Adjacency Pairs in English and Arabic television political interviews

Abstract EN

This paper aims to investigate the use of adjacency pairs in English and Arabic television political interviews.

therefore, two interviews are chosen, one in each language.

the first interview is taken from an English program named “HARDtalk” broadcasted in 2019 by BBC English in which the interviewee is UK former prime minster “Sir John Major”.

the second is taken from an Arabic program called “Bella Qeyood” (without limitations) broadcasted in 2019 by BBC Arabic in which the interviewee is Iraq former prime minster “Haider Al-Ibadi”.

the study aims to answer the following questions : (1) what are the types of adjacency pairs used in the political interviews of both languages ? (2) which type of adjacency pairs is dominantly used in the political interviews of both languages ? (3) which of the sequences participants use when violating the immediate answers of second pairs ? (4) how do English and Arabic differ in their use and distribution to adjacency pairs in political interviews.

the data then analyzed via an eclectic model.

the results show that that the structure of political interviews has a clear influence on the use of adjacency pairs in the two languages under preview.

both languages characterize similar types of adjacency pair, even with similar dominance of certain types.

Arabic differs from English in showing its resistance to the influence of political interviews construction in the area of maintaining an amount of agreement or intimacy among participants or the tendency to provide more preferred responses.