Where the `open' options operate to extend the possibilities for heteroglossic interaction, those under `close' act in some way to limit the range or possibility of interaction with the diversity. They nevertheless remain fundamentally heteroglossic - though acting to `close down' the range of that interaction, they nevertheless address or invoke that diversity in some way. Under this semantic of `close', an alternative, typically contrary meaning is referenced or at least entertained (and hence the author enters into a heteroglossic dialogue) but is then suppressed, replaced, rejected or challenged in some way, and any heteroglossic dialogue thereby `closed down'.
Accordingly, the types of `proclamation' I have previously sited increase the strength of the speaker's engagement with the utterance/proposition in question. They thereby act to challeng the reader/listener to question/reject/doubt their propositions by increasing the interpersonal cost, in some way, of that proposition being rejected. They do this by adding some additional support or motivation for the proposition.
Previous I have listed proclamations which take the form of an explicit interpolation of the speaker into the text: `I'd say that / it's my contention that the Premier saw the documents.' Alternatively, `pronouncement' may take the an intensifying comment adjunct (`Really, the Premier saw the papers'), stress on the auxiliary (`The Premier did view the documents'), or through structures such as `It's a fact that...'. (See Fuller 1995: Chapter 4 for a discussion of `interpolation'.) The author thereby increases the interpersonal cost of any rejection/doubting of their utterance, rendering such a direct challenge to the author's dialogic position. Of course, through such a strategy, by confronting the possibility of rejection, the author integrates that possibility into the text and thereby acknowledges the heteroglossic diversity of meaning making in socially diverse social contexts.
