Conventionally Indirect Requests in the Press Conferences of U.S. Presidents Barack Obama and John F. Kennedy

The aim of this research is to investigate the use of conventionally indirect requests by the journalists in political press conferences. Being conventionally indirect is one of the politeness strategies in Brown and Levinson theory of politeness (1978). “ Being conventionally indirect means the use of phrases and sentences that have contextually unambiguous meanings which are different from their literal meanings’’ (Ibid.:137). It is hypothesized that journalists have become more direct and less cautious in their questions. This research is a comparative study analyzing the use of conventionally indirect questions in two different periods. The analysis concentrates on the press conferences conducted by two U.S. presidents , Barack Obama (2009- present) and John F. Kennedy (1961-1963). The material studied show thatthe use of the indirect requests decreased significantly in the present-day press conferences. Also examining the questions indicates that there are certain factors affect the choice of the indirect speech request.