THE WRITTEN DISCOURSE OF INTERVIEWING STYLE FOR A MAGAZINE INTERVIEW

This paper examines the written discourse of interviewing style for the purpose of print publication. Specifically, this paper sought to describe and explain the phases of interviewing procedures, the typology of the questions, and the transitional strategies executed by Oprah Winfrey during her interviews for O Magazine. One hundred and ten (110) response-soliciting statements were subjected to discourse analytic procedure to determine the features of such utterances. The results showed that her interview procedure follows a certain pattern that contributes to her ability to maintain the intimacy, familiarity, and dynamics of conversation. Further, results revealed that the interviewer employs a variety of response-soliciting strategies and transitional strategies that unconsciously put the control and authority in the conversation to the interviewees. Finally, some pedagogical implications were also presented for classroom use.

a particular field or discipline and microlinguistic ones such as frequency counts (Master, 2005).A recent development in discourse analysis gave birth to the concept of genre analysis, which deals with the higher level of structure and organization of a given text (Xu, 2005).As a study of situated linguistic behavior, genre analysis is a versatile and dynamic activity that essentially describes and explains conventionalized textual artifacts in a specific discipline or fields (Bhatia, 2002).
A form of text and discourse that can be investigated on are interviews performed in a specific social context.Evidently, interview has been one of the key elements for effective academic, business and professional, political, and other social communication.It is a conversation, whether face-to-face or through other media, between or among interlocutors.Interview can serve many functions, one of which is performance evaluation and screening.Interviews can be used to determine whether a candidate is fit for hiring or promotion.Interviews can also function as informationgathering instrument used in surveys and news gathering.Lastly, interviews can be used for academic purposes, such as placement, admission, and pre-graduation (exit interview).
In a professional context, one sector that deals greatly with interviews is mass media acting as a discourse community.Media is defined as -one of society's key set of institutions, industries, and cultural practices‖ (Masterman, 2001, p. 16) and the people's way to connect to their social world (Couldrey, 2003).In these fields, interviews are integral to the gathering and delivery of accurate information, in which interview questions are formulated under the notion that interviewers are impartial conduit for the overhearing audience (Clayman & Heritage, 2002).Interviews are commonly viewed on the television and heard on radio.Three types of broadcast interview exist: the live interview, the phone interview, and the recorded interview.Live interview is a synchronous face-to-face conversation between the interlocutors.Phone inter-view, on the other hand, is a synchronous nonface-to-face conversation between interlocutors.Unlike phone and live interviews, recorded interviews are not done in realtime.However, they may be face-to-face or not.
As experts suggest, to maintain a good interview, an interviewer requires to be skilled at rapport building and inter-personal communication; he/she must be articulate, persistent, flexible, in character, reflective, witty, and good at listening.He/she must also know how to tailor and sequence questions for a more dynamic conversation.As defined by Heritage (2002Heritage ( , p. 1427)), a question is a -form of social action, designed to seek information and accomplished in a turn at talk by means of interrogative syntax.‖He further explained that questions can be in interrogative or declarative forms.In declarative questions, the asker raises the intonation.
Several studies have been conducted in analyzing the discourse of interviews in various settings, such as academic (Perkins, 1998;Lazaraton & Saville, 1994), occupation (Vrij, Mann, Kristen, & Fisher, 2007), politics (Bull & Mayer, 1993), and broadcast media (Clayman, 2001;Heritage, 2002;Ilie, 1999).Perkins (1998) analyzed the teacher interview questions and practices used by middle school principals.The purpose of her study is to examine the category, content, and type of interview questions.She found out that principals used structured interviews and that no significant differences exists in the type of questions asked and practices that the principals used, despite differences in their demographic characteristics.Further, a study on processes and outcomes in oral assessment revealed that, despite the training given to the interviewers, they still vary considerably in the support that they provide (Lazaraton & Saville, 1994).Vrij, Mann, Kristen, and Fisher (2007) investigated whether the accusatory, information gathering, and behavior analyses reveal verbal cues to deceit.They also examined the effects of these three interview styles on the ability to detect deception.Results revealed that accusatory style contained the least verbal cues to deceit and that no significant difference was found on the effects of the three interview styles on the ability to identify deception.Bull and Mayer's (1993) study analyzed eight televised political interviews to assess the amounts of equivocalization, to develop typologies of non-replies, and to compare the interview styles of Margaret Thatcher and Neil Kinnock.They found that the interviewees did not reply to the majority of the posted questions; instead, they made political points followed by attacking the questions.
Very few studies were conducted to examine the dynamics of interview in a broadcast media context, one of which is Clayman's paper titled -Answers and Evasions.‖This paper tried to investigate the nature of answering and resisting questions in broadcast news interviews.He found that interviewees employ different ways of -damage control.‖Another study conducted by Heritage (2002) examines the limits of questioning of negative interrogatives using news interviews as a source of data.Results revealed that negative interrogatives appear frequently in news interviews as a vehicle of assertions, but not those interrogatives with attached tags.In the context of talk shows, Ilie (1999) examines the three types of nonstandard questions: expository, rhetorical, and echo.Using the transcripts of Oprah Winfrey's talk show, the analysis was carried out through response elicitation and argumentative orientation.Results revealed that the three non-standard questions and their respective responses varied in their degree of elicitation.Further, the findings showed that no discrete categories exist in questions and responses.
As to the present study, to the knowledge of the researcher, no research has been conducted yet on the discourse of interview for the purpose of print publication, more so, research that explores the response-soliciting patterns and styles during interview of an internationally acclaimed and influential media personality (i.e.Oprah Winfrey).It is in this context that this study was undertaken.Unlike Ilie's (1999) study which focused on four question categories on broadcast mode (i.e.information-eliciting, answer-eliciting, action-eliciting, and mental-response eliciting), the present study focuses on analyzing the written discourse (i.e.printed mode) of the interviewing style of Oprah Winfrey, specifically, the phases of Oprah's interviewing procedures, the typology of the questions she used in her interviews, and the transitional strategies she executed.

METHOD
The present study employed a discourse analytic method, which has the purpose of describing, analyzing, and interpreting data (Talja, 1999).Specifically, interview questions were analyzed at a macrosociologic level.These questions were based on the written discourse of Oprah Winfrey's interviewing style in -Oprah Talks To‖ page.As one of the most powerful and influential women in the world according to Forbes, Oprah Winfrey was selected as a viable subject for the study because of her significant influence on modern culture through her charismatic, intimate, and familiar style of communication (Illouz, 2003).
The selected texts, which were the transcripts of Oprah's interview with Sarah Jessica Parker and Stevie Wonder that constitute 49 and 69 response-soliciting statements respectively, were taken from O, The Oprah Magazine March 2004 and May 2004 issues, respectively.The said issues were selected because of the abundance of response-soliciting statements.Specifically, the focus of this paper's analysis is on the questioning style of Oprah Winfrey during the interviews, particularly the interview phases, linguistic forms of questions, and transitional strategies.

Phases on Oprah Winfrey's interviewing
There are three phases generated in the analysis of the interview conducted by Oprah Winfrey on her -Oprah Talks To‖ segment.These are the warm-up stage, the probing phase, and the cool-down phase.From the preparation and the opening phase, starts the period of discussion of the main topics, which begins with the interviewees' family and personal issues, then to their professional life, then back again to their family and personal issues.We've had all sorts of time to talk about the war, but when will there be a time to love?It's now.Oprah: What's your vision for this album?Stevie: I hope people will say, "We've got to make a difference.We've got to have more respect for one another.We've got to find a better way of expressing ourselves without belittling each other.We've got to remember that the way we came to this planet was through love.‖I'm hoping people will understand that we cannot be a United States until we are a united people.

Typology of the questions employed
In the context of the present study, typology form refers to the structure used by the interviewer to signal a question and solicit response from the interviewees.Such forms include declarative, imperative, interrogative, ellipsis, and response forms.The following table shows the distribution of ways on soliciting response from the interviewees.

Form of Response Solicitation
Interview Overall, QF obtained the highest frequency percentage of 37.27.Close to second is DF with 36.36.Despite some differences in the results of Interview 1 and Interview 2, the results obtained a correlation value of 0.81, which can be interpreted as strongly correlated.Below are some of the exemplars of the responsesoliciting statements.

Transitional Strategies Employed during Interview
With close examination on the written text's transition from one question to another, there were three ways on how to make transition.The following table shows the frequency of questions based on last previous response (RQ), questions that are not directly related to the last previous response but with transition markers (NRQT), and questions that are not directly related to the last previous response and without transitional markers (NRQ).Among the three techniques used in both interviews, RQ is the most dominating strategy for question transition, which covers 91 or 82.73 percent.Moreover, 12 or 10.91 percent of all the questions use NRQT.NRQ got a frequency of 7 or 6.36 percent.With a correlation value of 0.999, it can be surmised that the two interviews are highly consistent with the transitional strategies employed during the interviews.

Transition
According to Robbins and Hunsaker's (1996) model, an interview follows four stages: the preparation, the opening, the period of questioning and discussion, and the conclusion.In connection with this, Oprah's interview seems to have similarities with the stated model.Oprah performed the warm-up phase (i.e.preparation stage) by relating the issue to her.During this phase, the interview started by asking the interviewees on the latest project that they have just completed.Oprah then relates the responses of the interviewees to her own personal experience.During the probing phase, a pattern of development was also observed.Both Interviews 1 and 2 followed the personalprofessional-personal pattern.Such pattern seemed to be a strategy to smoothen the transition from warm-up phase to probing phase and probing phase to cool down phase.As Ilie (1999) pointed out, question framing is fundamental to probing personal and professional life of the guest while maintaining the personality of the inter-viewer.This phenomenon was ascertained during the conversation in the two interviews.The majority of the responsesoliciting statements deal with personal and professional issues because such type of interview has two major functions, which is to inform and to entertain.Further, several feedback moves were present during the probing phase particularly in a form of a follow-up (involves the explicit confirmation of the interviewer) and evaluation (whether or not the interlocutors subscribe with the other person's statement) on the response of the interviewees; however, these feedback moves are more prominent in Oprah's interview with Sarah and not with her interview with Stevie.Lastly, the cool-down phase primarily focuses on personal questions coupled with questions regarding their career plans and visions.
Generally, the interviewer begins and ends the interview process (Bull & Mayer, 1993).However, what makes Oprah's interview different is that both her interviews ended with statements from the interviewees.This can be a strategy to emphasize the authority and control that reside on the interviewees.
As to the typology of questions employed by the interviewer, QF and DF were the most frequent forms of soliciting response, which sustain the conversation.These results, particularly in Interview 2, partially support the arguments for-warded by Thornbury and Slade (2006, p.86) that -a coherent conversation that consisted solely of declarative statements is difficult to imagine.‖However, such claim was contradicted by the results of the first interview (which are coherent), wherein DF is the most frequently used responsesoliciting form.The use of DF may have been influenced by the interviewer's presupposition of an affirmative answer from the interviewee.This claim was supported by Vander Brook, Schlue, and Campbell (1980) and Williams (1990) claiming that native speakers of English generally use non-inverted questions when there is a presupposition of a -yes‖ answer.Thornbury and Slade (2006) further claim that ellipsis occurs frequently at the beginning of the utterances.However, in both the response-soliciting forms that use ellipsis, such form is placed after a complete utterance (e.g.Oprah: I read that when you were 5, you said to your mom, "Don't worry about me being blind, because I'm happy."True? and Oprah: Speaking of love, you said on one of the biography shows that it's been a honeymoon ever since you and Matthew married.True?) Moreover, all statements used by Oprah are in active voice.As explained by Strunk (2000), active voice shows more impact in conversation.It will make the interaction livelier.Similarly, response form and prestatements used by Oprah are related to her personal experience.One away to earn respect is telling something about the interviewer's story (Toropov, 1997).
With regard to the transitional strategies, it is hypothesized that the reason for using RQ during interview is to show that the interviewee has the control over the conversation and not the interviewer.The frequent use of RQ also proves that the interviewer wanted to make the interviewee a collaborator of the whole interview process.Such transitional strategy can also be a factor that contributes to the rapport building skills and charisma exemplified by Oprah Winfrey's that makes her interviewees more engaged in the conversation.Aside from unconsciously making the control reside on the interviewer, another function of RQ is to improve cohesion in conversation, which adds dynamics to the flow of conversation and promotes topic consistency (Thornbury & Slade, 2006).
In the case of NRQT, it generally functions differently from RQ by acting as topic-introducing questions.

CONCLUSION
Based on the findings of the present study, it can be concluded that the interviewer (i.e.Oprah Winfrey) employs the warm-up, probing, and cool-down phase consistently.This is true to her use of response-soliciting and transitional strategies during both interviews which contribute to the intimacy, familiarity, and dynamics of the conversation.
Pedagogically, it is recommended that students be taught of the different strategies employed by Oprah when conducting an interview, be it a real task or a pedagogical task.Teachers must also undergo training on how to perform behavioral interviews, which can be helpful when interviewing students about their classroom performance or about personal problems that have impact on their academic performance.Furthermore, a more extensive study should be conducted analyzing the oral discourse of Oprah's interview style, which also involve the nonverbal and paralinguistic features.A study on the influence of gender on the structuring of the questions can also be examined to determine whether an interrogative form is more frequent between male-female/ female-male interview discourse.
form with prestatement By the time this article is in print, you will have taped your last episode of Sex and the City.Is that scary?It is.You were in your early 30s when you married, and you're approaching 40 now.What kind of woman do you want to become?I'm with you, sister.Who are the women you admire?I've always wanted to ask you something: Do you get all your Manolos for free?QF = Interrogative form without prestatement Have you gotten any sleep since he arrived?Do you want more children?What do you like to cook?How many shoes do you have?DF = Declarative form I understand-the crew become like family.On my desk, I've got a picture of my stage manager, Dean, right there next to Stedman and the dogs.That's not the same as working every day.But I know you also needed to make this decision for yourself and your family.You light up when you talk about him.You like talking about food, but you must not eat a lot.I'm lookin' at ya!So I'm talking to a sleep-deprived woman right now.RF = Response form Yes. I'm not.
Oprah: Do your best ideas come in the shower?Mine come in the tub.SJP: It's the only time when you're really, really alone.For people who live in cities where you have to drive a lot, ideas come in the car.For me the shower is the one place where all the world's spinning stops.