DISCOURSE STRUCTURE ANALYSIS OF SELECTED INTERVIEWS OF FORMER PRESIDENT OBASANJO

Abstract

Interviews have enjoyed a lot of attention in Discourse Analysis with studies investigating their peculiarities vis-à-vis the smooth flow often expected in conventional human talk. However, while focus has mostly been on the standard description of their discourse structure, this study pays attention to discourse patterns that seem to challenge the formulaic structure of interviews due to the idiosyncrasies of the interviewee. Using Sinclair and Coulthard’s IRF model of Generic Structure Potential, transcripts of two interviews granted by Nigeria’s ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo in 2002, accessed from the archives of The Punch and BBC, were analysed to reveal how the interviewee’s interactional style impinged on the structure of talk. Initiation is often duplicated in the exchanges as the ex-president appears to take exception to certain moves perceived as offensive toward his person or his country. The second initiation thus serves both as check/challenge and negotiation of a new line of questioning. While the established initiation response structure largely holds throughout the conversation, the interviews display an unusually numerous instances of interviewee evaluation of questioner, interviewee elicitation and topic negotiation where informing and focus moves are expected. While the interviews are still reconcilable with the Initiation-Response-Feedback (IRF) structure of discourse, the study shows that personality of the interviewee, location and other sociolinguistic indices can vary the structure of interviews.