To do this I will first establish what I think is the 'agenda', hidden or not, of ;
News Night
Jeremy Paxman (Interviewer)
David Hunt
Sajid Javid
Kathrine Dimble
Tony Dalton
Top of the page Agenda of situation.
The programme 'News Night' is supposed to represent the facts of the situation in hand. This means that in the case of an interview with peoples opinions as the 'facts', questioning of them and argument over the issues gives a fuller picture of the situation, thus allowing the programme to represent the facts.
Jeremy Paxman's agenda in the interview is closely aliened to that of 'News Night', but it seems that his own personal views of the 'facts' may steer him to seek a biased picture. ( his own rather than that of those in the interview)
The agenda of David Hunt is that Kenneth Clark could lead and unite the conservative party, where as Sajid Javid, Tony Dalton, and Katherine Dimble believe that Kenneth Clark is not suitable for the job. All are agreed that the party should be united.
The physical environment is that of the interviewer and all but Katherine Dimble are seated in the studio. Katherine Dimble is represented by a television link-up from Leeds to the London studio.
Top of the page Status, Power, and position.
The status of Jeremy Paxman is of a talented, respected interviewer. He is known for his tenacity at staying at the point in hand, and is there fore a formidable character to withhold information from, without seeming to do so blatantly. JP has the position of interviewer and a chairman, as he picks the topics and chooses who can speak.
David Hunt was in the previous government's cabinet with Kenneth Clark, where as the other 3 interviewees are just members of the conservative party, without having any major position as David Hunt had had.
When Jeremy Paxman gives the turn to David Hunt to offer up the opposing view to Tony Dalton's, evidence of the rule for positive politeness 'that it is rude to disagree' is shown (Lecture notes, 12/05/97). He agrees with Tony Dalton's view that the lost election was to do with the split party not Kenneth Clark, and his policies. This is operated through; ' I'm not disagreeing with....but...'. This allows him to at least partially forfill this 'agreement rule'.
The need to forfill this rule with the other interviewees, as they are of a similar standing to him, conservative party members, and as they agree; the party that appears split is the loser. Therefore he attempts to show a level of solidarity via the 'seek agreement' positive politeness move. (Lecture notes, 12/05/97)
This action toward positive politeness, gives 'face' to Tony Dalton, and reduces the negative effect of the '...but...' action. (Lecture notes, 12/05/97)
Later in the interview Jeremy Paxman comes out with a statement which, as he is aware of David Hunt's positive view of Kenneth Clark, is a direct affront. David Hunt says 'Oh that's absolute nonsense, that's a characature..' and visually casts the comment away with his hand. He then uses a hand action indicating to the other interviewees the common ground as conservatives, saying 'I hope we can all agree...' .
First of all Paxman feels he can make a FTA to Hunt as it is his position to ascertain the 'facts' by tactics which as the 'interviewer in charge' he is allowed. (Lecture notes, 12/05/97)
The rebuff from DH involves some careful linguistic navigation, because to flatly rebuke JP would be rude. So as to stay within the realms of politeness he chooses to interpret the statement as if it were not the view of JP, but a reported view of those who saterise and make characatures. (Weiser, A., 1975)
By following this line he has not received the comment as an FTA, and suggested a reason for that statement, an effort to protect the positive face of JP. (Lecture notes, 12/05/97)
Ann Weiser's theory for self selecting an interpretation of a question requires the user to see some kind of 'situational ambiguity' (Weiser, A., 1975) from which they can select a view point/ scenario that the question/statement has come from. In this case DH decides that the FTA is that of a third party not present, and not JP. This then leaves DH in a safe position away from the possibility of disagreeing with JP and causing a retaliating FTA.
Finally, the phatic action of DH's hand gathering all the interviewees together, and bringing up the 'safe topic' of a united party, indicates a move to accommodate his listeners in what he is saying; a positive politeness action. (Lecture notes, 12/05/97)
The 're-formulation' tactic which is commonly used by the empowered/powerful user (Lecture notes, 12/05/97) is seen when JP re-formulates his approach from KC's policy being the reason for lack of unity, to KC's 'personal style'. This is received by TD with 'yes I agree...' and he later uses the term put forward by JP.
This technique used by JP allowed him to clarify and take the argument in a different direction; to that of a personal issue of KC being the problem as well not just the policies he upholds (Lecture notes, 12/05/97). Evidence for this comes when he asks SJ if personal style was the issue.
This re-formulation also allowed JP to control the topics discussed, and when he received a reply from SJ who stated that policy was the issue and not 'personal style' JP dismisses by closing the interaction with SJ and turns to DH to continue.
As the head of the situation (the interviewer) he is able to control topics and change or prolong them, choosing who may answer or offer opinion. As a result of the participants accepting these restrictions of the social environment of News Night this approach by JP is not rebuked; he can / they can't.
The power move of 'enforcing explicitness' and the respondents 'ambiguity' (Lecture notes, 12/05/97) are evident when JP asks TD to state whether 'personal style' is also an issue.
Tony Dalton quickly answers;
- ' that's right...that's right...
- the whole thing has got to unite the party and go in one direction...
- that to me is the most important thing.........
- Now I'm not convinced that Kenneth Clark's personal style will achieve that '
apparently agreeing so as to be positively polite and not disagree, then, continuing with the line of unity and not specifically saying that 'it' is an issue.
The comment he finishes with; '...I'm not convinced that KC's personal style will achieve that', seems odd coming after the 2nd and 3rd parts of his utterance, unless he suddenly thought that he could close the topic and open the one he wanted? This offers to me two possibilities;
- that he wanted to be ambiguous by using 'selection by reply' (Weiser, A., 1975) to hide the
fact that he was breaking the gricean maxim of relevance thus avoiding a difficult answer,
or...
- that he was trying to work on the assumption that the previous utterance was a performative which would not need an issue of true or false to be discussed (Stubbs, M. 1983), and therefore allowed him to continue with what he felt relevant.
For the 1st point to work TD would need to think that JP could be interpreted as asking what is relevant and needed for party leadership debate, thus making sense of the statement, but JP was specific in subject; KC's personal style.
For the 2nd point to be effective the prior utterance must be a performative; 'Austin's theory of speech acts' puts it;
'performatives are used to perform actions, it does not make sense to enquire about their truth conditions. '
(Stubbs, M. 1983), with this interpretation TD could avoid answering at all and continue as before. This is not substantiated by his later need to say that the 'personal style' point may have relevance.
The solution could be that either it was one of these 2 speech acts 'gone wrong', or that TD's conviction as a Conservative Party member, and his personal beliefs got the better of his present position; interviewee on News Night, to which he reverted to in the last line of his utterance. (Cheepen, C. et. al. 1990)
This last idea ties in with the concept of 'external and internal goals' (Cheepen, C. et. al. 1990). Where TD changes to make his point (lines 2,3) he is under pressure from his external position, and as he closes (line 4) he is conforming to the 'internal goal' or boundaries set of the interview.
In this analysis I have found that the social status of the environment, the position of responsibility to their own convictions and the subject in hand have influenced the choice of various speech acts/ power moves made by the individual. Where as normally it would be considered rude and out of place to 'cut someone dead'; in conversation with a friend say, but in the situation where you as a speaker are in a recognised position of power
ie. as Jeremy Paxman: Interviewer
it is not considered outrageous to remove the turn from a participant and hand it to another.
Stubbs, Michael, 'Discourse Analysis; the sociolinguistic analysis of natural language.', Basil Blackwell, 1983 pages 151, 152
Cheepen, C. et. al., 'Spoken English A Practical Guide', Pinter Publishers, 1990, pages 15,16,17
Lecture notes, 'Concept of face, and power language', Brian Wright, 12/05/97
Weiser, Ann. 'How to not answer a question: Purposive devises in conversational strategy', in Chicago Linguistics Society 11, University of Chicago, 1975, pages 650,654,655,656
Perhaps it was KC's inability to spell that split the party, rather than standing for the party's policies as was first suggested?
Then the answer could be that;
' Kenneth Clark is the man to untie the conservative party!'
An interesting source of data for a similar analysis can be found in other political reports and debates were the writer take the controlling role. Although for the type of analysis which is shown here, a live and interactional scenario is necessary.
I'm quite new to this internet lark so if you've got any suggestions on this web site please contact me with your tips or pointers via e-mail;
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Edited by: Brian Wright , Joint Linguistics and Information Technology Undergraduate
December 1997
© University of East London 1997