“So my position is…”
So-prefaced answers and epistemic authority in British news interviews
This article examines the interactional functions of the so-prefaced answer, when used by interviewees in news and
other political discussion broadcasts. Using the methods of conversation analysis, based on a data corpus of recent broadcasts
from British mainstream television, the analysis shows that the so-preface functions in a cluster of related ways within the
question-answer discourse structure of the political news interview. Specifically, it is used to reset or reframe the prior
question from a standpoint of epistemic authority, enabling the interviewee to answer on their terms rather than the
interviewer’s.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Pragmatics of news interviews
- 3.“So” as a turn-initial particle
- 4.Data
- 5.So-prefacing in context
- 6.Explanatory answers and epistemic privilege
- 7.Agenda resets and position-avowals
- 8.Evasive action
- 9.Conclusion
- Acknowledgements
-
References
References (24)
References
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Cited by (2)
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Hutchby, Ian
2024.
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Discourse Studies 
Tůma, František, Leila Kääntä & Teppo Jakonen
2023.
L2 grammar‐for‐interaction: Functions of “and”‐prefaced turns in L2 students’ collaborative talk.
The Modern Language Journal 107:4
► pp. 991 ff.

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