The threat of the other : The discursive management of ‘toxic guests’ in political debates
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| Year of publication | 2016 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | This paper offers a case study of host-guest and guest-guest interactions in brief news interviews and prime-time political debates. Based on material concerning the recent immigration crisis into the EU, it focuses on the linguistic performance of a German-speaking Slovak MEP in German and Austrian TV broadcasts. This is a guest who – on many counts – constitutes an outsider in these political debates and whose consistent (non-extremist) opinions do not conform to the official mainstream views. Arguably, the politician’s unusual position motivates his conversational partners (the hosts as well as the other guests) to discursively handle him in ways whereby they ostensibly signal that they either disassociate from him or, at least, do not condone his statements in any way. |
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