Cover not available
Part of
The Discourse of Indirectness: Cues, voices and functions
Edited by Zohar Livnat, Pnina Shukrun-Nagar and Galia Hirsch
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 316] 2020
► pp. 231–252

“Do you condemn?”

Negotiating power relations through (in)direct questions and answers design in ethno-political interviews

| The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

This chapter discusses a specific type of interactional ritual in ethno-political interviews, one that hinders their conciliatory potential. The ritual is performed by two types of participants: Jewish-Israeli interviewers demanding the condemnation of transgressions committed by others, and the respective response by Arab-Israeli political representatives in the role of interviewees. Negotiation over condemnations is examined, as this speech act is considered crucial to setting up models for civic behavior. The chapter demonstrates how interviewers’ efforts to exercise interactional and social power through pushing their interviewees to adopt a consensual stance are rejected by resorting to indirect answer designs. It concludes by discussing the extent to which “do you condemn” questions may be perceived as a legitimate professional journalistic practice.

Keywords: broadcast talk, news interviews, condemnations, epideictic rhetoric, positioning
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Political condemnations and moral scripts
  • 3.Calls to condemn as rituals of loyalty in political interviews
  • 4.Interviewers’ self-positioning through a “do you condemn” question
  • 5.Interviewees’ responses to “Do you condemn” questions
    • Direct refusal to condemn
    • Direct agreement to condemn
    • “I don’t want to be seen as someone who came here today to justify anything”: Overt resistance to answering
    • “I wouldn’t do it”: Shifting from the general to the personal
    • “I express my deep condolences”: Replacing condemnation with a different speech act
    • “We have already condemned”: Referring to previous action
    • “I oppose violence but the real violence is the occupation”: Shifting the blame
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 29 October 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.316.10kam
References
Al-Haj, Majid
2000 “Identity and Orientation among Israeli Arabs: A Situation of Double Periphery.” In The Jewish-Arab Rift in Israel: A Reader, ed. by Ruth Gavison, and Dafna Hacker, 13–33. Jerusalem, Israel: The Israel Democracy Institute.Google Scholar
Antaki., Charles
1994 Explaining and Arguing: The Social Organization of Accounts. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Austin, John L.
1975 How to Do Things with Words, 2nd edition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bavelas, Janet Beavin, Alex Black, Nicole Chovil, and Jennifer Mullett
1990 Equivocal Communication. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Benoit, William L.
1995 Accounts, Excuses, and Apologies: A Theory of Image Restoration Strategies. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Blum-Kulka, Shoshana
1983 “The Dynamics of Political Interviews.” Text 3 (2): 131–153. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Blum-Kulka, Shoshana, and Elda Weizman
2003 “Misunderstandings in Political Interviews.” In Misunderstanding in Social Life: Discourse Approaches to Problematic Talk, ed. by Juliane House, Gabriele Kasper, and Steven Ross, 107–128. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Blum-Kulka, Shoshana, Zohar Kampf, and Tamar Liebes
2003 “ ‘Talking with the Enemy?’: Interviews with Palestinians during the Second Intifada.” In Lamed le ILASH [Studies in modern Hebrew], ed. by Shlesinger Yitzchak, and Malka Muchnik, 61–77. Jerusalem: Tzivonim Publishing (in Hebrew).Google Scholar
Bull, Peter
1998 “Equivocation Theory and News Interviews.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology 17 (1): 36–51. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2015 “Follow-ups in Broadcast Political Discourse.” In Follow-ups in Political Discourse: Explorations across Contexts and Discourse Domains, ed. by Elda Weizman, and Anita Fetzer, 3–24. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Butler, Judith
2005 Giving an Account of Oneself. New York: Fordham University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chouliaraki, Lilie
2000 “Political Discourse in the News: Democratizing Responsibility or Aestheticizing Politics?” Discourse and Society 11 (3): 293–314. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Clayman, Steven E.
1992 “Footing in the Achievement of Neutrality: The Case of News Interview Discourse.” In Talk at Work: Interaction in Institutional Settings, ed. by Paul Drew, and John Heritage, 163–198. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
1995 “Defining Moments, Presidential Debates, and the Dynamics of Quotability.” Journal of Communication 45 (3): 118–147. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2015 “Broadcast News Interviews.” In The International Encyclopedia of Language and Social Interaction, ed. by Karen Tracy, Cornelia Ilie, and Todd Sandel. Hobeken, NJ: Wiley and Sons. DOI logo.Google Scholar
Clayman, Steven, and John Heritage
2002a The News Interview: Journalists and Public Figures on the Air. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Clayman, Steven. E., and John Heritage
2002b “Questioning Presidents: Journalistic Deference and Adversarialness in the Press Conferences of US Presidents Eisenhower and Reagan.” Journal of Communication 52 (4): 749–775. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dori-Hacohen, Gonen
2014 “Establishing Social Groups in Hebrew: ‘We’ in Political Radio Phone-in Programs.” In Constructing Collectivity: ‘We’ across Languages and Contexts, ed. by Theodossia-Soula Pavlidou, 187–206. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ekström, Mats
2001 “Politicians Interviewed on Television News.” Discourse and Society 12 (5): 563–584. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2009 “Announced Refusal to Answer: A Study of Norms and Accountability in Broadcast Political Interviews.” Discourse Studies 11 (6): 681–702. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fetzer, Anita, Elda Weizman, and Lawrence N. Berlin
(eds.) 2015 The Dynamics of Political Discourse: Forms and Functions of Follow-ups. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goffman, Erving
1974 Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Grice, Herbert P.
1975 “Logic and Conversation.” In Syntax and Semantics, vol. 3. Speech Acts, ed. by Peter Cole, and Jerry L. Morgan, 41–58. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Hallin, Daniel C.
1986 The Uncensored War: The Media and Vietnam. Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Harré, Rom, and Fathali M. Moghaddam
(eds.) 2003 The Self and Others: Positioning Individuals and Groups in Personal, Political, and Cultural Contexts. Westport, CT: Greenwood.Google Scholar
Harris, Sandra
1991 “Evasive Action: How Politicians Respond to Questions in Political Interviews.” In Broadcast Talk, ed. by P. Scannell, 76–100. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Hauser, Gerard A.
1999 “Aristotle on Epideictic: The Formation of Public Morality.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 29 (1): 5–23. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heritage, John
2002 “The Limits of Questioning: Negative Interrogatives and Hostile Question Content.” Journal of Pragmatics 34 (10-11): 1427–1446. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Johnstone, Barbara
1986 “Arguments with Khomeini: Rhetorical Situation and Persuasive Style in Cross-Cultural Perspective.” Text 6 (2): 171–188. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kampf, Zohar
2009 “Public (Non-) Apologies: The Discourse of Minimizing Responsibility.” Journal of Pragmatics 41 (11): 2257–2270. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2011 “Journalists as Actors in Social Dramas of Apology.” Journalism 12 (1): 71–87. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2013 “Mediated Performatives.” In Handbook of Pragmatics, ed. by Jef Verschueren, and Jan-Ola Östman, 1–24. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kampf, Zohar, and Efrat Daskal
2013 “Too Hostile, Too Deferential: Processes of Media Answerability Following Political Interviews.” Journalism 14 (4): 522–540. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kampf, Zohar, and Tamar Katriel
2016 “Political Condemnations: Public Speech Acts and the Moralization of Discourse.” In The Handbook of Communication in Cross-Cultural Perspective, ed. by Donal Carbaugh, 312–336. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Keenan, Thomas
2004 “Mobilizing Shame.” The South Atlantic Quarterly 103 (2/3): 435–449. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, Robin T.
2001 “Nine Ways of Looking at Apologies: The Necessity for Interdisciplinary Theory and Method in Discourse Analysis.” In Handbook of Discourse Analysis, ed. by Deborah Schiffrin, Deborah Tannen, and Heidi Hamilton, 199–214. London: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Lazersfeld, Paul F., and Robert K. Merton
1948 “Mass Communication, Popular Taste and Organized Social Action.” In The Communication of Ideas, ed. by B. Lyman, 95–118. New York: Harper.Google Scholar
Liebes, Tamar, Zohar Kampf, and Shoshana Blum-Kulka
2008 “Saddam on CBS and Arafat on IBA: Interviewing the Enemy on Television.” Political Communication 25 (3): 311–329. DOI logo.Google Scholar
Meyrowitz, Joshua
1985 No Sense of Place. The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Montgomery, Martin
2007 The Discourse of Broadcast News. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rosenberg, Hananel, and Ifat Maoz
2012 “ ‘Meeting the Enemy’: The Reception of a Television Interview with a Female Palestinian Terrorist among Jewish Youth in Israel.” The Communication Review 15 (1): 45–71. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Scannell, Paddy
1991 Broadcast Talk. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Schudson, Michael
2002 “What’s Unusual about Covering Politics as Usual.” In Journalism After September 11, ed. by Barbie Zelizer, and Stuart Allan, 36–47. New York: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Searle, John R.
1976 “A Classification of Illocutionary Acts.” Language in Society 5 (1): 1–23. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Weizman, Elda
1996 “Shifting Roles: A Challenge Strategy in News Interviews on Israeli Television.” In Hadassah Kantor Jubilee Book: Language Research Papers, ed. by Ora Schwarzwald, and Yitzchak Shlezinger, 85–95. Ramat Gan, Israel: Bar Ilan Press. (in Hebrew).Google Scholar
2006 “Roles and Identities in News Interviews: The Israeli Context.” Journal of Pragmatics 38 (2): 154–179. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2008 Positioning in Media Dialogue. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Weizman, Elda, Irit Levi, and Isaac Schneebaum
2007 “Variation in Interviewing Styles: Challenge and Support in Al-Jazeera.” Political Discourse in the Media: Cross-cultural Perspectives 160: 197. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Yiftachel, Oren
2006 Ethnocracy: Land and Identity Politics in Israel/Palestine. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Weizman, Elda & Zohar Livnat
2022. Dialogic meaning-making in political settings. Pragmatics and Society 13:5 ► pp. 731 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 27 march 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.