To unvestigate the popular belief that indirectness is a distinctive strategy frequently employed by political communication,this study aims to see how politicians respond to questions in the course of relating to potential face-threatening acts or politically risky issues,based on Chung Hsing Securities Case during the 2000 presidential election in Taiwan. I apply Bull & Mayer,s(1993) typology for identifying replies or non-replies to question. In addition, this study must also give proper weight to the varying social conventuons of the relevant cultures in order to yield a considerable understandung of the language behavior of politicians in political communication.
