ABSTRACT
The first of these is glossed: ‘on many occasions, IRs (interviewers) make provocative statements to open the discussion, or to initiate a new topical line of talk’ (Clayman 1992: 174). In these briefings there are a number of interviewers or questioners. Each new questioner to take the floor can open a discussion, a new line of talk (although follow-up questions do occur), and therefore provocative introductions, often accommodating footing shifts, may well be even more frequent than in news interviews. Some concordance evidence was found in support of this statement. In a comparison I made of the White House briefings corpus (WHB) and the similar-sized corpus of British political interviews (INTS ), phrases such as there are/were/have been reports … , some reports are saying, etc. which are generally used to introduce new topics, were found to be considerably more frequent in the former (26 to 11). Here are two examples:
(23) Q: Joe, have you read these reports that Yugoslavian TV and movie theaters are showing reruns of the movie ‘Wag the Dog’? (WHB )
(24) JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: If reports today are correct, then the rate of violent crime, which was falling when Labour came to power is now on the way up again. (INTS )
We have already noted, however (Section 1.2.5), that journalists are generally reluctant to admit they are initiating fresh topics.
