Conflict-Inducing Potential of Public Interviews

The article discusses conflict-inducing potential of public interview. It is the case study of the interview of Martin Bashir with Diana the Princess of Wales in November 1995, and the interview of Oprah Winfrey with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in March 2021. The study proved that both interviews were indirectly intended for communication with the British royal family, when conflictogens were introduced to induce a conflict situation which brought forward and deepened the misunderstanding within the family. The transcript analysis made it clear that both interviewers applied the same conflictogens: negative assessments, personal attacks, addressing vulnerable topics. The reply speeches are characterized with the conflictogen of open or disguised blame. Thus, it can be stated that conflict-inducing potential of public interviews is charged with stimulating conflictogens in the utterances of interviewers: firstly, addressing vulnerable topics; secondly, negative assessments, personal attacks. These conlictogens are realized through the following speech strategies: topic control, assessment, making it intimate, and, to a smaller degree, making it a bit of carnival. The reply conflictogens present in the speech of the interviewed are represented by blames and, sometimes, bantering of a partner. The major speech strategy of all interviewed is negative assessment as manifestation of emotions. At language strata it is mostly represented with evaluative lexical units, metaphors, metonymies, epithets, parallel constructions, rhetoric questions and repetitions.