The use of vocatives in political interviews: discursive gender and (im)politeness

Abstract

This paper deals with (im)politeness in political interviews. Specifically, the interview by Ana Pastor to Rafael Correa, President of Ecuador, is analyzed in order to show to what extent genre has an influence on the use and interpretation of some units, particularly vocatives, and can turn some forms, even polite ones, into impolite ones. The interaction between genre and polite forms contributes to make uncooperative a typically cooperative genre. After analyzing political interview as a gender and the main variables of the interview to Correa (participants and superstructure), the use of vocatives (referred to interviewee and interviewer) is described and related to various transgressions of genre norms, namely, question-answer structure, turn-taking, journalistic neutrality and asymmetry between interlocutors. I conclude that the analysis of the thematic and structural organization of the interview, the influence of genre conventions and some forms (imp)politeness represented by vocatives in this interview, allow observing marked uses and transgressions of genre norms that refer to the construction / destruction of the addressee’s image and the strengthening of the speaker’s implicit argumentation and image to the overhearing audience.