Edited by Cornelia Ilie
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 323] 2021
► pp. 227–254
The Mandarin resultative connective suoyi ‘so’ and adversative connective dan(shi) ‘but’ are found to preface interviewer (IR) questions regularly in Chinese TV news interviews. This study draws on a conversational analysis (CA)-oriented micro-analytical approach and examines the form, placement and function of the two connective-prefaced questions. The findings show that IRs employ, on the one hand, a turn-initial suoyi to preface a declarative, alone or followed by a question tag that invokes a prior interviewee (IE) opinion, and, on the other, a turn-initial dan(shi) to preface either a wh-question or a yes/no question and bring forth a point of contrast and transition for questioning. Both questions not only encode IRs’ epistemic stance, but also display their alignment to IEs’ prior talk in different ways.