TY - JOUR

T1 - Negotiating validity claims in political interviews

AU - Fetzer, Anita

N1 - Funding Information: In example (70), the media frame is explicitly referred to in the opening section in the phrasefull-length interview, thus indexing the media-specific discourse genre, and by a use of the name of the program, On the Record. These media frame presuppositions are further commented upon by the interviewer's introduction of the interviewee äs 'the shadow Secretary of State for Employment', which has the communicative function of implicitly addressing the second-frame audience. This is supported by the interviewer's direct gaze. Only then, is the encounter reframed by the interviewer's genre-specific employment of the question/answer adjacency pair, i.e., the first political interview question. The interviewee ratifies the media references by directly responding to the political interview question and thereby implicitly accepts them. The second frame is thus assigned the Status of a plus-validity claim and attributed to the macro-validity claim's presuppositions. In example (71), the media frame is indexed by the Statement, 'now we're delighted to welcome the leader of the Labour Party Tony Blair'. Here, the Interviewer employs inclusive we to refer to both himself and the second-frame audience. Only then does he directly greet the interviewee ('good morning Tony'). Thereby he reframes the encounter and opens the first-frame interaction by asking the first political interview question, 'the one thing you'll be hoping for is that there won't be a rogue poll on Thursday'. Again, the Interviewer ratifies and accepts the interviewee's references to the media frame by directly responding to the interviewee's first-frame question. But how is the media frame referred to in the ciosing section of the political interview? In the following examples, there are implicit references to the media frame manifest in the interviewer's employment of inclusive we to refer to both the Interviewer and the second-frame audience. Additionally, the Interviewer thanks the interviewee for having participated in the encounter, signalled by the minimal response 'thank you' in examples (72), (73), and (74), the more elaborate variants 'thank you very much' in examples (75) and (76), and 'thank you for talking to us' in example (77), and the specification 'thank you for being so very straight with us' in example (78). In all instances, the ciosing section is closed by the interviewees' routine response thank you:

PY - 2000/1/1

Y1 - 2000/1/1

N2 - This contribution presents an investigation of the interactional organization of the media event and discourse genre of political interview in the framework of the communicative act of a plus/minus validity claim based on the contextualization of Jürger Habermas's (1987) theory of communicative action. In this setting, political interviews are defined as negotiating validity claims with regard to the first-frame interaction of interviewer and interviewee and the second-frame interaction, which consists of the first frame (interviewer, interviewee) interacting with the media frame. The first section investigates political interviews with regard to their dual status as process and product, and their attribution to media communication. Section 2 discusses the communicative act of a plus/minus validity claim from both micro- and macro-viewpoints. Here special reference is given to the accommodation of genre-specific constraints and requirements. The third section applies the functional grammar concept of markedness to the analysis of discourse genre and investigates the communicative function of explicit references to the media frame, such as television, program(s), the institutional roles of interviewer, interviewee, and audience, and discusses when, where, and how these references are realized and what communicative function(s) they fulfill. Since explicit references to the media frame are generally restricted to the opening section of the interview, any deviation from the standard, routine interview represents a marked variant, in which the first- and second-frame presuppositions are exploited in order to communicate conversationally implicated meaning. In conclusion, the analysis of political interviews requires a dynamic framework which not only accounts for their dual status as both processes and products but also for the constitutive multiframe interactions and multiple discourse identities. © Walter de Gruyter.

AB - This contribution presents an investigation of the interactional organization of the media event and discourse genre of political interview in the framework of the communicative act of a plus/minus validity claim based on the contextualization of Jürger Habermas's (1987) theory of communicative action. In this setting, political interviews are defined as negotiating validity claims with regard to the first-frame interaction of interviewer and interviewee and the second-frame interaction, which consists of the first frame (interviewer, interviewee) interacting with the media frame. The first section investigates political interviews with regard to their dual status as process and product, and their attribution to media communication. Section 2 discusses the communicative act of a plus/minus validity claim from both micro- and macro-viewpoints. Here special reference is given to the accommodation of genre-specific constraints and requirements. The third section applies the functional grammar concept of markedness to the analysis of discourse genre and investigates the communicative function of explicit references to the media frame, such as television, program(s), the institutional roles of interviewer, interviewee, and audience, and discusses when, where, and how these references are realized and what communicative function(s) they fulfill. Since explicit references to the media frame are generally restricted to the opening section of the interview, any deviation from the standard, routine interview represents a marked variant, in which the first- and second-frame presuppositions are exploited in order to communicate conversationally implicated meaning. In conclusion, the analysis of political interviews requires a dynamic framework which not only accounts for their dual status as both processes and products but also for the constitutive multiframe interactions and multiple discourse identities. © Walter de Gruyter.

KW - English

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0141863681&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/3452791b-3c7b-32ac-9b9c-056c8049ccdd/

U2 - 10.1515/text.1.2000.20.4.415

DO - 10.1515/text.1.2000.20.4.415

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 20

SP - 415

EP - 460

JO - Text & talk

JF - Text & talk

SN - 1860-7330

IS - 4

ER -