journal of linguistic studies

interview (except while closing the interview). With this type of opening, the audience is
introduced into the interview more dynamically and is only reminded of the function of
the politician in question. Implicit introductions are used quite often (72.7%) and are
sometimes combined with direct introductions. The vocatives usually perform the role of
boundary markers, marking the division between the opening and the first topic cycle.
Headline – This move announces the topic of the interview, usually in a summarily
fashion. British interviewers are very formal and serious and they rarely use preheadlines,
i.e. riddles couched in questions with the aim of attracting the attention and the interest of
the audience:
(4) (B 3) INTERVIEWER: …All the big business news stories in a moment,
first this evening’s breaking news, the resignation in the past hour of Sir Menzies
Campbell. He says questions about leadership were getting in the way of a party’s
progress, the Liberal Democrat’s top brass said he jumped but was he pushed? …
A number of openings do not have this move, however. Such is the case with the
interviews in which the interviewee is more important than the topic, i.e. in which the
interviewer uses the opportunity to cover as many topics as possible with an important
guest. The interview is then conducted through a series of topic cycles, each with its own
opening, i.e. its headline. The question after the opening introduces the first topic, which
usually determines the tenor for the rest of the interview:
(5) (B 6) INTERVIEWER: Margaret Beckett joins me now. Welcome Foreign
Secretary.
MARGARET BECKETT: Thank you.
INTERVIEWER: Let’s start with the inevitable - Iraq. The American surge of
troops into Baghdad is really a last throw of the cards isn’t it?
The moves interviewee introduction and the headline are addressed to the audience,
which is why they resemble monologues and the journalist is facing the camera, the
procedure which is repeated at the closure of an interview. This makes the interview a
type of what Fairclough & Chourliaraki (1999) call mediated quasi-interaction. This
move is mostly accomplished through the third personal singular or impersonally, which
additionally supports the supposition that openings of everyday conversation differ in
many respects in relation to quasi-interaction openings. All the facts point to the
conclusion that a political interview is a type of institutional talk strongly governed by
conventions. The interviewer, of course, can use the conventions creatively to a certain
extent, which means that they can choose between nondiscriminative strategies of how to
present the topic and the interviewee (see Bhatia 1993).
Initial component – This move refers to an exchange of greetings and is realised
through an adjacency pair welcoming – thanking or greeting – thanking:
(6) (B 3) INTERVIEWER: Mr Cable, good evening.
VINCE CABLE: Thank you.
The pattern is usually not complete, because the journalist does not leave space after
the greeting for the other element of the adjacency pair and proceeds to questioning
instead:
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