A pergunta no gênero entrevista com presidenciável: articulando gramática, texto e contexto

Abstract

Adopting the assumption that grammar, text and context are inseparable, we studied the question in the interview genre with a presidential candidate. Focusing on verbal language, this study analyzes the questions asked by the interviewers in the interview given by the then presidential candidate, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, to Jornal Nacional, from Rede Globo, on August 25, 2022. Our main objective is to study the functions that interviewers' questions play in this interview. Based on the theoretical contributions of functionalist and interactionist perspectives, it was found that the interviewers, in the 34 questions identified, ask two types of questions: those that initiate exchanges and those that do not initiate exchanges. Those that initiate exchanges are highly complex, due to the fact that, in the turns in which they occur, pragmatic completion is achieved in stages, such as explaining the topic, developing the topic and, finally, asking the question. The questions that do not initiate exchanges are reformulations of the initial question, the one with which the journalist initiated the exchange. These questions are characterized by having a high concentration of verbal resources with which the journalist assumes an antagonistic posture in relation to the interviewee and claims an epistemic primacy in relation to the interviewee.