From Wetherell discourse analysis a comparative and critical introduction by robin wooffitt

er ·hhhh er describe yourself as a Marxist. Could it be that with an election in the offing you’re anxious to play down that you’re a Marx ist. IE: er Not at all Mister Da:y. = And I’m . sorry to say I must disagree with you, = you have never heard me describe myself ·hhh er as a Ma:rxist. = I have o:nly ... continues Heritage and Greatbatch observe that the IR has asked a question which assumes that the IE is a Marxist, and the IE has refuted this, claiming that it is the press who have labelled him as a Marxist. However, the IR then makes a prefatory statement which takes issue with the IE’s response: ‘But I-’ve heard you- I’ve heard you’d be very happy to: to: er ·hhhh er describe yourself as a Marxist’, and then asks a question: ‘Could it be that with an election in the offing you’re anxious to play down that you’re a Marxist.’ This turn consti- tutes a potentially damaging challenge to the IE’s credibility, for several rea- sons. First, the IE has claimed that he has never called himself a Marxist, which suggests that – at the very least – he has some reservations about Marxism; yet the IR’s statement depicts the IE as sympathetic to the label and, by implica- tion, the views associated with it. Second, it offers an account for the IE’s resis- tance to being called a Marxist: he is denying his true beliefs just to enhance his credibility with the electorate. Finally it suggests that at that moment in the interview, the IE is being at best disingenuous, or worse, dishonest about his true political beliefs. Perhaps the most damaging component of the IR’s turn is the claim that he personally has heard that the IE would welcome being called a Marxist. Yet the IE does not attempt to address this at the transition relevance place at the end of the prefatory statement. Instead, he withholds participation until a point when it is normatively appropriate for him to speak: after a question. And even here, the first component of the IE’s response deals albeit briefly with the question component of the previous turn, not the more damaging prefatory statement. Only when the question has been addressed does the IE go on to rebut the claim in the prefatory statement Heritage and Greatbatch, 1991: 123. So even when there are clear matters of some importance and consequence, IEs will participate in normatively expected ways. It is not only that participants in news interviews orient to the obligation to produce questions and answers; they orient to expectations about the way those activities should be done. We will take the case of IE answers. In the previous chapter, we discussed how turns at talk are built out of turn construction units; at the end of each one is a place where turn-transfer may be initiated by a next speaker if a next speaker has not been identified by the current speaker. This means that extended turns – ones built from several consecutive turn construction units – are not automatically available: they have to be designed so as to forestall possible other-initiated turns at transition METHOD AND CRITIQUE 59 关 兴