Constructing the ‘tellables’: An English–Chinese comparative study of question–word interrogatives in interviews of celebrities on talk shows

Based on twelve celebrity interviews in Mandarin Chinese and American English, broadcast in a range of talk-radio/television programs in the U.S. and China, the current study is a comparative analysis of interviewers’ questioning practices and the cultural underpinnings of those questions. The analy...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Chinese Language and Discourse 2012-01, Vol.3 (2), p.247-272
Main Author: Xiang, Xuehua
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
American English
Discourse context
Interviews
Mandarin
Person
Questions
Wh phrases
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Based on twelve celebrity interviews in Mandarin Chinese and American English, broadcast in a range of talk-radio/television programs in the U.S. and China, the current study is a comparative analysis of interviewers’ questioning practices and the cultural underpinnings of those questions. The analysis focuses on the interviewers’ question-word interrogatives in the discourse context of multiple Turn Construction Units (multi-TCUs). The study demonstrates similar interviewing strategies between two datasets including couching queries in partial knowledge of the guest’s “celebrity-induced experiences,” and using the presupposition function of question-word interrogatives to “control” responses. Significant differences exist: The English interviews primarily reference the guest’s behaviors/activities as context for query, and frame the interviewee’s first-person accounts as particularizations of commonly shared ‘tellables.’ The Chinese interviews tend to use external reference-points, particularly the behavior and sentiments of others, thus constructing a comparative/contrastive angle from which the guest relays first-person accounts.
ISSN:1877-7031
1877-8798
DOI:10.1075/cld.3.2.05xia