A turn-taking system for British news interviews

Abstract

The British news interview turn-taking system operates through a simple form of turn-type preallocation. This article shows that a large number of the systematic differences between the news interview and mundane conversation are a product of these constraints on the production of types of turns. It then explores the relationship of turn-type preallocation in news interviews to the background legal and institutional restrictions on British broadcast journalists. In so doing, it notes how the organisation of turn-taking in two other types of broadcast interview can differ from that in the news interview due to differences between the institutionalized footings that the interviewers are conventionally required to maintain within them. (Conversation analysis, mass communication, British speech, turn-taking systems, institutional talk)