International Journal of Language Studies

Volume 7, Number 4, October 2013, pp. 1-24

Adversarialness and evasion in broadcast political interviews

Milica VUKOVI, University of Montenegro, Montenegro
In contemporary broadcast political interviews, interviewers are
getting more and more adversarial in their questioning, whereas
politicians seem to have earned their notoriety for their evading giving
direct answers. On the other hand, in case journalists take a rather
lenient approach, the result may be just the samemore evasive
action from interviewed politicians. The focus of this paper (i.e., the
interplay of the two phenomena of adversarialness and evasion) is
illustrated on a corpus consisting of British, American and Montenegrin
political interviews. The aim is to determine whether there exists a
connection between the two, to which end we suggest a methodology
for assessing their levels and also compare the three groups of political
interviews using such methods. The results point to a cause and effect
relationship between adversarialness and evasion.
Keywords: Adversarialness; Measuring; Interview Management; Political
Interviews; Evasion
1. Introduction
The relationship between the media and politicians is characterised by
cooperation on the one hand, and adversarialness and evasion on the other.
This dialogical relationship is the consequence of the fact that politicians need
the media to facilitate their political communication with the public, whereas
the media cannot be independent from political and economic factors and
need politicians as sources who give credit to their programmes and boost
their ratings. In order to appeal to viewers, journalists act on behalf of the
public and put pressure on politicians by being aggressive in their
questioning, what is frequently equated with objectiveness and neutrality.
Furthermore, interviewers are supposed to be adversarial in their treatment
of public figures and should not allow the latter to use the interview as a
personal soapbox (Clayman, 2001, p. 10644). Such questioning inspires
more ingenuity on the part of politicians to evade giving direct answers.
The study of adversarialness of the media towards politicians has rarely been
the focus of linguistic analyses. One example of such a paper was Clayman and
ISSN: 2157-4898; EISSN: 2157-4901
2013 IJLS; Printed in the USA by Lulu Press Inc.

M. Vukovi

Heritages article Questioning Presidents (Clayman & Heritage, 2002), in

which the authors analysed how interviewers questions in US presidential
press conferences became more adversarial over time. According to them,
adversarialness encompasses four features: (a) initiative, (b) directness, (c)
assertiveness, and (d) hostility.
On the other hand, evasion has been analysed more systematically within
discourse analysis (Bavelas, Black, Bryson & Mullett, 1988; Bull, 2003, 2008;
Clayman, 2001; Rasiah, 2007, 2010). More research on the subject led to a
proliferation of terms used to designate the phenomenon. The sociologist
Steven Clayman (2001) associates the term evasion with resisting overtly,
engaging in various forms of damage control and departing from the
questions agenda on the part of interviewees in news interviews. Further
research on this phenomenon was conducted in the field of social psychology
by Bull (2003; 2008) and Bavelas, Black, Bryson & Mullett (1988), who used
the term equivocation. This term was defined as a non-straightforward
communication which includes speech acts such as: self-contradictions,
inconsistencies, subject switches, tangentalisations, incomplete sentences,
misunderstandings, obscure style or mannerisms in speech . . . etc. (Bavelas
et al., 1988, p. 137). Most linguists, however, use the term evasion and simply
define it as responses that do not answer the question (Rasiah, 2007, p. 9).
For the purpose of our analysis, this definition will be adopted.
The relationship between the two phenomena has only been mentioned in
brief in some papers in the field of social psychology (Bull, 2008). One of the
obvious problems in such an investigation is the difficulty one encounters
when one tries to measure these phenomena objectively, and when one
notices the voluminous corpora that one has to deal with when analysing
discourses such as the media and political discourse.
In the first part of the paper, we will try to find a solution for the problem in
hand by presenting adversarialness and evasion respectively along with the
methodologies we propose for their measurement. The second part of the
paper will be dedicated to explaining the interplay of the two phenomena.
2. Method
The research presented here is corpus-based and was conducted using a
multidisciplinary quantitative and qualitative methodology which comprised
methods of conversation analysis, critical discourse analysis (CDA), and
sociolinguistics.
The corpus consisted of 18 hours of broadcast political interviews (the
transcripts comprised 105,000 words). We analysed three groups of
approximately six hours of political interviews broadcast on American,

International Journal of Language Studies, 7(4), 1-24

British and Montenegrin media between 2007 and 2008. The British group of
interviews (30,000 words) consisted of 11 interviews taken from BBC1, BBC
News, BBC World, Sky News, Channel 4 and the British edition of Euronews.
The American group of interviews (33,000 words) consisted of 10 interviews
excerpted from CNN, CBS, ABC and Fox News, and the Montenegrin group of
political interviews (42,000 words) consisted of 8 interviews taken from
RTCG, TV IN and TV Vijesti. We also used an additional corpus at one point,
which consisted of four interviews with George Bush, conducted between
2006 and 2008 on ABC, CBS and BBC.
It was hypothesized that:
a) In spite of all difficulties and its potential deficiencies, an objective
methodology for quantifying adversarialness and evasion may be
established;
b) There exists a link between adversarialness and evasion, i.e., that the
levels of adversarialness directly affect the levels of evasion;
c) The presence of adversarialness and evasion will vary in the three
media cultures studied;
d) Cause and effect relationships between adversarialness and evasion
will be found in all three media cultures studied.
The aims of the paper are then the following:
a) To define how adversarialness and evasion may be quantified;
b) To compare the levels of adversarialness and evasion in the three
groups of interviews, based on the frequencies obtained;
c) To study the relationship between adversarialness and evasion and to
give concrete examples so as to observe patterns.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Adversarialness
As it can be expected, it is difficult to measure levels of adversarialness in a
political interview. The kind of adversarialness we have in mind here is the
level to which the journalists make it difficult for their interviewees to
answer, i.e., their agressiveness or hostility in questioning. No universally
accepted methodology stands at our disposal and we are of the opinion that it
is quite debatable whether one can be devised to rest solely on quantitative
criteria. Instead, we have decided to focus on the analysis of certain linguistic
features that might indicate adversarialness and to deduce our conclusions on
the basis of several of them.
Surveying the literature, we have come across a number of indicators that are
said to point to adversarialness, and by examining the corpus, we have

M. Vukovi

extrapolated a few additional ones. After these methodological steps had been
taken, we made an attempt to catogorise the indicators. Four categories of the
indicators of adversarialness emerged from this research:
1. Question design:
1.1. Tilting the questionlimiting the range of possible answers
1.1.1. Asking yes/no questions
1.1.2. Asking negatively formulated questions
1.1.3. Asking prepared and supplemented questions
1.2. Perspective
1.3. Turn-initial but
2. Interactional demands:
2.1. Multiple questions
3. Interviewees answers:
3.1. Evasion
3.2. Turn-initial well
3.3. Filler I think
4. Interview Management:
4.1. Receipt tokens
4.2. Supplementing answers
4.3. Interruptions
The logic behind the first categoryquestion designis that adversarial
questions limit the range of possible answers. Interviewers can tilt the
question so that the answer takes a certain direction. Typically, these
techniques involve using certain types of grammatical questions, such as yesno questions, which severely limit the range of possible answers, and
especially negatively formulated questions, which tilt the answer towards the
preferred option (Heritage, 2002). Interviewees often have difficulties with
answering yes/no questions, as in example 1, where Boris Johnson starts his
turn using the discourse marker well, typically used when the interviewee is
in an unfavorable situation (Jucker, 1993), followed by two repairs, i.e.,
reformulations (Well I, I . . . ; whether they, they . . . .). These markers suggest
adversarialness in the question. Additionally, the question prefers the
positive answer, which makes it furthermore difficult for the politician to
answer negatively:
(1) (B7) INTERVIEWER: Are you sort of surrounded by a semicircle of
Cameron advisors trying to control you?

International Journal of Language Studies, 7(4), 1-24

JOHNSON: Well I, I don't know whether they, they would think it

very sort of fruitful use of their time . . . .
(BBC News, Andrew Marr Show, IR: Andrew Marr, IE: Boris
Johnson, 8.06.2008)
The question is also tilted in the case of negatively formulated questions.
Employing this type of question, providing a negative answer by the
interviewee is made increasingly difficult (2):
(2) (A7) COOPER: Did you not know, though, that, I mean, a couple days
after 9/11, he said, you know, this was America's chickens coming
home to roost, a result of what he called American terrorism
around the world?
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: I mean, you may not have been there, but have youyou
must have heard that he had said these things.
OBAMA: You know, I confess that I did not hear about this until
until I started running for president.
(CNN, 360 Degrees, IR: Anderson Cooper, IE: Barrack Obama,
14.03.2008)
The mechanism behind the tilting is presupposition (in example 2, Obama
supposedly knew about rev. Wrights statements), which has enormous
manipulative potential (Simon-Vandenbergen, White & Aijmer, 2007, p. 66)
and which is extremely difficult to extrapolate and deny (Chilton & Schffner,
2002, p. 36). The interviewee finds it very hard to answer such questions,
regardless of whether they have real arguments or not.
Furthermore, the question design category also encompasses prepared
questions (introduced by a preparatory statement), which often lead the
interviewee to provide a certain reply, and which often restrict the range of
answers by providing a context for answering the question, and their
counterpart, supplemented questions (concluded by a supplementary
statement, i.e., supplement), which tilt the questions even to a greater degree.
The structure of such questions in news interviews was described in details
by Clayman and Heritage (2002), who also discussed their adversarial
potential.
(3) (A6) INTERVIEWER: . . . (Preparatory Statement) I'll give you some
statistics right now. It's hit an all-time low against the euro. It sank
below 99 Yen. That's the weakest since 1995. It's plunged below 1
Swiss Franc for the first time ever. (Question) What, if anything,

M. Vukovi

are you doing about the value of the US dollar, which seems to be
falling rather rapidly?
PAULSON: Wolf, you've heard me before, I believe very strongly
that thisthat the strong dollar is in our nation's interests. We
have a strong dollar policy. I make the points repeatedly that
every economy goes through some ups and downs. We're going
through a tough patch right now in our economy.
(CNN, Late Edition, IR: Wolf Blitzer, IE: Henry Paulson,
16.03.2008)
(4) (B2) INTERVIEWER: (Question) Are they brutalised in these camps?
(supplement) There are allegations of raping taking place.
MUGABE: No, no, no, no, no, no. Those are allegations, you are
just looking at the negative. Why don't you look at the aspects
that are promoted that are positive? The youth must be
developed and developed in respect of all skills. They must think
Zimbabwean, feel Zimbabwean and be nationally conscious. That
is what they what they are to be.
(Sky News, freestanding interview, IR: Stuart Ramsey, IE: Robert
Mugabe, 24.05.2004)
In example 3, by providing a preparatory statement that suggests grim
economic circumstances, Wolf Blitzer makes it virtually impossible for
Paulson to paint a rosy picture of the US economy. In addition, in the
formulation of the question, the interviewer suggests that the Treasury
Secretary Paulson is doing nothing to improve the circumstances. In return,
the answer provided by the politician is vague and uses the plural perspective
(the first person plural pronoun we is the subject, which mitigates some
responsibility for the individual).
A similar mechanism underlies example 4, featuring a supplemented
question. In the literature, this marker has not been mentioned, however, we
think that it might also be used as an indicator of adversarialness. Let us see
how this works in the example mentionedthe yes/no question which starts
the turn limits the range of possible answers to either yes or no. However,
the supplement that follows tilts it further towards the positive answer, even
though it is softened by the phrase there are allegations. The interviewer is
basically leading the politician to give a positive answer. Such questions seem
to be quite resonant in the ears of the audience, which is why the politician
chooses to give a definite negative answer, repeating no six times.

International Journal of Language Studies, 7(4), 1-24

The second subcategory we identified refers to the perspective of the

question. By this we understand how the question is put, i.e., whether the
interviewee is addressed directly or not. Questions with you-perspective, in
which the interviewee is directly addressed, are more likely to be adversarial
than questions with other-perspective, because these are more likely to be
face-threatening acts (FTAs), i.e., to challenge the face of the interviewee. The
use of pronouns and its effect on FTAs in political discourse has been
recorded on more than one occasion (Allen, 2007; Ensink, 1997; Fetzer &
Bull, 2008; Gelabert-Desnoyer, 2008; Vukovi, 2012; Wilson 1990). In most of
these papers, the focus was on footing and perspective, and only sporadically
was the use of pronouns associated with adversarialness. We think this to be
a valuable indicator that cannot be neglected; when the politicians are asked
about matters which involve them directly and/or for their personal
responsibility, there is commonly more adversarialness (5-8):
(5) (B2) INTERVIEWER: A regular allegation from the outside world is that
Mr President, you are corrupt as well.
(Sky News, freestanding interview, IR: Stuart Ramsey, IE: Robert
Mugabe, 24.05.2004)
(6) (B6) INTERVIEWER: Do you feel embarrassed about the Iraq saga
yourself?
(BBC News, Andrew Marr Show, IR: Andrew Marr, IE: Margaret
Beckett, 28.01.2008)
(7) (A3) INTERVIEWER: Mr. President, I want to be very direct and very
clear. Many Americans believe that you have American blood on
your hands. Are you saying that it is not the policy of this
government to send weapons into Iraq? Sir, forgive me, you're
smiling, but this is a very serious matter to America.
(CBS, 60 Minutes, IR: Scott Pelley, IE: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
20.09.2007)
(8) (A4) INTERVIEWER: Do you think you owe the Iraqi people an
apology for not doing a better job?
BUSH: That we didn't do a better job or they didn't do a better job?
INTERVIEWER: Well, that the United States did not do a better job
in providing security after the invasion.

M. Vukovi

BUSH: Not at all. I am proud of the efforts we did. We liberated that

country from a tyrant. I think the Iraqi people owe the American
people a huge debt of gratitude . . . .
(CBS, 60 Minutes, IR: Scott Pelley, IE: George W. Bush, 21.01.2007)
The responsibility is directly assigned to the interviewed politician, making it
harder for him/her to transfer it to others or share it (ex. 8: That we didn't do
a better job or they didn't do a better job?). Asking the questions which are
you-oriented, whereby it can usually be deduced from the context that the
journalist is implying singularity, adds to directness, which we consider to be
essential to adversarialness. Questions with other perspectives (such as those
with it), distort responsibility and imply distance from the interviewee.
We are of the opinion that turn-initial discourse markers could also give an
insight into the issue of adversarialness. This is what we learn from the
studies of individual discourse markers, usually pragmatic in nature, but
systematic overviews of such markers in political interviews or overviews of
adversarialness mentioning the role of these markers seem to be nonexistent. We found, however, that at least three turn-initial makers point to
adversarialness or the lack thereof in most cases; the turn-initial but was
found indicative of adversarial questioning in the interviewers turns,
whereas I think and well, when found turn-initial in politicians answers,
strongly suggested evasion in answering.
First of all, in questions which are introduced by the discourse marker but in
the turn-initial position, there is a change of direction suggesting
disagreement with the previous answer provided by the interviewee (9, 10):
(9) (B6) BECKETT: No, I think that's unfair. As I said before most of the
problems are in and around Baghdad. And the problems there are
very serious. There's no doubt about that.
INTERVIEWER: But it's a bit like, it's a bit like the biggest civil war
in Britain and people saying oh well it's only London, Manchester
and Birmingham, so it doesn't matter so much. I mean that is
where most of the people areBaghdad.
(BBC News, Andrew Marr Show, IR: Andrew Marr, IE: Margaret
Beckett, 28.01.2008)
(10) (A10) RUBIN: I don't know. Enemieswe are not in a state of war with
Iran. Traditionally, the word enemy is for a state of war.
INTERVIEWER: But they are in a state . . . .

International Journal of Language Studies, 7(4), 1-24

RUBIN: We are in a state of war with the Shiite militias and alQaeda we are in a state of war. Iran has policies that we object
to and we reject.
INTERVIEWER: But there . . . .
RUBIN: And we should confront.
INTERVIEWER: But they are contributing to the deaths of
Americans, if you listen to the American military in Iraq, by
supporting some of the rogue militias. Shouldn't that make them
enemies?
(Fox News, The Journal Editorial Report, IR: Paul Gigot, IE: James
Rubin, 31.05.2008)
This was found to be the case throughout our corpus, regardless of the group
of interviews. In most cases, it could be implied that the journalist was
somehow contesting what the politician was sayingin ex. 9, but is paired up
with an ironic analogy, suggesting that Beckett is deliberately belittling the
severity and the scope of the situation; in ex. 10, the journalist contradicts the
interviewee directly several times but the interviewee insists, which results
in a harsh fight for the floor and the right to speak.
Also, by imposing higher interactional demands on politicians (the second
category), for example through asking a series of questions within the same
turn (11), the difficulty of the question rises and so does the likelihood of its
being more adversarial (Clayman & Heritage, 2002). The more complex the
questioning, the more difficult it is for the politician to answer:
(11) (A2) INTERVIEWER: (preparatory-statement) I was in Tehran last
week with Scott Pelley interviewing Ahmadinejad. (question 1)
How much of a time deadline do you face? (question 2) Do you
have to resolve this diplomatically or with sanctions before
President Bush's term is up? (question 3) And if you don't, then
does that mean that the President would use force? (question 4)
Is he determined to resolve this on his watch?
RICE: (answer 4) Well, we are determined to do everything that
we can to prevent Iran from getting these technologies because
let me be very clearthe issue is having the engineering knowhow to be able to string together the running of centrifuges long
enough to enrich to the material to the level at which it's nuclear
weapons grade. That's really what we're talking about. We're not
talking about a kind of mature program of the kind that the North
Koreans have.

M. Vukovi

10

(answer 1) That said, no one knows precisely how long it will

take them to acquire that engineering expertise, which is why
there is some urgency to acting in a way that gets them to change
the course that they're on. If they suspend, then they're not
making that knowledge breakthrough.
(CBS News, 60 Minutes, IR: Charlie Rose, IE: Condoleezza Rica,
28.09.2007)
As can be seen, Ms Rice is asked four questions, but provides answers to only
two. The typical pattern in such questioning is that the interviewee answers
the last question first and then chooses which of the previous ones to pursue,
as is the case in ex.11. Naturally, the more complex the interviewer turn is,
i.e., the more questions they ask in the same turn, the harder it is for the
politician to answer.
We shall now proceed to the third category. Most research (Bull, 2008;
Clayman, 2001) suggests that evasion indicates adversarialness in
questioning. However, we shall refrain from making such a statement.
Hesitation, marked by the discourse marker well, when found at the
beginning of an answer (Jucker, 1993) (as in 12), as well as the discourse
marker I think (as in 13), which can suggest distancing and hedging, can also
indicate adversarialness in questioning. Note that I think must be positioned
intially, because when found in other positions in political discourse, it may
suggest authority and promotes politicians personality (SimonVandenbergen, 1996, 1997, 2001; Fetzer, 2008) 1.
(12) (A4) INTERVIEWER: But wasn't it your administration that created the
instability in Iraq?
BUSH: Well, our administration took care of a source of
instability in Iraq. Envision a world in which Saddam Hussein was
rushing for a nuclear weapon to compete against Iran. My
decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the correct decision in
my judgment. We didn't find the weapons we thought we would
find or the weapons everybody thought he had. But he was a
significant source of instability.
INTERVIEWER: It's much more unstable now, Mr. President.
BUSH: Well, no question decisions have made things unstable.
But the question is can we succeed. And I believe we can . . . .
1

The dual nature of this pragmatic marker (deliberative and tentative) has also
been confirmed by Holmes (1990) and Krkkinen (2003).

International Journal of Language Studies, 7(4), 1-24

(CBS, 60 Minutes, IR: Scott Pelley, IE: George W. Bush, 12.01.2007)

(13) (B 6) INTERVIEWER: But there is a tension between the ambassador
for instance saying that the longer our forces stay together in Iraq
the better and very, very strong feeling at home in Britain that
troops should be pulled out as soon as possible.
BECKETT: Well um I think there is apeople would like to feel that
things had been handed over to a sufficient degree that it, we were
able to begin to reduce the numbers of our armed forces.
(BBC News, Andrew Marr Show, IR: Andrew Marr, IE: Margaret
Beckett, 28.01.2008)
When found initially, well and I think are typically used to buy time, as in our
examples 12 and 14, which can imply adversarialness in questioning. They
were frequently followed by a pause, a voiced pause or another discourse
marker, which additionally confirmed the hypothesis that these are used as a
type of thought-gathering markers.
Finally, the level of adversarialness expressed can be indicated by the way the
interviewer runs the interview. That is, the journalists can choose whether to
react to politicians answers and whether to interrupt them if they feel they
are not getting the right answer. Providing receipt tokens for answers (as in
14) is a typical feature of everyday conversation but it is systematically
avoided in the western media (Heritage, 1985), in order to achieve neutrality.
This does not seem to be the case in the Montenegrin political interviews
analysed in our research:
(14) (C2) INTERVJUISTA: Da, da li ipak u sluaju Crne Gore ima odreenih
prepreka na tom putu?

UKANOVI: Rei u vam. Nasuprot tome imate i jedno drugo

iskustvo, dakle iz poslednjih proirenja gdje su odreene drave,
rekao bih, samo jurile
INTERVJUISTA: Da.

UKANOVI: rokove i danas ete kod njih takoe uti iz dijela

javnosti, da kaem (zp) (zp) izjave iznevjerenih oekivanja, poput
one kada je u pitanju crnogorska nezavisnost
INTERVJUISTA: Da.

UKANOVI: pa u Evropskoj uniji smo, ali znate, plate su i dalje

niske. Dakle, ja ne mislim da treba pospjetvati tu svijest na
Balkanu, ja mislim da je zdrav pristup ovim stvarima (zp) zdrav

11

12

M. Vukovi

pristup lanstvu u Evropskoj uniji, dajte da se, prije svega, mi

takmiimo sa svojim obavezama na Balkanu, na domaem terenu,
dajte da radimo ovo o emu smo govorili, da poveavamo
brutodrutveni proizvod, da rastu investicije, da rastu plate, da
rastu penzije, da podiemo efikasnost pravosudnog sistema, da
podiemo racionalnost i efikasnost uprave, da smanjujemo
trokove javne potronje i da inimo nae proizvode na evropskom
tritu konkurentnim i onda e lanstvo u Evropskoj uniji doi kao
logina satisfakcija, kao logino priznanje, ne kao rezultat toga da
smo izmolili nekog
INTERVJUISTA Da.

UKANOVI: da istretira na zahtjev. Ali, da kaem, ovo svakako

nije forma euroskepticizma, kao to su mi to spoitavale neke vae
kolege u ovih godinu i po dana. Ovo je jedan drugaiji, po meni
zdraviji i realniji pristup prioritetima koje treba da obavimo da bi
ostvarili ono . . . .
(RTCG, Intervju, IR: Radojka Rutovi, IE: Milo ukanovi,
21.03.2008)
Here is the translation in English:
((C2) INTERVIEWER: Yes, but in that case, are there any obstacles for
Montenegro on this road?
UKANOVI: I will tell you. On the other hand, there is another
experience, that of the last expansions, where certain countries, I
would say, only pursued
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
UKANOVI: deadlines and today in these countries you will also
hear from part of the public, sort to say (vp), statements that
expectations have not been fulfilled, like those relating to the
independence of Montenegro
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
UKANOVI: well, we are in the European Union, but, you know,
our salaries are still low. And so I think that this awareness must
be raised in the Balkans, I think that a good approach to these
issues (vp), a good approach to the membership in the European
Union, is to first compete with our duties in the Balkans, on our
domestic grounds, to do what we have talked about, to increase the
gross domestic product, to have the investments grow, to raise the

International Journal of Language Studies, 7(4), 1-24

salaries, to raise the pensions, to make the judicial system more

efficient, to rationalise the administration and make it more
efficient, to decrease the expenses of public consumption and make
our products more competitive on the European market, and the
membership in the European Union will come as a logical
satisfaction, as a logical recognition, and not as a result of having
begged someone to.
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
UKANOVI: approve our request. But, sort to say, I am not being
eurosceptical, as I have been critised by some of your colleagues in
the last year and a half. This is a different, and in my opinion a
healthier and realistic approach to priorities that we should
achieve in order to . . . .)
Finishing interviewees sentences is also not the norm in broadcast political
interviews and can suggest bias. The number of interruptions can also be
indicative of adversarialness (15, 16):
(15) (C2) UKANOVI: i zbog toga sam ja, u ekspozeu mogao
da govorim i u u u ter terminima kao to je investiocioni
INTERVJUISTA: Bum.
UKANOVI: bum. Ovo to sam vam maloas kazao, zaista
svjedoi o investicionom bumu.

(RTCG, Intervju, IR: Radojka Rutovi, IE: Milo ukanovi,

21.03.2008)
Translation:
((C 2) UKANOVI: and thats why I, in my expos, could only talk
about and hmm hmm in terms suchs as investment.
INTERVIEWER: Boom.
UKANOVI: boom. What I have told you just now, really is a
proof for investement boom.)
(15) (C 6) INTERVJUISTA: A do tada sa graanima koji nijesu dravljani
gdje?
KALAMPEROVI:
vaiti do (zp) 2009

Do tada sluba sa stranim pasoima koji ce

INTERVJUISTA: 2009.

13

14

M. Vukovi

(Vijesti, Naisto, IR: Duka Pejovi, IE: Jusuf Kalamperovi,

6.06.2008)
Translation:
((C6) INTERVIEWER: And until then, what is going to happen to
citizenswho are not nationals?
KALAMPEROVI: Until then, the service for foreign passports
which will be valid until (voiced pause) 2009
INTERVIEWER: 2009)
The following table gives a summary of all the indicators of adversarialness
discussed above. The data given in the table are percentages showing
frequency in the total number of the interviewers and interviewees turns in
our corpus, depending on where the item is found.
Table 1.
Adversarialness Indicators
Criteria
yes-no qs
prepared qs
Negatively forumalated question
Questions with other-perspective
But (turn-initial)
Multiple
Well (turn-initial)
I think (turn-initial)
Receipt tokens
Supplements to politicians answers
Interruptions

B
58.2
34.8
9.77
25.23
6.7
7.1
13.56
5.67
0.63
0
37.85

A
49.47
30.2
5.24
16.39
5.24
10.4
17.7
1.31
1.96
0.32
10.72

M
43.91
21.62
2.53
31.70
2.17
19.93
12.13
2.71
9.42
5.07
59.77

The criteria provided should be understood as potential indicators of

adversarialness and, therefore, a tentative attempt to measure this
phenomenon. The list of the indicators is, of course, not intended to be
exhaustive.
As can be seen, the markers are not consistent in the three groups; this has
led us to believe that different types of adversarialness are present in
different media cultures. For example, in the analysed Montenegrin
interviews, adversarialness was expressed through frequent interruptions
and multiple questions. The American idea of adversarialness involves
directnessas evidenced from the fact that their questions were rarely
impersonally structured. Still, most indicators suggest that the phenomenon

International Journal of Language Studies, 7(4), 1-24

of adversarialness was most present in the British group of political

interviews, followed by the American one. This was also confirmed by our
subjective impression of adversarialness, which was obviously lacking in the
Montenegrin group of interviews.
3.2. Evasion
Most research has aimed at assessing evasion in each question during the
interview, which we found inapplicable for the purpose of our study. Instead,
we have chosen to focus on answers to one type of questions only. These are
yes/no questions, a type of question which imposes a limited range of
answers. It is therefore relatively easy to determine whether an answer was a
direct one, which is why applying this method proved reasonable.
Additionally, the results obtained using this method solely corresponded to
the results obtained using more complex methodologies (Bavelas et al., 1988;
Bull, 2003).
In our analysis, Yes, No and I dont know answers to yes/no questions and
unequivocal equivalents of such answers (phrases sure, of course . . . and other
types of answers which clearly confirm or negate a proposition, or which can
be located within a slot on the yes/no continuum (Rasiah, 2010, p. 668))
were considered as direct answers, whereas all other answers were deemed
evasion.
What follows is Table 2 2, which provides evasion rates for the three groups of
interviews analysed in this research.
Table 2.
Evasion Rates
Answers to yes/no questions
Evasion

American
British Corpus Corpus
50%
55.3%

Montenegrin
Corpus
51%

Comparing the results, we arrive at a conclusion that there was most evasion
in the American group of interviews. However, the rates are similar and,
when compared to the rate of 46% from Bulls study (2003), somewhat
higher in our interviews.
The drawback to this evasion assessing model is in its simplicity, as
politicians are rarely asked simple questions in media interviews, so to
expect a yes/no reply can sometimes be unreasonable (Beard, 2000, p. 112).
2

In this section, the paper draws on the results obtained within a wider research of
political interviews, some of which were presented in Vukovi, 2011.

15

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M. Vukovi

In addition, sometimes it is unfair to expect a politician to respond to a

question with a straightforward, direct answer if the presupposition(s) of the
question itself was/were incorrect (Rasiah, 2010, p. 669). Nevertheless, the
results obtained applying this methodology are similar to those obtained
using more complex models, which points to its usefulness and applicability,
at least for the purpose of studying the cause and effect relation between
adversarialness and evasion.
3.3. Adversarialness and evasion
It is a widely held notion that politicians are prone to evasive behaviour and
that such behaviour is to be ascribed to their character. Research, however,
suggests that in most cases it is the context or the situation that causes
evasion (Bavelas et al., 1988, p. 137). The authors use the term avoidanceavoidance conflicts to designate a situation in which evading the truth might
bring some benefit to the speaker. Let us illustrate such a situation with an
example from our corpus:
(16) (B 6) INTERVIEWER: Do you agree with your colleague Peter Hain
that the neo-con experiment around the world has been pretty
much of a disaster?
BECKETT: Well Peter has his own phrases.
INTERVIEWER: He does.
BECKETT: And, and his own sometimes slightly extravagant
language. I have to say I can't, I don't entirely agree with him for
example that this is the most right wing American administration
in history. Although it's not my job to . . . .
In the given example, the MP Margarett Beckett (Labour Party) is asked to
comment on her Labour colleagues words. She faces a conflictual situation;
on the one hand she has to defend Labour policies and the alliance with the
current US administration and its projects in the world, and on the other she
has to refrain from criticizing her fellow colleague. That is why her answer is
accompanied by frequent hedging and indirectness (e.g., he has his own
phrases and I have to say I can't, I don't entirely agree with him).
The frequency of avoidance-avoidance conflicts is increased if the questioning
is adversarial. Bull (2008, p. 337) finds a significant correlation (0.76)
between the presence of equivocation and the number of conflictual
questions in the interview, which suggests that the context is the generator of
evasion. To support the validity of this claim, in the following part of the
paper we try to disprove: a) the common notion that politicians are

International Journal of Language Studies, 7(4), 1-24

intrinsically evasive as consequence of their character; and b) culture factors

as major factors in the generation of evasion.
In order to demonstrate that politicians are not always consistently evasive,
we shall compare the evasion rates for the same politician across several
interviews in which adversarialness levels varied. If the evasion rates should
vary accordingly, it would prove that evasion is context-bound and not a
permanent quality of a politicians character. For our test, we have chosen a
high-profile politician, George Bush, and we have calculated the evasion rates
in four of his interviews, conducted between 2006-2008 3:
Table 3.
Evasion rates in four Bushs interviews
Interview
Evasion (in answers to yes/no questions)
1
2
3
4

70.6%
63.5%
33.3%
42.3%

As we can see, the degree of evasion varied considerably in the four

interviews. Most evasion was recorded in the earliest interview, which was
closest to the period of Iraq invasion, the event surrounded by a high level of
controversy. On the other hand, the evasion rates drop in interview 4 (a
farewell interview, towards the end of his presidency) and particularly in
interview 3 (the first Bush interview with BBC in 7 years, which probably
prompted the interviewer not to be hostile). What can be concluded at this
point is that evasion rates for the same politician vary across interviews.
We have seen how evasion fluctuates for the same politician and now we are
going to see how it fluctuates within the same media culture. Table 4
illustrates evasion rates for three interviews broadcast on RTCG (National
Montenegrin Broadcasting Company) conducted by the same interviewer
(Radojka Rutovi).
The evasion rates from Table 4 vary to a considerable degree. The Prime
Minister (ukanovi) seemed to be less evasive than the two opposition
leaders (Mandi and Mili), who failed to give a straight answer to a vast
majority of questions. However, although the interviewer was the same, the
3

Int. 1 ABC (a freestanding interview with Elizabeth Vargas, 28.02.2006); Int. 2

CBS (60 Minutes with Scott Pelley, 21.01.2007); Int. 3 BBC (World News America
with Matt Frei, 14.02.2008); Int. 4 ABC (World News with Charlie Gibson,
1.12.2008). The results of this test study were also presented in Vukovi, 2011.

17

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M. Vukovi

level of adversarialness varied significantly. In fact, the interviewer was

rather lenient to the Prime Minister and did not provide the same treatment
for the opposition leaders. We believe that this points to an interplay between
adversarialness and evasion in terms of proportionality. This should be an
additional evidence to support Bulls hypothesis that evasion is mostly
generated by adversarialness.
Table 4.
Evasion rate in Montenegrin interviews with the same interviewer
RTCG
Evasion rate
Milo ukanovi
47%
Andrija Mandi
72%
Sran Mili
80%

Nevertheless, the data also point to the fact that such an hypothesis must be
supplemented. Namely, different levels of adversarialness in the three groups
of interviews all resulted in similar evasion rates. In particular, the
Montenegrin group of interviews had a significantly lower degree of
adversarialness, whereas evasion featured a high total of 51%. Such a result
may not be explained by a level of adversarialness and clearly other factors
have to be accounted for.

A new hypothesis is that politicians evade not only because their interviewers
are hostile but also in cases when their interviewers are too lenient. Clayman
(2001, p. 440) concluded his Answers and Evasion paper by stating that:
alternatively, increasingly adversarial questioning could have precisely
the opposite effect: insofar as adversarialness includes a greater
propensity to ask follow-up questions that pursue evasive responses, it
could encourage interviewees to adhere more closely to the question
agenda.
A high level of adversarialness would make politicians less evasive, and a low
level of adversarialness could trigger more evasion, having in mind that
sanctions for such behaviour are not expected.
The best example to illustrate the case may be found in the Montenegrin
group of interviews. It is the aforementioned interview with the Prime
Minister of Montenegro, broadcast by the National Montenegrin Broadcasting
Company. The interviewer seemed to employ a lenient approach to
questioning and the interviewee seemed to take advantage of it by evading to
a high degree:
(17) (C 2) INTERVJUISTA:- Da, da li ipak u sluaju Crne Gore ima odreenih
prepreka na tom putu?

International Journal of Language Studies, 7(4), 1-24

UKANOVI: Rei u vam. Nasuprot tome imate i jedno drugo

iskustvo, dakle iz poslednjih proirenja gdje su odreene drave,
rekao bih, samo jurile
INTERVJUISTA: Da.

UKANOVI: rokove i danas ete kod njih takoe uti iz dijela

javnosti, da kaem (zp) (zp) izjave iznevjerenih oekivanja, poput
one kada je u pitanju crnogorska nezavisnost
INTERVJUISTA: Da.

UKANOVI: pa u Evropskoj uniji smo, ali znate, plate su i dalje

niske. Dakle, ja ne mislim da treba pospjetivati tu svijest na
Balkanu, ja mislim da je zdrav pristup ovim stvarima (zp) zdrav
pristup lanstvu u Evropskoj uniji, dajte da se, prije svega, mi
takmiimo sa svojim obavezama na Balkanu, na domaem terenu,
dajte da radimo ovo o emu smo govorili, da poveavamo
brutodrutveni proizvod, da rastu investicije, da rastu plate, da
rastu penzije, da podiemo efikasnost pravosudnog sistema, da
podiemo racionalnost i efikasnost uprave, da smanjujemo
trokove javne potronje i da inimo nae proizvode na
evropskom tritu konkurentnim i onda e lanstvo u Evropskoj
uniji doi kao logina satisfakcija, kao logino priznanje, ne kao
rezultat toga da smo izmolili nekog
INTERVJUISTA:Da.

UKANOVI: =da istretira na zahtjev. Ali, da kaem, ovo

svakako nije forma euroskepticizma, kao to su mi to spoitavale
neke vae kolege u ovih godinu i po dana. Ovo je jedan drugaiji,
po meni zdraviji i realniji pristup prioritetima koje treba da
obavimo da bi ostvarili ono
(RTCG, Intervju, IR: Radojka Rutovi, IE: Milo ukanovi,
21.03.2008)
Here is the translation into English:
((C2) INTERVIEWER: Yes, but in that case, are there any obstacles
for Montenegro on this road?
UKANOVI: I will tell you. On the other hand, there is another
experience, that of the last expansions, where certain countries, I
would say, only pursued
INTERVIEWER: Yes.

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M. Vukovi

UKANOVI: deadlines and today in these countries you will

also hear from part of the public, sort to say (vp), statements that
expectations have not been fulfilled, like those relating to the
independence of Montenegro
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
UKANOVI: well, we are in the European Union, but, you know,
are salaries are still low. And so I think that this awareness must
be raised in the Balkans, I think that a good approach to these
issues (vp), a good approach to the membership in the European
Union, is to first compete with our duties in the Balkans, on our
domestic grounds, to do what we have talked about, to increase
the gross domestic product, to have the investments grow, to
raise the salaries, to raise the pensions, to make the judicial
system more efficient, to rationalise the administration and make
it more efficient, to decrease the expenses of public consumption
and make our products more competitive on the European
market, and the membership in the European Union will come as
a logical satisfaction, as a logical recognition, and not as a result of
having begged someone to
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
UKANOVI: approve our request. But, sort to say, I am not
being eurosceptical, as I have been critised by some of your
colleagues in the last year and a half. This is a different, and in my
opinion a healthier and realistic approach to priorities that we
should achieve in order to . . .)
The interviewer was not adversarial in the stated interview, as can be
evidenced from the frequent use of receipt tokens used by the interviewer to
acknowledge or approve of what the interviewee was saying (e.g., yes).
Realizing that there would be no backlash from the interviewer, the Prime
Minister delivered pre-prepared speeches (the term used by Franklin (1994)
is prepackaged politics) and wandered off topic on a number of occasions
during the interview. Additionally, the original question put by the
interviewer of whether there are any obstacles for Montenegro on its way to
its membership in the EU was never answered. Thus it seems that both
adversarialness and leniency in questioning may result in evasion.
We also wanted to look into the connection which might exist between
culture and evasion levels. It was logical to suppose that such a connection
might exist on account of the results of the analyses carried within the
framework of cultural studies (e.g., Goddard & Wierzbicka, 1997) and the
studies of writing styles in different cultures (Bhatia, 1993), which showed

International Journal of Language Studies, 7(4), 1-24

that, for example, the American culture favored directness and precision,
whereas some others favored the opposite (e.g., Japanese).
In all the three groups, the levels of evasion were not uniform in all
interviews. Although the mean final results were similar, the level of evasion
varied from interview to interview (as in Table 4). Additionally, we take into
account the fact that these percentages could differ for the same politician
from interview to interview (Table 3). Therefore, according to the results of
this study, culture does not seem to be a major generator of evasion in
political interviews for these three media cultures.
At this point, however, we must add that we do believe that there is a
connection between culture and evasion, but we assume it plays a minor part
in this context. The existence of this connection could only be proven using a
much larger corpus and more detailed analyses.
4. Conclusion
Overall, the conclusion is that the level of evasion in broadcast political
interviews is context-specific and depends on the questioning style employed
by the interviewer in terms of adversarialness or leniency as well as the
degree thereof, and that evasive behaviour seems to follow culture-specific
patterns.
It proved more difficult to measure the level of adversarialness in comparison
to evasion. For measuring adversarialness, we came up with a list of potential
linguistic indicators and later measured their frequency compared to the
number of turns in which they occur. The results in the three groups of
interviews varied significantly, as it was expected in our hypothesis,
suggesting that adversarialness is differently expressed in different media
cultures. Overall, one could deduce where there was more adversarialness in
the Ango-Saxon media, but the results, despite all efforts to have objective
data, were far from conclusive, as it turned out that various types or styles
of adversarialness existed in the three cultures.
On the other hand, a much simpler method was used for assessing evasion
that of observing only the replies to yes/no questions. Evasion turned out to
be more or less at the same level in the three groups of interviews, despite the
different adversarialness levels.
Both high and low levels of adversarialness result in more evasive action. On
the one hand, in interviews with hostile questioning, politicians find
themselves in conflictual situations where avoiding certain issues or avoiding
giving direct answers might be beneficial to their case; on the other hand,
when given the chance and when not facing a backlash from the interviewer
in the case of more lenient questioning, politicians will go off topic and take

21

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M. Vukovi

the opportunity to deliver pre-packed politics and thus score political points.
Therefore, politicians evade because they have to (in case of high level of
adversarialness in questioning) and because they can (in case of low level of
adversarialness in questioning). The cause and effect relationship between
adversarialness and evasion was confirmed on several subgroups of
interviews. The levels of evasion varied with the same politician, in the same
way the level of adversarialness varied with the same interviewer. This leads
us to believe that the levels of the two were a result of an interplay mentioned
abovethe more the journalist was aggressive, the more the politician
evaded. But it did not go for the other way roundactually, the less journalist
was aggressive, the more the politician evaded. The conclusion is that most
politicians will evade when given the chance (with slack interviewers), and
they will do the same when forced by hostile questioning (with tough
interviewers). It seems that, for a constructive and informative interview, the
interviewer is the one who needs to strike up the right balance, as little
appears to be depending on the politician himself/herself.
The Author
Milica Vukovi (Email: vmilica@ac.me) has been a researcher at the Institute
of Foreign Languages, University of Montenegro, since 2006. As a member of
the Institutes staff, she also teaches English Grammar for interpreters and
English for Science. Dr Vukovi acquired her MPhil and PhD degrees in
linguistics at the Faculty of Philosophy in Niki, Montenegro. The scope of
her interests covers discourse analysis, in general, and political discourse
analysis, in particular.
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