journal of linguistic studies

context is precisely defined at the very beginning. Namely, the roles are determined, i.e.
the journalist positions himself/herself as a representative of his/her broadcasting
institution, whereas the politician positions himself/herself as a representative of his/her
political institution. The two moves are usually realised within the same sentence:
(17) (C 6) INTERVJUISTA: Dobro veče. Ovo je emisija Načisto na Televiziji
Vijesti. Večeras ćemo razgovarati o mapi puta. Naš gost večeras je ministar
unutrašnjih poslova i javne uprave, Jusuf Kalamperović. Dobro veče.
KALAMPEROVIĆ: Dobro veče.
Interviewee introduction – The move interviewee introduction is always present in
its direct form and it is never omitted in the Montenegrin political interviews. The
introduction is formal, appositively accomplished by stating the full name and the
function of the politician. The necessary attribute used alongside the name is the title
Mr/Mrs etc., which is in line with the social etiquette of the region:
(18) (C 3) INTERVJUISTA: Poštovani gledaoci, dobro veče. Dogovor vladajuće
koalicije i dijela opozicije o usvajanju ustava dvotrećinskom većinom u
parlamentu i dalje je u žiži javnosti. Tim povodom, naš večerašnji gost je
predsjednik Srpske narodne stranke, g. Andrija Mandić. G. Mandiću, dobro veče
i dobro došli.
Initial component – This move, the same as with the British and the American
interview, is realised through the adjacency pair greeting – greeting (Dobro veče. –
Dobro veče – Good evening. – Good evening) or welcoming – thanking (Dobro veče i
dobro nam došli. – Hvala, dobro veče i bolje vas našao. – Good evening and welcome. –
Thank you. Good evening and “may I find you in better circumstances”, pragmatic
English equivalent: I am glad to see you). The second element of the adjacency pair, as
opposed to other corpora, is always present, due to the fact that the interviewer is
introducing the audience into the interview slowly and allows enough time for the stated
conventions to be followed through.
4. CONCLUSIONS
The hypothesis that political interviews are a form of institutional talk was confirmed
by the results of the analysis of their openings. Despite the fact that these belong to
spoken discourse, uniformity of some of their features was noted, which pointed to the
methodology of genre analysis as the most adequate. The patterns which we derived from
the data have been affected by a number of extralinguistic, mostly social factors, but
nevertheless show great similarities.
In the British and the Montenegrin corpus we identified one dominant pattern
respectively, whereas in the American we deduced two. Their structure comprises several
mandatory moves, but can be completed with a number of optional ones as well. The term
“mandatory” here, however, must be understood somewhat loosely, because the
percentages relating to interview openings where these are not present are not negligible
(on average, the moves designated as obligatory had the incidence of roughly 75%).
The British data – The analysis suggested that political interview openings in the
British media consist of three mandatory moves, namely: the interviewee introduction,
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