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Classroom and Spoken Discourse/Written Discourse. SD-05-03. Francis and Hunston Analysis of Interview between Dennis Miller and Pastor Rod Parsley by.
Module 4 Assignment July 2005 Classroom and Spoken Discourse/Written Discourse SD-05-03

Francis and Hunston Analysis of Interview between Dennis Miller and Pastor Rod Parsley

by Michael H. Flynn

Number of Words: 4,420 Excluding long quotes, tables, examples from transcript, references and appendix

Contents Page 1.0 Introduction

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Part I Analysis 2.0 The System of Analysis

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2.1 Interview Recording and Transcript

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2.2 Analysis of the Interview

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2.3 The boundaries of Acts

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2.4 Exchanges

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2.5 Boundary Exchanges

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2.6 Organizational Exchanges: Greeting and Structuring

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2.7 Elicit Exchanges

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2.8 Informing Exchanges

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Part II Commentary 3.0 Overview

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3.1 Long and Interrupted Turns

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3.2 Ambiguity of Act Function

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3.3 Audience: the Third Party

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3.4

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Directives and Behaves: More on Ambiguity of Function

3.5 Turn Length in Interviews

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3.6 Dominance, Challenge and Role

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4.0 Conclusion

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References Appendix: Coded Interview Transcript

1.0

Introduction

This essay uses the categories proposed by Francis and Hunston (1992: 123-61) to analyze a transcription of a videotaped professional interview. Part One explains the system of analysis, describes the procedures for data collection, transcription and analysis, and discusses the actual application of the analysis to the interview data. Part Two comments on difficulties encountered in fitting the data into Francis and Hunston’s categories and discusses some features of interviews revealed by the analysis. My intent in selecting this topic was to raise my awareness of the characteristics of this particular discourse type and conversation in general in the hope that the knowledge gained might latter be applied in activities to assist language learners.

Part I Analysis 2.0 The System of Analysis Francis and Hunston’s system of analysis incorporates various adaptations and refinements of the Sinclair-Coulthard model (1975) which was developed from recordings of teachers’ classroom lessons. Willis summarizes this model as follows: The original Sinclair-Coulthard system…is based on Halliday’s (1961) rank scalei description of grammar. The ranks in the model are lesson; transaction; exchange; move and act, and these are related to one another in a ‘consists’ of relationship… There are two types of exchange:…Boundary exchanges and Teaching exchanges…A teaching exchange has three elements of structure: Initiation (I), Response and Feedback (F). The structure of the exchange is specified as I(R)(F). This…dictates that all exchanges consist of at least an Initiation and that this Initiation may be followed by either a Response or Feedback. If there is a Response this may in turn be followed by a Feedback. (Willis, 1992: 112).

Sinclair and Coulthard state, The Function of boundary exchange is…to signal the beginning or end of what the teacher considers to be a stage in the lesson; teaching exchanges are the individual steps by which the lesson progresses. Boundary exchanges consist of two moves, framing and focusing; often the two occur together. (Sinclair and Coulthard,1992: 25)

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Halliday’s rank scale refers to sentences consisting of units from a lower rank such as clauses, which in turn consist of units from a lower rank such as words. Sinclair and Coulthard also use a rank scale where moves are constituted from acts, exchanges from moves, and transactions from exchanges.

In a modification to the 1975 model (see Coulthard and Brazil, 1992: pp. 70-3), the element of structure “Feedback” (F) was relabeled “Follow-up” and the moves opening, answering and follow-up were replaced with eliciting, informing and acknowledging moves respectively. This coincided with the abandonment of “the one-to-one correspondence between move and element of structure” (Francis and Hunston, 1992: 124) where, for example, an “Initiation” (I) was always realized by an opening move. Additionally, a new element of structure, “Response/Initiation” (R/I), was recognized that, “functions as a response with respect to the preceding element and as an initiation with respect to the following one” (Coulthard and Brazil, 1992:71). Francis and Hunston explain that “The various possibilities can now be expressed as: I(R/I)R(Fn)” (1992: 124) where moves R/I and F are optional, and F may include multiple moves. Finally, the use of intonation was included to decide whether an utterance should be “in the same exchange as a preceding utterance, or whether to interpret it as initiating a new exchange” (Francis and Hunston, 1992: 124).

Francis and Hunston (1992) instead of focusing on data from classrooms, analyze two party conversations. In their system (see chart ibid, pp125-27), exchanges are divided into Organizational and Conversational. Organizational exchanges include Boundary exchanges realized by framing moves and acts, and also Structuring, Greet, and Summon exchanges which are realized by the structure IR. Conversational exchanges retain the I(R/I)R(Fn) structure but

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directing moves have been added as an additional type of Initiation and behaving moves under the Response category. In addition to the ordinary Elicit exchange, there are also three Bound-Elicit exchanges: Clarify, Repeat, and Reinitiation, which are “bound to preceding exchanges and…all have elciting moves at Ib [an Initiation bound to a previous Initiation] ”(Ibid, 136). When a non-Boundary exchange does not have the required Response, it is considered incomplete. Framing moves are realized by acts with the structure signal and head (s)h; both of which are closed lexical items where the signal is optional. All other moves are realized by acts with the structure signal, pre-head, head, post-head where only the head is obligatory, thus: (s)(pre-h)h(post-h). While the marker act may occur in any type of move, all other acts have some degree of limitation in the types of moves they can realize. For instance, an endorse act can only be found realizing the head of an acknowledging move. Francis and Hunston list 32 everyday conversational acts with definitions (ibid. 128-33 ).

2.1 Interview Recording and Transcript Approximately nine hours of television interviews were taped with a VCR and culled to select an interview with relatively frequent alternations of speakers. The interview here features the host of a comedy show, Dennis Miller, interviewing Pastor Rod Parson. In Francis and Hunston, a telephone conversation is analyzed to avoid complications caused by “paralinguistic features such as gestures and eye-gaze” (1992: 124). While many of these elements were captured on the videotape and were intuitively helpful in interpreting the meaning of particular utterances, paralinguistic elements are beyond the scope of the system presented by Francis and Hunston. Although these paralinguistic features played a role in the interaction, most have not been included in the transcript and those that have are primarily included to assist readers in understanding the situation.

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In making the transcript and analysis, there were a number of issues related to accuracy, reliability, and validity of coding. Much of the coding appears superficially straight-forward but in practice involves, “Using high-inference categories, [where] an observer has to make a considerable effort of judgement” (McDonough and McDonough, 1997: 107). If possible, it would have been desirable for the transcript to have been independently checked and coded.

2.2 Analysis of the Interview Possible codings at various different levels were simultaneously tentatively assigned. Problematic elements were dealt with by restudying different categories and examples, and comparing them with the sample telephone conversation analysis in Francis and Hunston (1992:157-61). The process involved many recodings and sometimes items sliding out of categories. For instance, some items initially coded as informs were later reclassified as comments because of their positioning in an exchange or their relationship to or within a particular move. One critical step was determining which acts were “free-standing” and able to “stand alone as complete contributions” (Brazil, 1995: 20). These acts correspond to the head of individual moves with preceding dependent acts being considered either signals or pre-heads and with subsequent dependent acts being categorized as post-heads.

2.3 The boundaries of Acts Francis and Hunston state, An act must always begin with a new tone unit: for example ‘well’ is not identified as a marker unless there is a tone unit boundary between it and whatever follows it (Ibid.133-34)

In practice this tone unit is often marked by a pause as in lines 14, 15, 30, and 116 of Francis and Hunston’s Sample Analysis. Although not coded on the Dennis Miller interview transcript, similar

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short pauses were used to mark act boundaries in the data at lines 2, 3, 14, 22, 23, 40, 46, 63, 86, 91, 97, 112, 127, 129, 131, 146, 149, 154, 157, 160, 168, 170, 171, 207, 213, 218 and 230. Additionally, at lines 8 and 18, the word well was noticeably drawn out and treated as a tone unit even though there was no noticeable pause following. In other instances at lines 10, 16, 19, 29, 157, 207, and 217, no pause was heard following the words ‘alright’ and ‘well’ so these items were not coded as separate acts.

A pause by itself however does not always indicate an act boundary. Examples of this can be found in Francis and Hunston’s analysis of the telephone conversation at lines 104, 105, 147. Sinclair and Coulthard state, the units at the lowest rank of discourse are acts and correspond most nearly to the grammatical unit clause, but when we describe an item as an act we are doing something very different from when we describe it as a clause. Grammar is concerned with formal properties of an item, discourse with functional properties, with what the speaker is using the item for. (Sinclair and Coulthard, 1992: 8)

In effect, stretches of text are fitted into the functional categories of the acts based on what the speaker is doing with a particular utterance. This can even lead to a series of sentences being grouped into a single act as in the interview at line 24 which comprises a lengthy comment or the equally lengthy inform act at line 50.

2.4 Exchanges This section discusses the Organizational exchanges found in the analysis and the two most frequently occurring Conversational exchanges—the Elicit exchange and the Inform exchange.

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Table 1 Summary of Exchanges in Interview Data Exchange Type Organizational Boundary Boundary Organizational Structuring Greet Conversational Elicit Clarify Inform

Structures

Exchange number Completed Exchanges Incomplete

Fr 1,7,50 IR 2,52 5,51 I(R/I)R(Fn) 3,8,14,16,18,20,21,29,36,45 9,17,28 12,24,32,33,34,37,38, 39,40,41,43,44,47,49 4,22,23,30,46,48

Direct

10,13,25,26,31,35 11,15,19,27 42

2.5 Boundary Exchanges The Boundary exchange, “Alright” at line 1 separates the upcoming interview from a previous part of the program and begins the first transaction which involves the host introducing the guest to the audience and the host and the guest exchanging greetings. The second Boundary exchange, “Alright” at line 7 signals the beginning of the second transaction comprised of the interview proper. The final boundary exchange, “OK” delineates the beginning of the third transaction which concludes the interview with a farewell, and the announcement of an upcoming commercial. These three transactions form the interview segment of the Dennis Miller comedy program.

2.6 Organizational Exchanges: Greeting and Structuring No Summon exchanges were found but two unproblematic IR Greeting exchanges and two incomplete Structuring exchanges were observed. Example 1 Greet exchange

e.s = element of structure

Line of Dialogue

act

e.s.

12 P: Hi Dennis

greeting

h

13 D: How are ya

return-greeting h

move

6

e.s. exchange exchange #

Opening

I

Answering

R

Greet

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Example 2 Incomplete Structuring exchange Line of Dialogue

act

e.s.

5 D: Now.

marker

6. For tonight’s Rorschach

meta-statement h

move

s

e.s. exchange exchange #

Opening

I

Structuring(inc)

2

Extra. 7. He’s the author of the

comment

post-h

Book Silent No More and The founder of the Center for Moral Clarity.

In example 2, the Rorschach Extra is the name of the interview segment of the program. Both the guest and the audience are told what will come next. However, neither the guest nor the audience make an explicit answering move so the exchange has tentatively been coded as incomplete. Another possibility is to add an implied or understood element (See Francis and Hunston, 1992: 153-55) as follows: Line of Dialogue

act

e.s.

move

e.s. exchange exchange #

X

(acquiesce)

h

answering

R

(/)

Yet another possibility is to push the exchange down into an Inform exchange (Ibid. 153). However, because the exchange takes place prior to the interview and sets out what will follow, it has been coded as a Structuring exchange.

2.7

Elicit Exchanges

In the interview, there are ten completed and six incomplete Elicit exchanges. One feature found in this and other interviews observed during the data collection was use of relatively lengthy pre-head starting moves by the interviewers when framing questions. For space reasons, these will not be presented here but examples of such starters can be found in the transcript at exchanges 8, 13, 14, 25, 35, 36. Similarly, exchange 18 contains a question, which is somewhat

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unclear and then followed by a lengthy post-head comment. In interview programs, the function of long pre-head starters with inquiry, marked and unmarked proposal acts seems to be to provide background to optimize the informativeness of the interviewee’s Response.

However, one

unusual feature of this particular interview are instances where the guest attempts to answer but the interviewer exercises his dominant position and ignores the guest. These were coded as incomplete Elicit exchanges. Examples occur at exchanges 13 in which the interviewee attempts to start an answer with “Well” at line 40 and in exchange 35 where the interviewee attempts to begin an answer with “I” at line 169. These exchanges suggest that the interviewer is more interested in making his points and holding the floor than in eliciting an answer. Exchanges 13 and 35 are followed by the completed Elicit exchanges 14 and 36. Another coding possibility would be to treat lines 40 and 169 as incomplete non-moves and to combine exchanges 13, 14 and 35, 36 into single exchanges but this would perhaps not direct sufficient attention to one of the many adversative characteristics of the interaction.

2.8 Informing Exchanges Exchanges 37, 38, and 39 contain a single short informing move followed by an acknowledging move realized by the react “No” to indicate agreement or a positive endorsement of the previous statement. Example 3 Line of Dialogue

act

e.s.

move

e.s. exchange

176. D: I don’t think you’re

Informative

h

Informing

I

react

h

acknowledging R

Inform

exchange # 38

crazy. 177. P: No

From the context of this acknowledging move, the “No” here means, “I don’t think that you think that I am crazy”. Consequently, the act has been coded as a react.

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Part II Commentary 3.0

Overview

Because of long often interrupted speaking turns, ambiguity of the functions of some utterances, and the participation of the live audience, fitting the data in the interview into the Francis and Hunston’s categories proved extremely difficult. Even so, the process of attempting to categorize the data highlights features of a discourse type that differs from the data used in the original model.

3.1 Long and Interrupted Turns Francis and Hunston’s sample analysis of a telephone conversation consists primarily of short uninterrupted turns with minimal overlap. Where overlaps occur, this is handled by using the “&” and “+” symbol to indicate continuities as in Exchange 31 (1992: 159). This convention is retained in the interview transcript but when a speaker takes a long continuous turn, uncertainties arise about how to code acts of the other speaker. For example in elicit exchange 18, the interviewer interrupts the other speaker with the question, “and what of their heart?” at line 67. The meaning of this question is not at all certain from the previous context. The interviewer seems to add a lengthy comment, which does not end until the interviewee actually interrupts with an informing move at line 82. During the interviewer’s comment act, “Right” line 70, “Right” line 72, “Right” line 74, “Sure” line 76, “Right” line 78, “Absolutely” line 80 are coded as engages in keeping with the idea that these are providing “minimal feedback while not interrupting the flow of the other participant’s utterance” (ibid 133). However, depending on the intonation, these engages might also be coded as terminate, receive, react, or even a protest that have simply been ignored by the other speaker. While the transcript is coded so that the informing move at line 82 is a response to the eliciting move at line 67, a different coding of one of the engages would shift the

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entire exchange structure in this section. Viewed from a different perspective, it is possible to treat the Eliciting move at line 67 as an abandoned and incomplete Elicit exchange followed by a new Informing exchange beginning at line 69 in which case one or more of the engages might be recoded and classified as Acknowledging moves with the interviewee starting a new Inform exchange at line 82.

Another example of a long continuous turn by the host takes place in an informing move that occurs from lines 131-147. However, sandwiched between are “Right” at line 135, “Look” line 137, “but XXX” line 139, “but” line 141 and “yeah” line 143. One way to code these might be as a series of engages since none of them are effective at interrupting the host. However, this solution is not entirely satisfactory. In particular, lines 135 and 145 appear to be receive acts while lines 137, 139, and 141 strongly suggest that the guest wants to take a speaking turn but is ignored by the host by talking over the guest. Overlaps of this type were extremely difficult to fit into categories and also made it difficult to determine the boundaries between exchanges.

3.2 Ambiguity of Act Function In many instances, it is difficult to determine what function a particular act realizes without speculating about the speaker’s intention. At line 67 “And what of their heart” has been coded as an eliciting move on the basis that it is simply a poor question resulting from the constraints of speaking in real time. However, this is not the only possibility. Preceding line 67 is an elicit exchange that has resulted in the interviewee providing an informing move from lines 63-68 where the interviewee and not the interviewer is the one receiving the approving applause from the audience. It seems possible that line 67 is not so much a question as a means of distracting the audience and the interviewee to save face (Goffman, 1999: 306-20) and regain control of the

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interview. If this were the case, line 67 could actually be viewed as the pre-head starter of a new inform exchange.

3.3 Audience: the Third Party At first glance, the interview appeared to only involve two parties but as the coding progressed, it became clear that the audience was more involved in the interaction than first suspected. The audience participated in the interaction by applauding and laughing. Although these features have been tentatively coded in the transcript, the presence of a third party creates difficulties with the exchange boundaries. For purposes of this analysis, the audience are treated as overhearers (Goffman in Coulthard, 1985: 47) and their contributions while noted are excluded for purposes of analyzing the exchange structure. The exception to this is when either the host or the guest directs the audience to do or stop doing something in which case the audience’s behaving move is coded as a behave Response.

While the audience is treated as an overhearer in Elicit and Inform exchanges, some speculative coding was included that treats audience laughter and applause as react acts in Responses or Follow-ups as in lines 28, 47, 57, 65, 103, 105, 110, 122, 145, 148, 156, 192, 200, 204, 209, 212, 233. Technically, if the audience really is simply an over-hearer, the applause and laughter should not be coded as all. Even so, the coding for the audience that has been done looks at the element of structure in the previous move and then assigns appropriate subsequent coding to the audience’s move so that an R follows an I and an F follows an R. However, if either the guest or the host makes a move after the audience, the audience’s is move is not treated as part of the exchange structure.

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Example 4 Line of Dialogue

act

e.s.

move

e.s. exchange exchange #

63. P: Well,

marker

pre-h

Informing

R

64. not not when your hear is

reject

h

65.

react

h

Acknowledging

F

66. P: then you understand those

comment post-h

inspired by faith

passages and it makes sense

In this case, the audience’s move is coded as an Acknowledging F move in response to the Informing R move but not treated as a part of the exchange structure. If the audience contribution were to actually be taken into account in the exchange structure, line 66 might not be viewed as a post-head comment but rather a new inform act.

Applying Francis and Hunston’s model to a three party interaction creates other problems. In the exchange structure I(R/I)R(Fn) a single Response is predicted by the Initiation in a two part interaction. However, where more parties are involved it is possible to imagine Responses from more than one party. For instance, at line 46, the guest and at line 47, the audience are both making a Response to the guest’s question at line 45. If allowed, The structure would look something like I:host R:guest R:audience. In line 28, the audience laughs after an incomplete inform exchange. With the exception of Direct exchanges the transcript is coded so that only the guest or the host may supply moves to complete an exchange, but exchange 11 could be viewed as completed by the audience’s acknowledging Response.

3.4 Directives and Behaves: More on Ambiguity of Function As early as line 10, the host directs the audience to welcome the guest and the audience responds by applauding in what has been coded as a behaving act. In this instance, it was

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impossible to pretend that the audience was simply a non-participating overhearer. The host turned to address the live audience and the audience responded. This strongly resembles the situation of a classroom teacher directing students to perform some action. Setting aside the issue of three party interactions, one question that arises is how to code the function of the “welcome” of group applause. On one hand, it appears to be a behave because the audience is responding to the host’s instruction but the applause here can also be considered a type of greeting act. However, greetings are usually found as adjacency pairs with one party returning the greeting (Sacks in Coulthard, 1985: 69). In this instance, the guest does not return the greeting to the audience. Instead, the applause continues while the host and the guest exchange greetings in exchange 5. This seems to suggest that the Audience has interpreted line 10 as “Please welcome (with me the host) Pastor Rod Parsley”. In effect, the greeting function of the audience applause is fused with the host’s Greeting act. Unfortunately, there is no way to represent this using Francis and Hunston’s system.

Equally interesting here is the host’s Framing act “Alright” at line 14 (exchange 7). This clearly functions to let everyone know that the greeting phase has concluded and that it is time to move to the next stage. Again however, line 14 appears to instruct the audience to end the welcoming applause. Even in the classroom, framing moves could be viewed as directives instructing students to be quiet, to listen or to get ready followed by behaving acts such as the students ceasing other activities, becoming quiet, or starting to take notes. In other words, line 14 could be a direct with the meaning of stop laughing and pay attention followed by the behaving act of the audience discontinuing its laughter and paying attention.

Similar issues occur when the guest and host attempt to secure a speaking turn by saying “Wait a

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second” line 97, “listen” lines 104,193,214, 222, and “hold” line 152. The problem in coding these was whether to treat them as markers merely signaling a coming move or as directs followed by behaves such as one party ceasing to talk (see lines 214-215). In the interview, because these utterances seemed to carry the sense of “shut up and let me speak”, they were coded as directives but equally probable interpretations for these utterances serving a different function made coding difficult.

3.5

Turn Length in Interviews

In spite of the many difficulties of trying to fit the data into Francis and Hunston’s categories (there were so many in fact that there is not space to discuss all of them), the attempt to do so reveals that at least some types of interviews are not simply a series of short questions followed by short answers but rather that the interviewer often provides a considerable amount of information either before or after the question. Examples of this occur in the Eliciting moves in Exchanges 8, 13, 14, 25, 35, 36 and the Eliciting R/I beginning at line 53. Additionally, the head act of an interviewee’s informing Responses along with possible pre and post head acts can also be also be quite lengthy as seen in the Informing Responses beginning at lines 18,22,48,82,207, and 216. This tendency for long monologue-like turns on the part of both the interviewer and interviewee was also noted during the data collection stage. The Dennis Miller interview was selected because it had the highest frequency of turn taking but utilizing this criteria means that the interview was atypical of the other data that was examined. If any of the other interviews had been transcribed, the ordinary individual uninterrupted turn would have easily consumed a page or more of the transcript. For long turns, the ideas for analyzing monologue proposed in Brazil (1995: 83-97) and Coulthard and Montogomery (1981:31-9) seem more appropriate than trying to fit everything into the four part structure of (s)(pre-head)h(post-head) used in Francis and Hunston.

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3.6 Dominance, Challenge and Role Francis and Hunston’s system was also useful in drawing attention to the power relationships in interviews. A common feature shared by all of the interview data recorded was that interviewers exercised the right to structure the interview by using typical teacher framing moves and through structuring exchanges. Like a dominant classroom teacher, interviewers also took the lead in initiating new questions or topics. The Dennis Miller interview is unusual in that the interviewee appears to actually challenge the interviewer’s role and viewpoints by attempting to ask the interviewer questions in Exchanges 26, 29, and 31 and by unsuccessfully attempting to change the topic in Exchanges 19 and 27.

Unlike other interviews where the purpose of the interviewer appeared to be simply to elicit information, Dennis Miller seems more interested in presenting his own views and using the interviewee’s responses as material for jokes. The interview resembles a conversation where both speakers value and compete for turns (See discussion of Sacks in Coulthard, 1985:61) in order to communicate their ideas. However, it should also be borne in mind that the real goal of both speakers is perhaps not simply one to one communication but presenting their views and competing for the approval of a wider viewing audience (Goffman, 1999: 315). It must be noted however that because of the interviewer’s inherently dominant role that the interviewee is at a disadvantage. For example, the interviewer ignores interviewee’s attempts to change the topic in Exchanges 19 and 27 by not responding and asking new questions.

The competitive interaction

in the interview differs from the telephone call analysis by Francis and Hunston where the primary goals of the speakers seem more in keeping with Grice’s “Cooperation Principle” (Jaworski and Coupland, 1999: 17). In the Dennis Miller interview, the frequent appearance of incomplete exchanges may indicate that the speakers are not cooperating. While Brazil suggests that it is

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possible to treat an individual informing move as a completed exchange (1995: 144), retaining Francis and Hunston’s requirement for an Initiation to ordinarily be followed by a Response to complete an exchange may actually be helpful in identifying adversarial/competitive features of an interaction.

Finally, in the classroom, teachers frequently evaluate student answers with feedback in follow-up moves. In the Dennis Miller interview, to some extent a similar role seems to have been taken on by the live audience in the form of laughter and applause, which evaluate both the interviewer and the interviewee. Even though the audience’s role did not include the right to initiate any exchanges, and for the most part was not able to be included in the exchange structures of the present analysis, as arbiter of the performances of both the interviewer and interviewee, the live audience played an important part in the interaction.

4.0 Conclusion Earlier it was noted that it was hoped that by applying Francis and Hunston’s model, some type of knowledge would be generated that could later be applied in activities to assist language learners. In my own projects involving language learner’s interviewing native speakers, students tend to ask a single short question and then to wait for an answer. It is possible that by using recordings of professional interviewers with students and drawing attention to interviewers’ use of lengthy starters, post-head comments, and even multiple questions during an interviewer’s turn might lead to an improvement in student interviews.

Another difficulty that students often have is in interrupting a native speaker to take a speaking turn. This can occur in both interview situations and in ordinary conversation. In the Dennis Miller

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show, the host is dominant because of his position as the interviewer and the guest is faced with considerable difficulties when trying to communicate his points. A student faced by a native speaker is in a similar position. A native speaker can often and sometimes even unintentionally dominate an interaction. In the interview, both the guest’s and the host’s use of makers and directives such as “well”, “but”, “listen”, and “look” suggests strategies that learners might use to secure speaking turns even in less adversarial situations than the interview.

Finally, even though utterances seemed to have multiple or ambiguous functions, and it was difficult to determine exchange boundaries even when setting aside the audience contributions, the analysis tool revealed many interesting features in the interview that might have otherwise gone unnoticed. One question raised but not answered by the present analysis is how Francis and Hunston’s model might be adapted to handle interactions involving more than two parties. While no immediate solutions to the problem are apparent, this could be an interesting topic for future research.

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References

Brazil, D. (1995) Classroom and Spoken Discourse. University of Birmingham: Centre for English Language Studies. Coulthard, M. (1985) An Introduction to Discourse Analysis (2nd edition). Harlow, England: Longman. Coulthard, M. and Brazil, D .(1992) ‘Exchange Structure’ in Malcolm Coulthard (eds.) Advances in Spoken Discourse Analysis. London: Routledge. Coulthard, M. and Montgomery, M. (1981) Studies in Discourse Analysis. Routledge. Francis, F. and Hunston, S. (1992) ‘Analysing everyday conversation’ in Malcolm Coulthard (eds.) Advances in Spoken Discourse Analysis. London: Routledge. Goffman, E. (1999) ‘On Face-Work: An Analysis Of Ritual Elements In Social Interaction’ in Adam Jaworski and Nikolas Coupland (eds.) The Discourse Reader. London: 1999. Jaworski, A. and Coupland, N. (1999) The Discourse Reader. London: 1999. Sinclair, J. and Coulthard, M. (1992) ‘Towards an analysis of discourse’ in Malcolm Coulthard (eds.) Advances in Spoken Discourse Analysis. London: Routledge. Willis, D. (1992) ‘Caught in the act: using the rank scale to address problems of delicacy’ in Malcolm Coulthard (eds.) Advances in Spoken Discourse Analysis. London: Routledge.

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Appendix Notes on Abbreviations in Transcript: e.s. element of structure: The first column labeled e.s. identifies the preceding act’s element of move structure. s signal, pre-h pre-head, h head, post-h post head. The second column labeled e.s. is the preceding move’s element of exchange structure. I Initiation, R Response, F Follow up. exch. # exchange number: Separate exchanges are not delineated here by horizontal lines but are readily identifiable by the exchange number. inc. incomplete: Normally used to indicate that an exchange does not contain a required move. Also used here when a move is started but not finished. The following symbols are used to when speech or actions (applause/laughter) are simultaneous and overlap with other moves. (See note 8 in Francis and Hunston, 1992: 161): &

for Dennis Miller

+

for Pastor Rod Parsley

++

for the audience

Abbreviations for acts be behave, conf confirm,

com comment, con conclusion, d directive, end endorse eng engage, fr framer, gr

greeting, i informative, inq inquiry, m marker,

m.pr marked proposal, ms meta-statement, n.pr neutral

proposal, prot protest, rea react, rec receive, ref reformulate, starter, ter terminate Definitions for acts (Francis and Hunston, 1992: 128-133) XXX inaudible

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re-gr return greeting, rej reject, ret return, s

Dennis Miller transcript D= Dennis Miller P = Pastor Rod Parsley Line of Dialogue 1. 2. D: Alright 3. now 4. for tonight’s Rorschach Extra. 5. He’s the author of the book Silent No More and the founder of the Center for Moral Clarity. 6. He’s a pastor? 7. (no reply audible) 8. Well [no pause but prominent] 9. somebody should have told me before I did that monologue. 10. Please welcome Pastor Rod Parsley ladies and gentlemen alright. 11. ++ 12. P: Hi Dennis 13. D: How are ya 14. Alright. 15. ++ 16. Alright what’s the deal Pastor Rod, what’s happening in the religious community now? They know that they have clout. They know that they have a vote and I guess that they’re getting more verbal about it. 17. Right? 18. P Well, [drawn out prominent] 19. Well we found out that people of faith do have a voice Dennis 20. but I I wanna say on the onset that I really don’t want to be categorized in the group that as another screaming voice from the far right wing radical edge just about to fall off 21. D: You consider yourself more moderate? 22. P: aa (pronounced as in at) Well 23. Absolutely 24. because what I’ve seen you know the congregation that I pastor as well as the television audience that we have is 50% African American and 50% white. What we saw in two thousand and four was that the African American community as well as the caucasian community and Hispanics that

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Roman Catholics and those of Jewish faith as well as those of Evangelical faith and some of no faith at all came together on issues that they felt like had great significance in their lives. D: Does does your God and uh uh I’m not a Christian but uh I like Christians. I look at them sometimes and I’m um a bit envious. You a Christian? P: because we like you too D: Well I mean I look at Christians and I think uh you know in a world that seems to have gone mad at some point, it must be a great solace to some people to be able to completely turn their life over to Christ. I haven’t had that sort of moment& P: m D: & I believe in God to some extent & P: mm D: & but I’m not a Christian. P: Right D: but anyway I was thinking what happens one day as you’re a pastor & P: mm D: & It seems to me that the pastoring job involves up close and personal stuff with people you’re taking care of in a community. Does did God alert you one day that he wanted you to have a TV show? P: Well D: cuz you, say you’re on TV & P: Right D: & and when I see guys on TV I wonder if this cat’s a huckster & P: Right D: & but did God come to you and say, “Rod, you’ve got to get us on TV we’re not getting ratings here P: Well, P: That’s why we want to cut through the clutter of these conflicting extremes because

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because to have that extreme view of any one that takes the Gospel and puts it on television is way out there on the fringe edge. Uh, millions of people are communicated with by your program. They hear your views. D: From your mouth to GodXXXXXX P: They hear your ideas. In fact, I’ve watched I’ve watched your program for years and uh what I like about it is I get to hear at times opposing views to mine and so people of faith are beginning to realize is that our views have a place in the market place also. I can’t be silent as long as the founding faith of our nation seems to be driven from the market place of ideas where the the same words that our founding fathers intended to protect faith are used to drive it from the national public square. Uh, we’ve got to speak out on the issues that are precious to us just like you speak out on the issues that are meaningful to you. D: What’s the weirdest thing in the Bible in your mind? P: The weirdest thing in the Bible? D: Yeah there’s got a be one thing in the Bible that is akin to that where ya know I’ve read the Bible & P: X (some kind of acknowledging sound) & not the whole thing all the way through but occasionally & D: & there’s you read stories and go that’s wacked too & P: Yeah D: & You know what I mean there’s there’s a bunch of stuff in there too & P: Well D: & that’s a lot of wack right? P: Well, not not when your heart is inspired by faith+ P: + then you understand those

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passages and it makes sense + 67. D: and what of their heart? 68. P: + too 69. D: Listen I know there’s a lot of nuts in the Islamic world right now & 70. P: Right 71. D: & Islamic fundamentalists & 72. P: Right 73. D: & who just want to kill people & 74. P: Right 75. D: & You know there’s a lot of pragmatic Islamic people out there & 76. P: Sure 77. D: & too who read their book too in the same way that you read their book & 78. P: Right 79. D:& and when they read that passage & 80. P: Absolutely 81. D: & they go maybe the infidel is 82. P: And what I do, what I do is encourage those of the Islamic faith to read the Bible + 83. D: Yeah [not prominent] 84. P: + to read it and to look at it 85. but what I want to talk about are these uh these diametrically opposed extremes in America. The African American church, the left. What I hoped to do in the book is take issues that belong to the left traditionally and commend them to the right. To take issues that traditionally belong to the secular and commend them to + 86. D: Tell 87. tell me & 88. P: + the religious. 89. D: & about gay marriage for a second. Where do you stand? 90. Are you against it? 91. P: Well# 92. I’m absolutely against + 93. D: Yeah 94. P: + gay marriage. 95. D: Why? 96. P: but I’m also against poverty. I’m also against one out of six of our of children going to bed every night + 97. D: Wait a second 98. you took &

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P: + hungry XXX.

D: & me on a weird left there. I’m talking about gay marriage. ++ D: Lis listen ++ I’m against gay parades & P: alright D: & cuz they drive me crazy & P: alright D: & and all that stuff. P: Alright well then D: but at the end of the day Rod & P: XXX (attempting to interrupt?) D: & as a man of God & P: Right D: & I find it beautiful when people fall in love and want to seal that deal. What’s the & P: then why + D: & problem? P: + why did we spend the past why did we spend the past five decades documenting the problems with children raised in homes by one parent? Why is the same government and what what I’d what I’d like to get to is how that came about in the first place. It’s what I call judicial tyranny. D: You don’t think it sh kids should go to one one parent families? P Well, I I think that’s not I think that’s not the ultimate and so why would we we then create a situation uh absolutely where a child is raised in a home with one parent or the other? D: You know I got I happen to know & P:XXX D: & a family in my life where there’s two great two gay dads with a kid & P: Right D: & I’m not saying it works in every case Rod but I’m telling

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you this kid is happy as a clam and I look at that & P: Look D: & those two guys and I think& P: but XXX D: & good for you & P: but D: God bless you for swimming up stream & P: yeah D: &like this and taking care of that kid P: yeah but Dennis that’s an untested social experiment. D: I know but you know sometimes Rod P: It Hold it’s an untested social experiment. And are we willing once again on the lust of adults to sacrifice the possible life happiness of children? D: Well Listen Rod I see your point. I see my point P: D: You know what I mean I just think that the key to religion is that we all got to agree that we’re not going to get together on some of this stuff ever P: XXXly not D: It’s just kind of in your bones P: yes D: how you feel. I’m a square on a lot of things but when I look at a kid who’s go nobody and I think ah two nice guys who wanta & P: Right D: & take care of the kid. I don’t feel unchristian when I think ah good for them. You know what I mean? P: I D: So we’re probably never going to co-join on this but ya know I admire your your point of view

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on it but it’s just not mine, 172. you know what I mean? 173. P: I understand 174. D: but I’m not angry at you about it 175. P: No 176. D: I don’t think you’re crazy 177. P: No 178. D: or out there on the right 179. P: No no 180. and that’s what 181. D: that’s what’s 182. gone wrong with this country 183. P: that’s what’s gone wrong. 184. D: Yeah, it’s crazy 185. P: that you and I can’t sit here and have an intellectual debate or discussion about these issues 186. D: Exactly 187. Without& 188. P: that’s what’s wrong. 189. D: & you having to be killed & 190. P: My son 191. D: & by an archangel of death. 192. ++ 193. P: Listen 194. My son 195. I gotta say this 196. D&P: 197. P: I 198. 199. D: 200. ++ 201. P: I have 202. D: Rod put the zap on me. 203. P: laughter 204. 205. D: your son what? 206. We gotta run 207. P: Well ok 208. I have a 13 year old son who was born with an autism spectrum disorder and he came so because of that he loves cartoons. He loves characters. He loves you. When you were on the other network you taught him the f-word+ 209. Audience Laughter 210. P: + that you don’t use on this and I had to retrain him a little bit on that. 211. D: I was just trying to break through. 212. 213. P: but

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214. listen listen. 215. (Dennis doesn’t speak) 216. He makes these cartoons. He made a character and he says this character goes to bed at night and it’s a cat man kind of combination character and he wears curlers to bed. He said, “Dad I’m concerned about this.” I said well why are you concerned about it. He said, “well I’m afraid that some of the right wing preachers will not allow folks to read that column and say he’s gay.” So I I want you to understand that we are hearing the dialogue. We’re listening 217. D: Well that’s nice that you run such a loose shop that your boy can talk to you like that 218. P: Well 219. sure 220. D: Good for you 221. P: Sure 222. D: Listen 223. P:< Remains silent> 224. um I’ll say a prayer for your boy and all kids with autism & 225. P:XXX 226. D: & because we get we think that we’ve got problems in the world. & 227. P: mm 228. D: & Autistic kids that’s where our problems are. We ought to drop all this other (censorship tone) and get on with it. 229. P: I agree 230. D: Ok 231. thank you rod 232. P: Pleasure 233. 234. D: We’ll be right back. The pastor! Right after this. 235. < Commercial break>

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