Accepting and Producing Functions (Speech Analysis Example)

When analyzing Accepting and Producing functions in one's speech, one of the most revealing yet elusive indicators is the balance between personal and impersonal involvement in a speaker's descriptions.

To see this dynamic in action, let's examine an excerpt from the political debate show To the Barrier (K Baryeru), featuring an interview with Vladimir Zhirinovsky (EIE).

Boris NEMTSOV: I have a question. Lukashenko considers Adolf Hitler an idol; every third Belarusian and 26 million of our citizens died at the hands of this scoundrel. Can we deal with this man?

Vladimir ZHIRINOVSKY: We can. And he is absolutely not the way you portrayed him. Even if he said something to a German newspaper, somehow touching upon Hitler, this absolutely does not mean that he agrees with Hitler on anything. He was talking about Germany, about the fact that it—the youngest European state—managed to build it and survive. That is the only thing he meant. If we are talking about authorities of the past, you and I were born in the cruelest country, because there has never been anything worse than the Stalinist regime anywhere. And it was precisely the Stalinist Bolshevik regime that gave rise to Hitler. You just called Lukashenko the last dictator of Belarus.

This is a rather subtle and ambiguous point, but personal involvement here is connected precisely with the era, with the regime—meaning the realm of Ni (Introverted Intuition). Looking ahead, one could even say that through the regime there is a direct link to Si (Introverted Sensing). That is, the regime creates wild Si conditions.

Boris NEMTSOV: Of Europe.

Vladimir ZHIRINOVSKY: What a lie, "of Europe." This is the only model that all former Soviet republics should have followed, and right now we would all be living much better. He is the only one who, ahead of everyone else, reached the pre-perestroika level of 1990; he has already caught up with it. You and I in our country haven't caught up with it yet.

Again, the area of the personal touches upon the producing aspects of Ni and Si.

What is this about? The central theme of Fe (Extraverted Feeling) is the description of the field of relationships and actions. Who said what, who looked how, etc. Without the interconnectedness of events (Ni), this information is perceived without the element of personal involvement. But when the theme of man's influence on time and time's influence on man appears, the element of personal involvement is immediately switched on.

If it seems to you that I am "stretching it" here, I won't argue, despite the fact that it isn't so. The point is that this parameter is indeed difficult to track in real time. It requires very high mental concentration. You have to keep all the information provided by the person in mind, and only by comparing the entire volume can you discern which aspects contain more personal involvement ("I-statements").