A Study Of Questioning In Chinese And American TV Interviews

As a kind of language phenomenon,"questioning"has attracted much attention of linguists. Other scholars on philosophy, psychology, sociology and anthropology have also discussed"questioning"and drawn their conclusions from their respective perspectives.The present study is qualitative on the whole with its focus on the hosts'"questioning"behavior in Chinese and American TV interview programs. Based on the data collected from recordings and transcripts of TV interviews, and with Jef Verschueren's (1999) Linguistic Adaptation Theory as the framework of the present study, the author aims to test whether the linguistic phenomenon of"questioning"in both Chinese and American interview programs can be well explained by the Linguistic Adaptation Theory.By carefully scrutinizing the real data and considering the influence of language, society, culture, psychology and cognition, the present study makes some dynamic and comprehensive analyses of"questioning"of interview programs. It shows that though there are differences between Chinese and American hosts'"questioning"because of the cultural context, the outcomes of hosts'linguistic choices adapt to language user's physical world, social world and psychological world. The present investigation finds out that the Adaptation Theory can well explain the linguistic phenomenon of"questioning"in institutional talk and the successful use of"questioning"strategy by the hosts is a key factor for the success of an interview program.Meanwhile, the research findings indicate that the nature of"questioning"in both Chinese and American interview programs is to inspire and guide the guests into illustration, discussion, explanation and disputation of utterance. This research, at the same time, finds that in Chinese and American TV interview programs, the hosts use"questioning"as strategies of mitigation, creating harmonious communication atmosphere and remedying knowledge during the process of interview.