From Campaign Stops to Post-Presidential Lectures: Dis/Continuities in Interactional Style Across Institutional Contexts

• In Event: 256 - Section on Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis Paper Session. Current Studies in Conversation Analysis

Abstract

In this paper I will examine how an individual’s speech and interactional patterns vary by institutional context by analyzing excerpts from former President Clinton’s publicly available videotaped interactions. These interactions range from early presidential campaign events when he was Governor of Arkansas, public events during his presidency, and lectures and question and answer sessions he participated in after leaving office. The purpose of this analysis is to explore the interactional techniques used by one individual see talk in institutional settings varies by context, but also to explore the extent to which the interactional techniques used are habitual ways of acting for the specific individual producing the speech. Which types of interactional techniques does President Clinton routinely use regardless of context? What types of interactional techniques does he use only or more often in some contexts? To what extent do the types of interactional procedures used depend on whether the President is under attack (as in President Clinton’s 1998 Grand Jury testimony in the Paula Jones case) as opposed to being honored (as in a 2015 event at the Bush Presidential Library)? Does President Clinton’s style of communicating change after leaving office? In other words, to what extent is the type of approach to interaction taken by an individual a function of the interactional or institutional context it occurs within and to what extent is it a stylistic or habitual practice associated with a particular individual?

Author

• Angela Cora Garcia, Bentley University