On Impolite Questioning In American Presidential Campaign Interviews

Question-and-answer is generally considered to be a basic form of our daily verbal interaction.However,as we notice,questions are not solely asked for the purpose of seeking information from the respondents.There are much more functions beyond that.As a matter of fact,over the past decades,a great number of studies have been done on this issue from diverse perspectives,such as syntax,semantics,pragmatics,conversation analysis,etc.,as well as in various settings or genres.In particular,questions are used frequently and strategically in the political interview scenarios,which more often than not involve certain aspects of impoliteness.Nevertheless,this fact has not been adequately accounted for in the previous research literature.Therefore,this study focuses on the moderators’ questioning in the American presidential campaign interviews and attempts to analyze impoliteness in moderators’ questioning from the perspective of impoliteness theory.Two questions as follows are intended to be answered:1)What kinds of pragmatic functions are achieved in the moderators’ questioning act and how are they manifesting the impolite connotations?2)What are the contextual factors accounting for the occurrence yet acceptability of impoliteness underlying the moderators’ questioning?The data used in this study are collected from the latest two American presidential campaign interviews and analyzed within the framework of impoliteness theory mainly proposed by Culpeper.First of all,the moderators’ questions are classified according to the different illocutionary force conveyed as well as their pragmatic functions achieved.Then this study explains in detail how impoliteness is manifested in moderators’questioning by relating to each face-threatening illocutionary force.Finally,some contextual factors are analyzed in order to account for the occurrence of impoliteness.As conclusion,two findings are summarized as follows:1)In campaign interviews,impoliteness in the moderators’ questioning is manifested by means of challenging the candidate’s qualification,accusing the candidate of his/her misbehavior,and satirizing the candidate’s incompetence.2)Four contextual factors can account for the existence of impoliteness in moderators’ questioning,namely,the general context of American political system,the goal of the campaign interview,the moderators’ institutional identity,and the immediacy of the moderators’ performance.At last,the significance as well as limitations of this study is mentioned.Hopefully,this study may contribute to a better understanding of the questioning act in the presidential campaign interview,especially the aspect of impoliteness.