A QUESTION OF THREAT - FACE THREATS IN QUESTIONS POSED DURING TELEVISED POLITICAL INTERVIEWS

Bull et al. have developed a typology for the analysis of face threats in questions posed during political interviews. 19 different categori es of face threat were identified, grouped into three superordinate ca tegories of face which politicians need to defend: their own personal face, the face of the party and face in relation to significant others . This typology was employed in analysing 18 interviews with the three main party leaders in the 1992 British General Election. The main aim s of the present study are: (a) to demonstrate how Bull et al.'s face typology can be effectively applied to the comparative analysis of que stions in political interviews; (b) to identify the most commonly occu rring categories of face threat generated in the questions from the '9 2 election data; (c) to explore differences in style adopted by the si x political interviewers, in terms of the face threatening content of their questions; and (d) provide some insight into the types of questi on which tended to prove most problematic for the politicians. It was found that the individual interviewers adopted characteristic patterns of questioning associated with particular forms of face threat and th ese were discussed in terms of how problematic they proved to be-both generally and in relation to individual party leaders.