Linguistic and Rhetorical Perspectives on Congressional Hearings

Congressional hearings are often the most requested government documents in US libraries. However, among the genres that have been traditionally of interest to political discourse analysts - e.g. political speeches, political interviews, policy documents - hearings have not been of much scrutiny on the part of discourse scholars, an attitude somehow contrasting with the lay public's interest. Cinzia Giglioni takes the opportunity to gain a unique view into the actors, the interested parties, the issues, from a linguistic and rhetorical perspective. Her intent is to provide an in-depth analysis of witnesses' opening statements, which are probably the most salient parts in a congressional hearing. The investigation begins with, but is not constricted by, theoretical aspects, which are integrated with empirical observations and suggestions for critical reading.

Cinzia Giglioni holds a research and teaching position at the Department of Political Sciences of the University of Rome 'La Sapienza'. Her research interests span from second language acquisition to discourse analysis, especially in the context of LSP research. Her most recent contributions focus on the linguistic aspects of corporate and political communication. She regularly collaborates with various international research groups, including CLAVIER (The Corpus and Language Variation in English Research Group) and GERAS (Groupe d' Étude et de Recherche en Anglais de Spécialité).