| The organization of questions and answers has been central to the analysis of broadcast news interviews (BNIs), and previous research has focused on describing interviewers’ questioning practices (e.g., Clayman 2010) and various verbal strategies interviewees employ in responding to those questions (e.g., Ekström 2009). However, this paper utilizes a more dialogic approach to the organization of action (Linell, 2009) by shifting analytic focus to social actions occurring within units of talk. It does so in relation to a previously unexamined interactional issue in conversation analysis, namely how interviewees produce embodied forms of interactional resistance. Drawing on data from BNIs involving Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton during the 2007-2008 U.S. Democratic primary campaign, I show how Clinton uses diverse semiotic resources (e.g., laughter, facial expressions, eye and head movements) that allow her to perform systematic embodied operations on the interviewer’s emergent talk (cf. Goodwin & Goodwin, 1987). Such resources are particularly significant in this environment because they are available not only to the ‘on-stage’ participants but also the overhearing – and, crucially, viewing – audience. Indeed, this ‘performance’ dimension, and the analysis of resistance from a multimodal perspective, makes it possible to consider significant actions within turns in these interactions. As such, I argue that Clinton’s embodied displays themselves constitute forms of resistance by working to challenge, undercut, or reformulate the interviewer’s action-in-progress. Ultimately, this analysis contributes to a developing body of work (e.g., Goodwin, 1979; Iwasaki, 2009) that demonstrates how the interior of turns are interactively organized and constituted. In addition, it addresses a significant gap identified by Streeck (2008), by providing an empirical account of the embodied communication of politicians. |
