Journal of Pragmatics 151 (2019) 18e29

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Journal of Pragmatics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/pragma

Beyond answering: Interviewees' use of questions in TV

political interviews
Lena Gialabouki a, *, Theodossia-Soula Pavlidou b
a
Institute of Modern Greek Studies [Manolis Triandaphyllidis Foundation], Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, GR, 541 24,
Greece
b
Department of Linguistics & Institute of Modern Greek Studies [Manolis Triandaphyllidis Foundation], Aristotle University of
Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, GR, 541 24, Greece

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: There is by now a sizeable body of literature on the resources journalists have developed
Received 10 December 2018 for doing adversarialness while maintaining a neutralistic stance. At the same time, as
Received in revised form 18 July 2019 research shows, interviewees have also developed their own practices in order to ‘respond’
Accepted 18 July 2019
to journalists’ adversarial style of questioning. However, no attention has been paid to the
Available online 9 August 2019
fact that interviewees, too, tread the realm of journalists and ask questions. This paper
examines politicians’ use of questions in TV interviews, within the framework of Con-
Keywords:
versation Analysis. Focusing on stand-alone questions and examining the sequential
Political interview
Interviewees' questions
environment, participants’ epistemic rights, question design, and interviewers’ response,
Challenge our analysis shows that such questions are primarily deployed as vehicles for challenging
Adversarialness interviewer talk. Such questions occur in sequential environments that share the following
Greek features: a) interviewers make assertions/assumptions which convey their own personal
Conversation analysis view, and b) the assertions/assumptions target interviewees themselves rather than third
parties. Interviewers’ turns, thus, establish a disaffiliative environment, with potentially
damaging implications for politicians’ public image. By formulating their responses as
questions, politicians get to challenge interviewer assertions/assumptions and, at the same
time, hold them accountable by making relevant a response to that challenge.
© 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Questioning and the institutional context of the political interview

Questioning constitutes a primary communicative practice in social interaction, both in everyday conversation and in
institutional settings. Due to their ubiquity, questions have become a prominent object of conversation analytic work (see, for
example, the overview in Hayano, 2013). As Heritage (2002: 1427) notes, “a ‘question’ is a form of social action, designed to
seek information and accomplished in a turn at talk by means of interrogative syntax.” Questions initiate sequences of actions
in that they take first position in an adjacency pair and make an answer the relevant next action.
While the prototypical function of questions is to seek information, examination of a wide range of environments and
communicative contexts has shown that, quite often, questions can become the vehicle for a variety of other actions
(Schegloff, 2007; Ehrlich and Freed, 2010; Heritage, 2012, 2013). They can be used to initiate and develop a topic for discussion
(e.g., Button and Casey, 1985), make an invitation, an offer or a request (e.g., Schegloff, 2007: 29e37), prepare recipients for a

* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: giallena@yahoo.gr (L. Gialabouki), pavlidou@lit.auth.gr (T.-S. Pavlidou).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2019.07.014
0378-2166/© 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 L. Gialabouki, T.-S. Pavlidou / Journal of Pragmatics 151 (2019) 18e29 19

news announcement (e.g., Terasaki, 2004; Schegloff, 2007: 37e41), make assessments (e.g., Heritage and Raymond, 2005), or
challenge the views expressed by co-participants (e.g., Heinemann, 2008; Hayano, 2013).
Questions play a pivotal role in the structural organization of the political interview, an institutional form of interaction that is
subject to specific restrictions. These restrictions pertain to the turn-taking system (i.e., to participants' right to take the floor), and
to the type of speech act that participants can perform, i.e., what Atkinson and Drew (1979) call ‘turn-type pre-allocation’
(Greatbatch,1988; Heritage and Greatbatch,1991; Drew and Heritage,1992; Clayman and Heritage, 2002; Heritage, 2003; Clayman,
2010). This entails that “speakers who act as IRs [Interviewers] may not properly engage in actions other than questions, while those
who take part as IEs [Interviewees] should refrain from initiating actions (such as unsolicited comments on prior talk) or sequences
(for example, asking questions to which the IR or other IEs would be obliged to respond)” (Heritage and Greatbatch,1991: 97e98). In
addition, “interviewers should (i) avoid the assertion of opinions on their own behalf and (ii) refrain from direct or overt affiliation
with (or disaffiliation from) the expressed statements of interviewees” (Clayman and Heritage, 2002: 126).
The Question-Answer format, as the canonical form of the organization of participants' interactional conduct in political
interviews, is associated with the professional roles, tasks and goals journalists are called upon to fulfil. More specifically, it is
connected to the ‘neutralistic stance’ they are expected to maintain in order to act as reliable disseminators of information
(Clayman and Heritage, 2002: 119e120). It is this neutralistic stance that the news interview turn-taking system is designed
to ensure. By restricting themselves to the act of questioning, journalists are shielded against accusations of bias or unfair
treatment of interviewees. This is what makes interrogative formats the most appropriate and most widely used morpho-
syntactic resource interviewers employ in their interaction with interviewees (see Heritage and Roth, 1995; Clayman and
Heritage, 2002: 126e131; Clayman, 2010).
If maintaining a position of neutrality is the one pillar of modern journalism's professional ideology, acting as the ‘fourth
estate’, an independent ‘watchdog’, or ‘tribune’ of the people is the other (Clayman et al., 2006; Clayman, 2002, 2010). Such an
institutional position involves adopting a more critical stance towards the words and deeds of public figures and holding
them accountable on citizens' behalf. This, in turn, has led to a more aggressive style of questioning. The term ‘adversarialness’
has been loosely used in the literature on broadcast journalism to refer to such an “aggressive” (Montgomery, 2011: 40) or
“aggressively disputatious” (Hutchby, 2011a: 351) mode of questioning, in which the interviewer pursues “an agenda in
opposition to that of the interviewee” (Clayman et al., 2006: 565) by overtly personalizing argumentative standpoints,
foregrounding her/his alignment with specific social forces, or even engaging in episodes of direct confrontation with the
interviewee (see Hutchby, 2011a, b).
Reconciling these two requirements is a major concern for journalists, and there is by now a sizeable body of literature on the
resources journalists have developed (regarding both the content and the form of their questioning turns) which enable them to ‘do’
adversarialness while maintaining a neutralistic stance (see, among others, Clayman, 2002; Clayman and Heritage, 2002; Clayman,
2010). On the other hand, interviewees too have found ways of tackling journalists' adversarial style, as research both within and
outside Conversation Analysis has shown. Interviewees may provide partial or incomplete answers, attempt topic shifts, perform
different tasks while answering the question, attempt to somehow alter the terms of the question, or equivocate (Greatbatch,1986;
Bavelas et al., 1988, 1990; Harris, 1991; Bull, 1994; Clayman and Heritage, 2002; Piirainen-Marsh, 2005; Ekstro €m, 2009). In more
extreme cases, interviewees can break the norms of interview conduct and implicitly or explicitly refuse to answer questions, or
even launch attacks on interviewers (Bull and Mayer, 1993; Clayman and Heritage, 2002; Piirainen-Marsh, 2005; Ekstro €m, 2009).
Regarding Greek television, the phenomenon of adversarialness and its management has been examined in both news
interviews and panel discussions (see, among others, Georgakopoulou and Patrona, 2000; Poulios, 2002; Patrona, 2011;
Kantara, 2012). However, with the exception of Kantara (2012), who makes mention of one interviewee question in a sin-
gle interview as a means of resisting interviewer adversarialness, the use of questions by politicians in Greek political media
discourse has received no attention. The same holds more generally for international research on broadcast journalism.1 It is
precisely in this direction that the present article seeks to contribute, since according to our initial observations, not only
journalists but politicians, too, ask questions in Greek political interviews.
The work presented here is part of a larger project on the use and functions of questions in politicians' talk during in-
terviews on Greek television. After mapping the occurrence of interviewees' questions with regard to their placement within
the turn in our data (see below), we turned to those questions that make up a whole turn by themselves. For convenience, we
will call them freestanding questions. As reported in Gialabouki and Pavlidou (2018), these questions perform a range of
functions: they initiate repair sequences, request permission to take the floor, invite the interviewer's support, request some
information and, most prominently, challenge journalists. It is the last function, challenging, that we further pursue in this
paper, by exploring the minutiae of the interaction between politicians and journalists.
Before we proceed, some clarification on questions in the Greek language is in order. As mentioned at the outset, questions
are social actions designed to seek information, prototypically implemented through the grammatical form of an interrog-
ative. The action-grammatical format correspondence holds in Greek only for wh-questions, but not for yes/no-questions.
Unlike e.g. English, yes/no-questions in Greek are not distinguished from declaratives morphosyntactically, but only through
(rising) intonation. Taking this into account, we will use the term question to cover both form and function.

1
A likely exception might appear to be Bull (2003a), who, in his typology of interviewee equivocation, includes the category ‘Questions the question’
(2003a: 115). However, only clarification questions are mentioned there and, as his previous work has shown (Bull and Mayer, 1993), such questions make
up a tiny percentage in politicians' behaviour.
20 L. Gialabouki, T.-S. Pavlidou / Journal of Pragmatics 151 (2019) 18e29

2. Data and methodology

As reported in Gialabouki and Pavlidou (2018), our data are drawn from 17 fully transcribed news interviews, which are
part of the Corpus of Spoken Greek of the Institute of Modern Greek Studies.2 The interviews took place in the period from
2011 to 2013, and were part of weekly current affairs programs broadcast both on public and private television stations. Their
overall duration (excluding commercial breaks) is a little less than 18 h. With one exception (involving two journalists), all
interviews were conducted between one journalist and one politician. The total number of participants is 5 journalists and 15
politicians (2 of them interviewed twice).
In these interviews more than 800 questions by politicians have been identified, based on morphosyntactic criteria (the
presence of wh-interrogatives for wh-questions) and prosodic features (for yes/no-questions). These questions have been found
to occur in initial, mid- and final position in politicians' turns or to make up the whole turn by themselves (i.e., are freestanding,
see above). Excluded from consideration were questions which appear in the context of reported speech, or are incomplete, i.e.,
questions that, for some reason (e.g., interruption), were not fully developed, as well as instances of what Stivers and Enfield call
‘multi-questions’, i.e., “two or more questions delivered as a single query” (Stivers and Enfield, 2010: 2622). Taking these re-
strictions into account, the total number freestanding questions identified in our data amount to more than 150 instances.
Our analysis follows the general conversation analytic principle that both position and composition inform the function of
an utterance and, by extension, the action it accomplishes (see, e.g., Schegloff, 2007: xiii-xv). More specifically, we systemat-
ically examine: a) the sequential environment of the questions, b) the epistemic status3 of the participants, c) the design of the
questions, and d) interviewers' response. The sequential environment and participants' epistemic status have been shown to
play an important role in the treatment of questions as challenges rather than as requests for information (cf. Koshik, 2002,
2005: 147e150; Schegloff, 2007: xiii-xv; Heritage, 2013). Moreover, a disaffiliative environment makes some form of chal-
lenge or disagreement4 the relevant next action (Stivers, 2008; Lindstro €m and Sorjonen, 2013). In addition, if questions concern
either matters of public record or of so-called common sense e and are therefore known to both participants e or matters the
interviewee has privileged access to, as is the case with most freestanding questions in our data, then this also makes their
reading as simple requests for information less probable. The design of the question is also important in conveying a challenging
stance, especially if contrastive particles, repeats, negative polarity, or distinctive prosody are used. Finally, the response of the
interviewer is indicative of whether the question has been read as something other than an information request.
Applying the above considerations to the set of freestanding questions encountered in our data, we found e as the result of
the analysis presented in the next section e that in some two thirds of the cases, politicians employ freestanding questions
not as requests for information, but primarily as vehicles for challenging the views expressed by journalists,5 and this is what
we will turn to next.
3. Analysis

In presenting the analysis of the data, we have taken as our starting point the sequential environment of freestanding
questions deployed by the politicians during the interview. We then integrated into that scheme all further aspects mentioned
above (participants' epistemic status, interviewers' response, and question design) in order to establish their functions. In
particular, we have identified four environments in which politicians' freestanding questions occur: during an interviewer's
questioning turn, (3.1.), after an interviewer's question (3.2.), after an interviewer's assertion following a question-answer
sequence (3.3.), and after an interviewer's answer/response to a previous interviewee question (3.4.). This last category is
the most common one. As a matter of fact, more than half of the politicians' questions are produced after an interviewer's
answer/response to a previous interviewee question. As we shall see, this usually entails that an adversarial environment has
already been established in the interaction. The remaining half is more or less equally distributed among the other three po-
sitions we have identified. It should also be noted that not all politicians' challenges are responded to by interviewers. In fact, a
little more than half of the questions-challenges produced by politicians go unanswered. These are discussed in 3.5.

3.1. Politicians' questions during an interviewer's questioning turn

Politicians employ freestanding questions to counter assertions/assumptions in interviewers' questioning turns (usually in
the preface), when these have damaging implications for their face as we shall see below. In Extract [1], which comes from an

2
See Pavlidou (2016) and http://ins.web.auth.gr/index.php?lang¼en&Itemid¼251. The transcription system conforms, with a few modifications, to the
usual conventions of Conversation Analysis, as e.g. in Schegloff (2007). The full list of the transcription symbols with slight modifications for the Greek data
can be found in Pavlidou (2016: 49e59); cf. also http://corpus-ins.lit.auth.gr/corpus/about/symbols.html.
3
Heritage (2012: 32) defines epistemic status as the relative access an individual has to a domain of knowledge. He sees epistemic status as an enduring
feature of social relationships, and distinguishes it from epistemic stance, which he defines as “the moment-by moment expression of these relationships as
managed through the design of turns at talk” (Heritage, 2013: 558). Although there is often congruence between epistemic status and epistemic stance,
individuals can strategically “deploy epistemic stance to appear more, or less, knowledgeable than they really are” (Heritage, 2012: 33). With regard to
questions, an information seeking question “positions the requester as occupying an unknowing (Ke) epistemic status and the recipient as occupying a
knowing (Kþ) one” (Heritage, 2012: 34).
4
We use the term challenge to refer to more indirect and implicit ways of disaffiliating with the views expressed by interviewers (questioning being one
such practice), whereas we reserve disagreement for the overt and explicit expression of opposition.
5
However, no particular interrogative format could be singled out as distinctively doing challenging in our data.
 L. Gialabouki, T.-S. Pavlidou / Journal of Pragmatics 151 (2019) 18e29 21

interview Alexis Tsipras gave to journalist Elli Stai in 2013, the interviewer introduces the topic of the interviewee's visit to the
US, and the statements he made regarding how his party would handle the economic crisis in Greece if it comes to power.
The interviewer begins her extended turn by saying that she will ask certain questions because she did notice some
changes in the interviewee's statements and wants to discuss them with him (lines 1e3). She reads an excerpt from the
politician's address at the Brookings Institution (not included here), in which he attributed his party's alleged intention to ‘rip’
the memorandum and force Greece out of the eurozone to alarmists who fear the rise of the Left in Greece and added that the
loan agreement will be re-negotiated with the EU and the IMF. The interviewer then points out that, notwithstanding what
alarmists may claim (lines 5e6), the view that the memorandum will be abolished was repeatedly put forward by the pol-
itician's own party officials and by himself (lines 5e8, 10, 12, 14) e an assertion with which the politician hastens to agree in
overlap (line 9, ‘We also used to say that. (that it will be abolished). and we're still saying it.’).
[1] [V.34.Bc.39.25.1e10.1]
NEWSWEEK 2013, IR: Elli Stai, IE: Alexis Tsipras
1 IR [ a: qa sa2 kάnu- qa sa- ] qa sa2 kάnu
u:h I will ask- I will- I will ask

2 εrutήsεi2 εgώ, <giatί> (.) εgώ u2 dhmοsiοgrά4ο2 είda kάpοiε2

the questions myself, because (.) I as a journalist did see some

3 allagέ2, kai qέlu na ti2 syzhtήsοymε. .hh <gia parάdεigma,> .h

changes, and I want us to discuss them. .hh for instance, .h

4 milώnta2 stο: Іnstitούtο Мprούkingk2, .h <είpatε>

speaking at the Brookings Institute, .h you said

((15 lines omitted))

5 IR .hh dεn^ gkzέru an οi kindynοlόgοi (.) kat’ εsά2 lέnε όti qa skίsεtε th
.hh I don't know if alarmists (.) according to you say that you'll ‘rip’ the

6 danεiakή sύmbash, .h <tο όti> qa akyru[qεί tο mnhmόniο, .h kai h kataggεlίa tοy

loan agreement, .h that the memorandum will be abolished, .h and the
termination

7 mnhmοnίοy ήtan kάti pοy tο έlεgan shmantikά sa2 stεlέch,

of the memorandum was something prominent members of yours used to say,

8 [ki ε[sεί2 ο ίdiο2, .h ki εsεί2 ο ίdiο2, .h ]

you yourself as well, .h you yourself as well, .h

9 IE [Κi εmεί2 tο lέgamε.  (όti q’ akyruqεί). kai tο [lέmε.]

We also used to say that. (that it will be abolished). and we're still saying it.

10 IR ki εsεί2 ο ίdiο2 έcεtε p- είcatε pεi th:[:n^ mprοhgούmεnh ]¼

you yourself have s- had said the day before

11 IE [((rοy4ά th mύth tοy ]¼

((sniffs¼

12 IR ¼[tun εklοgώn, .h ] όti thn εpόmεnh: tun εklοgώn qa tο

¼the elections, .h that the day following the elections you'll

13 IE ¼[kai kaqarίzεi tοn laimό tοy))]

¼and clears his throat))

14 IR katar[gήsε]tε: mε nόmο sth Вοylή. [.hh ]

abolish it by law at the Parliament. .hh

15 / IE [ М(h)m,] [Κai pού] ’n’ h antί4ash.

M(h)m, And where is the contradiction in that?

16 IR Н antί4ash είnai ό::ti dεn ypάrcεi <danεiakή sύmbash> .h dεn ypάrcοyn

The contradiction is that there is no loan agreement .h there is no

17 <crήmata> curί2 mnhmόniο kύriε Τsίpra, curί2 [mέtra dhladή]

money without a memorandum Mr. Tsipras, without measures that is

18 IE [.h Аytή είn’ h ] kyrίarch

.h That's the dominant

19 antίlhjh, ki h kyrίarch  άpοjh.

perception, and the dominant view.

20 IR Όci. [είn’ h lοgikή antί]lhjh  aytή.¼

No. that's the sensible perception.¼

Having completed what seems to be designed as the preface to her question, the interviewer takes a deep breath (line 14),
displaying that she hasn't finished her turn yet, and that she will probably go on to ask her question. However, she is pre-empted
by the politician, who takes the floor with a freestanding question (line 15, ‘And where is the contradiction in that?’). The
epistemic status of the questioner and the sequential environment of the question preclude its reading as an information
22 L. Gialabouki, T.-S. Pavlidou / Journal of Pragmatics 151 (2019) 18e29

request. To begin with, the politician has epistemic authority regarding the topic since it is his statements that are being dis-
cussed.6 In addition, he has just confirmed in his turn in line 9 that this is what his party stated, thus indirectly conveying that he
sees no problem with it. To ask a question requesting information about a problematic aspect of these statements (i.e., their
being contradictory) after having just displayed that he sees nothing wrong with them would make no sense.
Moreover, the politician's question follows the interviewer's assertion that the abolition of the memorandum was a po-
sition also advocated in the country by the politician's own party (and not only by his political opponents): given that in the
beginning of her turn, the interviewer talked of allagέ2 (‘changes’) in the politician's statements, and taking prosody into
account e note the marked stress and the increase in pitch on akyru[qεί (‘be abolished’), kataggεlίa (‘termination’), ki ε[sεί2
(‘you yourself’) (lines 6, 8) e her assertion comes off as an implicit accusation that what the politician stated in Greece was not
in congruence with what he stated abroad. Such an accusation projects challenging as the relevant next action, which is what
the politician seems to be doing with his interrogatively formatted turn (see also Koshik, 2002, 2005: 39e70).
The question's design also points in that direction. Firstly, it is introduced with the conjunction Κai (‘And’), which
contrastively links the politician's question to the interviewer's assertion (Tzartzanos, 1928: 210e215). Secondly, the politi-
cian uses the word antί4ash (‘contradiction’) in place of the journalist's more neutral term allagέ2 (‘changes’), thus indexing
that he treated her assertion as contentious, and this is what his question comes to challenge.
Last but not least, the journalist's response (lines 16e17, ‘The contradiction is that there is no loan agreement .h there is no
money without a memorandum Mr. Tsipras, without measures that is’) confirms the politician's reading of her turn as an
implicit accusation and his question as a challenge to that accusation. Partially repeating his phrasing (‘The contradiction is’),
she makes explicit what she cautiously implied earlier, i.e., that the politician's statements are contradictory. At the same
time, her response conveys that she treated the interviewee's question not as a request for information but as a challenge, to
which she responds by re-stating, now in an explicit manner, her initial claim (lines 2e3). This reading is also retrospectively
verified by the way the interaction proceeds: in partial overlap, the interviewee challenges the interviewer's response to his
question (lines 18e19, ‘.h That's the dominant perception, and the dominant view.’) and the interviewer, in turn, explicitly
disagrees with him (line 20, ‘No. that's the sensible perception.¼’).

3.2. Politicians' questions after an interviewer's question

Another sequential position in which politicians employ freestanding questions is after an interviewer's question. In
Extract [2], former Finance Minister George Papakonstandinou is interviewed by Elli Stai about his role in the scandal
regarding the so-called Lagarde list, in which the names of some of his relatives featured, and for which the politician faced
criminal charges. Just before the Extract begins, the interviewer, wanting to know how the list got into the hands of the next
Finance Minister after the cabinet reshuffle of 2011, asks the politician if he notified his successor of the list. Receiving a
negative answer (line 1), she immediately, and in overlap with the politician, who has just begun to provide an account, asks
for the reason why the politician didn't do that (line 2, ‘.hh Why.’). Seeing that the politician delays answering, the interviewer
produces another question in line 3 (‘Isn't informing him the sensible thing to do?¼’).
[2] [V.34.Bc.39.20.1e7.16]
NEWSWEEK 2013, IR: Elli Stai, IE: George Papakonstandinou

1 IE Όci. [giatί: dεn ήtanε] (.) ε:  ε (0.9)

No. because it wasn't (.) u:h uh (0.9)

2 IR [.hh Giatί. ]
.hh Why.

3 IR Dεn είnai tο lοgikό na tοn έcεtε εnhmεrώsεi?¼

Isn't informing him the sensible thing to do?¼

4 / IE ¼Qεurείtε όti tο zήthma <aytό> ήtan tο mείzοn zήthma

¼Do you think this issue was the most important issue

5 / gia tο οpοίο: qa εnhmεrώsεi ο έna2 ypοyrgό2 Οikοnοmikώn

about which a Finance Minister should inform

6 / tοn εpόmεnο?¼
the next one?¼

7 IR ¼[Όci mό[nο gi’ aytό¿ gia (.) pο[llά zhtήmata]¼

¼Not only about that¿ about (.) many issues¼

8 IE [BBΌci.BB .hh aytό ήtan plέοn ]¼

No. .hh this was by then¼

9 IR ¼[ypοqέtu.]
¼I presume.

6
Made in public, though, the interviewer is also in a position to know what these statements are.
 L. Gialabouki, T.-S. Pavlidou / Journal of Pragmatics 151 (2019) 18e29 23

10 IE ¼[ <εpicεi]rhsiakό> zήthma.
¼an administrative issue.

11 (0.8)
The interviewer's question in line 2 is an account solicitation, which conveys a challenging stance, indexing that there is
something inappropriate or unwarranted in the politician's action (Robinson and Bolden, 2010; Pavlidou, 2018). Her second
question (line 3) is a negative interrogative, which, in the interview context, is commonly read as an assertion expressing a
position or point of view (Heritage, 2002). Strongly embodying a preference for a yes answer, it carries the assumption that
the politician failed to employ his common sense and act accordingly. In this sequential environment, it is also hearable as an
account for the interviewer posing the why-question in line 2.
It is this second question that the politician hastens to respond to (note the latching7 in lines 3e4), and does so with a
freestanding question (lines 4e6, ‘¼Do you think this was the most important issue about which a Finance Minister should
inform the next one?¼’).8 Again, the sequential environment and the questioner's epistemic status preclude a reading of this
question as a request for information. Firstly, the interviewer's questions in lines 2 and 3 establish a disaffiliative environ-
ment, in which, as already mentioned, questions are more likely to be heard as challenges rather than as requests for new
information (Koshik, 2005: 39e70). The politician's response follows the journalist's second question, which, formatted as a
negative interrogative, makes agreeing/disagreeing the relevant response (Heritage, 2002). This reading is reinforced by the
epistemic status of the questioner. Being a former Finance Minister himself, the politician is in a better position to know the
protocols for such procedures. Thus, he has epistemic authority over the topic discussed (Heritage, 2012), which also pre-
cludes a reading of his question as a request for information.
The politician's question, then, cannot be heard as simply asking for information; rather, addressing the interviewer personally
(‘Do you think’) and slightly shifting the terms of her question (he uses the adjective ‘important’ in place of ‘sensible’, which the
interviewer used, to refer to the act of informing his successor of the list, and he generalizes rather than specifically referring to
himself e note the use of ‘a Finance Minister’ in line 5), his question challenges the rationale behind the interviewer's negative
interrogative (informing his successor of the list's existence wasn't as taken-for-granted as her negative interrogative assumed it
was), counters the implicit claim that her question in line 3 carries (i.e., that he failed to act in the expected manner), and, at the
same time, holds the interviewer accountable by making a response to his challenge the relevant next action.
The design of the interviewer's answer shows that she, too, took the politician's question as a challenge to her position. She
immediately produces a dispreferred response (lines 7, 9, ‘¼Not only about that¿ about (.) many issues I presume.¼’), which,
with its emphatic delivery e note the pitch increases and emphatic stress on [Όci (‘Not’) and pο[llά (‘many’) e and use of
the verb ypοqέtu (‘I presume’), comes off as a renewed, though mitigated, re-statement of her initial position: treating the
terms of the politician's question as problematic, she reaffirms her claim that notifying one's successor of important issues is
generally the expected course of action when there is a change in the chain of command.
That the interviewee's question was meant as a challenge rather than as an information-seeking question also becomes
evident from his next turn: as soon as the interviewer's response (line 7, 9) to his question is hearably projectable as a
dispreferred one (Jefferson, 1986), the politician, in partial overlap, moves on to explicitly state his disagreement with the
interviewer's position and provide an account for it (lines 8, 10, ‘No. .hh this was by then an administrative issue.’).

3.3. Politicians' questions after an interviewer's assertion following a question-answer sequence

Politicians also employ freestanding questions after an interviewer's follow-up assertion on an answer they just gave.
Extract [3] comes from a highly confrontational interview between journalist Konstantinos Bogdanos, and Golden Dawn party
leader Nikos Michaloliakos.9 Answering the interviewer's question about his view of Adolf Hitler (lines 1e2), the politician
says that Hitler was a personality of concern to Germany not Greece (lines 3e4). In response to this, the interviewer produces
the assertion in line 5 (‘That's not what you said twenty years ago.’), implying that the politician's answer is contradictory
compared to what his party claimed in the past, therefore implicitly accusing him of inconsistency.
[3] [V.33.Bc.39.15.6e4.5]
EFTHEOS October 2012, IR: Konstantinos Bogdanos, IE: Nikos Michaloliakos

7
According to Robinson and Bolden (2010: 528, footnote 11), producing a dispreferred second pair part without delay is adversarial, and responding in
this way can be one way of ‘doing being defensive’.
8
Confirming the assumption encoded in the interviewer's negative interrogative would damage the politician's face, whereas not providing a response
would make the politician appear evasive, which would also have a detrimental effect on his public image. In other words, this is a situation which ac-
cording to Bavelas et al. (1988) calls for equivocation on the politician's part.
9
Nikos Michaloliakos' public discourse presents some idiosyncratic features, most notably, the use of Katharevousa (the high variety of Modern Greek
that had been used for official and formal purposes until 1976, when Demotic Greek was formally established as the language of education and admin-
istration) and the use of the second person singular, i.e. the T-form, rather than the plural one, i.e. the V-form (which would be apposite in this situation).
Both these features are not characteristic of the political interview as a form of institutional interaction and, in this sense, this particular interview is quite
different from the other ones in our data.
24 L. Gialabouki, T.-S. Pavlidou / Journal of Pragmatics 151 (2019) 18e29

1 IR [Τi pistεύε]tε gia tοn

What is your view of

2 Аdόl[4ο Хίtlεr.]
Adolf Hitler.

3 IE [Ο la- ] laό2- (.) [είnai mίa prοsupikόth2 pοy

ο
((kοynώnta2 tο cέri prο2 ta dεxiά........
The peo- the people- (.) he is a personality of
((moving his arm to the right...........

4 a4οrά thn Gεrmanίa. dεn a4οrά thn Еllάda.

....................................................................))
concern to Germany. he does not concern Greece.
..............................................................................))

5 IR Άlla lέg[atε prin apό εί]kοsi crόnia.

That's not what you said twenty years ago.

6 IE [Мa2 a4οrά- ]
((prοtάssοnta2 tο cέri))
He is of concern to us-
((extending his arm))

7 / IE Sοbarώ2?¼
((εirunikά))
Seriously?¼
((in an ironic tone))

8 IR ¼Вεbaίu2. .h [sε έg]gra4ά sa2 .h sε [ synέ]dria .h sε

¼Of course. .h in documents of yours .h in conferences .h in

9 IE [Nai:?] [Nai:?]
((εirunikά)) ((εirunikά))
Yeah? Yeah?
((in an ironic tone)) ((in an ironic tone))

10 IR cairεtismού2 sa2.¼kai aytό p- tο οpοίο rutάu gu είnai

addresses of yours.¼and wh- what I'm asking is

11 giatί dε lέtε είnai mίa 4άsh. thn^ gkzεpεrάsamε. pάmε

why don't you say it was just a phase. we got over it. let's

12 k- parakάtu.¼
g- move on.¼

13 IE ¼Еgώ qa pu kάti άllο. (.) είsai sthmέnο2, (.) allά, (.) qa

((kοynώnta2 tο cέri pάnu kάtu..

¼Me I'll say something else. (.) you're biased, (.) but, (.) you'll
((moving his arm up and down..

14 kάnεi2 mia trύpa stο nεrό.

.......................................))
achieve squat.
....................))
Having begun to expand on his answer in line 6 (‘He is of concern to us-’) and finding himself talking at the same time as the
interviewer, the politician abandons his turn, and responds to the interviewer's comment in a new turn consisting of a
freestanding question (line 7, ‘Seriously?¼’). Adverbs like seriously are often employed by participants in everyday conver-
sation to mark some utterance as of special interest and encourage on-topic talk (Button and Casey, 1985; Schegloff, 2007:
155e158). This reading of the question, however, is not plausible in this particular instance. To begin with, in the institutional
context of the news interview, the need to encourage further topic talk, particularly on the interviewee's part, does not arise
since it is interviewees that have something interesting to say and are invited to talk about it in the first place. Moreover, the
politician's question is delivered in an ironic tone, which would not be the case had it been an attempt to encourage on-topic
talk. Therefore, such a reading is ruled out.10
As in the previous Extracts, the sequential position of the question provides a key to its interpretation. The interviewer's
insistence on receiving a straightforward answer about the party's Nazi past (data not included here) has already established
an adversarial environment, and his assertion in line 5 comes to exacerbate an already tense situation by implicitly accusing
the politician and his party of inconsistency. Such an accusation makes challenge the relevant next action. Indeed, this is
evidenced in the politician's question. Delivered in an ironic tenor, the politician's turn comes off as a particularly sarcastic
challenge of the interviewer's position that his party rhetoric has been contradictory.11

10
Quite striking is also the Katharevousa ending of the adverb: sοbar-ώ2 rather than sοbar-ά.
11
According to Hutchby (2011b), sarcasm is one of the characteristic features of highly confrontational interviews such as this one.
 L. Gialabouki, T.-S. Pavlidou / Journal of Pragmatics 151 (2019) 18e29 25

The design of the journalist's response (lines 8, 10e12 ‘¼Of course. .h in documents of yours .h in conferences .h in ad-
dresses of yours.¼and wh- what I'm asking is why don't you say it was just a phase. we got over it. let's g- move on.¼’) shows
that he treated the politician's question as a challenge to his comment rather than as a topicalizer. The emphatic delivery of
the adverb Вεbaίu2. (‘Of course.’), the subsequent enumeration of the sources that prove his point (‘.h in documents of yours .h
in conferences .h in addresses of yours.’), and the recasting of his comment in the form of a negatively formatted, indirect
question (‘¼and wh- what I'm asking is why don't you say it was just a phase. we got over it. let's g- move on.¼’) come to re-
assert his initial position (line 5) which the politician's question was treated as challenging.
This interpretation is supported by how the interaction unfolds: in overlap with the journalist's answer, the politician
produces two more questions (line 9, ‘Yeah?’ ‘Yeah?’), delivered in the same ironic tone as that of the question in line 7, further
challenging the interviewer's position. Upon completion of the interviewer's turn with the posing of his question (lines
10e12), the politician, with great haste (note the latching in lines 12e13), shifts topic and launches a direct, personal attack on
the interviewer (lines 13e14, ‘¼Me I'll say something else. (.) you're biased, (.) but, (.) you'll achieve squat.’) (see also Waddle
and Bull, 2016). The force of the attack is underlined both through linguistic (use of the T- instead of the V-form) and non-
linguistic features (emphatic vertical movement of the arm).

3.4. Politicians' questions after an interviewer's answer/response to a previous interviewee question

As mentioned, more than half of the politicians' freestanding questions are produced after the interviewer has already
answered a preceding question, expressing her/his personal view on the topic under discussion. In such cases, an environ-
ment of disharmony has been established earlier in the interaction, as in Extract [4]. This extract is taken from the same
interview as Extract [1]. In this part of the interview, discussion revolves around issues of violence and terrorism. One of the
topics is the occupation of abandoned buildings in the center of Athens, such as the Amalia villa. The occupation of the
particular villa became front-page news when allegations were made that the anarchists who occupied the building had been
encouraged to do so by members of the politician's party.
The Extract begins with the politician's response to a question posed by the interviewer (not included here) about his party's
position regarding the occupation of public buildings. After a response token (line 1, ‘Yes.’), the politician responds to the in-
terviewer's question with a rhetorical one, putting forward the issue of the timing at which the problem came into the spotlight
(line 1, ‘When did it become an issue of concern to us?’). He moves on to hold the then Minister of Public Order accountable for
that timing, stating that he tried to take advantage of the situation for political gain (lines 1e2, 4, 6). The politician then ends his
turn by addressing a question to the interviewer (lines 8e9, ‘You Mrs. Stai had you ever been concerned with the Amalia villa?’).
The design of the question, with the use of the adverb pοtέ (‘ever’), makes a negative answer relevant.
[4] [V.34.Bc.39.25.1e10.15]
NEWSWEEK 2013, IR Elli Stai, IE: Alexis Tsipras
1 IE [ Nai. ] [pόtε ma2 apascόlhsε. .h mεtά apό thn ε]pilοgή
Yes. when did it become an issue of concern to us? .h after the choice

2 >th stra[thgikή ε]pikοinuniakή εpilοgή tοy kyrίοy

the strategic communicative choice of Mr.

3 IR [pέstε mοy-]
tell me-

4 IE Dέndia,< na [pάεi na kάnεi]

Dendias, to go and

5 IR [mpοrείtε na] mοy pείtε¼

can you tell me¼

6 IE ¼anakatalή[jεi2 kti[rίun.]
¼recapture buildings.

7 IR [<pώ2 ta ] cara[kthrίzεtε?> ]
how do you describe these?

8 / IE [Еsεί2 kyrίa ] Stάh είcatε

You Mrs. Stai had you

9 / ascο[lh]qεί pο[tέ mε th bίla А]malίa?¼

ever been concerned with the Amalia villa?¼

10 IR [t2,] [[pώ2 ta cara-]

tch, how do you descri-

11 IR ¼pώ2 ta- (.) ka[kώ2 dεn είcam’ ascοlhqεί [kύriε ]

¼how do you- (.) too bad we hadn't been concerned Mr.

12 / IE [Κakώ2?]
Too bad?

13 IR Τsίpra¿ [kai ypήrcε]:- ypήrcan [ katalή]jεi2

Tsipras¿ and there was- there were occupations

14 IE [Еgώ dε nοmίzu.] [((xεrοbήcεi))]

Me I don't think so. ((coughs))
26 L. Gialabouki, T.-S. Pavlidou / Journal of Pragmatics 151 (2019) 18e29

15 IR stο kέntrο th2 […]

in the center of [...]

The interviewer, who, by that time, had been persistently seeking to elicit the politician's stance on the issue of building
occupations (lines 3, 5, 7, 10), abandons her last attempt, and in line 11 answers the politician's question by producing an
emphatically negative assessment of what she and other colleagues had done (lines 11, 13 ‘too bad we hadn't been concerned
Mr.Tsipras¿’). To this negative assessment, and in overlap with the interviewer, who continues to speak, the politician responds
with a question (line 12, ‘Too bad?’). The design of the politician's question (partial repeat of the interviewer's turn with rising
intonation) shows that it was not intended as a request for information (if it were, it would request information already provided
in the previous turn), but constitutes a challenge of the negative view expressed by the journalist in her answer. Though there is no
feedback in the form of a response from the interviewer in this case, that this is the function of the question becomes evident by
the politician's next turn, in which he explicitly states his disagreement with the journalist's view (line 14, ‘I don't think so.’).

3.5. Politicians' questions that go unanswered

As noted in the beginning of section 3, not all challenges politicians launch through freestanding questions are responded
to by interviewers. As a matter of fact, half of the questions-challenges initiated by politicians are not further pursued (as in
Extract [4] discussed above). However, although there may not be a direct response to the challenge, interviewers may
indirectly convey their stance by means of their next question.
Extract [5] comes from an interview that Aleka Papariga, then leader of the Greek Communist Party, gave to Stavros
Theodorakis in 2012. In this part of the interview, the journalist relays questions that viewers have posed through the
Internet. Reading from his tablet screen, the interviewer presents the question a female viewer, Vaggelio, has asked about
other activities the interviewee might have (lines 1e2, ‘.h what else do you do besides your involvement with the party.’). To
this personal question about her activities, the politician gives a rather impersonal answer (lines 3e6, note the use of the
indefinite pronoun one).12 It is this impersonal feature in her answer which probably triggers the journalist's comment that
she evades giving a specific answer (line 7, ‘You are not giving a specific answer to her¿’). To this negative assessment the
politician responds with a why-question (line 8, ‘Why am I not giving an answer to her¿’).
[5] [V.33.Bc.39.11.4e3.23]
PROTAGONISTES 2012, IR: Stavros Theodorakis, IE: Aleka Papariga

1 IR Έna piο gynaikείο εrώthma, kai tεlεytaίο, .h ti άllο

((diabάzοnta2 apό thn οqόnh tοy tάmplεt...............
A more womanly question, and the last one, .h what else
((reading from his tablet screen........................................

2 kάnεtε <εktό2 ap’ tο na ascοlείstε mε tο kόmma.>

........................................................................))
do you do besides your involvement with the party.
.............................................................................))

3 IE .h (.) Н: εnascόlhsh mε tο kόmma .h sε parapέmpεi

.h (.) Being involved with the party .h commits one

4 katarcήn (0.5) <n’ ascοlείsai> (0.7) mε tοn^ gkaqhmεrinό

first of all (0.5) to be concerned (0.7) with ordinary

5 άnqrupο. na εpikοinunεί2 mε tοn^ gkaqhmεrinό άnqrupο

people. to come into contact with ordinary people

6 kai na mh zεi2 stοn εaytό sοy. na είsai εyaίsqhtο2.

and not live in one's solitude. to be sensitive.

7 IR Dε th2 apantάtε sygkεkrimέ[na¿]

You are not giving a specific answer to her¿

8 / IE [Gia]tί dε th2 apantάu¿¼

Why am I not giving an answer to her¿¼

9 IR ¼th2 Вaggεliώ2.¼
¼to Vaggelio.¼

10 IE ¼[mia kanοnikή zuή έcu, pοy dε mpοrεί όmu2 na ’nai h

¼I lead an ordinary life, which cannot however be

11 ίdia m’ έnan άnqrupο .h pοy dεn ε: έcεi mίa tέtοia

the same as that of a person .h who doesn't u:h have a

12 pοlitikή drasthriόthta san^ nth dikiά mοy.

political activity like mine.

12
In the Greek text, the politician uses the generic second person singular, which in the English text is translated into the indefinite pronoun one.
 L. Gialabouki, T.-S. Pavlidou / Journal of Pragmatics 151 (2019) 18e29 27

13 IR Synεcί[zεtε na magεirεύεtε?]
Do you still cook?

14 IE [kάnu ta pά]nta.
I do everything.

15 (.)

16 IE S:a4ώ2 magεirεύu kai kάnu όlε2 ti2 dοylεiέ2 mόnh

Of course I cook and I do the housework by

17 mοy.  kai sa4ώ2 magεirεύu.

myself. and of course I cook.

The journalist does not overtly respond to the politician's challenge. Rather, immediately following her question in line 8 e
in the increment he produces e he focuses on clarifying the intended addressee (‘¼to Vaggelio.¼’, line 9) of the politician's
answer in the assessment he made in line 7. However, he indirectly conveys that he found the politician's answer inadequate
by further pursuing the topic of her extra-political activities with a follow-up question (line 13, ‘Do you still cook?’), which is
more specific than the viewer's initial question in lines 1e2 and, this time, gets a specific answer by the politician (lines 16e17,
‘Of course I cook and I do the housework by myself. and of course I cook.’).

4. Discussion and conclusions

In this paper we have examined the use of freestanding questions by interviewees in political interviews on Greek
television as vehicles for challenging interviewer talk. Though the design of the question is important for its functioning
as a challenge, our analysis suggests that the sequential environment and the epistemic status of the questioner play an
equally significant role, as this becomes evident in the interviewer's response. In particular, in our data, politicians'
questions come up a) during an interviewer's questioning turn (usually in the preface), b) after an interviewer's
question, c) after her/his assertion following a question-answer sequence, and d) after her/his answer/response to a
politician's earlier question.
Common to these environments is the fact that the interviewer makes an (explicit or implicit) assertion which conveys
her/his own personal view. In other words, besides being the animator, the journalist also acts as the author and principal of an
assertion (Goffman, 1981: 144e145). Moreover, this view targets the interviewee her-/himself (her/his public statements,
deeds, views and so on) rather than a third party. The interviewer's turn, thus, establishes a disaffiliative context, whose
implications can be damaging to the politician's public image. It is these implications that the interviewee attempts to counter
by producing a response formulated as a question, which challenges the journalist's assertions/assumptions. In other words, it
is an attempt on the politician's part to cope with a situation that poses a threat to her/his face (cf. also Bull et al., 1996; Bull,
2003b). However, rather than equivocating (cf. Bavelas et al., 1990) or not replying (Bull, 1994), the politician resorts to
challenging the journalist's position through a question.
Interviewers invariably respond to such questions not as requests for information, but as challenges to the view they
express or convey. That is, interviewers, too, orient to these questions as challenges. This is evidenced by a) the design of their
responses, and b) the fact that their responses are most commonly a re-launching of their position without any mitigation,
which can lead (and often does in our data) to overt disagreement and an escalation of adversarialness. Of course, in-
terviewers have the option of evading the challenge altogether and proceeding with their current agenda (as indeed they do
in our data).
Our findings raise a number of issues: Why don't politicians openly disagree with the views expressed by the journalists?
Why do they choose to indirectly display their opposition? Why do they challenge journalists via questions? In answering
such questions, two factors need to be taken into account: a) the affordances of an interrogative format, and b) the nature of
the interviewer attack. Questions strongly make answers relevant. An interrogative format mobilizes response in a more
compelling manner than do other types of grammatical format (Stivers and Rossano, 2010). Therefore, by using questions as
vehicles for challenging, politicians render a response necessary in a manner that would not be as pressing had a declarative
format been used. Moreover, by choosing to challenge the interviewer via a question rather than outright disagreement,
politicians opt for a less threatening act (Brown and Levinson, 1987) e both to their own positive face and the journalist's
positive face. They, thus, project a more amicable image of themselves to the public. This practice of challenging through
questions is distinctively employed by politicians when journalists do not waver in launching a personal attack on in-
terviewees. In such cases, the implications for the politicians' face become even more aggravating, as the interviewer targets
their own deeds, decisions or views rather than those of an absent third party. Thus, politicians opt for a more aggressive
approach, breaking the norms of interview conduct and reversing the terms of the interview ‘game’: they momentarily
position themselves as questioners and the interviewers as answerers.
More generally, we can say that, by resorting to questions, politicians hold interviewers accountable on two related but
distinct levels (see also Clayman and Heritage, 2002): first, on the level of the action interviewers are called upon to perform
(i.e., to answer rather than ask questions), and second, on the level of the content of the view expressed, which can impact
negatively on the politician's image. Our study shows that asking questions has become one of the practices politicians adopt
in order to cope with a growingly adversarial interview environment. In this manner, politicians may also be claiming the
28 L. Gialabouki, T.-S. Pavlidou / Journal of Pragmatics 151 (2019) 18e29

power to set the interview agenda e a privilege traditionally lying with interviewers. In other words, there seems to be a
blurring of institutional roles and a redefinition of the terms political interviews are conducted. This, however, requires
further research, and needs to be considered along with other practices politicians employ in order to tackle modern
aggressive interviewing styles.
To sum up, our research on Greek TV interviews contributes to the study of news interviews by a) describing a particular
practice e challenging via questions e employed by interviewers to cope with interviewers' breaching of neutrality, b)
pointing to adversarialness on the part of interviewees (neglected up to now), and c) expanding our knowledge on in-
terviewers' adversarialness and their breaching of neutrality (amply studied in British and American interviews, cf. e.g.
Clayman and Heritage, 2002; Clayman, 2010; Montgomery, 2011) with data from the Greek context.

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Declarations of interest

None.

Acknowledgements

We would like to express our sincere thanks to the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on the first
version of this article and for their suggestions.

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Lena Gialabouki is a Researcher at the Institute of Modern Greek Studies, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Her research interests lie in the fields of
sociolinguistics (conversation analysis, critical discourse analysis), with a focus on institutional interaction. More specifically, she is interested in the or-
ganization of media interaction, institutional roles, identities and power. She has published papers on the above areas in journals and edited volumes.

Theodossia-Soula Pavlidou is professor emerita of linguistics at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. She is the director of Greek talk-in-interaction and
conversation analysis (Institute of Modern Greek Studies), a project within which she also developed the Corpus of Spoken Greek. Her publications include:
“Interactional work in Greek and German telephone conversations” (2008), “Phases in discourse” (2011), “Collective aspects of subjectivity: The subject
pronoun åìåßo  (‘we’) in Greek” (2012), “Gendering selves, gendering others e in (Greek) talk-in-interaction” (2015), Making a record of the Greek Language
[in Greek] (2016), “Metadiscursive comments: The case of katalava (‘I understood’)” [in Greek] (2019).