Rosenblum Question Accusation

7/24/2019 Rosenblum Question Accusation

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hen

is aquestion anaccusation

K A R E N

E R O S E N B L U M

With in

the stud y of n atura lly occurring talk, the sequencing of utterances,

and

in

particular

the

structure

of adjacency

pairs',

has

drawn continuin g

at tent ion (e.g., in Sacks 1974; Sacks etal. 1974; Schegloff 1968, 1979;

Schegloff an d Sacks 1973; A tki n son an d D rew 1979). Ad jacency pairs are

two-part sequenced utterances in the first part of wh ich a speaker specifies

both

the

next speaker

and the

type

of

response appropriate,

for

example

in summons/response, greeting/greeting, o r request/acceptance-denial ad-

jacency pairs. W hile there m ay be options available in the construction of

th e

second part of an adjacency

pair

for ex ample, a request may be m et

with an

acceptance, denial,

or a

coun ter-request

a

failure

to

produce

at

least one of the expected second parts is noticeable and would merit

explanation or

action.

For

example,

in a

summons/response sequence

a

failure to answer a sum mon s might lead to a repetition of the summons,

or a

request

for an

explanation

of the

failure

to

answer (Schegloff 1968).

Because of the

constraints which surroun d

the

production

of the

second

part of an adjacency

pair,

much attention has been directed toward its

accomplishment.

However, producing a response which

falls

within the

range of

expectations

fo r

that sequence

is not

actually

the

respondent s

init ial problem. Rather,

the first difficulty

rests

in

recognizing some

utteranceas the initiatin g firstpart of a sequence: an utterance must first

be identified

as a greeting, question, or sum m on s before one can begin the

construction of a

response. This

is a

problem

of

recognition

faced by any

respondent, and i t tu rns our a ttention to the first

part

of the adjacency

pair.W hat are its markers? How is it recognized? Certainly each type of

adjacency

pair poses its own problems concerning

the

recognition of its

first

part.

In the discussion wh ich follows, atten tion focuses on identifying

th e

markers

of an

accusation,

the first part of the

adjacency pair

accusation/denial-acceptance.

em iotic 65-1/2

(1987),

143-156. 0037-1998/87/0065-0143

2.00

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144

Karen

E

Rosenblum

ckground

Discussion about

the

worth

of

persons

or

actions

is a

commonplace

of

social

life.

Often

such talk proceeds without

any

explicit identification

of

the norms

o r

values which

are

presumed

to

h ave been violated. Nonethe-

less, some of these interactions a re recognizable as encom passing accusa-

tions

of serious wrongd oing. O n w hat basis do w e conclude that we face

an

accusation? When does an utterance become a charge?

These are questions characteristic of discourse, or conversational,

analysis, i .e., that analysis wh ich focuses on wh at speakers m ust kno w in

order to identify such acts as, for example, declaratives, questions,

requests, or suggestions (Gum perz 1982: 156). Tapp ing in to these

accomplishments requires a search for the structure of discourse, a

structure which

is

analogous

to, but

distinct from, that

of

phonology

or

grammar. In discourse analysis th e attempt is to uncover the culturally

specific

conversational structures which cut across settings and statuses,

and to determine th e interactive functions which are accomplished by

those structures (Sinclair and Coulthard 1975; Coulthard and Montgom-

ery

1981; Burton 1980). The goal is to produce ideotypical descriptions

that can be dissected into

significant

components and used to produce

typologies

(Gumperz 1982: 157).

Drawing on the assumptions and methods of discourse analysis, the

discussion which follows explores the premise that accusations are

recognizable by their structure as

well

as by their content, i.e., that

accusations may be conveyed without an explicit articulation of norm

violation. Indeed, in the utterances which

will

be examined here, there are

only a few

marginal instances

of an

actual naming

of

some norm

violation.

It

seems reasonable that

at

least

in the

public domain people

rarely level their criticism straightforwardly the possibility of m asking

an

accusation operating both as a resource and a trouble for interactants.

Still,

accusations

are embedded and discovered within utterances. Thus,

in

the

world, people routinely

and more-or-less successfully

make

infer-

ences abou t the presence of a charge o f wrongdoing. A re they relying only

on their members know ledge of the culture s norm s and values, or do

they

supplement that with an appraisal albeit unselfconscious of the

structure

of an

utterance?

Because accusations are the first part of an adjacency pair, students of

discourse have usually deduced their presence from

the

appearance

of an

appropriate second part. For example, speaker A uses a statement,

question, o r command that is heard as requiring either an apology, or an

excuse/explanation, or justification .... Wherever the responses to this

type of act can be coded as an apology or excuse, I label the first-pair part

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W he n is a questionan accusation 145

accuse

(Burton 1981: 67). By contrast, this investigation focuses on the first

part of the pair. Although responses m ay provide confirmation of the

presence of an accusation, the aim here is to ascertain what any respondent

must

ascertain: whether

one is the

subject

of

strong criticism. Thus,

the

method

here applies

the

ethnomethodological insight which infuses dis-

course

analysis,i.e.,

that a researcher s goal is to m ake explicit the shared

common-sense resources by which utterances are heard to h ave coherence

in

this case the resources by which utterances are heard to be accusations

(Garfinkel

1967, 1972;

Mehan

and

Wood

1975;

Sacks

1972;

Turner

1971,

1974).The

[researcher]...

m ust pose as problematic how utterances come off

as recog nizable un it activities. This requires

[the

researcher] to m ake explicit

theresources [he/she] shares w ith participants in m aking sense of utterances

in a stretch of

talk

(Turner

1971:

177). However, this is not to claim that

utterances

may be

definitively

classed as accusatory or

non-accusatory.

By its

nature, talk is

indexical (G arfinkel

1967;

Kjolseth 1972);

i.e., an

utterance

m ay

point to a v irtually infinite variety of meanings, an d thus understanding

is

always tied

to (or

delimited

by) the

context

in

which

an

utterance

appears.

Th us, we can never argue th at some utterance is an accusation, or that all

accusations

must take a particular form , but o nly that some types of talk are

likely

to be construed as accusations across a variety of settings.

trategiesfor

accusation

in a

public orum

To examine the structure of an accusation, I have turned to Richard

N ixo n s last three presidential press conferences. This is a setting

likely

to

yield

accusations not only because of its historical particularities, but

because

press conferences

per se

provide excellent opportunities

fo r

uncovering

accusations. To press conferences, reporters bring their need

for events on which to report. Such needs sometimes encourage them to

challenge accounts or to pursue contradictions between and/or within

accounts (Molotch

an d

Lester 1974). These impulses

are

bolstered

by

press

conference

norms which both ensure nominal responsiveness from

th e

convener of the

press conference

and

prohibit

an

imm ediate punitive

mobilization of

social

control.

1

Thus,

in

press conferences

th e

real

disparities

of power between interactants are temporarily circumscribed,

and conditions more conducive to the leveling of accusations emerge.

Finally, this is a setting amenable to analysis. Unlike other situations in

which

accusations m ay emerge, for this event there is a relatively full an d

public record, a finite time-span established by the event itself, and a

setting

which

greatly restricts the number and status of participants as

well

as the nature of their interaction.


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146

aren E Rosenblum

Still,

th e

sequencing

of

utterances

in the

press conference

differs

considerably

from wh at would be found in na turally occurring conversa-

tion.

Reporters are, after all, expected to produce questions. Conversa-

tional

moves

d o no t build on one another as they m ight in other settings;

e.g., it is the respondent who designates the next speaker; reporters are

limited to one turn per press conference; they are precluded from

responding to an answer and may ask follow-up questions only at the

discretion of the respondent; and reporters are expected to direct their

remarks to the

respondent

and not

other reporters,

the

audience,

or the

cameras. None of these norms are taken lightly by participants on either

side of the

pod ium .

2

While

the no rm s which govern talk in this setting encourage caution in

generalizing from press conferences to routine interaction, the norms

themselves

prim arily function

to

reduce reporters volu bility, prevent

th e

em ergence of d ialogues, and enfo rce the casting of utterances as questions.

Only th e

last

of

these

is likely to

seriously bear

on the

construction

of

accusations. Th at is, accusations are certainly m ore easily form ulated (and

recognized)

as

declaratives tha n

as

interrogatives. H ow ever, there

are few

settings

in

which

one may

baldly charge misconduct; more

often

such

sentiments m ust be em bedd ed within utterances w ith other ostensible aim s.

Thus, press conferences offer only a slightly more formalized level of

constraint than operates

in

most public interactions. That reporters

sometimes use questions to level accusations is an achievement they share

with

a wide variety of others at a minimum, parents, teachers, police,

and politicians. T hus, w hile press conferences are structured quite

differ-

ently

from other interactions, they share with innumerable settings

th e

occasional production of an accusatory question.

The

ixon press

conferences

Perhaps the most noticeable feature of the press conference is its

organization as a question-answer session. Questions and answers have

held

a special interest for students of discourse. They exemplify the

interdependence

of

utterances (e.g.,

see

Schegloff

and

Sacks 1973; Sche-

gloff

1979; Ervin-Tripp 1970); they characterize the discourse in certain

settings, e.g.,

in

court,

th e

classroom,

or the

press conference;

and

they

display

certain functions, e.g., to show relative status (e.g., Philips 1982),

or to control th e topic of conversation (e.g., Heath 1978). Here questions

were examined for the structure which would allow them to function as

accusations.

The data analyzed h ere are transcripts of presidential press conferences


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When is aquestionanaccusation? 147

(Johnson

1978) held October

26,

1973; February

24,

1974;

and

March

6,

1974.

These transcripts were analyzed

so as to

include

all

those questions

whichin any way

addressed

or

alluded

to law or

norm violation

by

Nixon

or his

representatives.

3

The aim here was to determine which of those

questionsgenerally addressed to law/norm violation were recognizable as

accusations. Thisprocedureaimed

to

maximize

the

probability

of

unco-

vering accusations, but rejected the assumption that questions which

addressed

law/norm violation were axiomatically accusatory.

Reportersin these press conferences posed two broad types of ques-

tions:

those which asked

for anaccountof

events,

and

those which asked

foran opinionor

evaluation

of

events. Queries soliciting

an

account either

asked

about what might happen in hypothetical

future

events

(41 ;

N = 17),

called here future-action questions,

or

they asked about

a

past

event (17 ; N= 7), called here past-acts questions.

4

Solicitations of

opinion

(41 ;N =

17), called opinion questions, were distinguished

by

their

request for an appraisal as opposed to a detailing of events.

Followingare examples of these three question types:

after the

tapes

a re presented to Judge Sirica a nd

they

a re processed under the

procedure outlined

by the

U.S.

Court

of

Appeals,

will

you

m ak e

those tapes

public?

(Future

action)

who

a uthorized

M r. Rebozo to

collect campaign

contributions for your reelection

or for the Republican Party? (Past acts)

Now, M r.

President,

do you think you

paid

your

fair share

of taxes?

(Opinion)

Whilethere are various typologies which might have been imposed on

these questions, this is the classification system which emerged most

directly

from

the material. Recalling the setting of these questions, it is

not

so

surprising that requests

for

accounts

and

opinions should emerge

with such salience. Not only are questioners in press conferences moti-

vated

to gather reportable accounts, but the press conference itself is

burea ucrat ica l ly

structured' (Fishman 1980); i.e.,

it

both comes into

being

as a

function

of

bureaucratic action

and

exists

so as to

attend

to the

activity

of bureaucrats. Thus, the convener and his/her accounts and

opinions

is the central focusof attention.

Future action

questions When conferring poweraccomplishes

an

accusation

Questions

about

another's

future-action carrytheinteresting implication

that

the

other

is

actually able

to

shape that future.'Will

you

give them

the


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6/14

148 KarenE

Rosenblum

documents?

implies that

the

documents

are

yours

to

give and/or that

your

compliance is essential to the transaction. Even in the presence of

obvious duress

Will you

give

me the

money

now

that I ve

got you

cornered?

a fu ture-action question indicates that the one who answers

has some choice, i.e., power. Because the

future

is open and susceptible to

manipulation,

the one

toward w hom

a

future -action question

is

addressed

is imbued with some capability

of

shaping that

future.

Thus, future-ac tion questions a ttribute at least a minimal level of

control or power to the one toward whom they are directed. However,

because

the

attribution

of

power

is

inherent

to the

construction

of the

question rather than responsive to theactual statusof

interactants

their

social consequence w ould

appear

to be

limited.

If

future-ac tion questions

indiscriminately attribute power, they are not especially

socially

meaning-

u l However, almost half

of the

future-action questions

in

these press

conferences

were embellished by description, i.e., by the recounting or

characterization

of

events, persons,

or

utterances.

For

example,

in the

following future-action questions notice both the recounting of Nixon s

past statements and the characterization of the benefits which might be

derived

from a hypothetical course of action.

You

have

referred to

y ou r

o wn

personal

desire to

have com plete

d isclosure and you

have also

men t ioned here

this evening

that

anybody who heard the

tape

o f

that

March 21st m eet ing or i f f e r e n t people hearing that tape or reading the transcript

might

get i f f e r e n t impressions.Have you ever

considered

the

option

of making

that

tape

and

transcript

public so that the Am erican peoplecan read i t and hear it

and ma k e their own judgem ent on whathappened a t that m eet ing?

You

have spoken to night

o f

y ou r willingness

to

take quest ions under oa th

in the

White

House f rom th e sen ior Dem ocra t ic and

Republican

m e m b e r s of the H ou s e

Judiciary

Commit tee .W ould

you

consider

as an aid to

rebuilding

public

confidence

in y ou r leadership

and in

speeding

up the

procedure

in

(sic) taking

questions in a

public forum from

the

entire

House

Judiciary

Committee?

5

The

descriptive segments emphasized above

are

clearly gratuitous

to

the construction of the particular questions. Further, as these questions

illustrate, a descriptive passage in a future-action question is likely to

crystallize

as a

recommendation

for a

course

of

action.

In

these examples,

the recommendation comes complete with the waving of unquestionable

goals (e.g., healing the divisions in the country, rebuilding public confi-

dence), and buttressed by the reiteration of Nixon s own past statement.

Yet even without such explicit markers, the injection of a descriptive

segment into a future-action question functions to at least tacitly endorse

some line

of action.

Even

the

minimal descriptive segment

as in the

following questions has prescriptive implications:


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When is aquestionan accusation? 149

to heal th e divisions in

this

country

would

you be

willing

to

waive executive

privilege

to

give

th e

Judiciary Committee what

it

says

it

needs

to end any

quest ions ofyour involvementinWatergate?

some legal scholars including

Senator Ervin

have

said

that

th e

truth

m l

never

be

fully

established

unless all witnesses

subject themselves

or

submit

to

cross-exam-

ination. Are there circumstances under which you would submit to cross-

examina t ion

if it

would serve

to

clear

up

this Watergate

affair?

Whet her or not the

descriptive passage

in

these questions clearly emerges

as a recommendation, it does set these questions off from unadorned

future-action questions. In effect, the insertion of a descriptive passage

creates a

marked category

of

future-action questions.

Descript ion,whethero fevents, persons, orutterances, is apurposeful,

motivatedselection

from a

virtually

infinite

range

of

possibilities.

A s

such,

it isunlikelyeither to beproduced orheard as merely descriptive Drew

1978). Describing is not merely an appendage to other interactional

w o r k ; rather it is often through constructing descriptions that certain

interactional

tasksmay beaccomplished AtkinsonandDrew 1979:107).

The

descriptive components of these future-action questions do not

themselves

charge wrongdoing. However,

the

addition

of a

descriptive

componen t to afuture-action question does allowfor acomparison of 1)

ability conveyedby theattribution ofpower inherentto thequestion), 2)

desirability of

some course

of

action

as

endorsed

by

description

of

actions/utterances),

and 3) actuality i.e., the implied failure to have

pursued thedesiredcourse).Through thecombination ofpower attribu-

tion and the

descriptionwhichaccomplishes

a

recommendation, wrong-

doing

m ay be

implied without

the

question itself naming

a

specific norm

violat ion.

In

such questions the accusation is precisely what McHugh 1970)

characterized

as the

common-sense

definition of

deviance: having failed

to actcorrectly whentheconditionswhichwould excuse such failurewere

absent. The questions in these press conferences say in effect, here is

something

which you

could

do

power attribution inherent

to future-

action

question) which would

fulfill

your

ow n

stated goals and/or yield

unquest ionable national benefits recommendation v ia description), yet

you

are not

doing

it. The

descriptive component

is

vital

to the

accusation

because

itaccomplishes th erecommendation; th eattribution ofpower is

similarly

essential because it isthatwhich renders inexplicablethe

failure

to

take

the

recommended action.

W h a tso farmightb esaid about themarkersof anaccusatory question?

At aminimum, impugning the merits of another s action requires both

conferring

power

and proffering

description

of

persons, actions,

or


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8/14

150 Karen E. Rosenblum

utterances. Q uestions which combine pow er attribution with description,

i.e., future-action questions constructed

with

gratuitous description

materializing as a

recomm endation,

are

reasonably heard

as

accusations

of

failure

or

defect.

Opinion and

past acts

questions The

conferral

and impugning of

expertise

Because a question is the outcome of an analysis about who can be

expected to know what, it has the effect of conferring authority, i.e.,

expertise,

on the one

toward whom

it is

directed. From

a

mundane

request for the formulation of location or identification Where are

you ?, Who are you ? to the questions teachers put to students and

lawyers

put to witnesses, questions are ostensibly addressed to those w ho

may

be expected to know. It is this property which makes a

failure

to

know notable, occasionally even

the

source

of

trouble.

In general, questions solicit the expertise which adheres to ascribed and

achieved status. Opinion and

past-act

questions make the nature of this

solicitation especially salient. When these opinion questions asked about

Nixon s own thoughts or feelings, as in the following question, they

addressed the ascribed domain on which he alone was an authoritative

informant.

I wond er if you could share

with

us you r thoughts, tell us what goes through your

mind, when you hear people,

people

who love this country and

people

who believe

in

you, say reluctantly tha t perhaps you should resign or be impeached. (Opinion)

When

past-act

questions asked

for a

definitive recounting

of

events,

or

when opinion questions asked

him to

apply

his

acquired expertise, they

addressed an actual or putative achieved status.

did

you not consider the option of blowing the whistle, of turning that

information

over to the authorities immediately ...? (Past acts)

Now, as we all know, you are an experienced student of the Constitution, and I

think people w ould

be

interested

to

know what

you

consider

to be an

impeachable

offense for a

President. (Opinion)

Do

questions which attribute expertise also have

the

potential

to

make

accusations? The presence of a descriptive element again contributes to

this accomplishment. Ninety-four percent

of the

opinion

and

seventy-one

percent of the past-act questions were prefaced by recountings and


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When is a questionan accusation 151

characterizations of past events and utterances: 'You know in Congress

there

is a

great deal

of

suspicion over

any

arrangement which will permit

th e executive branch to investigate

itself;

'before you were elected, you

wrote that

to o

many shocks

can

drain

a

nation

of its energy';

there

have

been reports that you felt that Mr. Cox was somehow out to get

you'.

However, recountings

and

characterizations whenadded

to the

conferral

of

expertise

do not so

inevitably yield

the

imputation

of

defect. Such

formulations say

only

Here is a

reconstruction

of

certain events

or

utterances, what is your own authoritative opinion on, or recounting of,

them ?' Is the con ferral of expertise joined to recou ntings and characteriza-

tions

of

action/utterances adequate

to

mark

a

question

as an

accusation?

Theanswertothat appears todepend onwhetherthe recountings/char-

acterizations function

to

void

th e

attribution

of

expertise. There

are a

variety

of means by which that negation can be accomplished; one

possibility

is to

highlight

th e

subjectivity

of

opinions, i.e.,

to

stress

that

opinions are

tied

to

status.

For

example,

in 1968, before you were elected, you wrote that to o many shocks can drain a

nation of its energy and even cause a rebellion against creative change and

progress.

Do you

think America

is at

that point now? (Opinion)

Similarly,

event reconstructions

can be

shown

as

variable,

as in the

following

questions:

M r.

Haldeman, your former top aide in the White House, has been charged with

perjury

because

he

testified

thatyou

said

it

would

be

wrong

to p ay

hush money

to

silenceth e

Watergate defendants,

and

last August

you

said that

w as

accurate.

Can

you,

and

will

you, provideproofthat you die}indeed say itwould bewrong? (Past

acts)

M r.P resident, yo ur personal law yer,

M r.

H erb K almbach, entered

a

plea

of

guilty

today to a

crim inal charge

of

accepting 100,000

in

exchange fo r

an

ambassado-

rial

post, iny ou r capacity

as

President,

you

approve

of

am bassadors

and

send

th e

nominations

to the

Senate. Were

y ou

consulted

in any

manner

on

th is engagem ent

and

this

contribution by M r. Kalmbach or anyone else in the White House .. .?

(Past acts)

Is it

credible,

can theA m erican people believe that yo ur closefriend, M r. Rebozo,

for

3

years during which time

you saw him

w eekly sometimes, kept

from

you the

fact tha the had 100,000incash

from

M r. Howard Hughes?Isthat credible?Is it

credible that your personal attorney, Mr. Kalmbach, knew about this money for

at least a yearand never told you about it?(Op inion question)

O new ould thinkit adifferent matterto acknowledgeth esu bjectivityof

opinions than

to

point

out the

disparity between reconstructions

of

past

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10/14

152 Karen

E

Rosenblum

events. Afte r all, opinions

are

only opinions;

of

course they

are

tied

to

social location. However, in these last three questions only the opinion

question moves beyond a simple request for an account. In each of these

three questions, background description tied Nixon to highly question-

able activities.

The first two

past-act questions asked only

for an

event-

recounting. In the opinion question, however, events as Nixon had

depicted them were characterized as systematically illogical, i.e., incredi-

ble . In the

presence

of

such

a

reconstruction,

the

question itself

is

marked

as

a ploy.

6

Opinion questions

may by

their background recountings show events

as variably reconstructed, then ask for an informed opinion about th e

source or n atur e of such var iability. That is a qu alitatively

different

m atter than w hat is accomplished by past-act questions, w hich simply ask

for

an

alternative recounting.

In an

opinion question,

a

foreground

solicitation

of an

opinion

m ay

simply presume

the

legitimacy

of a

damning reconstruction offered by a background description. In the

example

above, the question was not whether Rebozo had told Nixon

about the campaign contribution, but if such a reconstruction were

credible .

Thus,

opinion questions display a potential for leveling charges

which

past-act

questions do not. Both question-types m ay

offer

discredit-

in g event-reconstructions, but past-act questions must ask whether the

recon struction is accurate, w hile opinio n questions allow the description

to stand w hile they ask for opinions about any number of other things.

For

example,

in the

following opinion questions

the

eminently noticeable

background renders

the

foreground question merely ostensive.

could

you

explain

th e

rationale

of a law-and-order

Administration covering

up

evidence, pr ima

facia

evidence, of high crimes an d misdemeanors?

Apr i l

21,

1969,

was a

significant

day for you in

taxes

and for the

country, too.

That

is the notary date on the deed that allowed you to give your papers to the

Government

and pay

just token taxes

for two

years.

O n

that same date,

y ou had a

tax

reform message

in which you

said,

and I

quote: Special preferences

in th e law

permit

far too

many Amer icans

to pay

less than

their fair

share

of taxes. Too

many others bear too much

of the tax

burden. Now,

M r.

President,

do you

think

you paid your

fair

share

of

taxes?

The accusation in these opinion questions can be described as another

com m on-sense

charge: failing to stand as an expert by virtue of

discrediting circumstances. In

effect,

this

is an

operational definition

of

untrustworthiness. y definition, questions w hich ask for

one s

opinion

address

an

arena which ought

to be a

respondent s unchallengeable

expertise more so even tha n questions about

one s

o wn past action. But


Angemeldet | 193.196.8.103



11/14

When

is a

question

an

accusation

153

with appropriate background recountings, these questions

can

discredit

the same expertise they confirm, and thus accomplish an

accusation.

7

ummary nd

conclusions

B yw h at markers does one determine th at a question lodges an accusation?

Are there questions which stand as accusations even though they do not

name

a law or

norm violation?

Is the

sense that

one

faces

an

accusation

merely

a matter of subjective appraisal? These are not questions of

idiosyncratic

interest. A ccusations

are

certainly

as

constitutive

(Garfinkel

1967;Cicourel 1973)

as any

other utterances

they

structure the

perception

ofevents and

persons, they convey embedded instructions

for

understanding

(Weider

1973),

and

they

create new

practical circumstances (Mehan

and

Wood 1975: 140). While

in an arena

like

the one

examined here

the

consequences which follow from

an

accusation

are

dramatic

and fairly

accessible to observation, the consequentiality of accusatory questions in th e

everyday

world is no less substantive.

Accusations cannot

be

reduced

to any

simple present/not present

dichotomy even h urlin g an explicit charge of serious norm violation does

not

inevitably stand as an accusation. The premise here has been that

accomplishing

an utterance which serves as an accusation even without

naming

a supposed violation, requires an identifiable structuring of

discourse. When are we likely to produce denials or acceptances, i.e., the

second-part

of the

accusation adjacency pair? This investigation indicates

that questions which

ask

about futures

and

make recommendations,

and

questions which simultaneously ask for opinions and discredit those

opinions are reasonably construed as accusatory. Accusations may be

accomplished

by an

attribution

of

pow er joined

to a

recommendation,

or by

an

a t tr ibution

of

expertise coupled w i th description w hich specifically denies

the possibility of expertise. This conclusion suggests that questions move

toward accusation when they embody

a

self-cancelling

opposition

of

elements the imputat ion and denial of expertise, the a t t r ibut ion of power

and the imputat ion o f a failure to use it. It w ould also suggest th at accusatory

questions

are

essentially rhetorical. Insofar

as

they debunk w hat they also

confirm,

accusatory questions are questions not meant to be answered.

otes

1. A

fact

highlighted by former Argentine President

Leopoldo

Galtieri in an interview w ith

journalist Oriana Fallaci:

4

I accept your argument because

you are a journalist,


Angemeldet | 193.196.8.103



12/14

154 KarenE Rosenblum

Madame Journalist. If youwere not ajournalist, Ipromise youthat Iwouldn t have

permitted you to say this' (Fallaci

1982).

2.

Forexample, when Sarah McClendon, correspondent for the McClendon Wire Service,

flatly and persistently contradicted Ronald Reagan in a 1982 presidential press

conference, he r colleagues later responded

with

ridicule and a call fo r censure.

3.

Law/norm violation

was

conceived

in the

broadest possible terms. Questions were

included if they pertained to the break-in at Democratic National Committee Head-

quarters in the Watergate

office

building on June 17 , 1972; the alleged or confirmed

activities to

cover-up that break-in; allegations

of

criminal

activity on the

part

of

Nixon

or his representatives; judicial proceedings or federal investigations regarding such

activities; policy debates raised by such investigations; calls for resignation; or questions

about Nixon s income

tax

returns

and

claimed deductions

for the gift of his

Vice

Presidential papers.

The

transcripts

as

edited included

33 of the

original

54

question-

answer

sets. Eight

of

these

33

questions were double; i.e.,

in one

turn

a

speaker asked

two

discrete questions. Eachofthese double questionswascoded separately, increasing

the numberto41.

4. The

classification

'present

action'

was not

applied

to

this material

on the

conviction that

actionin theimmediate present isessentially inaccessible to analysis, i.e.,

that

in order

to reflecton thepresentwemust renderitpast (Schutz 1967). Thusthequestion

'Is

Mr.

Wilson, the attorney fo r Messrs. Haldeman and Ehrlichman, working with the White

House

or with you in

concert

in any way?

while syntactically present tense

has

been

classed

as past

action.

5. All

questions were classified

in

terms

of

their

substance,

rather than their syntactic form.

Examplesof marginal classification are

often

helpful

in illuminating coding procedures.

For

example,

in

'Have

you

ever considered

the

option

of

making

that tape

and

transcript public?' or

'Would

yo u consider

taking

questions in a public forum? an

argument might

be

made that these

are

solicitations

of an

opinion. However, reporters

havenot actually asked for an opinion on releasing the tapesorpublic inquiries, but

whether Nixon might actually do either of these at some future point. Thus, the

questions are classed as

future-action. When contrasted with,

for

example,

'Is

that

correct, you are really not ruling the clemency out, and if so, why? a true

solicitation

of an

opinion

the

distinction becomes clear.

As a

second instance

of the

problematics of coding:'Canyou and will yo u provide proof that you did indeed say it

would be

wrong?'

is classed as past action because its central request is for an immediate

recountingofpastaction,not apromise of a recountingin thefuture.Inall, however,

there werefew cases in which consignment to a coding category was problematic.

6. Note that the last question was so inflammatory that the reporter immediately

proceeded with a'safer' past-act question:

'And

if this was a campaign contribution...

who

authorizedMr. Rebozo tocollect campaign contributions?

7. A conclusion confirmed by Nixon s repeated denial of the need fo r expertise in response

to opinion questions.

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Atkinson,

J. Maxwell and

Drew, Paul (1979). Order in

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interaction in judicial settings London: MacMillan.

Burton,

Deirdre (1980).

Dialogue and

D iscourse London: Routledge

and Kegan

Paul.

(1981).Analyzing spoken discourse.

In

Studies

in

DiscourseAnalysis Malcolm Coulthard

and

Mar t in

Montgomery (eds.),61-81.London: RoutledgeandKegan Paul.


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Cicourel,

Aaron

V. (1973). Cognitive Sociology.

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Lester, M arilyn (1974). New s

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(1982).

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Angemeldet | 193.196.8.103



14/14

156

aren E Rosenblum

Karen E. Rose nblum is Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthr opo logy at George

Mason Un iversity, Virginia.

Her

primary

areasof

research

are sex and

gender,

the

sociology

of language, and

deviance.

Recent publications include The route to voluntary non-

custody' (1985),

'Care and

autonomy:

The

conflicts

in

contemporary American gender

(1986),

and 'Revelatory or

purposive? Making sense

of a

Female

register'

(1986).

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