University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

A conversation analytic examination of alignment and disalignment in broadcast political news interviews

Shalash, Dana

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/14662

Description

Title
A conversation analytic examination of alignment and disalignment in broadcast political news interviews
Author(s)
Shalash, Dana
Issue Date
2010-01-06T16:20:45Z
Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)
Koshik, Irene
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Koshik, Irene
Department of Study
English as an Intl Language
Discipline
Teaching of English Sec Lang
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
M.A.
Degree Level
Thesis
Keyword(s)
  • Conversation Analysis
  • political news interviews
  • political discourse
  • alignment
  • disalignment
  • question design
  • membership categorizations
  • code-switching
  • Arab-Israeli discourse
  • institutional talk
  • United Nations Media Stakeout
Abstract
The present study uses a Conversation Analytic (CA) framework to investigate how interviewers and interviewees display political alignment or disalignment with each other in news interviews. It looks at interviewers’ use and design of questions: negated questions; prefaced questions; disjunctive and prefaced questions. It, then, examines both interviewers’ and interviewees’ use of membership categorization devices as a means of displaying even stronger alignment and disalignment. Use of ethnic and religious categories such as ‘brother’ and ‘friend’ are examined as well as the use of attributes such as ‘terrorist.’ The final section of this thesis examines instances of code-switching to display alignment. Data used in this thesis are taken from video-taped interviews with ambassadors concerned with the ‘Question of Palestine’ and were collected from the United Nations web archive. Taken as a whole, this thesis could be used to compare political discourse in one culture/language with the discourses of other cultures. This type of comparison is needed for better cross cultural media relations and diplomatic negotiations, especially at international institutions such as the United Nations.
Graduation Semester
2009-12
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/14662
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 2009 Dana Shalash

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