“I can tell the difference between fiction and reality.” Cross-fictionality and Mind-style in Political Rhetoric

In this article, we approach fictionality as a set of semiotic strategies prototypically associated with fictional forms of storytelling (Hatavara and Mildorf, 2017a, 2017b). Whilst these strategies are strongly associated with fiction, they might also be used in non-fictional contexts – or those in which the ontological status of the narrative is ambivalent – to create ‘cross-fictional’ rhetorical effects (Hatavara and Mildorf, 2017b). We focus on one such strategy – the representation of thought and consciousness. Using the concept of ‘mind style’ (Fowler, 1977 and 1996 [1986]; Leech and Short, 1980; Semino, 2007), we investigate the linguistic representation of the British Prime Minister, Theresa May’s, internal monologue in a satirical newspaper article. Throughout the article, the author uses cross-fictionality strategies to represent what May ‘really thinks’ as she delivers a speech to the Conservative Party conference. The stylistic analysis of the Prime Minister’s mind style facilitates an account of the elaborate and nuanced mixing of May and the author’s ideological perspectives throughout the piece. We argue that this cross-fictional, stylistic approach better accounts for the satirical effects of fictionality in the text than those which place a premium on authorial intention and the invented nature of the narrative discourse (for example, Nielsen, Phelan and Walsh, 2015).