Power Distribution in Discourse: A Lexico-Grammatical Analysis of a Television Interview from HARD Talk

The research provides an insight into the disparity of power distribution in the discourse of television interview specifically of HARDtalk (a program of BBC news channel concerned with crucial issues related to politics, society, and economy) which includes two participants: the interviewer who is professionally a journalist and interviewee who is a politician. The paper investigates which members of the interview are responsible for controlling the directions of discourse and it examines the difference between casual conversation and television interview communication. Lexico-Grammatical Analysis (LGA) model by Eggins and Slade (1997) was applied for data analysis. Results of the study illustrated that distribution of power in discourse is dichotomous, although unequal, but the great amount of power resided with the interviewer as compared to the interviewee as he has to control the directions of the interview discourse. The findings further revealed that the discourse of television interviews is diverse from the casual discourse.