Interruptions in Political Interviews: A Study of Margaret Thatcher and Neil Kinnock  

Oleh:

Bull, Peter ; Mayer, Kate

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: Journal of Language and Social Psychology (Full Text) vol. 7 no. 1 (Mar. 1988), page 35.
Fulltext: Journal of Language and Social Psychology-1988-Bull-35-46.pdf (690.84KB)

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Eight televised interviews were selected from four different interview- ers, who each interviewed both the Prime Minister (Margaret Thatcher) and the Leader of the Opposition (Neil Kinnock); the video recordings were analysed using a new interruption coding system devised by Roger, Bull h Smith (1988). No significant difference was found between Margaret Thatcher and Neil Kin- nock either in the extent to which they interrupt or were interrupted by the inter- viewers; indeed, significant positive correlations were found between the differ- ent types of interruptions performed and received by the two politicians. The results were quite contrary to what might have been expected from the work of Beattie (1982), who claimed that Margaret Thatcher is frequently interrupted because she gives misleading turn-yielding cues. Where the politicians did differ was in the extent to which Margaret Thatcher explicitly protests at being inter- rupted; this gives the misleading impression that she is being excessively inter- rupted, although the objective evidence presented here clearly shows that this is not the ease. The impression that she is badly treated is compounded by her ten- dency to personalise issues, to take questions and criticisms as accusations and frequently to address the interviewers formally by title and surname, as if they need to be called to account for misdemeanours. It is argued that these stylistic features have the effect of wrong-footing interviewers and putting them on the defensive. One of the most well-known studies of televised political interviews was carried out by Beattie (1982). He made a detailed analysis of two political interviews: one between Margaret Thatcher and Denis Tuohy, the other between Jim Callaghan (the then Prime Minister) and Llew Gardner. He found that whereas the inter- viewer interrupted Margaret Thatcher almost twice as often as she interrupted him, Jim Callaghan on the other hand interrupted his interviewer more often than the interviewer interrupted him. Indeed, Beattie claimed that his results showed that Margaret Thatcher was interrupted significantly more frequently than Jim Callaghan. Beattie went on to put fonvard an explanation of why Margaret Thatcher is interrupted so often, based on Duncan’s analysis of turn-taking in informal con- versation (e.g. Duncan, 1972; Duncan & Fiske, 1977). Duncan identified what he called turn-yielding cues- signals which indicate that the speaker is ready to offer

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