», ИЛИ КАК ПОЛИТИКИ КРИТИКУЮТ ЗАДАВАЕМЫЕ ИМ ВОПРОСЫ
‘AGAIN, A STUPID QUESTION!’ OR HOW POLITICIANS CRITICISE THE QUESTIONS THEY ARE BEING ASKED

Summary/Abstract: The article deals with the classification of nega¬tive evaluative speech actions in which such an important aspect of communicative interaction as the quality of information is made explicit. This research agenda is relevant because by analyzing the metacommunicative speech actions occurring in institutionalized and mediatized political dia¬logue, it is possible to bring to light some typical communicative problems that interlocutors need to solve while taking part in parliamentary question-answer sessions and political interviews. The following five types of metacommunica¬tive criticisms under analysis are singled out: truth-conditional (the verity of facts and/or sincerity of the addressee is called in question), interpretative (criticism of counterproductive cognitive-discur¬sive strategies in case of misunderstanding: lack of desire/ability to understand the interlocutor, lack of tolerance towards alternative points of view, misinterpretation of the meaning of someone’s utterances, etc.), argumentative (criticism of un¬substantiatedness, untenability, inconsistency of the addressee’s utterances), temporal (criticism of untimely communicative behaviour), teleological (criticism of communicative behaviour which prevents the interlocutors from effectively reaching their communicative goals: asking of meaningless, irrelevant, abstract, hypothetical, ridiculous, unin¬teresting questions). Taking the classification as the basis, it is concluded that the main characteristics of quality of information in political dialogue are credibility, timeliness and relevance for the achievement of communicative goals. It is also shown that the negative evaluative speech actions under analysis can perform several interrelated functions in dialogical interaction: the discrediting of political opponents, the optimizing of the interlocutor’s or third parties’ communica¬tive behaviour (journalists, members of the general public), question evasion.

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